Dear Parents and Guardians I hope you all had a lovely half term. I strongly believe that our school’s mission is to develop young people with active and creative minds, a sense of understanding and compassion for others and courage to act on their beliefs. We want our children to be respectful and responsible and understand what a lovely town we live in. But a school cannot work in isolation and I think, if we are going to continue to develop, we need to work together and in partnership. ACE needs you to ensure it continues to improve and strives for what those three letters stand for! www.arundelchurchofenglandschool.org.uk, 01903 883149, [email protected]Volume 1, Issue 8 OUTSTANDING ACHIEVEMENT ACE is the first school in history to make it to the Sussex Sports Awards Finals for the second year running. Well done to all the children who represented ACE last year and all the staff, parents and governors who were involved in this. As a result of your hard work and effort, we have been nominated again for the Best Primary School in Sussex this year. This is a fabulous achievement and, whatever the result later this term, to make it to the final (out of all the primary school in Sussex) for the second year running is an amazing achievement in its own right. Go team ACE!
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Dear Parents and Guardians
I hope you all had a lovely half term. I strongly believe that our school’s mission is to develop young people with active and creative minds, a sense of understanding and compassion for others and courage to act on their beliefs. We want our children to be respectful and responsible and understand what a lovely town we live in. But a school cannot work in isolation and I think, if we are going to continue to develop, we need to work together and in partnership. ACE needs you to ensure it continues to improve and strives for what those three letters stand for!
ACE is the first school in history to make it to the Sussex Sports Awards Finals for the second year running. Well done to all the children who represented ACE last year and all the staff, parents and governors who were involved in this. As a result of your hard work and effort, we have been nominated again for the Best Primary School in Sussex this year. This is a fabulous achievement and, whatever the result later this term, to make it to the final (out of all the primary school in Sussex) for the second year running is an amazing achievement in its own right. Go team ACE!
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Christmas Fayre Friday 1st December
Our Christmas Fayre is fast approaching and for this we rely heavily on support from parents, staff and friends of the school to make it so successful.
We will again be selling your wonderful cakes in our refreshment area at the fayre so we would kindly request that any donations be brought in on the day of the fayre.
If you can help out on the afternoon of the fayre, please do speak to a member of the team.
Many thanks for your continued support.
The FACES Team
Super super Callum
WOW it is so good when children produce such wonderful work that I get the chance to see it too. Callum in Year 1 produced some lovely work and I think it is so important we get children to start to learn their times tables. Callum produced lots and lots of maths work and even wrote a few stories too. It is lovely that with a little encouragement children can achieve such great things. Great work, Callum, and I am looking forward to your next instalment.
Zechariah 4:6
6 So he said to me, “This is the word of the Lord to Zerubbabel: ‘Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit,’ says the Lord Almighty.
Izzy B and her story, and Roman tool!
Izzy wrote a lovely story, made a few things and had the opportunity to share all her wonderful work with some of the other children in the school. She wrote a story about living is a fabulous pink house and she enjoyed retelling the stories to some of the boys in Year 2.
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What clothes did men wear in Roman times?
Men wore a knee-length tunic (chilton), either sleeveless or short-sleeved. Roman men wore a cloak over their tunic, which was like a wide shawl that was draped over the shoulder and carefully wrapped around the body.
Zoe, why is it important to learn about Roman times and New York, New York?
It was lovely that Zoe in Year 4 wanted to let all her classmates know the fabulous learning opportunities that the Romans gave us. Zoe wanted to also persuade Year 4 next year that learning about this topic is such fun. Learning is sometimes tough but it is also lovely to see Zoe use words like fun when describing learning about this topic.
Zoe even had the chance to read her ‘New York, New York’ story to lots of children in the new leadership room. It was interesting to see just how many children were able to fit into the room. New York is interesting city and many of our children do not know about the sad events of 9/11. I suppose some could argue that is a good thing.
Roman Clothes by Lola in Year 4
Lola in Year 4 is a clever young lady and it is so nice that she often completes lots of work, which inspires me to go and find out some information. Lola recently completed a lovely powerpoint presentation about Roman life and it was really interesting. I learnt lots about this time period.
So here we go Lola, here is my homework!
A World of Difference
I have a challenge for everyone this week….
How many of these famous people can you name on the cover of this book?
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Fabulous writing from Jasmine
Jasmine continues to get better and better each week with her handwriting and it is so lovely for me personally that she wants to share such lovely work with me. This week her story was about fairy dust, which was used to make someone not so nice, nice. I think I would like to use some of that dust on a few people sometimes!
Year 1 use the Mud Kitchen
I absolutely love our new mud kitchen that two former associates of ACE made to give back to their community. The boys and girls in Year 1 really enjoyed the experience and opportunity to explore and learn from using such a marvellous new feature at ACE.
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Amelie and her number rods
Well done to Amelie in Year 1, who has been working on developing her mathematical skills. I was so impressed with the way she has used number rods to share her knowledge. Great work, Amelie.
Fabulous Poppy S
Well done to Poppy who has been working hard on improving her writing. It is so lovely when children work hard and try to improve an aspect of their work. Poppy in Year 1 has clearly been doing this and produced a lovely piece of writing. I love the rhyming she has used and it was nice that she included such sentences as “the cat sat on the mat”.
Poppy and Charlotte excel in the pool
Well done to Poppy who swam a very impressive 100 metres recently and Charlotte who swam 400 metres. These girls have done extremely well and I am so proud of their achievements. I am already looking forward to their future successes.
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Phoenix Class Visit to St Nicholas’ Church
In Phoenix class we have been learning about ‘Miracles’ in RE such as ‘The Blind Man’ and ‘The Feeding of the Five Thousand’. Last Tuesday we walked to St. Nicholas’ Church to learn more about Miracles from the Bible.
Father David met us there and he gave us a tour of the church. The children in the class asked Father David lots of questions about Miracles and he answered them. He told us about the power of Jesus and how he used his power to help and heal others. Jesus’ disciples chose to follow him and do good like him and that is how Christians try to live today. I enjoyed going to the church. I loved the stained glass windows because they are so colourful and bright. I enjoyed listening to Father David because what he said was so interesting and we have learnt more about Miracles. The church is a great place to go to worship Jesus or to be peaceful and think about how to be kind to one another.
By Lucy in Year 3
A Church Display - a report by Mrs Meyer
Year 4 based their church display on 'Miracles from the Bible'. After visiting Father David, they completed their own work based on one of the main miracles from the bible. Please go and see their beautiful work next time you are at St Nicholas’ Church.
The ACE Community Awards
At ACE we are proud that as a school we really think it is important to not only do our best as an individual but also as a team. I believe everyone in this world has a part to play and we all can make a significant contribution to school life (so I would always encourage people to come forward and offer their services to our school).
The Teaching Assistants at ACE have been looking at ways recently on how we can further develop lunchtime behaviour and our attitudes and values around the school. As part of this development, they led an assembly last week prior to half term on some new initiatives that they are planning to introduce. These new initiatives include the ACE community awards, a new use of the ACE WOW board and developing the front notice board. Exciting stuff. They are also planning a regular tea party with Mr S for those children who are clearly showing the ACE values. I am excited about this and will probably need to brush up on my dinner etiquette before then! I would like to thank the teaching assistants and Mrs Meyer for being proactive about this.
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Double Maths Champions
Well done to Toby and Seth in Year 5 who have been loving their mathematics this week and it has been such a delight seeing them doing so well with their work. Keep it up guys and please keep do as well in class. Great job!
Leo is a maths genius
I was so proud of Leo who produced lots of wonderful mathematics work this week and it was lovely to see how determined he was to complete Mr Cox’s challenges too. Well done, Leo, and please keep it up.
Jude and the Sting the Bee
Some lovely writing was produced by Jude this week in Year 1 who completed some lovely writing about the type of clothes that Jack Nap decided to wear. Keep up the good work, Jude.
He was awarded Sting the bee for his excellent team work and cooperation with others. Well done, Jude.
Teddy and his fabulous space reading
Thank you to Teddy this week for sharing his lovely reading book all about space. I do love listening to children read and it is also so nice to see children make such fabulous progress too.
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Lionel Messi vs Cody
WOW to Cody who has been working so hard on further developing his writing. It is so nice to see how his writing is developing so well since the start of term. I loved seeing all the interesting things he has written down about Lionel Messi and his artistic skills. Thank you for making me smile too, Cody, with your lovely work.
Hugh and his marvellous Mathematics
Another WOW! I was so impressed with Hugh this week, who is a mathematical genius, and recently illustrated this to me by completing a maths challenge so quickly. Great work, Hugh. I wonder if any of you can work this out?
Spaceship
Some Zaargs and Blogs have flown from planet X and wanted to land on Earth. There were at least two of each of them.
Zaarg spaceships have 5 landing legs and Blog spaceships have 10 landing legs.
There were 45 landing legs altogether.
How many Zaarg and Blog ships were there?
Find two different answers.
Fancy a call?
Grace and Finlay in Year 4 have been investigating sound this week in class and it was lovely to see them showing me their new telephone system. I was particularly impressed with the way in which they were able to explain how the sound travelled.
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Derin and his marvellous writing
Well done to Derin in Year 1 who has been working hard to develop his writing. It is great to see when children work hard and start showing some clear signs of improvements. Keep up the hard work, Derin.
Jessica and her kind thoughts
I would like to publicly thank Jessica in Year 1 who made the school this lovely ACE red mat. It was so thoughtful and I love it how she used our colours too. Thank you, Jessica, for such a lovely piece of work.
Mixed numbers, anyone?
I love mathematics and it is so lovely to see children at ACE using various tools to develop and explore certain concepts in mathematics. Finley in Year 5 has been exploring fractions in class and it was lovely to see just how well he was able to explain his understanding of such a topic. I think it is so important that we, as adults, encourage our children to develop their knowledge and understanding by encouraging them to explain their answers. Well done, Finley.
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Marvellous
It is lovely when a child just blossoms in school. Abi in Year 6 has been doing this a lot this term and, along with Rosie, she produced a lovely poem about King Henry’s wives. If you have not heard it, it is well worth a listen of her reciting the poem on our school facebook page. Well done for not only producing a lovely piece of work but also read it out so well!
Perfection
I also had the delight of watching a video of Fleur in Year 6 playing her flute. WOW! She sounds good and I can see exactly why she is one of the youngest people in the Littlehampton Orchestra. Well done, Fleur. It is also lovely to see you blossoming so well this year.
Year 4 football team
The ACE Year 4 football team continues to strive for excellence and this week, although not as quite as successful as the previous week when we won all our matches, still produced some very positive results. We won two, drew one and lost one. Not perfection yet and still work to do, but the boys and I will not give up and we will continue to evolve together.
Beautiful
Well done to Alisha who wrote probably her best ever piece of writing last week. The story she wrote was based on the mystery story called ‘The Red Eye’, and if you haven’t read it is well worth a read. I loved the language she has used and it was lovely to see her experimenting with her punctuation too. I particularly love these sentences…
“Pausing in the cemetery, he began to think back to how he had ended up in such a place!”
and
“Of course, he had forgotten to take his precious watch home.”
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Lovely Lucy and her FANTASTIC, AMAZING Roman house
I was so impressed with this wonderful creation from Lucy in Year 4. It is simply amazing and is one of the best pieces of homework I have ever seen. It is such a useful learning resource too and it was so lovely seeing the other children being as amazed as me when looking at it. Thank you Lucy for producing such an outstanding piece of work.
Some images around the school.
Do you know where all these images are?
Reading Tips at ACE
As a parent, reading with your child is vital. Research shows that it’s the single most important thing you can do to help your child’s education. You are your child’s most influential adult, with an important part to play in helping your child to learn to read.
Here are some suggestions on how you can help to make this a positive experience.
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Choose a quiet time Set aside a quiet time with no distractions. Read with your child on most school days. ‘Little and often’ is best.
Help your child to make links Compare ideas in stories or non-fiction books with things your child has experienced, so your child starts to make connections between these things and their own experiences: ‘Remember when we visited the beach, it was hot and there were children building sandcastles. It was a fun day….’
Be positive If your child says something nearly right to start with that is fine. Rather than constantly picking up their mistakes suggest ‘Let’s read it together’ and point to the words as you say them. Boost your child’s confidence with praise for even the smallest achievement.
Visit the ACE Library or the Public Library Encourage your child to use the public library or the ACE library regularly. There is a whole world of books available. Allow your child to choose a book which relates to their interests, even if it is too tricky for them to read, perhaps you can read it to them or just discuss the pictures.
Talk about the books There is more to being a good reader than just being able to read the words accurately. Just as important is being able to understand what has been read. Always talk to your child about the book; about the pictures, the characters, how they think the story will end or their favourite part. You will then be able to see how well they have understood and you will help them to develop good comprehension skills. And lastly and above all – make it fun! It doesn’t matter how you read with your child, just as long as you both enjoy the time together.
A couple of useful free websites for parents
http://www.sumdog.com
http://www.bbc.co.uk/education
Cups at ACE
I have been asked by a number of parents to outline what each cup is for so here we go. It is important to make parents aware that all these cups are awarded by staff at meetings and are often a joint award.
Harris Cup – named after a fabulous family who attended the school. The cup recognises a child who keeps trying hard and shows signs of endurance and resilience.
Values Cup – this recognises a child who has illustrated the ACE values in or outside of school.
Key Stage 1 and 2 Cups – This is for a child who has excelled in class during that particular week. They have produced really good work or shown an amazing attitude towards their work and excelled in it. There is a cup for each Key Stage, Key Stage 1 Years R to 2 (Rainbow, Dove and Butterfly Class) and Key Stage 2 Years 3 to 6 (Eagle, Phoenix, Unicorn and Ichthus).
Keen Cup – This is giving for a child who has worked well for a whole half term. This represents a child who has just worked really hard. Often it is for a child who just gets on with it and always tries their best.
The Woodhouse Sports Cup – for a child/team who have performed extremely well.
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Yours sincerely,
ASimpson Andrew Simpson Headteacher
An ACE Bestie
At ACE through tears and fights, Through smiles, I knew everything Would be alright, Through love and debate, For you I would always have faith, This friendship wouldn't end, By your side I would always stand And you'll stand by mine too, Because that's what best friends do, So no matter what happens with us In life, Through all of the wrongs And all of the rights, I'm here for you
Can you help ACE in anyway?
Please do let Mrs Spencer or Mrs Tipton know if you can help in any way at school. We are always really happy to have people come in.
News from around the country
Worst performing regions hit hardest by school cuts Local authorities with some of the worst school results in England will be hardest hit by cuts in education funding. Spending per pupil in about half of local authorities will fall once inflation is taken into account. The southeast will be the worst hit region, with funding falling by £131 per pupil, or 3%, the study drawn up by the Liberal Democrats and the House of Commons library shows. Analysis by the Times shows that some of the council areas worst hit are already struggling academically, including Knowsley, Blackpool, Nottingham, Isle of Wight and Salford. Elsewhere, national campaign group School Cuts claims schools in South Gloucestershire will be the lowest funded in England by 2020, with their funding cut by 4% to £4,093 per pupil over the next five years.
Gender gap in basic attainment by age five Boys are already lagging far behind girls in reading, writing and basic maths at the age of five. One in three boys that age have difficulty writing their name or simple sentences, compared to a fifth of girls. The new DfE statistics also reveal boys are struggling to keep up with their female classmates in other areas, such as being able to speak and listen, or use their imagination. Overall, 70.7% of children in England were considered to have achieved a good level of development across all areas of the Early Years Foundation Stage, up 1.4 percentage points on 2016.
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Children 'embarrassed by tipsy parents' Even moderate drinking by parents can have a negative impact on children. Three in 10 parents said they have been drunk in front of their children and five in 10 "tipsy", the Institute of Alcohol Studies said. Some 11% of children said they had felt worried, 15% said their bedtime routine had been disrupted, and 15% had asked their parents to drink less. Many also said parental drinking did not provide them with a good role model.
Childcare costs rise four times faster than wages A study by the TUC has found that cost of childcare has increased up to seven times faster than wage growth since 2008. Prices are highest in London, where they shot up 7.4 times quicker than salaries. In the UK overall, childcare costs have risen four times faster than wages.
Notices
Could you be a great role model? If you have parenting experience and know just how tough bringing up a family can be at times. You could be just the person to support a family through a difficult time
As a Home-Start volunteer you will receive:
x Comprehensive Training
(for which life experience is your greatest asset)
x A boost to your CV and a meaningful reference
x The opportunity to take an Open College Network Accredited Course
x On-going training & support
x Satisfaction from helping parents give their children the best
possible start in life
Our next course starts on 15th January at the Vineyard, Waterloo Square, Bognor Regis
Call: 01903 889707 Home-Start Arun is committed to equal opportunities. Home-Start Arun is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children. An enhanced DBS check will be required for this post. Charity No. 1132416 Company No. 7007031
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As long as you can swim 50m (2 lengths) confidently in Freestyle and Backstroke we would love to see you for a trial – just bring your goggles!
We are a competitive club from novice to national level welcoming Children, Adults and Disability swimmers. During a trial is a great opportunity for swimmers and parents to talk to others in the club
and observe our training sessions in progress. To arrange for a trial or to find out more about joining please contact our Membership Secretary. It is useful to let us know your name / your child’s name,
date of birth and level of swimming experience along with a contact number.
JOIN US
A not-for-profit club run for its members with Swim England and SwimMark Accreditation
Please can you help?Are you looking to clear out any unwanted toys? If the answer is ’yes’ please think of After School Club. We would be very grateful for any of the below to ensure we have greater choice for the children.
