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