BCPS Newsletter Issue 9 Spring Term 2022
11 MAR, 2022
Dear Parents, Families and Friends of BCPS,
Well, entirely as anticipated, it has been a magical week, wrapped in the wonderful world of books!! Most of you will already be aware of my own enormous love of literature and the English language, and my firm belief that reading across all genres is absolutely the key to success! It is no accident that scholarships, so frequently won by our Year 6 children to prestigious Grammar Schools, are won exclusively by voracious readers.
And of course, the nurturing and development of a lifelong love of reading is a precious gift in itself! To be well read is to understand our world and the people in it (and indeed, ourselves!). As Matilda tells us through her creator Roald Dahl, “you can travel all over the world without leaving your bedroom!” As I often tell the children, if you don’t think you like to read, well, you just haven’t found the right book yet! And once you do…YOU’RE OFF!! Enjoy the search!
That all said, you can appreciate the importance of this particular week to me in terms of its potential to ignite minds and imaginations and encourage a love of reading in our beloved children, and I am thrilled to report with sheer delight that it has certainly lived up to all my expectations! We have shared stories, laughed and cried, dressed up, munched our way through literary lunches, challenged each other to ’Book Charade Contests’ – we have even baked up a storm and created culinary masterpieces in our ‘Bake a Book’ competition!
I am in awe of the investment which you have all made to the week, to supporting the children, the teachers and me. You have ensured the success of a truly wonderful and memorable week! Thank you, from the bottom of my heart!!
With all good wishes for a fabulous and restful weekend – you deserve it! As always, Miss Farrow
This Week’s Star Badges Go To:
Nursery: All our Nursery parents, for making cakes, AMAZING literary lunches and providing costumes! Superstars, one and all|!
Reception: Havi, for his independent writing review.
Year 1: Jonah, for his imaginary worm, Dino, and all that went into creating such a sensation!
Year 2: All of Year 2, for contributing to an enthusiastic and memorable Book Week!
Year 3: Aadam S., for being so helpful, polite and hardworking.
Year 4: Abbie, for always striving to produce work of the highest standard.
Year 5: Jessica, for being our Book Week champion of champions!
Year 6: Iyanu, for her enthusiasm, her contributions inside and outside the classroom and her help! What a ‘right hand woman’!
Kindness Cup
The Kindness Cup this week is awarded to George in Year 4, who came to ‘Dress Up Day on Wednesday, as he described ‘in my own clothes, so that I could remind everyone how lucky we are, and that there are so many refugee children around the world’. He brought with him a book about Azzi, a little girl who must leave her home to escape to another country to face a new life with necessary courage, fortitude and resilience. You display kindness and generosity to your very core, George and you touched all our hearts!
DIARY DATES
Please find below the first of the diary dates for what promises to be an exciting term ahead. The list is by no means exclusive and more dates will be added as the half term progresses. Please keep your eye on the newsletter for any additions.
Of course, you realise that we remain bound to abide by any Government guidelines which may be introduced but fingers crossed, the dates will stand.
We appreciate your understanding should there need to be any changes.
Date | Event |
|---|---|
w.b. 14 Mar | Assessment Week |
15 March | PTFA Meeting (6pm) |
17 March | Non-Uniform Day (please bring an Easter Egg
donation for the ‘Easter Egg Bingo’ Event) |
w.b. 21 Mar | Healthy Schools Week |
25 March | Easter Egg Bingo! (6.00pm) |
w.b. 28 Mar | Easter Mass (date and time tbc) |
28 Mar | ‘Grand Easter Extravaganza’ (winning house prize) |
31 Mar | Stations of the Cross (9.00am) |
1 Apr | Easter Holiday begins (midday finish) |
19 Apr | Return to school—Summer Term begins |
READ TO ACHIEVE—THE TREASURE OF STORIES!
We welcomed our good friends from ‘Story Magic’ Theatre Company into school on Thursday to perform a custom-made show ’Read to Achieve -the Treasure of Stories’, especially for Book Week! The children thoroughly enjoyed the special treat and the actors had them rolling in the aisles with their jokes and magic tricks!!! A big thank you from all of us to our wonderful PTFA for providing a wonderful morning and celebration of books!
FAITH CORNER
2nd Sunday of Lent
(Luke 9:28-36)
REFLECTION
TRANSFORMATION
Meeting God changes people. Jesus is changed when he prays at the top of the mountain. The friends he has taken with him are amazed when they see Jesus in his glory, shining with light and love. A cloud covers them with shadow and they hear a voice saying, “Jesus is my son, the Chosen One. Listen to him.” The disciples can’t hold onto this moment, but they know how wonderful it is to be with Jesus and they will never be the same again.
DID YOU KNOW?
In the Bible, people’s names are changed to show that something significant has happened because of their encounter with God. God gives Abram the new name of Abraham, which means ‘Father of Nations’, when his son, Isaac, is born. His wife, Sarai, becomes Sarah and Hoshea becomes Joshua. Keep your ears open for others!
PRAYER
Dear Jesus, thank you for loving me. Help me to shine with your light and love as I try to keep my Lenten promise and be more like you. Amen.
ACTION
Change something for the better this week: change the way you speak to your family, make your room tidy or change your socks more often!
‘CALLING ALL PARENTS AND FRIENDS…
DATES FOR YOUR DIARY!’
PTFA MEETING:- 15. MAR (6pm)
Our next PTFA meeting will take place on 15th March at 6pm. We shall be finalising arrangements for our Easter celebrations and making plans for the rest of the academic year! Please do come and join us—the more the merrier and the greater the input, the more exciting our plans can be. Let’s continue to look ahead with hope in our hearts! For those of you who cannot make the meeting in person but would like to attend, a Zoom link will be sent just before the meeting. Please let the office know, should you require this!
LA SEMAINE DES LIVRES!
ALL THE CHICKS...66!!
’EASTER EGG BINGO!’
There really was no choice as to what we should choose as our PTFA Easter celebration. Our ‘Belated Bonfire Bingo’ event back in November was such a tremendous success and so many of our children have been asking for an encore, that the decision to have another exciting evening of bingo was a very easy one! Please join us on Friday 25th March at 6.00 pm for an evening of fun and friendly competition for all the family!
Prizes will be sumptuous baskets of Easter Egg ‘delicious-ness’. Thank you, in advance for your non-uniform day chocolate donations on 17th March!!
Should anyone be able and willing to donate prizes for our GRAND EASTER RAFFLE, to be drawn on the night, we should be most grateful! Please send these into school , if you are able to help!
If your family wish to join in, please email Miss Farrow at year6@burycatholicprepschool.co.uk
’GRAND EASTER RAFFLE!’
Roll up! Roll Up… for our ‘Grand Easter Raffle’ which will ultimately be drawn at our ‘Easter Bingo’ event, to be held on Friday 25th March at 6.00pm.
There are magnificent prizes to be won, and the raffle has an extra special twist! Tickets are colour-coded according to our school houses of Ss. George, Bernadette, Theresa and Francis. Children will be selling tickets on behalf of the houses they belong to, and the house which sells the most tickets will be awarded ’A Festive Easter Extravaganza’ of an afternoon by the P.T.F.A. on Monday 28th March. Children in the winning house will be treated to a film afternoon with delicious festive refreshments and games! ‘A rare old party’!
So, the challenge is set, children!
Can you help your house to victory?
How many tickets can you sell?
On your marks…
get set…
GO!!
TIMES TABLES ROCKSTARS UPDATE!
Well done to our top achievers below…
Ask your teacher for more information
Most improved speed
Lower School: Kaif
Upper School: Amy
Fastest Rockstar
Imaan 0.53s… WOW!
Biggest Increase in Coins in the Whole School
Saameya +20,020
TT Star of the Week
Haroon – played on more days and for more minutes than anyone else…AGAIN! Well done Haroon!
‘FAMILY FRIDAY’ RECITAL!
‘Celebrating the joy of the written word!’
In a fabulously inclusive ‘Book Week’ Celebration’, we were thrilled to be joined by visitors galore for a special hour of coffee, cake and a presentation of poems and puns by our Year 6 children… and special guests!
A ‘LIP-SMACKING’ LENTEN MISSION!
Throughout Lent, our Pupil Chaplains continue to lead our charitable efforts by selling hot, buttered toast (with or without jam!) at break-time each and every Thursday until the Easter holidays (at a cost of 30p a slice)!
Please help our committed team of fundraisers in their quest to help others, by supporting them—and enjoying a delicious treat into the bargain!
‘X’ MARKS THE SPOT!
What a week mi – hearties!
In EYFS this week, the children thoroughly enjoyed reading and accessing lots of different types of literature. In Reception, the children reviewed books, made ‘Wanted’ posters and went on a treasure hunt around the school to find hidden gold, using their handmade telescopes.
FAMILY FRIDAYS!
Calling all parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles... in fact…
ALL OUR SCHOOL FAMILY!!!
Come and join in our ‘Family Friday’ events...you are all so welcome!!
Calling all parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles... in fact…
ALL OUR SCHOOL FAMILY!!!
Come and join in our ‘Family Friday’ events...you are all so welcome!!Date | Event (9.00-10.00am) |
|---|---|
18 Mar | Book Club |
25 Mar | Easter Extravaganza! Details to follow! |
NEWS FOR OUR BOOKWORMS!
Our new ’Book Club’ title is…
Where the Crawdads Sing
by Delia Owens!
For years, rumours of the “Marsh Girl” haunted Barkley Cove, a quiet fishing village. Kya Clark is barefoot and wild; unfit for polite society. So in late 1969, when the popular Chase Andrews is found dead, locals immediately suspect her.
But Kya is not what they say. A born naturalist with just one day of school, she takes life’s lessons from the land, learning the real ways of the world from the dishonest signals of fireflies. But while she has the skills to live in solitude forever, the time comes when she yearns to be loved. Drawn to two young men from town, who are each intrigued by her wild beauty, Kya opens herself to a new and startling world—until the unthinkable happens.
In Where the Crawdads Sing, Owens juxtaposes an exquisite ode to the natural world against a profound coming of age story and haunting mystery. Thought-provoking, wise, and deeply moving, Owens’s debut novel reminds us that we are forever shaped by the child within us, while also subject to the beautiful and violent secrets that nature keeps.
The story asks how isolation influences the behaviour of a young woman, who like all of us, has the genetic propensity to belong to a group. The clues to the mystery are brushed into the lush habitat and natural histories of its wild creatures.
“A painfully beautiful first novel that is at once a murder mystery, a coming-of-age narrative and a celebration of nature….”
DELVE IN – DIGEST – DISCUSS!
Date:-
Date to remember… 18th March, 2022 (9.00am)!
Join us for coffee and cake… and some fabulous chat about an exquisite read! A modern classic indeed!
“In the case of good books, the point is not to see how many of them you can get through, but rather how many can get through to you.”
Mortimer J. Adler
EXTREME READING!
Where is the most unusual place YOU have ever read a book? Can you beat these examples?
‘BAKE A BOOK’!
Children, families…
Fancy a ‘Great British Bake Off’?
Got some ‘show-stopping’ ideas?
Why not enter our grand ‘Bake a Book’ Competition?So many families took up the challenge and the results were MAGNIFICENT!!
We shared photographs of our competition entries with our BCPS family, far and wide and received this beautiful letter from a past pupil from many decades ago!
Dear Pupils,
I am writing to thank you for the e mail which I received from Bury Catholic Preparatory School yesterday, celebrating your ‘Bake A Book’ competition.
From start to finish I was amazed at the beautiful & imaginative cakes which you made. I have huge admiration for your cooking skills and for the amount of time which you had all spent on your masterpieces. I have to admit that I am not a very good cook! However, your tremendous examples have inspired me to think that maybe I should try a little harder!
Your families and your teachers must be very proud of the way you committed yourselves to the task. What stuck me most of all though, were the smiles on your faces as you proudly showed your cakes off and seeing how much you were enjoying what you were doing. Things have not changed one bit since the days when I attended BCPS!
You are a tremendous credit to yourselves and to your fabulous school.
Thank you once again for ‘making my day’ yesterday.
Congratulations to you all.
Best regards,
A Past Pupil from many years ago!
DRESS UP DAY!
On Wednesday, we enjoyed a Grand Fancy Dress Parade. Children were invited to come into school dressed as a character from their favourite story book!
EXTRA-CURRICULAR PROVISION!
Please find below details of our exciting and extensive extra-curricular programme this term. Lunchtime activities run from 12.25 – 12.55pm each day and sessions after school run from 3.30 – 4.30pm. As you can see from the timetable, there are some smashing opportunities for our children, and huge thanks are due to our wonderful staff for providing and facilitating such a vibrant and varied programme.
Please contact the office to register your child for any of the activities and/ or wraparound care provision.
MONDAY | TUESDAY | WEDNES-DAY | THURSDAY | FRIDAY | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
LUNCH TIME CLUBS | Monday Mindfulness (KS1/2) Mrs Lester | Lego Mindstorms (KS1/2) Mr Green | Junior Choir (Years 1,2) Miss Farrow | Illustration Club (KS2) Mr Wallace | Card Games (KS2) Mr Ross |
Chess Club (KS2) Mrs Prince | – | – | Board Games Club (KS1) Miss D-S | – | |
AFTER SCHOOL CLUBS(charged at £5 per weekly session) | – | Senior Choir (KS2) Miss Farrow (no charge) | Photography (KS2) Mr Ross | Reading Club (Y4/5/6) Miss Farrow (no charge) | Karate (Open to all) (separate charge) |
– | Drama (Open to all) Mrs Horford and Mrs Lester | ICT/Animation (EYFS/KS1) Mr Wallace and Mr Green | Multisports (Hockey/Netball) (Rec-Y3) Mrs Prince and Miss D-S | Movie Club (Open to all) |