CAN YOU HELP?

Calling all our lovely parents, carers, neighbours and friends - we would love your help.

I'd like to create an audio cd resource bank for our school. Please, if you have any story cd's that you would like to donate we would be very grateful.

Some examples of these could include; Roald Dahl stories or Paddington Bear (you may even have some of the promotional ones that you get free in the Sunday papers).

 Thank you  

Sports Day fun at Smalley

We had lots of fun last week at our annual sports day.

Children worked in their house teams and completed a wide range of events earning points.

This year there was a World Cup theme and Brazilian music was playing all afternoon whilst each team also adopted a country from this years tournament.

The winning house this year was Falcons.

Thank you to the PTFA for organising drinks for the children. Thank you also to all the parents for a wonderful turnout as usual to support our children.

A huge thank you to Mrs Naylor from Open Gate and her team of Sports Leaders, many of whom were ex Smalley Pupils.

Finally, a massive thank you to Mrs Shaw for organising the event. We really appreciate all the hard work that has gone into putting on an event like this.

Singing al fresco - wow!

It was a real pleasure today to go outside at playtime as the children were singing beautifully ready to open the Summer Fayre this Saturday.

I could have sat and listened to them all day and it is no surprise that the sun has come out this afternoon!

If you get the opportunity please do not pass up the chance to hear the lovely singing this Saturday! They will open the Summer Fayre at 12:00 noon.

I think it may be a good idea to have singing outside every day Mrs Mason?

Beautiful children, it made my day. thank you.

A visit from PC Neil Hopwell

Class 1 would like to say a big ' Thank You ' to PC Neil Hopwell for coming into school and talking to them about Stranger Danger. The children listened very well and they asked him lots of questions about stranger danger and his job.

PC Hopwell will be coming into school again before we break for the summer to talk to the whole school in an assembly.

A Special Assembly for a Special Lady

On Wednesday our Special Mrs Coulthurst retired from teaching. We will miss her so much but we wish her every happiness. Please enjoy sharing the gallery of photos with us - another fond memory.

Look at what is popping up in class 1!

This half term Class 1 have been learning about plants and I am very happy to announce that the seeds we planted a few weeks ago have started to grow!

The children chose either a sunflower seed or a sweet pea seed which they planted and have been taking special care of since.

I am hoping that in a few weeks Class 1 will be full of magnificent flowers!

BRING YOUR FAVOURITE BOOK!

This Thursday is WORLD BOOK DAY!

To celebrate all the wonderful things that books bring to

our lives, we would like you to bring your favourite

book to school THIS THURSDAY.

Come and join Mr Crawford in the hall from 

8.30 a.m. on Thursday morning and start your

day off with a good read of your favourite book.  Hot

chocolate will be served too.

There will be special times during the day to read

and share your most favourite book with

your friends, including meeting up with your

'House Team'.

Looking forward to some good book recommendations.

Look out for your World Book Day voucher which

will be given out this week - this will give you £1.00

towards a book from your local bookshop.

Top Cookery Tips from Tesco and TTS!

We are lucky to have been chosen to trial some recipes for the 'eathappy project' organised nationally by Tesco and TTS.

We all feel proud at Smalley to be part of this.

Enjoy sharing this video with your friends and family.

GUINNESS WORLD RECORD CHALLENGE!

Oh how we enjoyed the Dough Disco Guinness World Record Challenge today! Class R, Class 1 and Class 2 all came together in the hall at 10.00 a.m to start giving their fingers a workout by squeezing and stretching the dough.

All 84 children and 7 adults joined thousands of other people around the U.K. to try beat the current record of people sculpting with dough at any one time.

Here's the video that helped us with the challenge!

We're keeping our fingers crossed that we helped to make a new record - we'll keep you updated........how exciting!

Sports Award for Mrs Rawlings

What a lovely surprise for Mrs Rawlings in our Gold Book assembly.

In recognition of Mrs Rawling's committment to sport, the Amber Valley Cluster of schools have named a special award after her.  The 'Ceri Rawlings Trophy' will be the prize for the school who win the Year 1 and 2 Basketball competition.

Thank you Mrs Rawlings and well done

- we're hoping to see the trophy at our school soon.

House of the week -Kestrels!

Well done to all members of Kestrel House this week. Your hard work and excellent behaviour enabled us to win the cup! Let's go for the double next week! Keep flying high everyone !

Thank you also, to all those children in other houses who congratulated Kestrels on their success - that is a very mature and kind thing to do and it was very much appreciated. It was yet another reason why Smalley school is such a special place to be!

The house system has landed!!

Today our new system was launched in school. A lot of thought went into choosing the names but in the end we decided on names of high flying birds or bird families to represent our own high fliers here at Smalley!

All of our children and staff have been assigned to a house. We have a community feel here at Smalley and this is at the heart of our house system. Children from all year groups will work together as a team to achieve a common goal. Also, children will get chance to work with staff from different year groups on a regular basis. House Assemblies or House afternoons will encourage this and increase the family atmosphere that we already have in school.

Rewards

Children can gain house points for a number of reasons including; good behaviour, excellent manners, working hard, producing brilliant pieces of work,following the school rules, lining up smartly, playing nicely at lunch or break-time, helping or caring for others plus lots more. Any member of staff can issue house points.

The points are collected every week and a House of the Week will be announced in our Gold Book Assembly. We will have a trophy to present to the House captains and their coloured ribbons will be tied to the cup. The house of the half term will win an afternoon of rewards which will change on a regular basis.

Most importantly we intend to have lots of fun when working together in our houses. It will create competition but this will have to be friendly rivalry as we are all part of one big team here at Smalley and we must never forget that.

Keep checking the website for further details of the exciting things that are happening at school.

Coming to a school near you..........

Please click on the link below to find out the latest exciting news about our new House System!

In the News!

What a lovely sight to see our children in the

19th December 2013 edition of the Ilkeston Advertiser.

Well done everyone for your hard work - what a super show!

If you'd like copies of the photos please call the Newspaper's office on 0115 9446160 and quote NILA NATIVITY RICHARDSON SMALLEY 1 (Group photo)  and NILA NATIVITY RICHARDSON SMALLEY2 (Midwife, Mary & Joseph)

Fun at the Panto - Oh YES we did!

Thank you children for your enthusiasm and participation at our pantomime of Beauty & the Beast - we were all certainly dancing and laughing in the aisles as the story unfolded!  Thank you to Gerry Graham's Touring Pantomime company for the super show.  Please enjoy the slideshow and share the fun with your families.

Christmas Jumper Day in Class 1.

Class 1 looked very festive in their Christmas jumpers today! Merry Christmas to you all.

What a fabulous day to end the year!

Our School Council organised a fabulous day for us to finish 2013.

We had a special assembly celebrating some wonderful achievements and then our staff performed a very special version of the 12 days of Smalley Christmas!! The children certainly enjoyed it!

Children and staff looked very festive in their Christmas Jumpers and the cake sale was amazing. A massive thank you to those who brought cakes into school. They were fabulous!

Mr Crawford and Mrs Armitage watched Nativity 2 in the afternoon on our amazing new screen. It was just like being at cinema de lux but slightly better as we had free cakes too!!

It was lovely to end 2013 at school with so many smiles. A massive thank you to all. Enjoy Christmas and the holiday season, get plenty of rest and come back ready for an even better year in 2014!

A Midwife Crisis 2013

We have all loved our Christmas production this year. Thank you for all your hard work children.

Please enjoy sharing these gorgeous memories with your family and friends.

From The Key Stage 1 Team

Children in Need - Ahoy there!

We have all had a fabulous day at school today raising money for Children in Need whilst having lots of fun!

The total was over £150 when I left school which is a great effort. Many thanks to our fabulous community for supporting the day.

Our suggested theme was Pirates and Princesses and everyone looked fabulous. All classes got chance to visit our new Pirate Ship in Class R, there were lots of happy faces to end the week!

Our staff as usual joined on the spirit of the day and looked fabulous in their outfits I'm sure you'll agree!

Each class took pictures throughout the day too which I'm sure will be on our website for you to see.

Harvest Gratitude

It's always exciting when we receive a letter through the post at school! 

The children were over the moon to receive letters and cards of thanks from the local residents for their Harvest gifts. 

During Gold Book on Thursday, we shared the thank you messages.  Thank you again to our school community for your generosity - our neighbours were so thrilled.

Harvest time!

All the children in Class R, Class 1 and Class 2 were busy last Friday rehearsing their contributions for the Harvest assembly on Friday, 18th October 2013 at 10.00 a.m.  Thank you children for working so hard.

Here are the words to our song that you asked for:

Thank you Lord for food to eat (sing 3 times)

Yummy, yum, yum, yum!

CHORUS

Alleluia, thank you Lord

Alleluia, thank you Lord

Alleluia, thank you Lord

Thank you for our food.

Thank you Lord for fish and chips (sing 3 times)

Yummy, yum, yum, yum

CHORUS

Thank you Lord for all your gifts (sing 3 times)

Yummy, yum, yum, yum

CHORUS

Parents and carers are very welcome to come to our assembly, it would be lovely to see you.

A Thursday Treat!

Wow - what a treat! It was wonderful to hear the sounds of 'Hot Shots' after school on Thursday afternoon.  The children and staff were working so hard to create some magical music (I think the Party Rings at breaktime helped!). It was a real privilege for me to stand and listen - thank you.  Our classroom door will certainly be open every Thursday afternoon - looking forward to hearing lots more awesome sounds! A special thank you to the tutors, Stuart and Tim, for providing such a wonderful experience for the children.

 Please have a listen.......

Link Romania Christmas Shoe Box Appeal

This week has once again seen the launch of our Link Romania Christmas Shoe Box appeal.  This is the fourth year Smalley School have decided to be part of this wonderful appeal, helping to bring smiles at Christmastime to those not so fortunate as ourselves.  To add to our excitement, Mrs Boyles will be travelling out to Romania to help deliver our boxes, visit the families and schools which are helped by this wonderful charity and create educational links for our children with schools in Romania and Moldova.  She will be blogging on our website during her visit so that the children are able to follow the journey of their boxes and share the experience with her.  

The children have enjoyed an assembly this week reminding them about what could be put into these family Christmas shoe boxes and each child will be bringing home a letter with a shoe box form attached at the end of the day on Thursday.  

It would be wonderful if we could beat last years total of 115 boxes, which would keep Mrs Boyles very busy delivering during her visit to Romania!  If you are struggling to find an empty shoe box to fill, any shoe shop will give you an empty box if you call in. 

Class 5 are also busy doing additional fund raising with their movie night which will mean Mrs Boyles can take extra  items out with her, particularly items which will be useful in the schools she visits.

Details of how to fill and package your box is on the leaflet.  Boxes can be bought into school as soon as they are finished but no later than Tuesday 5th November as this is when our collection lorry will visit school.

Happy Box Filling!

What a busy start to the year!

Class One have had such a busy start to the year and have all settled into the class wonderfully. Our topic this term is "Ourselves" and we have been learning a lot about our Five Senses by exploring the school and discovering what we can smell, taste, hear, see and touch. As you can see from the photographs we have been using our sense of hearing to listen to instructions from our partner when drawing a picture - what amazing listening skills we have in Class One!

We began the year by looking at lists, labels and captions in Literacy and had a great time putting labels on each other and things around our classroom - as you can see from the photographs. Following our fantastic start in Literacy we have moved on to writing poetry and began by writing a collective verse for a poem and then writing our very own poem about a Banana using our five senses. We definitely have some budding poets in Class One!

In Geography we have been creating maps of our school which are really useful for the new members of the class and also looking at what happens when we post a letter. The children will be posting letters home so please look out for them on your doormats very soon!

What a fantastic start to the year Class One!

Team Eddy - creating a legacy!

Firstly, I would like to say how fabulous it is to have Eddy back at school where he belongs with his friends in Class 1. What a lovely way to start the new school year with such brilliant news.

I would also like to inform you all that Team Eddy lives on and many of our team have caught the bug and are keeping up the good work even though we are not fundraising anymore after our wonderful achievement of raising over £19,000 last year.

Mr Hopwell and Mr Crilley are running a 50 mile race on Sunday 22nd September. Wow! I'm tired just thinking about that!

Also, Mr Taylor, one of our school governors, is running a half marathon in a few weeks before taking part in the London marathon for Bone Cancer Research Trust in April.

Mr Chadwick now runs for Smalley Road Runners and completed a triathlon today in super quick time whilst Mr Hollingshurst and Mr Simpson are also regular runners.

The rest of our team also look super fit whenever I see them around school so apart from myself the team are all still in great shape 6 months on from the race.

Well done all and good luck!

Are you interested in Athletics?

CALLING ALL YEAR 1 and 2 CHILDREN

There is a very exciting opportunity for children in Year 1 and 2 over the next few weeks.  An after school Athletics club will be ran by the Sport Development Team at Heanor Gate Science College.  It  will start THIS Tuesday from 4.00-5.00 pm and last for 3 weeks.  The sessions will cost £1 each session.  If your child is interested, please pop into school and pick up an information and consent form from Mrs Rhodes & Miss Hill.

Thank you