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Avalon Times
Avalon School Newsletter / Spring 2015
WORLD BOOK DAY
A wonderful day of book
themed
activities
was
thoroughly enjoyed by all the
children. the costumes were
fantastic.
Page 6
TABLE TENNIS
SUCCESS
A Twist in Time
Well done to all the girls who
took part in the MSTTA table
tennis tournament—we now
have a Merseyside champion!
M and M Theatre delighted
the children with a wonderful
performance
of
an
adaptation of “Tom’s Midnight
Garden”.
Page 13
Page 15
Message from
Mr Ashton
By Mr Ashton
Acng Headteacher
It has, without doubt, been a breathless spring term. From the visit to the Walker Art Gallery, the Year 6
BikeRight course, the RNLI day, Comic Relief, the ISA swimming gala, the Big School Birdwatch and World
Book Day to name but a few events, the children have enjoyed some wonderful opportunities this half term.
This newsletter will help you relive some of these events and highlight the different things that the spring
term has brought us and as we move into the warmer months, there is much more to come. The summer
term will see the Years 4 and 6 residentials who are going to Delamere Forest and Lockerbrook in Derbyshire
respectively. There is the eagerly anticipated “Aladdin Jr” in May, the Strawberry Tea, the May ball and many
more, all culminating in the “Celebration Night” at the end of the year. More details will be coming home
about our plans for this end of year celebration in the summer term.
In and amongst all these exciting activities, is, of course, some academic work! it has been a real delight this
term as Acting Headteacher to give out so many certificates and awards for all the fantastic things that our
children have done.
Please do enjoy looking through this newsletter and
hopefully it gives you a little insight into what the
children get up to in their school lives.
Mrs Keenan and the children are very excited and are
looking forward to performing on the two evenings and
tickets are on sale in the school office. If you require any
additional tickets or have not ordered yours yet, please
see the office. As you know, we have decided to make a
small charge for tickets this year to cover the costs of
staging the performances, chiefly the purchase of the
performing rights licence from Disney and the hire of the
radio microphones so our children can be heard more
clearly. Please also note that school will be providing a
bar for parents both before the show and during the
interval. I hope that you will be able to join us for what
will hopefully be a fantastic addition to our school
calendar.
Tickets are selling fast but there are still a few seats left
RugbyTots!
RugbyTots!
Delancey
Chess Competition
By Mr Ashton
By Mrs Ryan
Acng Headteacher
We were delighted to welcome the coaches from
RugbyTots to school to run out very successful a4er
school club for the infants. Rugbytots is the first of
its kind; a specifically designed play programme
using the mulple skills of Rugby to create a fun and
enjoyable environment whilst developing basic core
motor skills.
The children in the chess club finished the Delancey
UK Schools' Chess Challenge recently. The results
were:
1st place William Bowyer - year 5
2nd place Calum Kilpatrick - year 5
3rd place Spencer Fleming - year 6
We had 20 junior children taking
part overall and the Chess Challenge
lasted 8 weeks. All the children took part with
enthusiasm and good sportsmanship. Several of the
higher scoring players have qualified to go to
the regional Megafinal, to be held in Manchester in
May, if they want to. Le.ers with full details were
given to the qualifiers this week. If any parents want
more informaon about what to expect at the
Megafinal please speak see me.
Solar Eclipse
By Mr Ashton
Acng Headteacher
Like many children up and down the country the
enre school went out onto the playground to
experience the full solar eclipse. The children were
using
pinhole
cameras
and
reflecve
surfaces to see
what was a very
excing
experience. The
birds
stopped
tweeng and it
went very dark
and cold for
about
20
minutes!
Comic Relief 2015
By By
MrMr
Lloyd
Ashton
Headmaster
Acng Headteacher
On Friday 13th March, all the
children attended a special
Red Nose Day assembly
where we discussed
what Comic Relief
was all about and
where the money
we raise goes to.
The children then
had the opportunity
to watch the official
Red Nose Day film.
The children had
paid £2 each to
come to school
dressed in red for
the day.
With the help of Mrs
Keenan and the
Comic
Relief
website, the entire school
sang Red Nose Day song
“Making Funny Faces” that
they had been learning in
music.
It was then time for the “Make
the Whole School Laugh” joke
telling competition! Any
children that volunteered,
told a joke to the whole
school to try and make them
laugh. We had a judging
panel of Mr Lloyd and two
pupils. There were prizes for
the winners and runners up
from the infants and the
juniors.
This was followed by a cake
sale with lots and lots of cakes
kindly donated by parents.
Thank you to Mrs Bartle and
Mrs Gould who arranged face
painting where the children
had their faces painted one of
the nine red noses designs.
Staff
had
the
official
sweepstake
red
nose
competition in the staff room.
Parents and children also
attended the end of day cake
sale, buying up all the left over
cakes!
All in all we had lots of fun
and
raise
a
massive
£687.83
cause.
for a very good
RNLI Day
By By
MrMr
Lloyd
Ashton
Headmaster
Acng Headteacher
What a fantastic day we had when everyone who came to
school dressed up and donated £2 to the RNLI. We raised
an amazing £232.35 – well done everyone! Their
education manager came in to school to work with each
of the classes, talking about how to stay safe around
water. The West Kirby lifeboat crew also brought their
lifeboat to the school for the children to look at during the
day. It was a really worthwhile day and we were delighted
to support such an important and local charity.
Fun Food Chef
By By
MrMr
Lloyd
Ashton
Headmaster
Acng Headteacher
The PTA kindly paid for the “Fun Food Chef” to come in to
school to work with the children. Over two days, he
worked with all the classes from Reception to Year 6,
cooking Chinese food, a traditional English roast and a
fantastic Roman feast. The children had the opportunity
to try lots of new foods such as mussels, lychees and
homemade ginger beer. It was a thoroughly worthwhile 2
days and thanks must go to the PTA for making it all
possible.
Hoylake Lifeboat
By
Lloyd
ByMr
Mrs
Brew
Headmaster
Year 3 Teacher
The year 3 children enjoyed a fantasc morning out at
the Hoylake Lifeboat staon and had a tour of the new
Shannon class lifeboat. They had a tour of the staon
with the engineer and found out about the history of
lifesaving at Hoylake. Founded in 1803, Hoylake
Lifeboat Staon is one of the oldest RNLI staons in
the UK. The community in Hoylake has provided
volunteer crews for over 200 years, a tradion that
connues today with generaons of local people
prepared to risk their lives to save others at sea.
The lifeboat at Hoylake covers the approaches to
Liverpool, the Dee Estuary and the Irish Sea and
launches at all states of de in any weather to people
and vessels in distress and became operaonal on 9th
December 2014.
Wirral Speech
And Drama festival
By Miss Co%er
Speech and Drama teacher
Children from the Avalon school competed in the
Wirral Speech and Drama Fesval, held at
Birkenhead School Academy on Saturday 14th March
2015.
The Wirral fesval is a speech and drama
compeon affiliated to the Brish and
Internaonal Federaon of Fesvals for Music,
Dance and Speech. The children who entered the
fesval from Avalon School had been working hard
selecng and preparing verse speaking and prose
reading pieces of literature to enter into the
fesval. Not only was this fun for the children, it
encouraged and introduced the children to enjoy
new literature as well as teaching the children good
technique and skills for public speaking. The
children’s hard work paid off with fantasc
results. The results were as follows:
Freddie Steepe
verse speaking
1st place
Emma Ryan
prose reading
3rd place
Emma Ryan
verse speaking
2nd place
Isabella Hacke.
verse speaking
2nd place
Harriet Brown
verse speaking
3rd place
Nikki Khalatbari
prose reading
2nd place
The children performed their prepared pieces in
front of a large audience, with adjudicaon at the
end of the class. The classes were large with an
average of 28 children in a class. The Avalon pupil’s
performances were all excellent; they are all a credit
to both the school and themselves. Congratulaons
to everyone who entered.
By Mr Ashton
Acng Headteacher
World Book Day was a fantastic success. The children looked amazing in their costumes and really entered
into the spirit of the day. In the morning, Mrs Brew led an assembly during which each class gave a short
performance based on who they were dressed as. We enjoyed listening to the Reception children who recited
nursery rhymes, watching the dancing princesses in Year 1, the “Unbirthday Song” from Alice in Wonderland
from Year 2, a fantastic pirate performance from Year 3, a presentation about Roald Dahl and a Charlotte’s
Web play from years 4 and 5 respectively all the way up to the Y6 presentation of how we, in the western
world are lucky to have so many books, contrasted against children around the world who are not as
fortunate as us. We then had some lovely shared reading where the older children took a book and read it to
the younger members of the school.
The day concluded with a “Giant Book Swap” – thank you very much to all the children and parents who sent
in their books. Thanks must go to the staff for all their efforts on this day, especially Mrs Brew who
coordinated the day and to Jane Kilpatrick for her wonderful photography. If you have not seen the pictures,
they are on the front page of our website www.avalon-school.co.uk
Year 6
BikeRight!
Big School
Birdwatch
By Mrs Kililiku
By Mrs Ham
Year 6 Teacher
Science Specialist
In January, instructors from “BikeRight!” in Liverpool
came to work with our Year 6 children for two days of
instruction about how to ride their bikes safely. The
course began on the playground with the basics of
bike maintenance and the importance of making sure
your bike is roadworthy. Some important safety
lessons followed where the children discussed road
hazards and the importance of understanding key
points of the highway code.
They covered safe speed, awareness of other road
users and a whole range of different topics. The
instructors showed them how to enter and leave
junctions safely and signalling.
It was a very worthwhile two days and the children
thoroughly enjoyed it.
In late January,
we organized
for the children
to take part in
the annual Big
School
Birdwatch. With
a little help
from a few
teachers,
we
served
breakfast whilst
the
children
used binoculars
to count all the
birds that they could spot from the windows in the
science room. In the end, the results were sent off to
the RSPB to help with their national count!
The PTA
May Ball
Saturday 16 May
The Avalon PTA cordially invites parents and guests to
dance the night away at the annual May Ball at Caldy
Golf Club. Tickets to this black tie event are £45 per
person which includes dinner by Pickled Walnut and
live music by “Entourage”. Please support the event
by reserving your ticket/s or table (tables of 8 & 10
available) by contacting the PTA Secretary on
07887556055 or by email to: [email protected] ,
All cheques made payable to Avalon School PTA
Football and Netball Tournaments
Sport
By Mrs Brew, Mrs Kililiku
And Mr Ashton
The Year 6 girls spent Thursday afternoon, 12th March, at Leasowe recreation centre representing Avalon at
the Prenton netball tournament. Despite not playing together as a team before, they worked hard and played
extremely well and narrowly missed out on a medal position. I was so proud of their effort and welcomed the
parental support from the balcony, as I’m sure the girls did too. Well done girls! - Mrs Brew
On the 19th March, the boys went to the Prenton football tournament at the Bebington Oval. Despite narrowly
losing the first game 2—1, the boys went on to win the next two games 6—0 and 3—0. Unfortunately, they lost
their last game against the eventual runners up which meant that we missed out on the finals. The boys played
very well and with a good team spirit throughout. Thank you very much to the parents for coming to watch and
to Neil Mellor for preparing the boys so well.—Mr Ashton
Building on their experience of the previous week, the Year 6 girls visited Birkenhead School to play some more
matches. They again played with skill, confidence and commitment to win two of their three matches. It was a
pleasure to witness their team support and their polite manner to all they encountered. Again, many thanks to
all our supportive parents.—Mrs Kililiku
Independent Schools Swimming Gala
By Mr Ashton
Acng Headteacher
Well done to our three children who went down to London to take
part in the Independent Schools Swimming gala at the Olympic
Pool in London. All three of the children were absolutely fantastic
and we are delighted to announce that Freya Entwistle (Y5) came
3rd as part of the Year 5 girls relay team, Lehna Davies (Y5) swam
an incredible personal best and came 4th in the individual
backstroke, and Calum
Kilpatrick (Y5) came 1st
as part of the Year 5 boys
relay team. We are
immensely proud of you
all – well done!
A Twist in Time
Performing
Arts
By Mr Ashton
Acng Headteacher
March 10 saw the return of the M and M Theatre with their new production of “A Twist in Time” which was an
adaptation of “Tom’s Midnight Garden”. The actors really worked hard to bring the story to life with wonderful
acting, songs and dancing. The afternoon was completed with a “behind the scenes” workshop for the Years 5
and 6 children who learnt all about the technical aspects of the production including the use of lighting, special
effects and scene changes.
EYFS Easter Sing along
By Mrs Prandle and Mrs Parkins
Nursery children enjoyed welcoming their Mums for a stay and
play session for Mothers Day.
Children in nursery and reception have worked hard learning
songs for the Easter performance, which was a great success
and they made some beautiful Easter bonnets, Well done to
you all.
The younger children in the nursery made
fantastic Easter bonnets and then proudly wore them around the school.