Ullesthorpe CE Primary School Newsletter Easter 2023

Message from Mrs Tithecott

Happy Easter everyone! I hope you are all enjoying a very restful Easter break. I am delighted to be able to showcase all the wonderful things the children have been doing over the final month of this term. It never ceases to amaze me how much we manage to pack into so few weeks.

New Appointment for next academic year

As you may already know, Mrs Tithecott will be retiring at the end of the summer term.

We are very pleased to announce the appointment of Mrs Jodie Allen. She will be taking over the post of Head of School at the beginning of next academic year.

Mrs Allen

She will be popping into school over the next term to get to know our school community. So do look out for her and say hello.

Dates for the Diary

Monday 17th April - School re-opens for the Summer Term

19th April - Willow Class Trip to Stonehurst Farm

26th April - Maple Class Trip to Hatton Country Park

1st May - May Bank Holiday

3rd May - Swimming Gala Final

4th May - Year 5 trip to Belgrave Road, Leicester

5th May - Hot dinners - Coronation Lunch Special Menu

8th May - Coronation Bank Holiday

9th - 12th May - KS2 SATs

26th May - School Closes for half term

5th June - School Re-opens

9th June - PTA Summer Event

Quick Message from the Office

Please would you ensure that any information regarding any change in after school arrangements e.g. different person picking up; going to Kidspace, or not going on the bus if they usually do, is written in the home school book or rung in to the office. Please DO NOT send this information by email.

Our Sporting Superstars

We have taken part in an incredible number of sporting events this term. A big thank you to Mrs Bostock for co-ordinating these and a huge thank you to all the parents who transported the children to so many venues across the county.

Gymnastics

We were very proud to be represented so brilliantly at the Learning South Leicestershire Lutterworth gymnastics competition. All involved worked incredibly hard and supported each other so well - a real demonstration of our school values! Congratulations to Suki who finished 3rd in the Key Stage One competition, our Year 1/2 team who finished 2nd overall in their age category and our 3/4 team who finished 3rd overall in their age category.

Swimming

What a fantastic job our Key Stage 2 swimming team did! We were incredibly impressed with how each of them swam. Their hard work and support of each other was wonderful to watch and paid off - we finished in first place overall and are through to the Level 2 Area Gala in May!

Congratulations to Evie, who won her Year 5 freestyle race, Umme who won her Year 6 breastroke race and to the girls relay team who also came first in their race.

Tag Rugby

Year 3/4 took part in a very wet and windy afternoon of Tag Rugby at Market Harborough Rugby Club on 23rd March 2023. Despite the weather, the children showed their boundless enthusiasm and energy by taking part in a number of skills activities before entering into friendly matches against other local schools.

All the children were super representatives of our school and showed the values of friendship, teamwork and respect. Many thanks to all the adults who came along to support and braved the weather too.

Dodgeball

Well done to our dodgeball team who took part in the tournament at Lutterworth College. Yet again the team represented our school brilliantly. Their sense of fair play and teamwork really shone

The Rice Bowl Tournament

We are very proud of our football team for progressing as far as the quarter- finals of the county-wide Rice Bowl Tournament. This is the first time Ullesthorpe has entered this competition. Although we were knocked out by a very strong team from Sketchley Hill, I know we will be keen to enter next year!

Netball

Our Year 5/6 netball team took part in a local schools' netball tournament at Lutterworth High School. The children represented the school brilliantly in this highly competitive event. The team won 2 matches, drew 2 and lost 2. All matches were closely fought. They should feel very proud of their achievement.

Mrs Hartley challenged the whole school to 'invent like a Victorian' as part of our activities for British Science Week.

Reuben in Year 5 came up with this incredible robotic arm made from lego. Definitely an engineer of the future. Well done Reuben!

Fun in the snow - crazy weather!

Mad March weather!

Comic Relief

Well done and thank you to Year 5 who led the school's comic relief activities. Your efforts raised over £125!

A big thank you to our PTA who organised the Spring Fling Disco. Everyone had a fantastic time.

'The best school disco ever!' to quote many of the children.

PTA rock chicks in action!

And into the bargain £250 was raised to go towards the mural to brighten up the Willow/Maple mobile.

Experience Easter

Sister Liz and the wonderful Open the Book Team came into school to re-tell the Easter Story. They lead us on an Experience Easter Trail, bringing the whole story of Holy Week to life. The children impressed the team with their listening skills and the knowledge they showed at each of the stations on the trail.

1. Palm Sunday - Future Hopes 2. Jesus washes the disciples feet - Servant king

3. The last Supper - Remember me 4. The Garden of Gethsemane - Alone

5. The Crucifixion - The Cross 6. The Empty Tomb - Resurrection

April Birthdays

We wish the following children a very happy birthday this April:

Laynie, Regan, Elvis, Freddie F, Lucas & Ivy B.

Hot Chocolate Fridays

Well done to our Stars over the past few weeks!

Willow Class

The children have been enjoying their topic on transport, learning about different vehicles and how they work.

We have looked closely at pictures of very old bikes from the past and talked about how they are different to our bikes today. We look forward to seeing some real old bikes on our school trip next term.

They thoroughly enjoyed the story, The Naughty Bus by Jan Oke.

We took our own London bus on the journey and then wrote sentences to create our own class book.

We have been comparing the city of London to the village of Ullesthorpe. We used Google Earth to explore the amazing buildings and busy streets. The children then created London in the small world area.

During British Science Week, the children explored forces and used their creativity to make moving vehicles with both construction kits and junk materials. They made good material choices when designing and making boats, which they shaped well to help them float. Some even had a sail and explored the force created by wind.

Mrs Hartley, Mrs Neale, Miss Harris and Miss Stevens

Maple Class

The build up to Easter has been a busy one! We have been learning all about the Easter story in RE. We focused on the journey that Jesus made to Jerusalem and the significant events that took place from Palm Sunday all the way up to Easter Sunday. We have explored the story using a mixture of drama and art. We then had our very own Open the Book team retell the story during our Easter Trail to help consolidate our knowledge!

In Geography, we have been thinking about why we love the seaside so much! We began by discussing all of the things that we can do at the seaside. We then compared the rural and urban areas in our local area with to rural and urban areas by the seaside. We then explored the different animals that we find living in rock pools by the coast and discussed how we could protect these creatures and their environment.

As part of our D.T topic, we made moving story picture books. We designed and constructed slider and lever mechanisms to move the different characters in our story. We then invited the Willow Class to come and see our storybooks and the children performed their storybooks to the children of Willow Class. We then put our new skills into action and created Mother’s Day cards that had a moving mechanism included in their design.

In Science, we have been putting on our engineering hats this half-term. We thought about the different materials that we could use to build bridges and suggested which ones we thought would be the most suitable.

We then built bridges out of paper and thought about how we could change their shape of our paper to make our bridges stronger. We challenged ourselves to make improvements to our first bridge designs to make them even stronger and able to hold more weight- which they did!

Mr Gray , Miss Stevens and Miss Culverhouse

Birch Class

The children prepared their class assembly on Sustainability- their learning this half term. They put on a great performance and worked hard to learn their lines.

They also became the audience when we were visited by Gazebo Theatre Company who held a workshop called Invasion of the Flingatrons. This helped them to further understand the importance of the 3 Rs- Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.

Stunning interior

Our year 3 children in Birch visited the Shree Jaralam Temple in Leicester this month. They have previously learned about Hindu worship and beliefs and were able to have a look inside a temple themselves to connect their learning to real life. Here are some pictures of the beautiful altar and interior.

Respectful shoes!

Following that they took part in a trail at the Church of the Martyrs nearby where they were received by Philippa Taylor the Director of the institute of Faith and Culture. It was noted by the adults involved how brilliantly our Year 3 children behaved on the trip and how well they showed respect during the morning.

On the last day of term, we were grateful to have an Easter delivery from Nanna Knit-Knit! Children in Birch and Maple class were lucky enough to take home one of the lovely Easter chicks thoughtfully knitted by one of our grandparents. What a lovely treat! Thank you to Thomas and Harry’s lovely Nanna who goes out of her way to spread joy every Easter time.

Mrs McMurran, Mrs Leese, Mrs Sharpe, Mrs Heritage and Miss Stevens

Oak Class

We have had a fantastic half term with so much happening. You will have already seen the amount of sporting and whole school events that Oak Class children have taken part in.

Here are a few more things we would like to share:

Our Y6 pupils spent a week at Mount Cook Adventure Centre in Derbyshire.

Follow the link below to see the children in action and rising to all the challenges put before them.

Mount Cook March 2023

Well done year 6!

Meanwhile, back in Ullesthorpe, the Year 5 pupils decided to research the history of Comic Relief and the Red Noses.

They created a giant Comic Relief time line and invited the rest of the school into class to share their learning.

Harvey created his own Comic Relief cartoon strip.

Great work Year 5!

Mrs Bostock, Mrs Tithecott, Ms Priest and Miss Stevens

Notices

Link for Allsorts Magazine

Ullesthorpe Pre-School

Message from the School Office

Please would you inform the office if you have any changes to contact numbers, email address or home address.

We now have new email addresses!

If you need to contact school please email: ullesthorpe@ipat.uk

Willow Class: willowclass.u@ipat.uk

Maple Class: mapleclass.u@ipat.uk

Birch Class: birchclass.u@ipat.uk

Oak Class: oakclass.u@ipat.uk

Thank you!

Appreciate