A Friday Night Round Up from Mr Schumm

Dear Parents/ Carers,

Happy Lunar New Year! Today we have been celebrating Lunar New Year and were delighted that Beatrice’s Mum (Reception Milne) took our assembly. She told us all about the different ways the Lunar New Year is celebrated complete with the Lion dance! Parents have been helping with activities in class – thank you. Our kitchen staff cooked up a scrumptious Chinese style banquet for lunch and next year we will be going even bigger in our celebrations – can’t wait! The Lion Dance – https://youtu.be/M8SY3gfvMOo

Yesterday, I spent the day with Year 5 at Woodrow House in Buckinghamshire where they are spending an exciting three days. The accommodation is superb and the activities amazing – all day in the great outdoors! I had a super time on ‘low ropes’ balancing, working as a team and maybe being slightly silly! I am still smiling at Mr Perry’s face when he discovered it was Vegan Bolognese for our evening meal!

Thank you to FOSS for arranging another great uniform sale – there is so much stuff now! Great for the environment and great for making those pennies stretch a little further!

Two Foss dates for the diary this term are The Auction Evening on Thursday, 17th March and The Country Cultures Evening on Thursday, 31st March, which sees us celebrating all things French – more information to follow nearer the time. The Auction Evening falls on St Patrick’s Day so we would love some traditional Irish entertainment. If you have any contacts/ ideas please contact me head@ststephensce.lbhf.sch.uk. We are also looking for donations for the auction so please contact Louise louiseekjones@hotmail.com or Justine justineflockhart@gmail.com who are organising the event.

Year 3 hit the Stone Age

You can always rely on Miss Kelly to pull out all the stops and take us on a roller-coaster ride through the Stone Age in Year 3’s class Assembly. Looking like a Bet Lynch tribute act they took to the boards in a cacophony of leopard print and delighted us with their amazing acting skills. Their singing and dancing was superb and their confidence knew no bounds. A great assembly loved by one and all!

Big Garden Birdwatch

Watch two brilliant films by students from the Department of Journalism who came and interviewed our children and made these short films – enjoy!

https://youtu.be/ta2NVr2ZDNs and https://youtu.be/IcynH1VUjeo

Year 5 at the BFI

On Tuesday, Year 5 enjoyed a trip to the BFI to improve their language skills through watching short Spanish films. While watching the award-winning short animations, the children were tasked with identifying vocabulary, sequencing events and writing Spanish dialogues. Some of the children were chosen to read out their dialogues in front of a 400 strong audience in the IMAX theatre! Their acentos were perfectos and they did St Stephen’s proud.

One of the animation films, ‘Cuerdas’ was the 2014 winner of the Goya award for “the Best Spanish short film animation”. It tells the moving story of the friendship between Nicolas, a boy with cerebral palsy and a girl called Maria who truly sees him and is determined to teach him how to play. The bittersweet ending fasts forward to a grown-up Maria who has been inspired to become a teacher resulting from her special friendship to Nicolas who she will never forget. Naturally, this Spanish animation came back with us to St Stephens and the rest of the school watched it during assembly. Here is the link for you at home.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4INwx_tmTKw

Sports Round Up

Year 5/6 Sportshall Athletics – We took 40 children from Year 5/6 (split into A & B) to compete in a sportshall athletics tournament in which they do obstacle courses, sprints, relays, javelin, long jumps and many more! The A team came second in the borough with 20 schools competing, narrowly missing the chance to represent the Borough at the London Youth Games.

Year 3/4 Sportshall Athletics – We took a Year 4 team to compete in this event, where they each took part in two races and two field events. They all had a great time out representing the school and being cheered on by their team mates.

KS2 Panathlon – We took 5 children from KS2 to represent the school in an event which is designed for children who might otherwise have certain barriers to competing in sports events. Each child had such an amazing time competing in relay races, basketball shooting, curling, football skills, ten pin bowling and they all came back ti school with a medal.

Mother’s Day Lunch

A date for the diary is the House Captain’s Sunday Lunch Club – Sunday, 27th March, which is Mother’s Day so a perfect time for a celebration meal.

As part of their commitment for fundraising for their 3 chosen charities (Afghan Welcome, Great Ormond Street and Plastic Oceans) and their end of year school trip, they have decided to literally cook up a storm! So, on 27th March the school hall will become a dining room and we will be offering a three course meal with a vegetarian option from 1.00pm onwards. There will also be a cash bar.

Please reserve a table via parentmail £150 per table of 8, £20 per head, £15 per child and £350 for a private dining experience for 14 with wine – child care available before/ during/ after the meal.

Here we are coming up with the idea https://youtu.be/k6nqqz2R5_s

The House Captains

Have a lovely weekend.

Mr Schumm