Dunalley Literature Festival got off to a fantastic start on Wednesday with our visits by various authors.

Reception, Year 1 and 2 enjoyed imaginative and creative workshops with the talented Hannah Shaw, author of the ‘Unipiggle’ Books. In assembly, the children enjoyed listening to her read one of her books and had a go at drawing their own daisy faces and 'Unipiggle' character, following her great instructions.

Later, in the classrooms, Hannah shared how she maps out her 'world' before she starts writing. She answered lots of well-considered questions and the children began creating their own imaginary world maps. The KS1 teachers are really looking forward to reading some lovely stories with amazing illustrations inspired by Hannah Shaw over half term.

Year 3, 4 and 5 were treated to engaging workshops with Andy Seed.

In Year 5, the children learned about how Andy researched his The Curse of the Tomb Robbers book, in association with The British Museum and became involved in some hieroglyphic puzzle solving. The children were able to apply their Ancient Egyptian knowledge to the workshop and had the final treat of looking at a life-sized sarcophagus.

Year 4, meanwhile, explored some of Andy’s books with him, learned about his journey to becoming an author, including the thrill of seeing his name in print and acted out an interview with Emperor Nero.

Year 3 were inspired by Andy’s books based on interviews with animals. The children explored how to assign a personality to an animal and how to generate questions and answers in the style of that character. They too were then treated to a question and answer session on the sarcophagus.

Finally, Year 6 enjoyed workshops with published journalist, Kate Townshend, who shared top tips with them on how to write opinion pieces that could ultimately change the world. The children enjoyed thinking of opinion pieces to write about that caused a reaction amongst their peers! We are hoping to share these finished pieces with her.

Year 5 and 6 were also lucky enough to enjoy some creative writing sessions with John Rigby on Monday and Friday, where they explored writing from the perspective of a wild animal. Some amazing pieces of description and action were produced by the children as a result of these inspiring workshops.

A big thank you to all these wonderful visitors who inspired our children through their enthusiasm and creativity to want to read and write even more!

Thursday saw many children attend our inaugural Bedtime Stories event. Adults and children loved sharing some favourite books whilst relaxing and enjoying a snack. Thank you to all those parents who joined us in the hall, to share refreshments, while Bedtime Stories was taking place. We hope you enjoyed the raffle and were able to peruse the range of wonderful reading materials that are used in school to support our reading curriculum.

It was also great to see so many parents enjoying the book fair hosted by The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop. A big thank you to Hereward, from this bookshop, for also supporting the book signing by Hannah Shaw on Wednesday.

We are always looking to find new ways to nurture a love of reading and enhance and extend our libraries.  We want your children to enjoy a range of genres and styles.

If you would like to buy a book for our school and have it dedicated to your child, please select from the following lists.

We are very grateful to the family of Klara in Year 4 who have very kindly donated a box of books from the list. The children had great fun in assembly looking at the new books that will be soon on our library shelves. Thank you so much for your donation.

Many thanks to Hereward from the Yellow-Lighted Bookshop in Tetbury, who once again came along to support us this week.  Hereward was on hand to sell some really lovely and beautifully illustrated books.

Thank you also to Rossiter Book Shop; a relatively new book shop in Montpellier Cheltenham for donating some lovely books for us to raffle at our bedtime reading event. 

Thank you to families for supporting both of these as it all helps us build up a wonderful library for our children.

Nuresry & Pre-school enjoyed a morning of OPAL Play on Monday.  They paticularly love the large sand pit and climbing frame.

For those children joing Dunalley Reception class in September, it is an excellent opportunity for them to be familiar with the larger Dunalley grounds.

Year 5 welcomed some Gloucestershire University maths specialists into school last week. The children were encouraged to develop their mathematical thinking and loved solving a range of problems. We really appreciate the links we have with the University maths department and love working with them and their students.

Some of our Year 3 and 4 athletes attended an athletics event at Tewkesbury Secondary School on Tuesday.

This report was written by the children:
On the 23rd of May, Timothy, Cassius, Rory, Ruby, Albie, Hadley, Olivia, Liv, Clara, Bea, Leila and Jude went to Quad kids Athletics at Tewkesbury Secondary School.  We took part in the running, jumping and throwing events.

We took part in one jumping event and one throwing event.  We arrived back at 1pm to spread the unexpected news that we came second.

We are all so proud, well done everyone.

Year 2 enjoyed a fabulous day out at Nature in Art as part of their visits and visitors programme for this year. The children enjoyed a range of creative activities which supported learning in art. They also had the opportunity to explore the exhibits in the art gallery too. A great day and the sun shone too!

Nature in Art emailed us to say:
"We had another fantastic day with your Year 2 team yesterday. The children were an absolute delight – a real credit to your school – and the teachers and helpers were amazing. Please say a huge thank you from us in making the day run so smoothly."

Reception have had a fantastic last week of term, learning and playing together. They made biscuits with painted nails – to represent their number facts of 10 (the teachers even got involved!) and then on Thursday they enjoyed the Literary Festival celebration with parents coming in to share books and share our reading for pleasure culture.

After half term we will be launching a new App which will change the way we communicate with families. 

We believe it is an exciting change as it has all the features of our current app, provides more information that is specific to your child(ren) and saves the school money. 

It also enables you to provide consent for visits, clubs and sporting activities all in one convenient place.

The biggest change will be that from September we will no longer be using our current text messaging system - making it essential that all parties with Parental Responsibility activate their personal account as messages will be sent via email and push notifications.

At the beginning of June log-in details will be sent to everyone that has Parental Responsibility that we have a personal email address for.  If you don't have our current app or believe that we don't have an email address for you, please complete the following form: https://dunalleyps.schoolzineplus.co.uk/form/29

We would like to congratulate Olivia from &5R for taking part in the final of the Oracy 'Look who's talking' competition.

She did a wonderful speech, raising awareness of autism.