This year for 'Sport Relief' children will be allowed to come to school wearing non-uniform with one condition - they need to wear sports clothes! During the day, there will be lots of opportunities for children to get active and learn about the importance of sport. Children will not be required to bring money in as a donation for the charity event, as we feel that over the last year or so we have been doing quite a number of fundraising events and so this time the day wont be about raising money. We are going to use this day however to raise awareness of the benefits of sport and exercise. If you and your children want to donate during the programme on BBC1, that is totally up to you! We are an incredibly charitable school - however, we feel we need to balance each year which charity events we focus on heavily and which ones we don't. You may remember for previous Sports Relief events we raised money by having a sponsored running event - which raised a lot of money but proved quite costly for some families... especially as the children far exceeded our expectations and didn't stop running!!! 

Sports Relief Website & Donations

Since January we have been trialling using the field at lunchtime with selected year groups. In the past the field has been out of action during the wetter months as it can become quite muddy and damp. Year 5 and 6 were given the chance to bring in an OLD pair of trainers that are stored in the labelled bucket in their classroom. At lunchtimes, this bucket is carried to the doors leading to the field where the children have been changing out of their school shoes in to their OLD muddy shoes. The trial has worked well... it has meant that children wanting to play football or using the climbing frames have had the chance, and in turn making the playground less busy meaning the younger children have a more enjoyable lunchtime too! 

As the older children in the school, training them to swap shoes over has been reasonably straightforward. Feedback received from parents is that they want their children to 'let off steam' at lunchtime and therefore are more than happy for them to change in and out of shoes and can cope with a little bit of mud on their child's trousers. 

We are now in position to trial this with the current Year 4 (and eventually move on the year 3's).

The school has already purchased the buckets for the classes (1 for boys trainers and 1 for girls).

If you would like your child to go on the field in the colder months then please send a pair of OLD trainers into school that are clearly labelled with your child's name. Any trainers sent in will be your child's responsibility.
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THE SCHOOL WILL NOT TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR LOST OR DAMAGED TRAINERS.
Please note : - Some children do get mud on their trousers after being on the field.
The children are responsible for ensuring they do not get mud on their clothes.

If children have consistently been coming home with excessive amounts of mud on them then some of the of the parents have been sending in waterproof trousers that they put over the top of their trousers. You may also suggest to them that you would rather they didn't go on the field. 

If children in Year 4,5,6 do not want to go onto the field - it is not compulsory. They cannot swap back and forth between the two nor can they play football in the playground. If this next stage of the trial is successful we will roll it out to the year 3 pupils. 

Please don't panic! You do not have to rush out to purchase a book character costume for this year's World Book Day on the 3rd March. 

Last year we asked children to dress up as their favourite book character and so this year we are going to approach the day in a different way. Having read online over the last few weeks that 75% of teachers agree that World Book Day doesn't necessarily have the desired impact (i.e. changing children's reading habits) we are going to do something different! 

This year, each class teacher has chosen a particular text from a popular author. Everyday for the last 30 minutes of the afternoon (7th - 11th March) the children will experience good old fashioned story time; where the teacher reads aloud to the children. This will run for the entire week therefore promoting reading over a longer period of time whilst also given children the chance to listen to a whole book being read from cover to cover. 

We are running the reading activities a week later than the actual book day as myself, the literacy coordinator (Mrs Matthews) and the year 6 children will be away this week on the residential trip to London. 

Below are the chosen books in order from Year R to Year 6. 

Class Hughes continues to have a strong link with Tesco and regularly have Paul Howard visit with talks about Christmas, Divali and Easter. A huge Thank you to Paul and his team.

Recently the school received an abundance of Christmas stock, which the school intend to use for their Christmas Enterprise this year, which will raise funds for school resources. A huge thank you to Adam, Louise Plummer and all the team at Tesco Martlesham for those kind donations. 

More fantastic dancing took place today in the third LIVE FINAL of Trimley Come Dancing! The performances were fantastic and the reason for the high scores given by the judges. Thank you to the children for working so hard and practising their moves ready for today's final. What an excellent way to finish this half term!

Click on the links below to find some great E-safety games... 

Today, Felixstowe Academy invited our Year 6 children along to enjoy their production of 'Bugsy Malone'. Our children loved the singing, dancing and the American accents but were so impressed to see Maisey, Mollie and Lucy performing in the show (children who have left the school in the last few years!). It was a wonderful show and the purpose built staging, lighting and the band all added to overall experience! It was great to see ex TSM pupils performing their socks off!!! Bravo! 

Calling Year 6 Parents! If your child has an ipod touch or an ipad or an iphone please download the ACHIEVE 100 apps from the APP store. They are a little costly in comparison to Candy Crush Saga but they will allow the children to practice the questions for the Spelling Punctuation and Grammar papers and the maths papers in a fun way! Feedback from last year was these apps were really useful! They are also useful for you as parents to see the level that the children are operating at. 
You could even test yourselves! ​

Today, the children met Roy Turnham - a blind footballer who played in the London 2012 Olympic Games. The children asked excellent questions about how Roy manages to play the game despite being unable to see the ball.  
Roy discussed:
- that the ball has ball bearings inside that make a sound;
- how the boards around the side of the pitch are used to create echoes so the players know where the ball is;
- how the crowd have to be quiet during the match in order for the players to hear the ball;
- how the goalkeeper is the only player on the pitch who is fully sighted; and,
- why the players have to all wear blindfolds (due to different levels of blindness).

The afternoon was fascinating and Roy was a superb role model for sport in general as well as proving to the children that you can overcome any barriers that come your way. He explained to the children that they could achieve anything they wanted to if they put their mind to it and that nothing should prevent them from following their dreams or giving something a go! 

Roy also brought along with him his guide dog Pudsey who was so smart, well-trained and clearly the most wonderful companion to his owner. 

Earlier in the afternoon, the children took part in a fitness circuit class in order to raise money for 'Sports For Schools'. Some of the money raised gets passed back to the schools and the rest is shared amongst athletes who are training to represent our country in any sport. 

Forms were sent out by Mrs Ross earlier this month and in one of the blog entries below is an online link to a fundraising form. 

Today was about fundraising, but more importantly a chance for the children to understand more about blindness and how it doesn't necessarily stop you doing things you want to do; you just might have to do them differently!