The National Young Mathematicians' Awards are the only team maths competition for primary schools in the UK. The competition, now in its fifth year, is run in conjunction with the NRICH project at the University of Cambridge and is designed to inspire and challenge talented mathematicians from across the UK. 

After much deliberation by Mrs Weitzel, due to the number of fantastic mathematicians at our school, a team of four children was selected.  Yesterday, they competed in the first round of the National Young Mathematicians' Award. They were given a challenge to work through and were judged not only on their maths ability, but also on how well they worked as a team. Our children scored a very impressive 35 marks out of a total of 40 and have earned themselves a place in round 2.

http://nrich.maths.org/11576   Click on this link to see some of the past challenges and have a go yourself!

Congratulations to the team!

There are lots of amazing activities, trips and events next week to mark Parliament Week.  Parents and carers are welcome to a special event to meet local councillors and also find out what the children have been learning about Parliament, democracy and citizenship.

We had lots of really wonderful entries to this term’s Author of the Term challenge! The children’s use of descriptive vocabulary was brilliant.

Special mentions must go to Kacper Gorny, Kerri-Ann Rolfe, Millie Rowland, Amy Appleton, Connie Cripps and Cydney Osbourne.

Our overall winners are Alec Godden (1HA), Evi Ali (2L) and Sapphire Turner (6B).  Thank you to Mrs Wilson for organising the theme and competition.

We are so lucky to have such committed and talented Language Ambassadors at Cliftonville Primary School.  They are a great group of children, excellently supported by Mrs Kirby.  The photograph shows our 2015 - 2016 team.

On Friday 13 November Cliftonville Primary School will be raising money for Children in Need as part of our commitment to our local, national and international communities. Previous years have been amazingly successful and we hope this year’s line-up of events will again encourage our community’s enormous generosity.

1. Dress up as their favourite super hero for £1

2. Bring in your pennies and support your class in designing and decorating their own classes coin art- there will be prizes for the best design.

3. Join Ms Whichcord and other staff and children on the great Cliftonville ramble over lunchtime, 20p to enter

4. Enter the ‘Children in Need’ quiz run by the school council at lunchtime in Y5, 20p per personor enter as a team

5. The great Cliftonville cake sale, run this year by Y6 on Friday afternoon, 10p-50p

The Year 2 team held a "come and play" event where children invited members of their family to come and play some maths games. We had lots of fun and did some great maths work at the same time. It was really good to see so many parents and carers, who were all willing to get involved with playing the games. Thank you to our very helpful Year 6 children who spent their lunch times learning to play the games so that they could teach the Year 2 children the rules.

Increasing the opportunities for parents and carers to share in their children's learning is an important part of our school plan.

During the week beginning 16th November in Term 2 we will be taking part in national Parliament Week which promotes understanding of the importance of democracy and law making in the UK.  We have a host of exciting activities planned including a number of trips and special visitors.  There will also be a coffee afternoon on Thursday 19th November with a host of sweet treats, hot and cold drinks and the opportunity for you to meet and chat with your local councillors (Cllrs Wells, Game and Jaye-Jones) – an invitation for this will follow nearer the time.  The week will end with a special celebration on Friday 20th November where children are invited to come to school in Parliament/democracy themed fancy dress.  This could range from dressing up as a past Prime Minister, a suffragette, a councillor or mayor or maybe Big Ben!  You can be as adventurous or as tame as you like.  More details about the whole week will be shared with you after half term.  Thank you to Miss Connellan for organising all the exciting events and trips.

For Harvest this year families generously donated food items and toiletries for 'Thanet Open Christmas'. One of our teachers, Mrs Brockman, has supported Thanet Open Christmas for many years, initially as a volunteer, cooking and giving out Christmas dinners and now is part of the group that organises the event.  Again, as in previous years, the generosity of our children and their families has been overwhelming, with extra tables needing to be brought into the hall to hold all the harvest gifts.

Community is one of the school’s core values and through being able to support this project in our own community we, as a school, are really living our values. We also invited people from our local community in to school to celebrate harvest with us. Many people from the local church and our neighbours in Northumberland Avenue came to listen to our harvest songs, sung by year 2 and the choir. Afterwards our children enjoyed talking to our visitors while they enjoyed a cup of tea and some cake. We are very fortunate to be part of a community that is supportive of us.

Dear parents and carers

New building and lunch provision

Some of the existing main school kitchen is being moved in half term.  In addition, there are several new pieces of equipment being installed.  Although the plan is for it to be fully operational after half term, we will not be offering hot meals on Monday 2nd, Tuesday 3rd and Wednesday 4th November.

All of Key Stage 1 who have an ‘infant free lunch’ can have a school packed lunch.

All of Key Stage 2 who are entitled to a free school meal will have a school packed lunch.

There has been very little inconvenience to the school or parents during this huge building project, so we hope you understand the reasons we have made this decision in advance.  We are hopeful that the three day ‘breathing space’ will be enough and we will update you should things change.

Thank you in anticipation of your understanding.

Yours sincerely

Jane Troth

Headteacher

Thank you to all the families who came in to decorate butterflies with their children.  This was a family craft afternoon organised by Mrs Glover and Mrs Sear.  It was an afternoon of glue, sequins and laughter!