Dear Parents and Carers,

Christmas Fair

It would be an understatement to say that our wonderful PTA managed to provide another successful Christmas Fair. The hours and days of hard work, thought, preparation and of course the setting up, running and clearing up on the day, are a measure of the generosity and kindness of our PTA and friends of the school. It is clear that the Fair was hugely popular with hundreds of families attending and spending their hard-earned money to support our school. We would all like to say a sincere thank you to everyone who supported this fantastic event and made it such a success. The PTA have reported that over £7000 was raised - amazing! This money will be carefully spent to ensure that we bring much to the wider experiences that children will now have at Christ Church.

Parent Governors Election Update

We are pleased to inform you that the recent election for our two Parent Governors has concluded. After receiving a strong and enthusiastic response, the votes have now been counted and ratified. 

We value the dedication and commitment shown by our parent community and look forward to inviting our two elected parents, Jennie Roberts and Rhys Walden, to come and observe a Governance meeting early in the new year. 

It has been a close race, with four outstanding candidates willing to work with us in shaping the future of our school community. We would like to extend our heartfelt thanks to all the parents who took the time to apply, as well as to those who participated in the voting process. Your involvement is crucial to ensuring that our school continues to grow and thrive, and we truly appreciate your support.

School Council

We have now completed our school council class elections and will share the results with you in our newsletter next week. Well done to all of the children who stood for election, we recognise that this takes courage and you should take pride in your willingness to support our school.

Notices

Thank you for your response to my request to improve our arrangements for arrival and collection, we very much appreciate your efforts to arrive early. Teachers have been asked to close their doors at 08:55 in order to begin the day and make best use of teaching time. If you are arriving after 08:55, please bring your children to the main entrance and our office team will sign children in as late.

I wish you all a restful weekend ahead and thank you for your support in all matters. 

Kind regards

Mark Oldfield

Headteacher

Inset and Academy days for the rest of the year (these are days when school staff are in training involved in other school oepration - children are not in school on these days):

• Friday 23rd May - Academy day
• Monday 21st July - Inset day
• Tuesday 22nd July - Inset day

Our annual Christmas Fair was a huge success! The weather did not stop us…Thanks to all the massive help from all the volunteers, all the generous donations, and everyone who took part, we are pleased to announce that the Christmas Fair raised an amazing £7,080 , which is £1,000 more than last year!!

Thank you very much to all again, these funds will make such a difference to the school and the children !

Disco - 28th February

Quiz Night - 9th May

We have some exciting events coming up in 2025, first up will be the kids disco on Friday 28th February and next up, something for the grownups! Quiz night will be Friday 9th May. Please save the dates!

Hi, I'm Evie, and I’m the After-School Club Manager at Christ Church. Here’s a look at some of the exciting things the children have been getting up to lately.

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Fun with Food
Last week the children made delicious chocolate truffles! We alternate each week between savoury and sweet recipes, and that one was extra sweet. The children had so much fun making the truffles—and even more fun getting messy in the process! This week they got into the festive spirit and got stuck into some mince pies.

Gymnastics
Recently we've been focusing on a range of skills, including rolls, headstands, balancing, and supporting each other in group activities. The children are showing great progress and amazing teamwork.

Sports Sessions
Sports are a big part of our weekly schedule. In football, the children have been practising team management, sorting their positions, and playing organised games. The sportsmanship within the group has massively improved since the start of the year.

One of the best parts of this week was seeing the children writing letters to Santa, which will be sent off to the North Pole at the end of the term! It’s been a joy seeing the children have so much fun and building on their skills week-by-week.

The Worship Council have been very busy preparing for Advent to share the meaning of the four themes with the school community both in worship times and also as part of their role in the forthcoming Christmas celebration in the Church.

They have been learning about the different coloured candles used in an Advent wreath and the symbolism behind them.The four candles of the Advent wreath specifically symbolise the Christian concepts of hope, peace, joy and love.

The Worship Council have been thinking about the impact of these values in their own lives and in the world today. They will be sharing their thoughts and ideas in the church. They will also be involved in setting up an Advent display and the Nativity scene for the school community to enjoy.

We blasted into this week with our learning all about amazing astronauts! We enjoyed learning how they live and work in Space and how they go about fundamental everyday activities like eating and going to the toilet!

Before we read the gorgeous book Field Trip to the Moon, by John Hare and Jeanne Willis, we looked at the illustrations and shared our super ideas about what we thought was happening in the story. We all really loved this book! We also thought of things we would take on our own mission and worked together to write a list using our sounds.

We loved learning about some famous astronauts and watched footage of them in space and on the moon! Wow!

There have been lots of space and astronaut inspired creative activities to do! Many of us enjoyed making a paper astronaut, creating a loose parts space picture and designing an astronaut’s space helmet!

In phonics we have been continuing to learn our sounds, this week it was the diagraphs sh, th, ng and nk and in maths we have been recognising and exploring the 4 sided shapes!

What a supersonic week! We hope you all have a great weekend!

Miss B, Mrs Petters, Mrs Castle and all the Reception team.

P.S. We have started to learn our songs for our Christmas performance and are beginning to get very excited!

This week, Year 1 have had a wonderful time exploring the story One Snowy Night by Nick Butterworth. In the story, we meet Percy the Park Keeper, who takes care of the animals in the park where he lives. One chilly winter’s evening, Percy finds some cold and shivering animals on his doorstep, and he must think of a way to help them. We've been learning how to retell the story, using actions to act it out and creating our own story maps to help us remember the details. Next week, we’ll use our story maps to help us write the story.

In addition to our storytelling adventures, Year 1 has been getting into the festive spirit! We’ve been singing and dancing as we prepare for our upcoming Christmas performance, and we can’t wait to share it with you all soon!

This week year 2 have been working hard on the Christmas production. We've been running through our lines, practising on the stage and learning eight songs! We can't wait for you to see the finished result. Alongside all of this we have been continuing our learning on shape and on Monday we sorted 2D shapes according to their properties. Then on Thursday we began our Design Technology project by investigating stability and how we could achieve this using different shapes to make stable bridges. 

During golden time Mrs Davidson held an art class, where she showed the children how to use oil pastels to draw foxes. 

From computing to writing newspapers, honing dividing skills to designing and printing beautiful tote bags, Year 3 have been on fire this week. They have shown so much maturity and hard work over all their subjects and have made picking star of the week almost impossible!

Well done year 3.

This week, Year 4 has been hard at work tackling their Geography key question: How and why is my local area changing? To dig deeper, they took on the exciting challenge of surveying the people of Clifton about their opinions on the derelict ice-rink site. Armed with thoughtful questions and plenty of courage, the children showed real confidence in approaching the public and gathering insights. Their bravery and curiosity have brought them closer to understanding the pulse of their community—great work, Year 4!

Viking Day was an incredible success, bringing Viking history to life with fun, hands-on activities for all! The day kicked off with a thrilling storytelling of the Viking attack on Lindisfarne and then the children took part in a carousel of activities: trying on authentic Viking clothing and jewellery and posing with replica weapons and helmets, shield formation games and archaeological digs. We then wrapped up the morning with an epic retelling of a Viking saga. In the afternoon, we played the Viking game of Kubb and bone dice and spent time deciphering Viking runestones. All in all, we had a fantastic day and we couldn't have done it without the support from parents and carers. Thank you for your contributions and for making a huge effort with costumes. 

This week, Year 5 and Year 6 joined together to step back in time for an immersive Viking Day! Dressed in Viking costumes, we explored fascinating Viking traditions with the help of Adam and Rick, who captivated us with incredible stories. Activities included rune-solving challenges, playing the traditional Viking game of Kubb, and working together in impressive shield formations. We also handled Viking artefacts and examined archaeology boxes, deepening our understanding of this intriguing era.

In Literacy, we channelled our creativity into writing detailed explanation texts on topics of our choice, proudly sharing these with a wider audience.

Furthermore, adding to the week’s excitement, we began rehearsing a Nativity song, which we will perform with our Reception buddies at the upcoming church service on the 19^th of December.

In PSHE, discussions turned to the essentials of a healthy lifestyle, covering balanced diets, proper oral hygiene, the value of rest, and the importance of staying active. It was another week of learning, teamwork, and fun!

Please come and join us at school for an SEND Coffee morning with Bristol Parent Careres.

Please fill in the google form if you would like to attend - coffee morning google form

On Wednesday morning, a group of 12 children headed off to take part in the 'Try It' Sports Festival - a competition designed for fun and teamwork. When the children arrived at the event, their eyes lit up as they saw the range of exciting activities that had been planned for the morning. Their first stop was bowls, where the children learned how to roll the balls as close to the jack as possible, and around the obstacles. Next up was volleyball, where the children had to work together to keep the balls in the air for as long as possible - lots of laughs were certainly had during this event! Next up we headed to the dance studio for a round of Boccia: a game which Miss Barsby will certainly now be purchasing for the whole school! And finally, we finished an already action-packed morning by working our way through the maze, aiming to retrieve objects without touching the wires. Well done to all of the children who took part - you were a joy to take.