Monday April 23rd 2012

As we start another week at Copthorne the diary is full of so many, varied activities which help to support our children's learning and development and strengthen further our links with the community. This week, however, is also as sad one for our school as it is Mrs Strubing's last full week with us as, on Monday 3oth, she will be retiring from teaching after nearly 20 years with us.


Goodbye Mrs Strubing
Mrs Strubing began teaching at Copthorne in January 1996: 16 years ago! During her time with us Mrs Strubing has taught in 1 Ash, Reception, 3 Larch and, most recently, 4 Poplar. Very soon after joining us she became known by the pupils as a kind, caring teacher who valued every individual in her class and would always do her best to give her pupils interesting and exciting experiences.
Mrs Strubing has decided to take early retirement in order to spend more time with her daughters and grandchildren though we do hope that she manages to find some relaxation time for herself.
She will be very much missed by all Copthorne's children and staff but we hope she takes this opportunity to enjoy a much deserved rest. We wish you good luck for the future and hope that you will come back to visit us as often as possible.

Copthorne's Chicks
Spring has well and truly arrived here at Copthorne: all of our eggs have successfully hatched and our 9 chicks are cheeping away constantly. We all arrived at school last Wednesday morning to find that in addition to Charlie, who hatched late Tuesday afternoon, 8 more chicks had hatched during the night. 9 fluffy chicks and their eggs shells all crammed into the small incubator caused quite a commotion when we first saw them.
As soon as we arrived at school the chicks were transferred into their much larger home, which has a lamp to keep them snug and warm, where they were able to sleep and have their first taste of seeds and grain. They have had a constant stream of children coming to see them and help to care for them since their arrival.
Nearly one week on and it is amazing to see the change in them. They have all developed their own personalities and are now beginning to lose their down and grow real feathers. The staff and children have named the chicks as follows:


Charlie, Lola, Spike, Fluffy, Scruffy, Rosie, Violet, Betty and Zahra

Charlie hatching from his egg

Nearly there!

Charlie's out

All safe, sound and sleepy.

Lola - 5  days old

Violet - 5 days old

Charlie - 5 days old

Spike, Violet and Lola - 5 days old

Fluffy - 5 days old

A sleepy pile today!

We will be watching our chicks grow for at least one more week before they are sent off to their new homes in the countryside from where we'll be kept informed of their progress and supplied with the first egg that each one lays.                                                                                                                       

Ladies' Shopping Trip

This Saturday, 28th April, 72 mums', daughters, friends and members of staff from the Copthorne community will set off for a day of shopping in Birmingham. The day promises to be great fun and, I am told, there will be singing and dancing on the coach. Birmingham beware!

This event has been organised by our Home/School Liaison officer along with the Cothorne Association at the request of our families and the local community and is a lovely way of bringing the school and community together. I hope everyone has been saving up and that there's enough room in the coach for all the new clothes and, of course, shoes!

Nursery Farm Visit

On Thursday, the first of Nursery's trips to St Leonard's Farm will take place. The children, staff and parents/carers will spend the whole day there looking at all the animals. This promises to be lots of fun whilst supporting Nursery's theme of of farm animals and their core story 'The Little Red Hen'. I am sure that they will have a fabulous time and we look forward to hearing all about it when they return to school on Friday.

Supporting and developing future teachers

One of the many things we are proud of at Copthorne is our work with local teacher training colleges and universities. We take our responsibility to help develop the teachers of tomorrow and, therefore, provide a significant number of initial teacher training placements each year. In addition, this week, we welcome 15 student teachers from Bradford College.

The students will be observing teaching in Reception classes and getting to know the children focusing particularly on how their language develops. Then, in 4 weeks time, they will return to read stories to the children and observe the teaching further.

Another busy week at Copthorne!

I hope it's a good one for you too.

Mrs Shepherd

Tuesday 17th April 2012

Hello everyone and welcome back after what I hope has been a relaxing holiday.

As usual, though, it is lovely to return to school, to see our children again and hear about how everyone spent their holidays.
Once again the holiday gave me the opportunity to spend time with my husband and our two girls and to visit family and friends. I did try to limit my chocolate intake but it was difficult as the girls received so many Easter Eggs which, of course, they really needed my help to eat!

This term looks set to be another busy and exciting one for Copthorne with lots of visits, a Diamond Jubilee  celebration and some wonderful Creative Curriculum themes planned...not to mention the Year 2 and 6 SAT tests to look forward to.

Miss Akhtar
This week we give a big Cothorne welcome to our new teacher: Miss S Akhtar. Miss Akhtar will be 4 Poplar's class teacher for the rest of the academic year replacing Mrs Strubing who, sadly, will be retiring from teaching on April 30th: more about this in next week's blog!
Hatch It!
Yesterday saw the arrival of 9 hens' eggs and their incubator.The eggs come from a farm near York and are from a range of breeds so, like last year, are a selection of different colours including white, brown and blue. Likewise, the chicks will all look very different when they hatch- though we aren't expecting any blue ones!  We will be able to keep the chicks for about 2 weeks once they hatch then they will go to a very good home from where we will be kept regularly informed of their progress.
At the start of school today we could see that one of our chicks was starting to peck its way through its shell and, at 4pm our first chick - Charlie - was born. He/she looks very scrawny at the moment and will stay in the incubator until tomorrow by which time he/she will have dried out and be a lot fluffier. We managed to film the stages of Charlie's hatching throughout the day so we will post this on our website as soon as it has been edited.
 By the look of some of the tiny cracks appearing in the eggs at the end of school today I think that we may have more than just Charlie to see in the morning.

The new build
It's great to see how much our extension has progressed over Easter. Our new hall is almost ready and is going to be huge. The new floor looks great and has been specially designed for PE lessons. There will be special dividing doors down the centre so that we will be able to have 2 different activities going on at once.

Sustainable Schools
Our new extension includes solar panels. This means that we will be able to harness the energy from the sun to produce some of our own power. This will help us to protect the environment as we will not need to use as much electricity and, as a result produce less greenhouse gases. The use of solar power will also help us to protect the Earth's non-renewable resources such as coal and oil which are in danger of running out.
One of the specifications for our new building was that it be fitted with double glazed windows - these keep the heat in so, again, will help to protect the environment by reducing the energy we use to heat the school - this will save us money too.

The Great Pet Sale!
This term our Reception classes are learning about pets: the different types and how to look after them. A lot of the work that the children do will be based on the wonderful book: The Great Pet sale. With this in mind, children will be having the opportunity to meet some real pets and the pets theme will be represented in all areas of learning. For example, Reception staff have created a wonderful 'pet shop' where children can 'shop' for pets and pet supplies and so develop their maths and speaking and listening skills.
At Copthorne, we realise how important it is  that we provide children with really rich learning experiences. With this in mind we are introducing some classroom pets beginning with Reception where we now have two, very active hamsters: Fudge and Snowy. The children love to watch our two furry friends whizz about in their hamster balls and are gradually getting used to touching and holding the animals - always closely supervised of course. Some of our families have also kindly agreed to take the hamsters home for the weekend to help look after them. Thank you.

Have a great week.

Mrs Shepherd