Shropshire will again be running the government’s Holiday Activities and Food Programme during the Easter holidays. Children in receipt of Free School Meals can access these activities for free by using the unique code for our school which has been e-mailed to them today.
Other children are also welcome to join many of the sessions for a small fee and you will find further information in the HAF Spring 2023 booklet below.

HAF Spring 2023 What’s On_web

We would like to thank all the parents, grandparents, sisters, uncles, aunts and family members who joined us this afternoon for World Book Day!  We have had a wonderful day full of reading and stories, as well as book-based activities.  The highlight was this afternoon when families joined us for a BIG read…

We also shared a presentation about World Book Day and their mission to promote reading for pleasure, offering every child and young person the opportunity to have a book of their own. We also shared the fact that reading for pleasure is the single biggest indicator of a child’s future success.

World Book Day Presentation

IMPORTANCE OF READING

What’s your favourite children’s picture book?  

Don’t forget to join us on Thursday at 2pm, along with your favourite picture book, as all parents are welcome to join their child to enjoy sharing your favourite story together in the classroom.

You can then join us at 2.30pm for a special World Book Day Assembly in the school hall!

We are really sorry to see Mrs Morris leave us today!  She has been a brilliant teacher of the Fireflies on Fridays and has added so much as part of the Brown Clee Team.  We would like to wish her all the best in the future and say a massive THANK YOU for all she has done to teach, nurture and care for the children in the Fireflies.

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After half term, Mrs Fox will be teaching the Fireflies for a few weeks until our new Fireflies Friday, Mrs Lister, starts – and we look forwards to welcoming Mrs Lister to our team!

The Parenting Team at Shropshire Council will be running a Working on your Relationship courses starting in March which runs for 4 weeks. This workshop looks at relationships, their dynamics, impacts and how we can improve them. For more details please see the attached poster.

Working on your relationship

We believe that every day is World Book Day as reading is the key to future success – but celebrating Books on Thursday 2nd March is one way to ensure we promote the importance and love of reading.  So the staff and children have planned a day full of activities and we also want parents to be involved too!.

The day will be one that is filled with READING – lots of it and lots of talking about books and stories.  There will be Buddy Reading, writing about books, competitions and a special assembly in the afternoon where parents are invited to join us to hear some children reading excerpts from their favourite books, hear about the activities of the day and share some of our favourite stories.  The Assembly will be at 2.30pm in the school hall, but before that we also want to invite parents to join their child/children in class by bringing in their own favourite picture book and share it with their child in school.  So if you wish to join your child on World Book Day, come along at 2pm with your favourite picture book and enjoy sharing it with your child!

We are also inviting children to create a craft character from one of their favourite books and bring it in from home – in the past we have had vegetable characters, but this year we are opening it up to being any sort of craftwork – children can be as creative and inventive as they wish – as long as they can be carried into school!  They will be on display in the hall so everyone can see them in the assembly.

We would also like to continue to support Birmingham Children’s Hospital as they are doing such a fantastic job of treating and supporting Jake and his family – so if children wish to wear their own clothes, or dress up as their favourite story character, or wear blue for Jake they can do – as long as they make a small donation to charity.

This week in assemblies we have been talking about books!  We have shared some of our favourites and enjoyed listening to a different story each day.  Here is the list of some of our favourite books – which we thoroughly recommend you share!  The children were fantastic at giving us all their reviews and reasons for why we should read them.

Please see the poster below with information about the Brown Clee Care and Share Pantry which is a partnership between Brown Clee Patients Group, Oak Farm/Bethphage and Bridgnorth Food Bank. This is where you can make donations, if you are able, of packaged, bottled, dried or canned foods and also toiletries or alternatively if you need their help The Pantry will be inside the entrance to Oak Farm (see the poster for opening days and times).

Brown Clee Care & Share Pantry

We are boxing and and posting the pants for Karibuni Children at the end of this week, as Joy Murphy, our friendly Trustee is heading out to Kenya on the 12th February and will be hand delivering them to the children at the Wesley Empowerment Centre.

So far we have collected 155 pairs of pants for the children but it would be great to be able to increase the amount.

We are also going to be sending some pictures and messages as we have a link with the Social Worker who works directly with the project so that we can really strengthen the link – so if children wished to send cards, pictures or messages they are more than welcome to do so!

Reading for pleasure is the single biggest indicator of a child’s future success – more than their family circumstances, their parents’ educational background or their income.

We love books and we massively value the importance of teaching children to read, which we do through the daily teaching of phonics, daily whole class reading sessions, story-telling sessions, buddy-reading and generally immersing children in books to hopefully embed a love of reading.

But we NEED your help!  Nationally, not enough children are reading at home (with or without a parent) and without this extra reading practice we are unintentionally limiting their long-term opportunities.  We fully appreciate how busy parents and families are, which is why the only homework we ask of children is daily reading, along with some practice of their spellings and number facts.

World Book Day is on the 2nd March this year, and we will be celebrating it with the focus being very much on books, stories and the love (and importance) of reading – watch this space for further information, especially as we will also be inviting you to join us in the afternoon!

Both videos are slightly dated – but the message isn’t: Reading is a vital skill that is needed throughout life and opens up doors and opportunities.

We have been given 4 Guest Passes for a free trial lesson with Shushokan Karate at Teme Leisure, Ludlow on a Monday evening from 6.15pm to 7.00pm. If you would like one of these, please call by the school office where they are being kept. Pre-booking is essential. The poster below gives more information including contact details.

Ludlow Karate Lessons

We were delighted with a surprise visit from our Firefly Jake today! He wanted to pop in and see his classmates before heading back to Birmingham Children’s Hospital for more treatment, and we were all thrilled to see him!

It was lovely to share our news with Jake and see him smile, and tell him how much we are missing him! We told him what a hero he is!

All our best wishes for the next round of treatment!

We are delighted to welcome everyone back at the start of the new term, and a particularly special welcome to our new pupil, Beatrice, who has joined the Fireflies.

We are also delighted to announce that the new classroom is now in use, and the Grasshoppers are enjoying being in a much better sized room for their learning!

This has also meant that the Bees are in their new permanent classroom and the Fireflies have use of both their main classroom and The Pod – so all is back to normal!

We have some sad news, that Mrs Michelle Morris, our Friday Firefly Teacher will be leaving us at the end of this half term – but we will be recruiting and will keep you informed throughout the process.

We are missing one of our team, Jake from Fireflies, as he is currently receiving treatment for lymphoma at Birmingham Children’s Hospital. We are all wishing him well and sending our wishes and prayers for a strong recovery along with our warmest thoughts to his family.

We wanted to say a massive thank you to everyone for supporting our Nativities, ‘Wear Something Christmassy Day’ and ‘Wear Something Blue Day (Jake’s favourite colour is blue!) – because all donations and ticket sales have raised the fantastic sum of £649 which is going to Birmingham Children’s Hospital Charity.

Thank you!