Newsletter 3rd March

Flourishing!
A HUGE well done to everyone. We have recently seen a noticable uptick in attendance. Earlier this week we had a day with attendance of 99% and this morning we saw attendance at 97.3%. I am very pleased indeed and hope this shows that, at last, we are moving back towards pre-pandemic levels of attendance.
This isn't just for the numbers on my spreadsheet - it means that more children are attending school reliably, getting the day by day contact they need to make really good progress in their learning and all those chances to build great social contacts, friendships and experiences.
Thank you to everyone - I couldn't be more pleased.

Festival of Hope
The Year Sixes have been working with Mrs Armstrong and Mrs Ramoutar to create a piece of art for the Dartmoor Multi Academy Trust 'Festival of Hope'. This annual event brings together children from across all the nineteen schools in the trust for music making, sport, art and performance. Our children worked together to build a hope filled artwork inspired by the fabulous book 'Window' by Jeannie Baker. Mr Finch just about managed to squeeze it into the back of his car and drove it to Tavistock where it will be proudly on display next week before moving to Holsworthy College and then Okehampton College. Our Year Fours will go and see the art exhibition while it is up in Okehampton.
​Other children are taking part in the festival through sporting events and every child learned to sing the new 'festival of Hope song - look out for a very special video of that coming out as soon as Kai has edited it all together. Fitting all nineteen schools into a three minute song is a challenge!

Parish Council and West Devon Borough Council Elections
2023 is the year for Parish Council and West Devon Borough Council Elections which will be held on Thursday May 4th in the Jubilee Hall.
All 12 seats for Chagford Parish Council will be up for election
This is your chance to have your say in what happens in our community.
If you would like to learn more about being a Parish Councillor, contact the Clerk on clerk@chagford-parish.co.uk.
Applications should be made by the beginning of April.

Stories Around the Firepit
Join us on Thursday 23rd March for Stories around the firepit. We will guide you in to our Forest School area and invite you to enjoy an evening of storytelling from Mr Finch and friends of the school. The PTFA may be selling some drinks and snacks. Do come along to enjoy the evening - we guarantee a very special evening which fuinny stories, scary stories and magical stories and a real sense of community around the fire. Book this in the diary now and look out for more information.
This is part of our contribution to the Festival of hope.

World Book Day
We celebrated World Book Day on Wednesday. Children came to school dressed in a wonderful array of costumes. We had two Kevin the Roly Poly flying ponies - presumably inspired by our Patron of Reading, Sarah McIntyre, a matching pair of Ooompa Lumpas, several characters from the Harry Potter Universe, numerous assorted sportsmen and celebrities, a good clutch of characters from Podkin One Ear, two Looshkins, a stitch head and so much more. I enjoyed clelbrating all the fun and creativity as the children made thier procession around the playground. As always, it was great to see the youngest and oldest children working so beautifully together.
In class, children took part in a wide range of bookish activities. Enjoying and sharing books, designing book marks, drawing favourite characters and more.
In the afternoon we had a visit from The Bookery who shared a selectrion of really exciting, recently published titles and gave the children a chance to buy them at very much reduced prices. The PTFA helped out by purchasing one each of all the featured titels to go in he school library so that all children, even if theri parents hadn'[t given them some money to spend, will be able to read them.
A good time was had by all and, hopefully, the bookish love grew and spread in the school.

Woodland School
Thanks again to Kael and Chloe for facilitating today's Woodland School session. The children relish being out in the open air and are able to learn in a different way together. We love the Woodland school provision and we really want to see it continuing.
Frieds from the PTFA have set up a dedicated fundraiser to make sure we can continue to provide Woodland school at our setting. They have already earned an impressive £1,198 and are well towards half of their £3000 target for the year.
If your child enjoys Woodland School and you would like to see it continue, please consider giving what you can via this link ​Fundraiser by Katherine Grimshaw : Chagford Primary Woodland School (gofundme.com)

Bake Sale
The PTFA will be running a Bake Sale next Thursday, 9th March. They are looking for donations of baked goods for sale and, of course, for plenty of eager customers!

CELEBRATING THE EARTH
The next Celebrating the Earth event will take place on March 21st at the Church of St Michael the Archangel. It will focus on wildflowers, the beauty, the myth and the very real benefits. There will be input from the school of some form. maybe a song - maybe a poem - maybe some art....
Pop it in your diary and lets get a good showing from the school at theis lovely event.