Children-In-War Memorial Day
On Wednesday 22nd November a representative of our Children’s Leadership, accompanied by Mrs Laidler and Mrs Webster, travelled to London to be part of a very special service at Westminster: Wreath laying for all those who have been affected by war in their childhood (as part of Children-in-War Memorial Day Project).
We travelled by train, met up with the party from Bucklebury, and then took the underground to St James’ Park. We learned how to read the tube map, follow the signs for the right line (and direction) and how to be safety aware. After enjoying our picnic lunch with a view of the lake, alongside the pigeons and numerous squirrels, we took a walk to the cenotaph where we saw the volume of poppy wreaths laid by dignitaries and the royal family at the recent Remembrance Day, then we looked along Downing Street (through the security). Afterwards we crossed to Parliament Square, looking at the various statues including Winston Churchill, and the view over to Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament.
Just before two o'clock we gathered in the precinct at Westminster Abbey with other groups and individuals. The service included readings and poems from a Reverend, a Rabbi and a Sheik. We observed a minute's silence and then took turns to lay our wreaths. It was a very blustery day so a challenge for the wreaths to stay in place!
After the service, we decided to spend a bit more time enjoying London, so we set off through St James' Park towards Buckingham Palace. The leaves were all falling and collecting together so we just could not resist playing in them!
Finally we navigated our way back through the underground, although being mid afternoon, it was much busier, so we practised our skills in standing and holding on without bumping into others.
Our day was so full, we learned and experienced so many new things, we became hooked on Scrabble on the i-pad as we travelled on the train, we decided we quite like being in a coffee shop for hot chocolate with cake and playing in the leaves was a 'scream'! (Mrs Webster and Mrs Laidler said it was a joy to accompany us; they were really proud of how we were such great ambassadors for our school and many passengers complimented us on our exemplary behaviour and manners.) Reported by Harrison, Amy, Chloe and Sam,Y6.
Olympic Visitor
Earlier in November there was a very special guest visited Thatcham Park. Cassie Patten represented Great Britain at the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games in the 10km open water-swimming event, where she won a bronze medal. Cassie led a sponsored fitness circuit with all pupils and followed up with a talk and question and answer session. The aim of the event was to inspire the pupils to take up sport generally, but just as importantly to encourage them to discover and then pursue their passion in life.
We have raised over a staggering £5,300 with approximately £2,700 going towards school sports and playground equipment. The rest of the money will go toward Olympic Athlete funding and organising these events to take place. All children who managed to raise the prize thresholds of £5, £15 or £30 will receive their prizes shortly. The winning year group will be announced in the near future and our Sports Council will assist with selecting what equipment to purchase.
Thank you for all the support and I hope each and every one of the children who took part enjoyed themselves. Did you see our write up in the Newbury Weekly News?
Year 2 Treasure Trail
On Tuesday 19th September year 2 went on a treasure trail around Thatcham. Our topic for this term is called ‘Through the Keyhole’ and we have been learning all about Thatcham. We have looked at maps of Thatcham and learnt what they mean, we have looked at the human and physical features of geography and next week we will be looking at how Thatcham has changed over time. To find out more we walked around Thatcham using our new map skills and we learnt lots of new things. We had a set of 30 clues to follow and solve, the clues told us lots of extra information about our town. Did you know the Co-Op in the Broadway used to be a school and Francis Baily is buried in the church parish? We do now! Did you also know that if you look carefully in Church Lane you will find a statue of a bird sitting in a tree, you have to look carefully though!
We had a lot of fun on our walk and learnt lots of new things. We found plaques about Victor and Alexander Bullock Turner so we are very excited to find out more information about them in a few weeks time and we cannot wait to see how different Thatcham used to look. We wonder if we will recognise any of the places we saw on our walk?
Year 3 Harvest Festival
Year 3 have had a lot of fun organising, preparing and rehearsing for their Harvest Celebration. We worked hard to ensure that we were ready for the performance and that we all knew our parts. The children were able to choose their own parts based on what they felt comfortable with, which ensured all pupils were willing to take part. Throughout preparing for this assembly we have learnt a lot about what Harvest is and why we are celebrating it.
We would like to thank Mrs. Moss for all the hard work she put into the lovely costumes and backdrop. The children were very excited about their costumes and getting the chance to wear them and perform to their large audience. We would like to say a great thank you to everyone who helped with our Harvest collection. This enabled us to give a large donation to our local Foodbank which was greatly received!
Football
On Saturday 14th October, two teams consisting of 7 boys and 7 girls played lots of different West Berkshire schools in the Thatcham Tornadoes KS1 Football Festival. There were notable performances by both teams with the Thatcham Park Owls managing to win most of their matches including one against Mr Harte's old school Francis Baily. In fact it was their 1st game all morning that they had let any goals in. Goals were scored by Tom W, Harley D, Thomas L, Jamie K and Connor G.
Further up the school, 6 boys from Year 6 and 1 from Year 5 played in the U11s Newbury District Indoor 5-a-side Football Finals. All games were tightly contested and other teams were: Calcot, Falklands, St Nicolas, Francis Baily, Fir Tree and eventual winners Speenhamland.
Despite only scoring 2 goals (Jake H and George D) they only let in 4 goals across 6 matches and credit must go to the other players Sam S, Elliott H, Jack F, Damien D and the only Year 5 player Sam L who played in goal.
Up next in competitions we have the U11s Boys and Girls Cup matches 2nd and 10th November respectively and the Indoor Sportshall Athletics hosted at Park House on Saturday 18th November. The team was dressed in our new kit, provided by Premier Stars and printed with our school name by Knight Print—sponsorship very much appreciated.
Our thanks to Mr Harte for co-ordinating and accompanying our players to their fixtures and to our parents for their on-going support.
JNBS Training
Sam S, Anna C, Charlie C, Abi M, Lacey N, Katie S, Amber H, Amy C, Bryony M, Timothy R.
The new JNBS team completed their training on Thursday 14th September. It was a full but enjoyable day with everyone leaving eager to open the school branch.
Summer Reading Challenge
Well done to those who took part in the Animal Agents Summer Reading Challenge in partnership with the local libraries. We celebrated all our super readers in the Learner of the Week Celebrations last week and it was fantastic to see how many children had read their 6 books and received their certificates and goodies. We will be holding our own reading event in school later in the year, so do keep your eyes peeled for details! Here are some of our great KS1 Animal Agents!
Gardening Club
Seven children from Y3 and seven from Y4 had a fun filled day at Newbury Showground recently. We began our day by taste testing a very warming pumpkin soup followed by a delicious apple crumble. As if that hadn’t filled us up enough we then went on to eat some very unusual apples, our favourite being ‘Discovery.’ This was followed with some apple bobbing, accompanied by lots of encouragement and laughter. To calm things down we enjoyed some story telling about ‘Jonny Appleseed’. There was then a very informative talk on some very strange looking pumpkins and squashes. As the weather was good the children moved outside to make a colour pallet using leaves from the hedgerow. After a picnic lunch we took part in a pumpkin competition and were very pleased to get 2nd place with a weight of 2.2 kilos.
Our thanks to Mrs Fernandez and Mrs Moss for accompanying the children.
Remembrance
As a school family we took the opportunity to engage in our own service of Remembrance. The children were invited to wear their uniforms and after hearing about the significance of the poppy and hearing a special poem, we were delighted that a member of the Coldash Brass Band volunteered to play the Last Post for us. Thank you to everyone for their support.
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School Disco
An account of the exciting school disco from Olivia Y, 3GP:
‘At the disco people were dancing to the music played by the great DJ. The disco was so much fun because we played games as well. We played musical statues and all danced along to heads, shoulders, knees and toes.
We give a big thanks to teachers, parents and everyone that helped make the disco fun for us and others. We hope there will be another one!’
Music News
We were amazingly busy at the end of last term with performance opportunities, both in and out of school. 30 children took part in the Save the Children Carol Concert at St Nicholas’ Church in Newbury with lots of other schools and were complimented not only on their great singing but also their great behaviour, which was really lovely. The same group of children then went to the Walnut Close Care Home for elderly people and performed some Christmas songs. The residents really enjoyed listening to them and we have already been invited back in the summer AND next Christmas! This was followed by our own school concert where over 100 children sang and played to a capacity audience in St Mary’s Church.
Thatcham Park Goes to the Pantomime
Once again, there was huge demand for the children to join our annual visit to the pantomime at the Corn Exchange in Newbury with this year’s story being Beauty and the Beast. Due to our high numbers we split over two days taking Y1-5 last Wednesday then Y6 caught the train in on Thursday (my dream is to have the whole theatre in future … so watch this space!)You can be sure to kick the festive season off by being part of a theatre full of dancing and singing children, so that’s how we started and that’s before the performance even began! ‘’All I want for Christmas’ was the last song before the curtain goes up – we brought the house down, even the musicians joined in. (With this being our 4th year of going, Thatcham Park now has a reputation for full audience participation with the staff and volunteers at the theatre!)
Curtain up and all the children went back to their seats ready to focus on the story, the super costumes, the acting, singing and dancing on stage. The story was set in Newberry Bottom, a small village in France. The show was full of ‘corny’ jokes, (some of which the children ‘got’), familiar songs which they joined in singing and an entertaining bit of slapstick involving Pickle, Lilll-llly, wallpaper, planks and, for those of you old enough, it had a hint of Charlie Chaplin about it. The audience found this all rather hilarious.
Lots of boo-ing was directed at the enchantress who had some super costumes and could dance very well in ‘her’ high heels, but all turned out well when it became apparent she was mother to the rural Postie Posie.
Thatcham Park was mentioned in dispatches for being VIPs in the audience as were our three birthdays on the day – Isaac Y5, Levi Y3 and KatieY2 – what a birthday treat! There was also the traditional sing and dance off, it was Lily’s half that won on both days….
Once again, we were very proud of all of the children; they are great ambassadors for our school. Thank you for your support in this super memory making for your children and to all our accompanying adults and staff who made it possible. (Special thanks to Mrs Lawrence who supports me with the ‘mega-logistics’ of it all!)