As we come to the end of another week the children are well immersed in their new learning for this term.  This week we have had a focus on looking at geography across the school with the childern sharing their learning from this and last term.  Lots of geography vocabulary and knowledge was shared, with the children also showing how they use globes, atlases and map making.

Nursery & Pre-School have been learning about and celebrating Chinese & the lunar New Year this week. The children have made red and gold lanterns, learning that red is a lucky colour. Our cube has promoted discussion about food and dragons. We enjoyed a vegetable stir fry & rice, spring rolls and prawn crackers for lunch too. 

It is also National Storytelling week and the children have been enjoying a range of stories each day. We are also excited to launch our 'Dunalley Bedtime Stories Lending Library', giving families an opportunity to borrow from a range of story books to share at bedtime. 

You will have received a text yesterday with a link to our spring term clubs, please reply to the survey before 12 noon on Monday.  We will allocate space on Monday afternoon and are therefore unable to process late applications.   

We would like to thank all of the staff who are running these clubs in their own time. 

In light of COVID-19 infection rates, we will not mix year groups this term.  This means that, like last term, different clubs have been assigned to different year groups.  We plan to change this next term, so that children have a wider range of options available to them and have the opportunity to participate alongside children of different ages.  We would also like to invite reception children to our summer term clubs. 

Can you help us to expand the range and size of clubs that we are able to offer each term? 

Are you able to help a teacher to run a club? This would help us to increase the size of a club so that more children can attend. 

Do you have the skills and experience that would enable you to run your own club?

Would you be willing to pay for your child to attend a club?  This would enable us to work with outside providers, e.g. private art and sports clubs, to increase the range of opportunities on offer. 

If you think that you may be able to help, or are willing to pay for a club, please fill in this survey.   

Our School Council met this week, they begin their meetings talking about the need to listen and the importance to hear pupils voice.

Their agenda for the meeting was School Lunches. 

What do you like about hot school dinners?

*We like the 3 different colour options
*always a vegetarian option and bread is given out
*food is easy to eat
*desserts are popular
*privilege to have packed lunch
*cheap
*popular food choices for children
*meals are generally hot
*choice of desserts
*time to eat the food

What could be changed about the hot school dinners?
*Y6 would like bigger portions as they feel they have the same amount as the younger children
*the dessert plastic containers should be recycled or other dishes used so they can be washed up – better for the environment
*the children would like to have more sauces on offer – ketchup, mayo etc
*could there be a sandwich option in the summer?
*could the salad bar come back please?
*themed food – e.g Mexican week, Indian week?
*some children find the lunch hall noisy at times and would prefer to eat outside sometimes
*can the packed lunch children eat outside?
*more toppings for jacket potatoes?
*range of types of fish – e.g one week could they have cod and then the next time they have fish could they have salmon/mackerel etc
*hot dogs
*vegetarians would like to be given the same number of sausages as the meat eaters
*variety of burgers – beef, chicken, cheese
*the children like it when the tables are decorated at Christmas – could they have tablecloths to make it look nicer at lunchtime?
*would like Tacos 

Mrs Byrne was really interested to hear what the School Council had to say.
Some things mentioned have already been actioned; such as additional sauces and larger portions for older chiildren, once the weather improves children will be able to eat outside. Mrs Byrne will certainly discuss the children's views with the contract catering company and the Midday Team. Feedback will be provided to the School Council at their next meeting and families will be kept informed about lunches going forward.

The agenda for their next meeting – Fund raising event in summer term.

We are so excited as at school today as we started to lessen our restrictions at lunch times.  During assembly this morning Mrs Godfrey and Mrs Byrne presented the new OPAL lunchtime arrangements with the children.

We are now using two larger zones rather than more smaller ones, this enables children to mix a little more with other year groups, we hope that by the summer we can offer children the full OPAL experience and open the grounds to our children to explore freely.  It was a shame the sun didn't shine today, but the children enjoyed mixing with children from other year groups nonetheless. 

Dontaions
Thank you so much to the families who have donated items for OPAL play so far.
The difference these make to our lunch times is amazing.

Thank you for the donation of some seeds, we would still love to have some bedding plants and sensory herb plants if at all possible. We would also love den making items, 

If you are able to donate please drop them into the School Office.

There are only 5 more weeks left in school until the summer holidays, luckily Atlas Holidays Camps have released their camp dates for the summer.

The Summer Holiday Camp will run here at school from Monday 25th July right through until Friday 2nd September.

The children have so much fun, it's great that they are in an environment that they are familiar with and with their friends.