In Early Years we have been super busy and having lots of fun learning all about Christmas! 

We were very lucky to have a special visit all the way from the North Pole with two Reindeers called Jet and Tornado. Following this, the children drew their own representations of the Reindeer and discovered more fun facts about them. 

Not only did we get a REAL Reindeer visit, we were also lucky enough to have snow too! We used this opportunity to talk about the weather changes and the different types of clothes that we need to wear to keep warm. Outside, we explored the snow by building mini snowmen and we even had a snow ball competition! Keep practising doing up coats at home please!

Over the last two weeks we have been learning about the Nativity story through our RE curriculum. We shared the story, discussed the characters and re-enacted the story using our small world and role play props. We talked about Christmas and how families celebrate it in different ways. The children were excited to tell us about what they do for Christmas and other celebrations that their family enjoy! 

Our Early Years children enjoyed making Christmas decorations for our Christmas trees at school and for St Lukes Christmas Tree Festival. It was great to see their hard work displayed for all to see in the community. 

We were delighted to welcome Tornado and Jet, two beautiful reindeer to our school last week. We got to learn all about the life cycle of their antlers and even got to touch some! Lots of us spotted that there was still some velvet left on one of the antlers too. 

We also learnt all about the lives of reindeer in the Arctic Circle. Did you know that they can run 40mph and jump 5 foot high?!

We are very proud to be supporting Save the Children's Christmas Jumper Day once again this year. Both children and adults all looked very festive dressed in their Christmas jumpers and our school raised an incredible total of £442!  

Thank you to everyone for your support. Your generous donations will really make a huge difference to so many babies and children :)

Thank you for everyone that came to watch our wonderful Early Years Christmas show. Our Bumblebees, Caterpillars and Dragonflies dressed up as Christmas trees, stars, fairies, elves and reindeer. The children performed brilliantly and we were so impressed with their singing, actions and confidence! 

We were extremely proud of all our Key Stage 1 children for putting on a truly wonderful 'Express Production'! The Year 1 children sung beautifully and remembered their actions well. The Year 2 children were so brave and remembered when to stand, when to talk and for some playing instruments or conducting a 'terrible!' angel choir! 

Thank you everyone for your support in coming to watch us. 

We were delighted that residents, their families and staff members from St Marks Care Home were able to join us for the Tuesday morning performance of Angel Express. 

The visit, followed on from our Year 2 children's visit to the care home earlier this month.

Our special guests thoroughly enjoyed watching the children perform their show and were joined by a few of the cast members for a drink a mince pie afterwards.

Our thanks to the staff team at St Marks for helping to organise this visit. We are looking forward planning some more events between school and the care home in the New Year.

We had a wonderful time tucking into our yummy Christmas lunch whilst listening to Christmas music in the background. It was even more magical wearing our Christmas jumpers too! Thanks to Caterlink for your hard work! 

The children were surprised to receive a personalised video message from Santa's Elves earlier this afternoon. Mary Twinkletoes, Head Elf at the North Pole, shared a story all about her fellow elves at Elf School. The children were very surprised to learn that one of the elves, Jolly McJingles, had even been to visit our school (in secret, of course!) Jolly certainly seemed to know lots about FPIS and what our children have been doing this term! 

After the children had watched the message, there was one final surprise for them all as a special delivery arrived - with a Christmas gift for every child in our school!

Our thanks to the FPSA for helping to provide this very special experience for our children :)

What a busy few weeks we have had! We have been focusing on monitoring our use of energy by auditing each classroom and reminding teachers and children of the importance of saving electricity. This has been part of  "Switch off Fortnight". 

We have also become members of the RHS Campaign for School Gardening. We looking forward to learning about how important gardening and connecting with nature is throughout the year. 

January will be an exciting time focusing on making bird feeders and monitoring the birds within our school community for the National Big Garden Birdwatch which take place between the 27th and 29th January 23.

Despite their cute appearance, robins are aggressively territorial and are quick to drive away intruders. Robins sing nearly all year round and will sing at night next to street lights.

Did you know? Young robins have no red breast at all. They are spotted with golden brown.

Well done to all in Monoceros House Team for earning the most house points overall this term - a fantastic 478 in total!

The FPSA Christmas fair was held on Saturday 3rd December and it was wonderful to see so many families attending the event. This was our first Christmas fair held since 2019.

A huge thank you to everyone who helped at the fair including stall volunteers (some who did all 3 hours on a stall!) and also the lovely people that helped us set up on Friday after school and Saturday morning and those who stayed behind to clear up. In addition, thank you to everyone who donated prizes for the 2 tombolas, the secrets room, the raffle or silent auction, or who baked some delicious cakes for the tea, coffee & cake stall.  Thank you to the Eco Club for making some fantastic recycling signs for the different bins at the fair, this was our first fair to make a big effort to segregate different waste.

Finally, a big thank you to parent Emma Sweeting (www.sweetingsgreetings.com) for providing us with the wonderful fair poster picture.

The giant teddy bear's name was Nick and was won by Ben in year 3 at the Juniors. Maya from Bumblebee class won a prize having correctly guessed the 8 items in the 'What's in the Christmas Stocking?' game and Alan Hansen was drawn as the winning square in the 100 board. The winner kindly donated half of his winnings (£50) back to the FPSA.

Assuming matched-funding comes in, the event will have raised nearly £8,000 which is a fabulous total.

On Friday 9th December, the Junior discos were back in action and a big thank you to the Juniors staff who stayed behind to help run the event with a special mention to DJs Sawle and King for their excellent music and creating a wonderful vibe during the 2 discos.

The FPSA would like to wish everyone a very Happy Christmas and we look forward to running more fund-raising events in 2023.