Welcome to St. Marks
St. Mark’s CE
VA First School
Bell Street, Swanage, Dorset, BH19 2SA
Tel: 01929 422949 Fax: 01929 425504
E.mail: office@stmarksswanage.dorset.sch.uk
PLEASE
SCROLL DOWN TO SEE OUR LATEST NEWS AND
INFORMATION!
THE
QUEEN’S JUBILEE
St. Mark’s CE VA First
School will be holding their celebrations on Friday 1st
June
All the children are invited to come to school dressed in
Red, White and Blue.
They will take part in fun activities throughout the day in
their classes.
The day will end with a street party in the playground
where the ‘Friends of St. Mark’s’ will provide the children
with some party food and a drink.
ST. MARK’S BEACH CLEAN
On Saturday 12th May we held our second Beach Clean in
Swanage.
This year we invited all our local schools to join us and
we had representatives from Swanage Middle School, St.
George's CE VA First School, St. Mary's RC First School and
Swanage First School.
Over 100 hundred children and adults turned out to support
our Eco-schools campaign, to support our local community
and make sure our beach in Swanage is kept clean.
The Friend's of St. Mark's used two beach huts to sell
cakes, tea, coffee, juice and crisps.
We were also supported by Dorset Wildlife Trust who talked
to all the children about how important their work was and
how it protected lots of sealife.
The morning ended with four members of staff from
Chatsworth House playing games with the children on the
beach.
A BIG THANK YOU TO EVERYONE WHO CAME TO HELP!
Click on
the photo below to see more.
NEWSFLASH!!!
The Eco-Committee at St.
Mark's CE VA First School were over the moon today when
their 'Green Flag' arrived.
The letter confirmed that the assessment that had taken
place on Friday 20th April had been successful and Angela
Tibke from Eco-Schools, Keep Britain Tidy wrote "I would
like to congratulate you all for all the time and effort
that has been invested in environmental education at your
school. Your award is well desrved and reflects the hard
work you have put into the programme so far."
Some schools are given suggestions which may help their
future Eco-Schools work but on this occasion the assessor
wrote" No suggestions this time!"
Mrs Helen Armstrong, Headteacher, said "It is down to the
hard work of all the children and staff in our school, with
the support of our parents as well. We are continually
striving to improve environmental education at St. Mark's
and our next project is a 'Community Beach Clean’ on
Saturday May 12th 10-12noon on Swanage Beach. We have
invited other local schools and their parents to help make
this event a great success."
Mrs Armstrong was very proud of the comments from the
assessor, Tom who stated" Well done to st. Mark's School!
The school has an extremely active Eco-club which meets
once a week. It is very popular which reflects the creative
and fun activities being undertaken. There is also very
extensive display material across the school which was very
engaging. Even in the outside areas there were recycled
plastic birdfeeders and planters all around the school
field. Please keep up the hard work!"
GREEN FLAG AWARD
On Friday 20th
March after an assessment we were awarded the Eco Schools
Green Flag Award. Check out the photo’s with the Assessor.
INTERNATIONAL CURRICULUM
As
part of our International curriculum work we invited some
more visitors from Harrow House International
College! At present we have the Intermediate
International award and are hoping to gain the full
international award this year! The award is from the
British Council and is given to schools who include many
aspects of global learning throughout the school and
curriculum. We have French lessons in key stage 2, we
have international days and we have many cross curricular
multi cultural learning opportunities throughout the
school. We feel that this is very important for our
children to open doors for their learning and inspire them.
The children welcomed 12 students from Thailand who joined
in with afternoon lessons in each class. They worked
with our pupils to create some artwork displays for the
school hall and for Purbeck Arts Week on the theme of
Carnival of the Animals. Have a look at the photos by
clicking on the one below and come and see the displays in
school!
RADIO SOLENT
We took part in the Radio Solent's weather watch. The radio
sent us a thermometer which we put up outside and then they
rang us one morning at 8.30am. Rowan told the the
temperature in Degrees celcius and Lewis in degrees
Fahrenheit. They both gave a weather word of the day.
GIRLS FOOTBALL
On 23rd
February, the girls football team had a return match
against St. Mary’s girls. After a 0-0 draw earlier in the
year we were 2-0 winners. Both goals were scored by Armani
Gauntlett. All girls played so well. Mrs. Jeanes was very
proud. Well done!
SPORT RELIEF
We all ran a
mile for Sport Relief. Click on the photo to see us in
action!
CHANGE OF SCHOOL DAY
With our change of status to
a Primary School from September 2012 we have had to look at
how we accommodate the extra teaching time required for
children in Years 5 & 6 of Key Stage 2. Children
in Key Stage 1 are required to have 21 hours per week
excluding lunch; break times and collective worship and Key
Stage 2 require 23.5 hours.
From September 2012 the time of the school day will be
extended to 3.15pm as follows:
Key Stage 1 Key Stage 2
8.50 - 9.00 Registration 8.50 - 9.00 Registration
9.00 - 10.15 Lesson 1 9.00 - 10.15 Lesson 1
10.15 - 10.30 Collective Worship 10.15 - 10.30 Collective
Worship
10.30 - 10.45 Play time 10.30 - 10.45 Play time
10.45 – 12.00 Lesson 2 10.45 – 12.00 Lesson 2
12.00 – 1.00 Lunch 12.00 – 1.00 Lunch
1.00 – 2.00 Lesson 3 1.00 – 2.00 Lesson 3
2.00 – 2.15 Play time
2.15 – 3.15 Lesson 4 2.00 – 3.15 Lesson 4
3.15 Finish 3.15 Finish
Class Re-organisation
For the academic year September 2012 to July 2013 the
classes will be arranged as shown below.
Duckpond – Rec/Year One – Mrs Dunesby
The children whose birthday is between 01.03.07 to 31.08.08
Kingfishers – Year One/Year Two – Mrs Jeanes (Deputy Head)
The children whose birthday is between 01.09.05 to 28.02.07
Seagulls – Year Three/Year Four – Mrs Parish
The children whose birthday is between 07.12.03 to 31.08.05
Robins – Year Four/Year Five – Miss Dowling
The children whose birthday is between 01.09.02 to 06.12.03
We are holding a ‘Drop-in’ session on Wednesday 25h April
from 2.30p.m.in the Starling Base if you wish to talk about
these changes with Mrs. Armstrong and Governors. If you are
unable to come along and would like to discuss these
changes please call into the school office to make an
appointment to see Mrs. Armstrong or a governor.
Yours sincerely,
Marion Marchant
Chair of Governors
BEACH CLEAN
Come along and
help St. Mark’s make a difference and help to look after
our local beach on:
12th May 2012 10-12.30
Meet at the Tourist Information Centre.
Don’t forget to wear sensible clothing and footwear!
All families welcome but all children must be accompanied
by an adult at all times.
Other activities include:
Mary Dwen – Fossil Collector
Steve Hooper – Driftwood Art
Jan Dutton – Waste Display
St. Mark’s - Mr and Mrs MorEco
OLYMPIC TORCH!
St. Mark’s CE VA First School are
pleased to announce that after nominating Mrs Marion
Marchant (Chair of Governors) she has been chosen to
carry the torch through Puddletown on July 12th 2012.
We are all very proud of her!!!
OFSTED UPDATE
We have received
a letter from Ofsted regarding an inspection which is due
this academic year. Please click here to read it.
WORLD BOOK DAY
Here are Year 3
relaxed and enjoying listening to Miss Albury’s favourite
story.
SCHOOL
FUNDS
Through
the Schoolfunds website we have been able to order a
camcorder, Nintendo WII and an extra WII remote for school.
This site has many companies which you can order from and
is very simple to use.
Go to Google and then put in Schoofunds
Find school – South West – Swanage St. Mark’s Church of
England First School
There are a list of companies i.e. Amazon, Argos, Tesco,
Ebay and many more
Just click on the company and do your ordering in the usual
way
Points will be added to our school and we will be able to
order more equipment for the
children.
SCHOOL LIBRARY
The school
library will be open from 8.30 to 8.50 a.m. on Tuesday
mornings.
Please come in the main entrance at Bell Street.
Parents can look at and choose books with their children.
Please remember teachers and TAs prepare work in the
classroom until 8.50 a.m. so parents are still responsible
for their children until this time.
PANCAKE DAY
The Friend’s of
St. Mark’s organised a pancake sale after school on Shrove
Tuesday and did all of the cooking. They were very tasty.
PARALYMPICS
We have borrowed some
Paralympics equipment form the Victoria school. The
children will be able to experience seated volleyball,
wheelchair curling, Boccia and skittles. Some of the
children will then be able to take part in a mini
tournament of these sports next half term against the other
Swanage First SchoolsThe Boccia has been fun, but the
children have seen how difficult it is sitting on a chair
and not being able to bend down to aim the ball.
CHINESE NEW YEAR
Thank you Duck
Pond children for telling us the story of the Chinese New
Year in Assembly
We liked watching the Dragon dance and finding out about
the cycle of animal names for the years.
CHRISTMAS PRODUCTION
Well done to everyone for
making the Christmas Production of Prickly Hay so
successful. Great acting and great singing!
GET SET NETWORK - LONDON OLYMPICS 2012
St Marks has successfully been accepted as a member of
London 2012’s UK-wide reward and recognition scheme, the
Get Set network.
Get Set (london2012.com/getset) is the official London 2012
education programme, and through this programme, our pupils
have been learning about the Games and the Olympic and
Paralympic Values.
Through the programme, we have been doing work linked to
London 2012 and the Olympic and Paralympic Values.
We have now been recognised by the London 2012 Organising
Committee as a school that is demonstrating its commitment
to the Olympic and Paralympic Values, and have become a
member of the Get Set network.
This means that we
• have the right to use the London 2012 education logo –
look out for this on our school sign, letterhead and
website;
• will receive a plaque and certificate to show we are part
of the London 2012 family;
• and we’ll be in with the chance of winning visits from
athletes and the London 2012 mascots!
Over the coming months, we at St Marks will be getting
ready for London 2012 by linking more work to the Games and
ensuring that our pupils feel that they are a part of this
once-in-a-lifetime event.
We look forward to updating you on this exciting work.
INTERNATIONAL DAY
This is our
fourth International Day at St. Mark’s and we had a
splendid time. Our children were able to learn about the
culture in Mexico, Australia and Japan. We had a parent
assembly at the end of the afternoon to show off all our
work and a cake sale too! The year 4 children were lucky to
be invited to The Purbeck School to meet some “Maasai”
tribes people from Kenya and learn all about their unique
culture! We were very lucky to have visitors from Harrow
House International College, from Japan again – who helped
us learn all about Japanese culture and brought us some
presents to display in the library. Have a look at
the photos!
REMEMBERANCE DAY
On Friday 11th November a group of children went to the war
memorial in Swanage for the service. The children were
invited to put crosses in the ground to remember all those
from Swanage who have died in the wars. The service was
conducted by Rev. John Wood and the children were able to
share their experiences with the whole school on their
return. Click on the photo for more.
Some of the work completed for Rememberance by the children
in Seagull and Kingfisher Base was displayed in St Marks
Church for the service.
HARVEST
Our Year 4
children delivered the harvest gifts to parishioners from
St. Marks Church. Click on the photo to see more.
SUMMER READING
CHALLENGE
Well done to the
children who completed the Summer Reading Challenge. We
think these enthusiastic readers are just GREAT! Very well
done.
