Weekly Blog Friday 16th December 2022
Date: 24th May 2023 @ 2:55pm
Merry Christmas!
It doesn't seem 5 minutes since we started back in September and it's the Christmas holidays already! It's been a brilliant term and we have lots more exciting things planned for the children for 2023. All the staff here at Mayflower would like to wish all our families and extended families a very Merry Christmas and a happy start to 2023.
Don't forget that the first day back for the children after Christmas will be Thursday 5th January, as Tuesday 3rd January and Wednesday 4th January are training days and school will be closed to pupils on these days.
Attendance
Please see below for our class attendance for this week.
This week, Miss Cruickshanks' class had the highest attendance percentage with 98.57%. Wow Year 1/2B! You certainly rose to the challenge we set you last week, to make it 3 weeks in a row that you've had the highest attendance! Well done!
Nursery - 87.50%
Reception - 81.82%
Mrs Davies (1/2A) - 85.71%
Miss Cruickshanks (1/2B) - 98.57%
Mrs Birkinshaw/Mrs Taylor (1/2C) - 92.17%
Mrs Wood (3/4A) - 93%
Mrs Perry (3/4B) - 95.33%
Miss Dunn (5/6A) - 91.67%
Mrs Pickersgill/Mrs Walker (5/6B) - 95.52%
In our celebration assembly this morning, we celebrated with those children who achieved at least 97% attendance this term. Each child received a certificate and those with 100% attendance received a certificate and a little treat.
Stars of the week
Each week in our Friday Celebration Assembly, we celebrate our stars of the week. Each class teacher chooses 2 children from their class each week who have really impressed them.
Here are this week's stars:
Foundation
Max for trying really hard when practising his writing.
Fox for being a superstar when we had our special visitors.
1/2A Mrs Davies
Isabella for writing a beautiful Christmas story including beautiful descriptions of the kings.
Sadie for writing a wonderful Christmas story, trying really hard to use her yellow card and spell red words correctly.
1/2B Miss Cruickshanks
Leo C for trying really hard to make the right choice and for showing all adults respect this week.
Edward for his kindness and generosity towards other children.
1/2C Mrs Birkinshaw/Mrs Taylor
George and Lily - both of them have tried really hard with their writing of the Christmas story.
3/4A Mrs Wood
Bella - Bella comes into class smiling every single day! She has been a really supportive member of the class, helping other children when they have found an activity challenging. Bella is always behaving brilliantly and works hard every day!
Ella - Ella has been an excellent partner in class this week. She is caring and supportive of the other children and always finds the right words to say to make her partner smile! Ella has been a star this week!
3/4B Mrs Perry
Elsie and Elodie - for just being amazing. They get on with their learning, they will help others and me in the classroom. They embody all of our 3 school rules - Be Kind, Work Hard and Be Respectful.
5/6A Miss Dunn
Noah - Noah has shown the true spirit of Christmas this week! He has been kind to everyone and has helped other members of the class with their work. He showed kindness and empathy to another child who fell and made sure that they were okay - even missing some of his break time to do this.
Millie - Millie has shown excellent collaboration skills this week and has been kind when working with other children. She has worked hard in all areas of learning this week and has helped other children with their work when they have needed it.
5/6B Mrs Pickersgill/Mrs Walker
Rory - for working hard and following the school rules. It is great to see such a positive change in Rory's attitude and behaviour.
Joey - Joey listens to and acts upon advice from his peers and teachers in order to improve his work. He has a great attitude to learning and always tries his best.
News from around school
Please click on the arrows to the sides of the image at the top of this page to view a selection of photos from our activities in school over the past couple of weeks.
This week, we invited our Nursery and Reception parents and carers into school for a craft morning. There were lots of different crafts for the families to take part in and it was so lovely that so many parents and carers could make the event. Everyone had a great time and the children loved it with their grown ups in school!
Last week, it was the Foundation and Key Stage 1 nativities and what a treat they gave us and their families! They had obviously worked very hard and had learnt all their lines and all the songs brilliantly well. Both nativities were different to each other, but they both embodied the spirit of the Christmas story. The KS1 nativity had some lines written by the fantastic Mrs Davies, who always likes to add a touch of comedy to the children's performances! A massive 'thank you' to all the staff who worked with the children to prepare for the nativities.
With this week being Year 1/2's last PE lesson before Christmas, Miss Cruickshanks decided to have some Christmas games and activities. The children had lots of fun working as a team and racing to collect different pieces of equipment to build their very own snowmen. The children created Susie, Richard and Frosty.
The children were so excited to visit Santa's grotto and receive a special present from Father Christmas, followed by a visit to the real reindeer. The children thoroughly enjoyed creating questions to ask the reindeer keepers. The reindeer were called Rudolph and Dasher.
Some of the Year 3/4 children have been to Lapland recently. When they returned to school, they shared some great facts about the reindeer and their magical time in Lapland. They remembered from their visit to Creswell Crags that reindeer have been on the earth for a long time and that the fur is hypoallergenic.
In RE, the children in Year 3/4 have been learning about the Jewish Festival of Hannukah and comparing this festival to the Christian's Christmas celebrations. They identified common themes such as special food and retold the story behind each of the festivals.
On Wednesday, it was Christmas Dinner Day. The children and staff enjoyed a delicious Christmas meal prepared by our wonderful kitchen staff. They always go above and beyond every day and we are extremely grateful to have such an amazing catering team and they excelled themselves for Christmas Dinner! The lunchtime supervisors, led by Mrs Agus, had also organised a raffle for the children, so a huge thank you to those staff as well for making Christmas Dinner day so special.
Today the children have had party food for lunch, including our Nursery children who really enjoyed having their lunch at school before the end of their morning session. Again, the catering staff provided some delicious food for the children. How they manage to cater for so many is astounding!
Over the 2 days there were 367 meals served!! We hope our catering staff have a very Merry Christmas and a well deserved break.
Today we finished the term off with party day, with lots of fun for the children. We ended the day with our traditional Christmas sing-a-long in the hall. Each year group had been practising their Christmas songs and the festive atmosphere in the hall was amazing!
Christmas Church Service
On Monday, the children from Year 1 to Year 6 walked with our staff and volunteers to St Nicholas Church for our Christmas service. As always, the children had a fantastic time with Tony from St Nicholas Church, who always manages to mix the message of Christmas together with such humour. The older children were buddies for the younger ones and really took their job seriously in making sure the younger children were sensible and safe on their journey to and from church. Thank you to those of you who volunteered to walk with us to and from church - we hoped you enjoyed the service as much as our children and staff did.
Reindeer visit
On Wednesday, we had a visit from the reindeers from Equine Dreams in Bawtry. We had kept this as a surprise from the children and it was so special to see their faces when they realised we had our very own reindeer for the morning! Each class came to visit the reindeer and were able to ask the Equine Dreams staff some questions - the questions were fantastic and the whole experience was very magical and informative. We already felt really festive in school, but seeing the reindeers this week has really put us all well and truly in the mood for Christmas! We would like to say a special thank you to our PTA, who donated funds for the reindeer visit.
Special visitor in school!
Wednesday was a very busy day! We couldn't believe our eyes when Santa arrived at the school office! He had taken time out of his busy schedule to come and visit our children. A grotto had appeared in our lower library and Santa took residence for the morning. Each class went to visit Santa and received a gift - the gifts this year follow the Swedish tradition of Jolabokaflod, where that gift is opened on Christmas Eve and shared with the whole family.
Carols round the tree Weds 14th December
Our 'carols round the tree' event on Wednesday proved really popular. We hope that everyone who came along enjoyed the event. Our cook, Mrs Rushby, made some mince pies and biscuits for the event - we will definitely ask her to make more biscuits next time, as the ones she made were snapped up almost before the first song had been sung! It was lovely to have everyone together, with the children, parents and staff all joining in with the songs. We especially enjoyed 'The twelve days of Christmas' with actions demonstrated by our staff!
PTA Christmas Shop
Thank you to our PTA, who held their annual Christmas shop yesterday morning. There were a wide range of gifts to choose from. This is always one of the PTA's most popular events and it's really nice that the children get to choose their family members a gift (with maybe a little something for themselves too!). Thank you to those parents/carers who gave up their time to sell and wrap the gifts - we really do appreciate you making this event so special for our children.
Chocolate Raffle
We have been selling raffle tickets this week for our chocolate raffle, to raise funds for the whole school drumming workshop which will take place on 17th January. We have been astounded by the number of chocolate donations that have been given - thank you so much to everyone who has donated. The children kept walking past earlier in the week, deciding which one of the prizes they would like to win! There was lots of excitement and anticipation in the celebration assembly this morning as the raffle was drawn. We hope our winners are happy with their prizes - we wonder if they will be able to resist eating them until Christmas Day?!
Foodbank donations
Thank you to everyone who donated to our recent food collection for Bassetlaw Foodbank. A member of their team came to collect the donations this week and asked us to pass on how grateful they are for our support.
Recognition board success!
Congratulations to Edward, Oscar and Mae who were recently awarded with their Recognition badge by Mrs Powell. All 3 children had got their names under all 3 categories on the Recognition board - Work Hard, Be Kind and Be Respectful. This is a fantastic achievement, so well done to all 3 of you!
Congratulations!
Evelyn in Year 2 competed in another gymnastics competition at her gymnastics club this week. She performed routines on all the apparatus and won a bronze medal! Wow Evelyn, that is absolutely fantastic! You have been working really hard in your gymnastics sessions and deserve this latest success.
Applications for Reception places for September 2023
Applications for Reception places for September 2023 are still open. This applies to children whose birthdays fall on or between 1st September 2018 and 31st August 2019.
Don't forget to submit your application before the closing date of 15th January 2023.
If you live in the Doncaster Council area, you can apply by visiting https://www.doncaster.gov.uk/services/schools/school-admissions and clicking on 'Primary Admissions'. If you live outside of the Doncaster Council area, please contact your local School Admissions Team.
The announcement date for places offered is 17th April 2023.
School lunch menu for week commencing 2nd January 2023
Diary Dates
Please see below the diary dates for this school year. It may be that there are dates on here that involve your child that you haven't had any information for yet. Please don't worry, information will come out in plenty of time prior to the date concerned. Dates that have been added since last week's blog are shown in bold.
2022
Friday 16th December - last day at school before the Christmas holidays
Monday 19th December to Friday 30th December - Christmas holidays
2023
Monday 2nd January - bank holiday - school closed
Tuesday 3rd January - Training Day - school is closed to pupils
Wednesday 4th January - Training Day - school is closed to pupils
Thursday 5th January - first day back at school after Christmas holidays
Sunday 15th January - deadline for Reception applications for September 2023
Tuesday 17th January - whole school drumming workshops
Friday 20th January - Planetarium in school - Year 1/2
Thursday 9th February - PTA The Great Teddy Bear Exchange (raising funds for FireFly). Further details to follow
Friday 10th February - last day at school before half term
Monday 13th February to Friday 17th February - half term
Monday 20th February - first day back at school after half term
Tuesday 28th February - Year 3/4 visit to Magna (change of date)
Friday 24th March - Bag2School clothing collection
Friday 31st March - last day at school before Easter holidays
Monday 3rd April to Friday 14th April - Easter holidays
Monday 17th April - first day back at school after Easter holidays
Monday 1st May - bank holiday - school is closed to pupils
Monday 8th May - bank holiday for the King's coronation - school is closed to pupils
Thursday 25th May - last day at school before half term
Friday 26th May - Training Day - school is closed to pupils
Monday 29th May to Friday 2nd June - half term
Monday 5th June - first day back at school after half term
Thursday 8th + Friday 9th June - Y4 residential
Friday 9th June - Y3 Austerfield Trip
Friday 16th June - class photos
Wednesday 21st June 2023 - Big Talk in school (Parents meeting at (9:00a.m.)
Monday 26th - Wednesday 28th June - Year 6 residential to Caythorpe Court PGL
Tuesday 25th July - last day at school before summer holidays
Wednesday 26th July to Friday 1st September - summer holidays
Tuesday 24th October - individual & sibling photos
