Weekly Bulletin:Friday 4th July 2025

Headteacher’s message to parents/carers 

Dear Parents/Carers,

Hello everyone and Happy Friday!

Thank you for coming to our Sports Day last week – what a wonderful day it was.  The weather was kind to us and we had a lovely atmosphere throughout the day.  As usual, it was so nice to have our whole school community together on the field for our family picnic, one of the very few times when we have everyone together at the same time.  Thank you for your support and encouragement throughout the day and congratulations Holmes team for your historic double win!

Next week, we’re opening our next OPAL zone for lunchtime play.  This is the ‘Small World’ zone, where children can play with things like lego, dinosaurs, cars, figures, etc, for imaginative play.  Like our other zones, we’re sure that this will be a lot of fun for children and further enrich their options for play at lunchtimes.

Looking further ahead to September, we wanted to let you know that there will be a change to the timings of our breaktime and lunchtime sessions.  This is partly due to our OPAL work, in which we use more of the space in our school site, and also due to our smaller year groups, as we move from 3 classes to 2 classes per year, from this year’s Reception onwards.  Altogether, what this means is that the whole school will be altogether more often.  From September, morning breaktime will be 10.30-10.45 for everyone in next year’s Year 1-6.  From September, lunchtime will be 12.00-12.55 for Years R-1 and 12.15-1.10 for Years 2-6.  There is no change to the length of anyone’s lunchtime or breaktime, the length of time that children have in the hall to eat their lunch, or the length of time that they have outside to play.  The changes are to have continuous food service in the hall, rather than gaps between food service for different year groups, and to make timings for different year groups overlap more, rather than being separate. 

Finally, just a reminder that next week, children have their whole-school transition day on Thursday 10^th July.  They will move up to their new classes for the day, followed by our Open Classroom session at the end of the day from 3.15 to 3.45, where you can pop into their new classrooms and say hello to their new teachers.  Also, just to let you know, following low attendance at last year’s sessions held in July, we’ll be holding our more formal ‘Meet the Teacher’ information-sharing sessions in September this year.

Have a lovely weekend everyone.

Best wishes

Ruth Austin

Headteacher 

KS2 School Council Houses of Parliament visit

On Monday 30^th June, our KS2 School Councillors had a fantastic trip to the Houses of Parliament.  The children were able to meet with Tristan Osborn MP and were even able to explore the House of Commons and the House of Lords, learning a lot about how the UK government works.  On the tour the councillors learnt about Suffragettes, Guy Fawkes and why all of the clocks in the parliament buildings use the letter ‘F’ instead of ‘X’.  The children then took part in a Q&A session with Tristan where they found out that his favourite colour is purple and that his favourite room in the Houses of Parliament is the ‘cheese room’!  The councillors were also able to ask Tristan about some more serious local issues including current plans to build more houses in the Chatham area. 

MYG Cricket team

Congratulations to our Year 6 children who represented Team Tunbury in the Mini Youth Games cricket tournament last Thursday at High Halstow Cricket Club. The children all had a great day, representing the school fantastically. The support shown by the more experienced players to those who had not previously played much cricket was especially heartwarming along with the incredible teamwork they all showed. We are immensely proud of all of our players. Well done to Fleur, Darcie, Freya, Joseph, Hudson, Jack, Harry, Nathan and Alex!  Thank you to Mrs Stallard and Miss Baker for supporting the children on the day and to parents/carers for taking children all the way to High Halstow.

Notices

Volunteers needed: TSA are excited to announce that preparations are well underway for their upcoming school event next Saturday 12^th July — GlasTUNbury! This promises to be a fun-filled day for the whole school community, packed with music, activities, and great memories. 

To make it a success, TSA are looking for volunteers to help in a variety of roles — from setting up and packing down, to manning stalls, supervising activities, or simply lending a hand wherever needed. Whether you can spare an hour or the whole day, your support will make a huge difference! 

If you’re interested in getting involved, please join our GlasTUNbury Volunteers WhatsApp Group to stay in the loop and sign up for a role:

After School Clubs: Please be reminded, as detailed in the clubs letter sent out in April, next week is the last week of our after school clubs. There will be no after school clubs during weeks starting 14^th and 21^st July, i.e. the last 2 weeks of term. In addition there will be no after school clubs running on Thursday next week, 10^th July, due to the whole school transition day.

Class Group Photographs: The recent Class Group photograph can now be viewed and purchased via the link emailed to parents this week. There will be a free “deliver to school” option open until Wednesday 9^th July 2025, otherwise home delivery is available for £5 postage and packing. If you need assistance or have any questions regarding placing an order, please call 01736 751555 (option 3) or click on the “contact” button on Tempest’s website home page (htempest.co.uk) where their friendly team will be happy to help.

Online Safety: We’re sharing Online Safety information, using resources from the National College’s #WakeUpWednesday program.  This week’s guide is about apple ipads 2025. Please see the Parents>letters and forms section of the website.

Weekly Class Attendance: This is a weekly feature on our bulletin to highlight and celebrate good levels of attendance. For the second week in a row, our KS1 winners are Bears Class. Absolutely amazing! Our KS2 winners are Emerald class with a brilliant 99.17%. Keep up the good work!

Tunbury Primary School Facebook: This week on Facebook, we have posts on this week’s school visits.  Please take a look at Tunbury Primary School | Chatham | Facebook 

Team Points: Today’s scores show that Attenborough team are still in the lead – Congratulations Greens!  

Dates for your Diary 

Term dates for 2025/26: www.tunbury.kent.sch.uk/Parents/Term-Dates-25-26/

Monday 7^th July – Open Afternoon, Year 5- Rainforest art, 2-3pm

Wednesday 9^th July – Open Afternoon, Year 1 - Coral collage in the style of Courtney Mattison, 2-3pm

Thursday 10^th July – Transition Day (all classes move up to new teachers), with Open Classroom session for parents/carers 3.15-3.45

Friday 11^th July – African mask and dance workshop, Year 2

Saturday 12th July – TSA GlasTUNBURY Summer Festival

Thursday 17^th July – Year 6 Production 14.00 and 18.00

Friday 18^th July – TSA “Dare to be different day”

Friday 18^th July – Year 6 prom

Monday 21^st July – Open Afternoon, Year 6 – End of term event, 2-3 pm

Tuesday 22^nd July – Year 6 Leavers’ assemblies – Violet 9.00, Crimson 9.45, Emerald 10.30

Tuesday 22^nd July – Last day of term 

Class assemblies 

Class assemblies will be held in the school hall on Friday afternoons.  Parents/carers and family members from each class are warmly invited to join us in school for these events, as our children love to share their learning with you.  Please come to the front of the school and wait outside the hall entrance doors. You will be invited in just after 2.45pm.  The assembly will begin at 2.50pm and last for about 10 minutes, finishing in time for you to collect your children at the end of the school day, as normal. 

Friday 4^th July Bears Class Assembly