Thank you School Council! They helped Mrs Cresswell go through 6 big boxes of new books that have been funded by the Bookmark reading charity for our class and school library. These include picture books, graphic novels and chapter books. The councillors each chose a few for their class room and stuck in library labels. Year 4 will be the first to read our new books with their parents at the reading cafe after their class assembly this Friday!

Sycamore Class were historians this afternoon! They opened a box of real Stone and Bronze Age artefacts from The Oxfordshire Museum and looked carefully at them to see what materials they were made from and how they were used.

Once again, KS2 will be entering the national Poetry by Heart competition this year and we would love to see your entries. https://poetrybyheart.org.uk/for-parents Poetry By Heart is a national competition in which young people aged from 7 to 18 choose one or two special poems they love, learn them by heart, and video themselves performing them. We then send the best entries from each year group to the Poetry By Heart judges. They watch them and provide feedback and certificates then select the best performances from each region of England to be invited to the Grand Finale, at Shakespeare's Globe in London in summer term. If your child is interested, there are two routes to enter. Classic is... ... performed solo ... 2 poems from the Poetry By Heart website, one published before 1914 and one published in/after 1914 --- judged on voice, understanding, performance and accuracy. Freestyle is: ... performed solo or in a pair or group ... with combination of voice, movement, action, image, setting, costume, music, sound, dramatisation or dance – as long as the poem is spoken out loud and by heart. .... can be any poem from a published book, as well as those on the Poetry by Heart website. Learn your poem or poems and either film them at home or ask Mrs Cresswell to film you at school! Entries must be received before the Easter holidays, Some suggested poems: https://poetrybyheart.org.uk/poems/instructions-for-growing-poetry https://poetrybyheart.org.uk/poems/an-emerald-is-as-green-as-grass https://poetrybyheart.org.uk/poems/roger-the-dog or look at https://www.poetrybyheart.org.uk/timeline/7plus .

Dear Parents / Carers- Welcome back - Happy New Year to you all. I hope you all had a restful Christmas break. Please find the link below for our newsletter. https://sway.cloud.microsoft/6TfgiZnB0gSUd7jI?ref=Link You will find information about the Christmas Fayre and upcoming PTA events, the new timetable for the school day, upcoming dates and teacher contact emails.

Don't forget to apply for a place! There is still time to tour our school. Get in touch with the office after the 5th of January.

You are so welcome

Christmas at Grove CE Primary Christingle making and lighting- it is a magical moment but all the adults do breathe a sign of relief once they are blown out!! Church service- wonderful readers and actors helping Open The Book to explore the true meaning of Christmas for Christians. We are really looking forward to both Christmas lunch and jumper day tomorrow and our Christmas Fayre after school- 3-4pm with lots of stalls and fun to be had!

Spreading the Christmas cheer around our community.

Look out for our new menus from Dolce Catering next term, including some special menus on the 15th January and the 5th March for World Book Day! More information about ordering school dinners can be found on our website: https://www.groveprimary.org/page/?title=School+Meals&pid=80&action=saved

Years 1 and 2 had great fun yesterday with Get with the Program 's Three Bears Panto Coding Adventure! The Three Bears needed our help to make Baby Bear's porridge so Goldilocks invited Al the Robot to come to their aid. Initially things didn't go according to plan, but after some debugging of the algorithm, Willow and Maple Class helped to set everything right! What an exciting way to use our computing knowledge.

Well done Faye, and thankyou Matthew Barber !

Don't forget to order your child's Christmas dinner for Wednesday 17th December early!

Reminder: Wednesday 17 December Christmas Fayre 15:00 - 16:00 Children can be collected at 3pm and take part in the Fayre, which will be held in classrooms. At this event there will be opportunities to purchase items the children have made (calendars and tree decorations) and play some Christmas games organised by the classes. To help us run these events we are asking for donations of sweets, chocolate and wine. Please do start collecting these and bring them into school week beginning Monday 8th December - thank you.