Weekly Bulletin: Friday 9th June 2023

Headteacher’s message to parents/carers

Dear Parents/Carers,

Welcome back to the start of Term 6 – always my favourite part of the school year, even with an Ofsted visit!

This week has been STEAM week, which has been a wonderful experience for our children.  As you’ll know, our theme for STEAM week has been ‘Our World of Water’, with learning opportunities to develop the key skills of questioning, problem-solving, communication, creativity, collaboration and critical thinking. Children have loved it! 

Thank you to everyone who baked a nautical themed biscuit for our charity biscuit sale. There were so many amazing entries - a great effort Team Tunbury.  Our five STEAM Subject Ambassadors had the difficult job of choosing the winners, which took a long time.  However, the best looking biscuits they voted for in each phase were:

 
Thank you also for your donations at our biscuit sale, where we raised £108 for the children’s chosen charity, the WWF.  You can still make a donation to the charity by following the link Tunbury Primary School is fundraising for WWF-UK (justgiving.com).  Finally, thank you to those parents who stayed and helped support us tidying up after the biscuit sale yesterday.

Amazing Art Projects…. We’re excited to share news that throughout Term 6, children in each phase will be able to participate in some amazing phase Art projects, working alongside professional artists to create some stunning Tunbury works of art.  Our Year R/1 Phase has led the way with their Mosaic Art project, which took place in school this week.  Children in Year R and 1 drew their own designs, which were then selected and combined by a group of artists from Year 1, working alongside mosaic artist David Bowers. Once the final design had been agreed, every child in the phase placed ‘their’ tile into the mosaic to create this wonderful artwork: 

This mosaic project was funded by our TSA – thank you.  Our other two phases have their Art projects still to come this term: Year 2/3/4 will be contributing to a new mural outside the hall and Year 5/6 have something fabulous planned for the start of July.  We’ll share their completed artworks in future bulletins.

Finally, some feedback from our Ofsted experience this week.  Although I’m not allowed to share the outcome with you, I can tell you this….  When we got the Ofsted call on Tuesday morning, I asked staff and children to “be proud of our school” and I’m happy to say that this feeling of pride is totally undented by the Ofsted experience – actually, it’s even stronger.  I’m so proud of our amazing staff team, our wonderful children and the difference we are able to make to children’s life chances by being able to attend a great school like Tunbury.  The full Ofsted report will be with you in due course, but please be aware that this will take ages!  The publication time is just over 6 school weeks from the end of inspection, so the report may not actually be published until September.  We look forward to sharing it with you.

Have a lovely weekend everyone.

Best wishes

Ruth Austin

Headteacher 

Our Learning: Year 4

This term our topic is about survival. We are reading a non-fiction text called ‘Survivors’ by David Long. Children will be reading a range of survival stories from a plane crashing in the Amazon Rainforest to a man falling over a waterfall and surviving. The children will be writing for a range of purposes including instructions, explanation texts and adverts. This week the children will use their research skills to create a biography on Tami Oldham.

This week is also STEAM week, with the key focus of oceans. The children have used the skill of sketching and painting to recreate a piece of artwork in the style of Michelle Fleur.

Within STEAM week we have investigated the effects of climate change on the ice caps in the Arctic and what we can do to lessen the impact on wildlife. We carried out an investigation to show what would happen to polar bears if the ice caps melted completely.

In P.E. we have been focussing on athletics, in preparation for Sports Day! We have practised our sprinting, hurdling and long-distance running skills, thinking about the different styles of running needed for each. We have also worked on our baton changeovers for relay running. Next, we will be working on our jumping and throwing skills.

Notices

Mini Youth Games Football: Children from Year 5/6 attended the MYG Football tournament yesterday, where they did an amazing job at representing Tunbury Primary School. Their teamwork and positive spirit was evident all day and they were really encouraging of each other.   Unlike lots of the other schools, we let the children sort out their own substitutions and formation later on in the day, once they’d played together a few times, so that they all got a chance to play in their favoured positions.  They all said that they had the ‘best day’ and went home with beaming smiles on their faces.  Thank you to Mrs Stallard and Mr Kent for coaching the team and to our parents who supported the team throughout the day.

TSA Father’s Day Present Room: We’re sorry that we needed to postpone the TSA Father’s Day Present Room this week.  Unfortunately, it wasn’t actually logistically possible to combine this with the Ofsted visit timetable, as this was already using every available minute of the day and every available space!  We have now re-scheduled and the revised dates for the TSA Father’s Day Present Room are Wednesday 14^th and Thursday 15^th June. Presents are £2.50 each.  Please send in any money on the day in a named and labelled envelope. 

TSA Summer Fair 24th June 1pm-4pm: The summer fair is in 2 weeks, we can’t wait for you to join the TSA for a fun filled afternoon. Raffle tickets will be handed out to classes on Monday, first prize £100, other prizes include laser tag vouchers, donated by Combat Laser Games Sidcup.  Please return any unused raffle tickets.

TSA are looking for raffle donations and bottle donations for the win a bottle game. Green boxes will be put by both gates to put donations and raffle tickets in, from Monday 12th June.  

Transition and Meet the Teacher meetings: As advised in our weekly bulletin before half term we have been thinking about transition for children to prepare them for the new academic year in September.  We’ve been reviewing our systems and as a result, we will be taking more time on transition this year.  Children will have more contact with their new class teacher before September, for example through occasional story times, as well as the whole school transition day on Thursday July 6^th.  We’re also making a change, to move our ‘Meet the Teacher’ meetings from September to July, so that parents/carers get all the information they need about the new school year before the summer holidays.  The schedule for Meet the Teacher meetings is in the diary dates section below.  As usual, all the information will be shared on our website for those who may not be able to attend these meeting dates. 

Weekly Class Attendance: This is a weekly feature on our bulletin to highlight and celebrate good levels of attendance. Ruby Class takes the top spot this week for KS2 with 100% and Bears for KS1. Well done!      

Team Points: Our first Team Point totals for the new term will be shared in next Friday’s assembly and bulletin. 

Dates for your Diary 

Term dates for 2022/23: https://www.tunbury.kent.sch.uk/Term-Dates-22-23/

w/c Monday 12^th June – Year 1 Phonics check

Wednesday 14^th June – TSA Father’s Day Present Room NEW

Thursday 15^th June – TSA Father’s Day Present Room  NEW

Thursday 15^th June - Cricket tournament at Wouldham for collaboration schools (Tunbury, Wouldham, Burham and St Peters)

Friday 16^th June – TSA Disco for Year R and Year 1 children

Tuesday 20^th June - New Entrants meetings in-school 3.30-4.30pm, or online 5.00-5.30pm

Wednesday 21^st June – Year 2 Open Afternoon, Making Fruit Kebabs – classrooms 2pm

Saturday 24^th June – TSA Summer Fair 1pm – 4pm NEW

Thursday 29^th June – Year 3 Open Afternoon, Science investigations – Main hall or field 2pm

Friday 30^th June – Sports Day – timings

KS2 Sports Day 9.50-11.30

                Family Picnic 11.45-12.30

                FS/KS1 Sports Day 1.00-2.30

                Optional Early collection 2.45

Friday 7^th July – Reserve Sports Day

Monday 10^th July – Year 5 Open Afternoon, Art in the style of Henri Rousseau – classrooms 2pm

Tuesday 11^th July - Meet the Teacher 9:00am Year 2

Tuesday 11^th July - Meet the Teacher 2:30pm Year 6

Wednesday 12^th July - Meet the Teacher 9:00am Year 1

Wednesday 12^th July – Year R Open Afternoon, Cooks and Books – Main hall 2pm

Wednesday 12^th July – Year 4 Open Afternoon, Survival Shelters – Classrooms 2pm
 
Thursday 13^th July - Meet the Teacher 9:00am Year 3 NEW

Thursday 13^th July – Year 6 Open Afternoon, Afternoon Tea – Main hall 2 pm

Friday 14^th July - Meet the Teacher 9:00am Year 4

Monday 17^th July - Meet the Teacher 9:00am Year 5

Wednesday 19^th July – Year 6 Production 2pm and 6:30pm

Friday 21^st July – Last day of term/academic year for pupils 

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 at approximately 2.45 pm.  The assembly will begin at 2.50 pm 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 16th June               Hedgehogs Assembly