Newsletter 26th November

Favourite Author Competition
Mr Finch wanted to find out who the children's favourite author's were so he set a competition for them to take part in. With prizes for Key Stage One and Key Stage Two it was all to play for - all they had to do was create a sheet saying who their favourite author was, give some information about the author and say who they would recommend that author's books to. We had entires celebrating some of the best known authors; Jacqueline Wilson, JK Rowling, Dav Pilkey of Dogman and Captain Underpants fame and 'Tom Gates' author Liz Pichon all made appearances. Even more heartening were some slightly less well known authors -  Chagford's own Roland Chambers for example. The purpose of the competition was to give every child a chance to think about favourite authors - some said it was very hard to choose which of their many favourite authors to focus on: music to my ears!
We were pleased to see so many different authors represented - our children have real passion for their favourites and must be reading widely to have encountered such a range of different authors and genres.
It was very hard to make a final choice of winners but in the end we decided to give the KS1 prize to Tabitha for her clearly very heartfelt tribute to Andrea Beary who write Rosie Revere - Engineer and Ada Twist - Scientist amongst other books. The Key Stage Two prize went to Benji for his page on Willard Price - author of thrilling wildlife adventures. Two very different authors but two very passionate readers.
The purpose of the competition was to give every child a chance to think about favourite authors - some said it was very hard to choose which of their many favourite authors to focus on: music to my ears! At the end of the day, we don't minf if it's fiction or non-fiction, graphic novels or poetry, the argos catalogue or football annuals. What our children read for pleasure is up to them and we want every one of them to find something they love to read.

Benji's 'Willard Price' KS2 Winner

Tabitha's 'Andrea Beary' KS1 Winner

Book Dinners
We would appreciate it enormously if parents and carers could make an absolute habit of booking school meal preferences online for every day. We lose good learning time every morning going through choices child by child and this sets back the start of the day. It would make every teachers life a little easier and every child's learning day a bit more effective if we could remove the need to go through the rigmarole of lunch register in class. If you aren't sure how to book lunches or are unclear on how to check the menu, pop in to the reception or give us a call - Elaine will be happy to talk you through it.

Christmas Lantern Parade 
We are in the final stages of finalising the School's Contribution to the late night shopping extravaganza on 9th December. We are thinking that we will have an event here at the school where the children can sing and speak poetry without too much crush and noise so that we can really hear and celebrate them. After that, in their parents care rather than ours we will head up into town together and make some joyful noise. Mr Finch and Mrs Armstrong will bring their accordions along and we hope parents, carers and pupils will join us in some Christmas songs. 

School Photographer
We had the school photographer in school today taking individual pictures of each of the children and group photographs of siblings. We are very embarrassed indeed that we didn't manage to get news of this to you before the day. The booking was made before the summer and somehow didn't synch to our diaries for this year. Huge apologies for this. Fortunately the children were in their smart school uniforms and any who were not looking smart were able to borrow from the supply of spare uniform we have to sell. The photographer from Tempest was an absolute miracle worker making sure everyone looked their best so, all in all, I think no harm was done. Children are bringing home their proof photographs for parents and carers to see either today or Monday and I understand all ordering is done online. There was a large number of children absent today due to sickness so it may be that we look into having the photographers back later in the year to snap up those who were away today.

Broken Glass in Play Park
A member of the public has alerted us to the presence of broken glass in the playpark and told us of a recent incident where a young child cut their hand whilst playing there. Worryingly, there seems that some children who have been playing up at the play park have been finding bottles in the bins or nearby recycling bins and playing games with them that end up with bottles getting broken. I don't need to tell parents just how worrying and dangerous this is - the possibilities for serious injury are genuinely high if children are playing with glass and interfering with bins and kips. We will speak about this in school but we would advise parents and carers to speak to children about this too.

Snap Chat and Social Media
A parent contacted us in concern to say that their child had spotted a friend's post on SnapChat - while otherwise entirely innocent had included information which made their home easily identifiable. We include internet safety in our Computing and PHSCE curriculum and teach them to think very carefully about information that they share online - including images. In a world where many thousands of people might be able to see an image we share, we have to assume that just one or two of those people might want to do us harm.
SnapChat sets a lower age limit of thirteen years so no children at Chagford Primary School should have their own Snapchat account. The same is true for Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. We do not believe that children of Primary age have the social development to safely negotiate the complexities of Social Media and we know of too may children whose lives have been a misery through cyber bullying - we really do encourage all parents and carers to ensure they are fully aware of and fully in control of what their children are doing online. Let us know if there is an appetite for a parent/carer workshop on this subject - we'd be very happy to run one.
You can find advice from the NSPCC here.

Donation Request
A call out for donations if you have any of these items and would like to donate them to the school.

• Cable Reels - all sizes 
• Baskets
• Pine cones/conkers/other natural objects suitable for sorting and counting
• Small World Play (peg dolls, playmobil, pirates/princesses and similar)
• Toy cars
• Small Book Shelf Units (hoping for one for each class to create/improve book corners)
• Tired but still usable footballs
• Retired shed
• Kitchen items for the mud kitchen. (jugs, mixing bowls, ice cube trays, wooden spoons..)

Gardening Group
The fabulous Chagford Primary gardening group have been cracking with bringing our raised beds back to life. After a long period of neglect over the pandemic the beds are now receiving life giving care in the form of layers of cardboard which is blocking light and helping the perennial weeds to dies back and make better life choices. The cardboard will break down into the soil and eventually we will be able to use the beds again making sure that every child can experience the joy of planting, nurturing, harvesting and enjoying. Thanks to the team.