Newsletter 16th

'The Queen's Wreath' Assembly
It was just lovely to welcome parents and carers into the school for our Friday Celebration Assembly this week. As well as seeing the children recieve thier certificates for their various acheivements they got to see Year Six perform 'The Sea' by James Reeves and to take part in a short celebration of the life of Queen Elizabeth II. The children had practiced a song 'Homeward Bound' which they performed very beautifully and each child had decorated a leaf to add to a wreath for the queen. I hope that parents who attended enjoyed the assembly  we have a celebration assembly every friday at three p.m. and parents and careres are always welcome to join us for it.

French trip for Year 6 Pupils
We are delighted to announce the details of our Year 6 residential next year to Normandy in France. We have secured funding to take all Year 6 pupils from Dartmoor Multi Academy Trust Primary Schools in the summer term. Following a rigorous and competitive application process, Mrs Jordan (Trust French Lead) and Mrs Underwood (Trust Executive Principal) received the news that all travel, accommodation and visit costs for 230 pupils and 50 staff will be covered by the government’s Turing Scheme funding.

Year 6 pupils will deepen their knowledge of History, RE, Art and PSHE through a range of inspirational visits including; the Bayeux tapestry, Mont St Michel, the D-Day landing beaches and the magnificent new British Normandy Memorial. Pupils will of course also further develop their confidence to speak French through a shopping challenge at a market, as well as visits to partner schools in Normandy. This residential will also enable Year 6 pupils across the Trust to unite and develop friendships in preparation for secondary school.

The Turing Scheme is the UK’s global programme offering opportunities in education and training across the world and enabling pupils to develop new skills and gain international experience. This year, the Turing Scheme received 513 applications, a significant increase on last year. Whilst most applications from universities were successful, Dartmoor MAT was one of only 4 schools in the South West which was awarded a grant through this highly competitive application process.

There are meetings planned for Y6 parents and pupils in all schools this half term. If parents are unable to make the date and time of the meeting at Chagford, please let us know as you may be able to join a meeting at another school. We will be meeting at Chagford at 5:30 on Thursday 22nd September.

Patron of Reading - Sarah McIntyre
We had a second visit from our Patron of reading on Wednesday this week. Funded by the Chagword Book Festival, to whom we givce great thanks, Sarah came to school and gave the children a great day. During her time with us, Sarah gave assemblies ofr Key Stage One and Key Stage Two - the Older children leanred how she makes her comics like 'Vern and Lettuce' and 'The New Neighbours' - they made their own stories about two guinea pig characters based on the characters Neveille and Beyonce from her books about Kenvin the Roly Poly Flying Pony. Key Stage one learned to draw some of the dinosaur characters from he book 'Dinosaur Police' and had geat fun imagining adventures for them. These assemblies kept the children engaged, entertianed and busy for a thoughtful, creative hour. They were great.

In the afternoon Sarah spent time with our Year SIx pupils teching them how to have a 'comic jam' with a friend. They had a terrific time and made up some very funny stories. Sarah's manner with the children is just great, they all feel seen and all participate and get involved, it's lovely to see.

Somehow Sarah also managed to fit in a visit to EYFS who astonsihed us by wanting to sit on the caroet for not one but two stories. Given that this was only their fifth day in recpetion class or pre4school this was a eal testament to Sarah and to teh children.

At the end of the day Sarah signed books for children, Tucker from Astors books provided stack of books to buy and Chloe Brookls-Warner was kind enough to run the book stall. A huge thank you to Tucker, Chloe and Sarah for making that possible.

Bell Ringing
A very quick thank you to John Bint who once again welcomed our new year sixes to the bell tower at ST Michael the Archangel and taught them how to ring. In the past many children from the school have gone on to become regualr ringers at the church so I'm hopeful that some of this year's crop will choose to get involved too. It's agreat passtime that is also a service to the community and John is a great teacher. Our Year Sixes were absolute credits to themselves, to their families and to the school.. They made their teacher very proud.