Keep up to date with all the news happening in school at the moment.

Please click a headline to read more or visit our school Facebook page: Cliftonville Primary and Pre-School.

• Phil the Bag fundraising

  Mon 25 Jan 2016

   

  Thank you to everyone who brought in clothes, shoes and bags recently which raised £89.95 for school funds.

  

• Maths competition winners

  Mon 25 Jan 2016

   

  These are photos of the KS2 Christmas maths competition winners. For this competition the children had to find examples of where Roman numerals were seen in the local environment and write about them. The children found Roman numerals all over the place, including on street names,  on the clock tower, on coins, and Charlotte found some tattooed onto her dad's knuckles (they gave her birth date)! Well done to all those children who entered - the standard as usual was very high!

   

  Well done also to the KS1 winners. The children had to spot patterns and shapes in Christmas wrapping paper and then try to design their own.

  

• NSPCC Number Day

  Mon 25 Jan 2016

   

  Dear Parents,

   

  On February 5th it is Number Day. Number Day is an initiative run by the NSPCC as a way of raising funds and awareness for the organisation and also for promoting maths. Throughout the week beginning on Monday 1st February the children will be involved in some exciting and challenging maths work that for the majority of them will focus on fractions. In some years story books are being used as a stimulus for mathematical investigation and for others they will enjoy the challenge of a fraction based orienteering course. All the children from year 2 upwards will be taking part in the times tables challenge, where we will be looking for the class who has made most progress from the last test.

   

  On Number Day itself (Friday 5th February) for a donation of £1.00, which goes to the NSPCC, the children are invited to come into school dressed in a number. This could be a sports top with a number on it, or as our theme is fractions it could be an outfit made of different fractions of colour e.g. ½ black and ½ white. We usually have an array of fantastic outfits and hope this year will be the same.

   

  On Friday there will be a family fraction challenge. If you can gather a team of  4 - 6 made up from at least 2 adults  and come to the LRC after school, the challenge will take no more than 45 minutes and will take place in the KS2 playground. It will be a lot of fun! Refreshments will be provided and there will be a prize for the winning team. Please fill in the form below if you would like to come along. It would be nice to see as many as possible.

   

  I hope that Number Day and the week leading up to it is an enjoyable, fun week for all and that your children tell you about all the exciting things that are happening.

   

  Yours sincerely

   

  Mrs H Weitzel (Assistant Headteacher & Maths subject leader)

  

• Thanet Community Safety Survey

  Thu 21 Jan 2016

   

  Have your say on Thanet Community Issues...

   

  Thanet Community Safety Partnership is the collective name for a number of crime and disorder agencies which work together around certain initiatives to help improve community safety. This includes Thanet District Council, Kent County Council, Kent Police, NHS, Kent Fire and Rescue Service and Probation Services.

   

  You are invited to have your say in local issues by completing the survey available from the link below:

   

  https://www.snapsurveys.com/wh/s.asp?k=145036054056

   

  

• World finalists invited to London

  Thu 21 Jan 2016

   

  As current World finalists in the Jaguar 'Maths in Motion' challenge we were one of only eighteen schools asked to send a team to the BETT show in London. The children had to work on the Toshiba stand to create a car to enter the BETT 'Maths in Motion' challenge. They worked hard throughout the session, calmly applying what they have been learning to create a car faster than the immediate challenge of the team they were working against. The car will be entered into a race against the other seventeen schools invited to BETT, on Friday. Needless to say we will be excitedly watching the race and hope to at least complete all laps, and it would be great to claim the winning trophy.  As well as all our hard work in setting up the car we also had a lot of fun looking at all the educational technology around the show. It was a fascinating experience.

   

  Well done to the pupils for their exemplary conduct and to Mrs Weitzel and Mr Hedges for accompanying them on a long, but exciting day!

  

• Official opening of the new building

  Fri 15 Jan 2016

   

   

  On behalf of the children, staff and governors, it gives me great pleasure to welcome you all to the opening of our new building.  I am especially delighted to welcome Mr Craig Mackinlay, MP for South Thanet, who will officially declare the building open this morning. 

   

  This project has been a collaboration of many people from a range of different organisations.  I am pleased to welcome representatives from Kent County Council, Thanet District Council, Kier Construction, GPM Partnership, and our school’s governing body. 

   

  Some special thanks are in order:  Mrs Val Hardy, Project Manager from KCC, has worked tirelessly to get the very best value for money for the children of Cliftonville.  To Mrs Claudine Murray, chair of governors, for her commitment to the project and outstanding leadership of our governing body to secure the fantastic building you will see later this morning. 

   

  To our school premises team, led by Mrs Crittenden, for being the eyes and ears of the school during the project and to Miss Cooke for leading on aspects of finance including very complicated legal documents with red lines on them. 

   

  It is also lovely to welcome so many local residents with us this morning.  We are so grateful that you have been incredibly accommodating throughout the building process.  I am sure that there were times when the inconvenience of vans, diggers and noise was more than a little tiresome. 

   

  We are also joined by headteacher colleagues from the Coastal Academies Trust, of which Cliftonville is a member and by Dr Virginia Austin, Chair of the Coastal Academies Board.  This is a group of local schools working together for the benefit of children across Thanet. 

   

  And finally to the best senior leaders I could wish for.  They have carried on steering the ‘teaching and learning’ ship when I have been in buildings meetings about coat hooks and roof ventilation.

   

  Thank you to everyone who has played a part from the earliest plans to ticking off the, nearly, finished snagging list.

   

  But for me, the VIPs are the children in this hall from Year R and Year 1 and children from the two school councils.  This is their school… their classrooms to grow and develop academically, socially, morally and spiritually. 

   

  A request from Kent County Council more than two years ago to consider expansion was recognition of the confidence they had in the school to deliver a high quality education.  Our governing body, led by Mrs Claudine Murray, agreed to the proposal.

   

  The new teaching block provides this hall and kitchen serving over 400 lunches a day, a second staffroom and new facilities for eight classes - four reception classes that we admitted in this academic year and ready for four year 1 classes next September. 

   

  It is a much improved learning environment which supports high quality teaching and improved outcomes for the children.  Educators are increasingly aware of the interaction between physical spaces and learning environment.  But lovely buildings alone do not make a difference.   

   

  The key to a quality education lies in the dedication of the staff. It is such a privilege to be Headteacher at Cliftonville School leading a committed and talented team who believe in, and have high expectations of, the children. No stone is left unturned in making sure we give them the best life chances.  Looking around the building first thing this morning, I was struck by how quickly it has become ‘part of the school’, it is new… and yet lived in.  It has been staff who moved their classrooms after school, staying late every night so that the new rooms were ready as soon as possible…class teachers, teaching assistants, premises team working together as a team.

   

  It is the Cliftonville experience that nurtures our children to be hardworking, high achieving, independent, confident and compassionate individuals.  They understand, because they show us by their actions every day, our school values.  They are respectful, kind and resilient…they know how to put things right when they go wrong. 

   

  With an exciting and creative curriculum they learn through themed days, special weeks and visits.  The children learnt a lot about Parliament and democracy in a special week of events in November.  During the week, thirty children visited Westminster where they were lucky enough to meet Mr Mackinlay.  It is at this point that I would like to hand over to the children from the KS2 school council followed by the formal opening by Mr Mackinlay.

  

• Free first-aid course for parents

  Thu 14 Jan 2016

   

  We are offering a morning's free first-aid course on the 8th March.  A letter has been sent to KS1 parents in the first instance but we are hoping to repeat the course if there is the demand.  Please speak to the office for more details.

  

• Reading stars challenge

  Tue 12 Jan 2016

   

  Mrs Wilson sent home a reading stars challenge over the Christmas break.  She received nearly seventy completed entries and two winners have been drawn from the hat...details of winners to be announced in assembly this week!  Congratulations to all who entered.

   

   

  email from Parent: January 2016

   

  Just quickly wanted to say that the reading stars sheet that was sent home over the Christmas break was a great incentive and other parents have commented on how their children loved it. Brilliant idea!