Welcome to your newsletter for week ending October 25th

It has been a long half term and we've packed lots in... the summer seems like a very distant memory! We hope your children have completed the first half term feeling settled and positive about the year ahead. We will keep this bit of the newsletter short for today- read on to find out who received Values Champion Certificates, which class won the Attendance Armadillos this week, how much we raised at the Book Fair, a myhappymind update and a few other bits and pieces!

What's Coming Up

Values Champions!

Today the teachers presented the Values Champions Certificates to the following children for demonstrating Respect.

We're aware that we missed some names off the newsletter a couple of weeks ago, when children in KS1 had two Values Assemblies in one week- we're so sorry.

Huge congratulations to the children below...

Parents' Evenings... and the Book Fair!

Thankyou to all who attended a Parents' Evening Appointment- we hope you found them useful in knowing how your children have settled and what they are working on next. We know 10 minutes is often not enough time to talk in depth; please let us know if you have any outstanding questions or need any further information.

Also, thank you to all who supported the Scholastic Book Fair this week- we raised a fantastic £1000.40 in commission, which we can now spend with Scholastic to give our classroom book areas a revamp! Thankyou all so much.

Our next Parent Voice meeting is going to be held via Teams on Tuesday 19th November 6-7pm. It's another chance to ask questions, give feedback and pose ideas for working parties and other parent/ carer involvement in school life. If you are able to come along, please email Jogita via [email protected] so she can send you the link.

Dates for upcoming meetings (one per half term) are all on the website calendar here-htthttps://www.bournvillevillageprimary.org.uk/Page/Calendarps://www.bournvillevillageprimary.org.uk/Page/Calendar

It's Rocktober!

As Rocktober draws to a close, here are our final high scorers on TT Rock Stars this week. Well done everyone – keep practising! Coming up after half term – the England Rocks TTRS competition, and the return of Barvember…

3B – Phoebe (1,203)   3P – Adem (628)   3S – Luqmaan (2,159)

4BW – Jenna (515)   4C – Denis (520)   4EW – Jack (1,556)

5H – Ibrahim (2,128)   5LS – Paige (406)   5S – Alfie (572)

6M – Lilah (2,166)   6OG – Keelan (1,652)   6S – Ananya – Top of the Rocks in KS2! (2,260)

Children have now completed their first half-term of the myHappymind programme-‘Meet your Brain.’ A separate information newsletter will be sent out to all families from myhappymind, there is also a link below.

Happy Breathing has now become part of our daily school routine and it has been overwhelmingly positive. We have also had a positive number of families signing up to the myHappymind parent app- see below for more details. We really encourage you to use this free resource at home to support your child’s wellbeing and leaning in school, there is also advice and guidance on many areas that you may find useful such as separation anxiety.

Our myHappymind module for next half term is ‘Celebrate,’ this is all about building character strengths and increasing self-esteem.

We have attached some activities for you to enjoy with you children, we would love to see what you create over the half term break and if you would like to email in your photos they can be sent to [email protected]

Have a wonderful break and we look forward to welcoming you all back in November.

Enter Our Team H-A-Ppy Christmas Competition for a Chance to Win! 🎄🎁

Dear Parents and Carers,

We hope this email finds you well and that you and your family had a great first half-term!

With Christmas just around the corner, we’re excited to announce a VERY special Christmas competition—and we have an even more exciting prize up for grabs! 🎁 We’re giving away 5 limited edition sets of Character Strengths capes, and we’d love for you to participate to help us win a set!

How to Enter:

To enter our Team H-A-Ppy Christmas Competition, simply let us know how myHappymind has supported your family. It’s as easy as that!

🗓 Entries close on 25th November, and we’ll announce the winners on our social media pages starting on 2nd December! 😊

How to Get Involved:

All you need to do is click the button below and submit your feedback.

[Click Here to Enter]

We can’t wait to hear your stories and see your entries!

Good luck!

Autumn Leaves Challenge!

Make leaf people using different shapes of leaves
• A getting to know you craft session. There are so many crafts you can do with autumn leaves from
spiky hedgehogs to angry lions.
• Looking at the veins in the leaf. 1 leaf/person lots of …. friends, achievements, family etc all
branching off from that one person/leaf.
• Make a green to red anger scale. Choose leaves with varying colours. End with a brown crunchy
leaf that indicates that no one feels good.
• Make a leaf mandala, creating circles of autumn leaves.
• Cut star shapes out of leaves to make wishing wands.
• Make autumn leaf bunting to decorate your area.
• Get the children to use a big leaf template and label it a new leaf. They then write 5 things they
want to achieve in the new coming year. Brilliant for Year 6. They can then colour / decorate it. Great
thing to look back on in the summer term to see if they did achieve them or not.
• Discuss how trees change & grow. Life is full of changes, where one leaf drops off another will
grow. New opportunity. “This too shall pass”.
• Make a leaf animal, one to represent how they are feeling right now.
• Use words to describe how the leaves look, how they feel, how they smell and how they sound. –
use senses.
• Mindfulness through counting – count a pile of leaves, sort the pile of leaves by colour, shape, size.
• Go for a crunchy autumn leaf walk if you have woodland nearby and link this to mindfulness. What
can you hear? What can you see? What can you feel? What can you smell?
• Draw different shaped leaves by copying the real thing. Decorate using zentangle.
• Use as a transition tool. Discuss how things change.
• Make a family tree by choosing different leaves to represent different family members. Why have
they chosen that leaf for that person?
• Get a range of leaves and order them from smallest to biggest. Talk about scaling emotions. The
smallest leaf is the smallest feeling and the biggest leaf is the biggest feeling.
• Tearing up paper is therapeutic. Get some paper in the right colours and an outline of a leaf. Fill the
leaf with colour.
• Get some stick-on googly eyes and make leaf people out of different shaped leaves. Use a black
sharpie to draw facial features
• Make an autumn sensory bin with different leaves, acorns, pinecones or whatever else you can
find.
• Go for a walk and ask the pupils to collect their favourites. Give each child a laminating pouch to
place their leaves. Laminate and use as a lunchtime mat or a sun catcher.
• Leaf rubbings – sensory, therapeutic activity.
• Make an autumn leaf wreath for a child suffering a bereavement by using a paper plate. Write the
person’s name in the centre and stick leaves around the edge.
• Use a large leaf and hold in front of the child. Get them to practise breathing.
• If you have spinning jennies, then have fun throwing them up in the air and watching them spin
downwards. Warm up activity or mindfulness.
• Make a dream catcher using autumn leaves instead of feathers.
• With a big pile (and outside) jump in them, kick them about, throw up into air… to release tension,
angst etc.
• Raking up leaves to show how feelings can build then jumping on them all?
• Leaf lanterns of leaf sun catchers for mindfulness.
• Get several different coloured leaves and create a mindfulness rainbow.
• Each part could be a family member of friend and you could look at how you’re all coming from the
same place but make different prints on the world.
• Use hole punches crinkle edged scissors, or shape hole punches and make confetti, or
environmentally friendly ‘glitter’. Lots of chatting can be involved whilst the child is busy doing? Get
to know you activity, thread the leaves into string, ‘who are you making it for, tell me about them’.
• Similar to the laminating ideas – use a piece of card and cut it into the shape of a window frame.
Stick the leaves to the edges of the frame, leaving no holes, hold it up to the window and it’s like a
beautiful stained-glass window effect, especially if you can get reds, yellows, oranges and greens in
it.
• Use them to show children that by adding something (rubbing in hand cream, oil, Vaseline etc) to
something that is crispy, dry, sad looking and fallen down can help make it feel a lot better and soft
and shiny. In other words when you feel down and done then there is always something that will
make you feel better you just have to find out what that something is. They try rubbing in a few
things until they find the one that they think works the best

We are looking for volunteers that could come and help us out with keeping our library tidy and organised- if you love books (and organising!) and are able to give us a little of your time, we would love to hear from you- please get in touch via [email protected]

Choir News!

Our Year 5 and 6 choir is going well with our new Choir Leader Mrs Stidwill doing a fabulous job of teaching the children plenty of new songs. There are a few spaces still available for this (Monday's after school) so if your child is interested, please email [email protected] to let us know.

We have our first 'performance booked for our 5/6 Choir on the 8th December with the Choral Society at Ladywood Arc (St. Peter and St. John’s Church) as well as plans to visit the Memory Cafe, the Quadrangle (Bournville Almshouses). There are also plans for a tea party for elderly residents in our community.... so if you want to be part of all the excitement, please let us know!

Mrs Cooper's lunchtime 'singing group' for children in Years 3 and 4 starts after half term on a Tuesday from 12-12:30pm (with the support of Charlotte Barber, our pianist!). Please email [email protected] if your child would like to sign up! 

As we mentioned last week, we are already preparing for the next Young Voices event. This year we will be joining children from around the country on Friday 28th February.

To help our Year 5 and 6 Choir get as much practise in as possible, please use the link here to sign up to the YV Music Room and access all the music and further information.

Once we have sent out further details about the event and confirmed who is going, we will also sign parents up to the relevant section of the YV site, if they haven't already done so.

To read the latest newsletter from our Friends of Bournville park, click on the link here.

School dinners

We would like to remind all parents that you can pre-book your children's dinners on the Arbor app! This will help reduce the number of incorrect meal charges. You can select whether your child has school dinner (halal option available as well) or a packed lunch from home (This really helps us in the office when children select a different option). 

Instructions:

Once you opened your Arbor App go to Menu>> School Meals>> Select Autumn Term 2024/2025>> Select the chosen day of the week and confirm your child's meal choice>>

If you tick the box to "pick for all future dates" it will apply the same meal choice until the end of term e.g if you tick the box for a Monday meal, it will add it to all Monday's till the end of term. 

If you're having any difficulty with this, please contact the school office for assistance!

And finally...

We hope that next week gives you a few extra moments with family and friends- we're still around over half term so if there is anything you need, please don't hesitate to get in touch via [email protected]

Have a good week all and if you're celebrating, have a very happy Diwali!

Safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children is the responsibility of everyone in our school and at all times we consider what is in our children’s best interests. We work to ensure our children are safe and cared for and by doing this we are protecting their health and development and preventing them from harm. If we are worried, we will raise concerns, share information, and take prompt action with the aim of ensuring families receive the right help at the right time.

Going On In Your Area