Our School Councillors acted very professionally yesterday as they conducted their planned site walk to see our new extension in working progress. The children looked great in Balfour Beatty's safety gear as you can see in the pictures below.
The children asked some amazing questions as they toured around, they learned a great deal and were very polite too. Every single child was a real credit to our school. Mr Mel Plumpton, Keith and Kay were impressed with them all also. I think they made their day! Miss Khan and I are so proud and we can not wait for the children to now share their new found knowledge with the rest of the school next week which will be during an assembly.

Thank you to Mr Plumpton, Keith and Kay for your time - it is greatly appreciated.

It is that time of year again when Great Binfields holds the very famous ‘Annual Children’s Fair’. Mrs Worgan and I have reminded ourselves of the proceedings and we are certainly looking forward to meeting with the new ‘Children’s Fair Working Party’ later today.

We are holding the Fair on Friday 3rd February from 1.45 – 2.45 pm. This involves our KS2 (junior) children setting up a variety of stalls in our hall that other pupils across the school can participate with or buy from. The focus is to build our children’s enterprise skills and have a Fair run and attended by our pupils. As you may well know from previous years, the children really enjoy this activity and are very committed to getting their stalls accepted and running. It encompasses skills of organisation, accountability and fair play. Prices for playing the games and for the items on sale will be in the 10-30p range. Please ensure that your children just bring their pocket money (maximum £2) in small change.

Previously the children have organised various games, activities, bric-a- brac stalls, books, cake stalls, popcorn booths, sweets and drinks stalls, as well as face painting and a nail painting bar - a wide variety on offer!!!! You may have some old toys, books, comics or games that would be suitable for such stalls. This is a golden opportunity to clear out any discarded items that would fit the bill. I am sure that some teams/stall holders will also need to bring in essential equipment to aid their stall. All can be brought in to school on the Friday morning and stored in our Treehouse Room - that is the morning of the 3rd February ready for the Fair that afternoon.

KS2 children, if you would like to run a stall with some of your friends (maximum 5 per group) please complete an application form which can be picked up from the School Office (only one form per team/stall needed) and return it by Thursday of next week (26th January).

Our office team and myself will meet with the committee on 27th January to further discuss ideas and agree on who is getting what to make the process fair and equitable for all. Once all has been finalised, a plan will be produced and handed out to the children so all stall teams know the brief and where their stall will be situated. The children will be able to advertise their stall and make price lists in the week leading up to the Fair. Please note the stall holders will need to stay after the Fair has finished to help put the school back together again or Mrs Sampson will be after me! Pick up time for stall holders will be the normal time of 3.15pm.

Like in previous years, all money raised will go towards outdoor lunchtime equipment which the committee will choose as a team. A prize will go to the most profitable stall as well as a prize for the best presented stall – hopefully a real incentive to do well!

Text/email reminders will be sent out nearer the time. Apologies in advance if your children start to raid cupboards for equipment for their stall – all in the name of enterprise!!

For the second year running we have booked Amanda, a super fitness instructor to come and work with our Year 1 children to firstly introduce them to different ways of keeping fit but also to help the children with their perseverance and resilience skills. As at times throughout the Kiddie Konga session, your mind is telling you to stop but you do need to keep on going to develop your stamina and coordination skills too!

The children have really enjoyed the sessions so far and they will continue up until half term. The sessions involve combat boxing, cardio, dance and sculpting style moves to various types of music. Lots of fun has been had and it is lovely seeing the children improve week by week. 

Dear Parents and Carers

As many of you will have seen this morning the blue hoarding has come down and instead we have Herris fencing in its place. The children have really enjoyed seeing the contractors in action because they are now doing the groundworks which has meant a few diggers in action!

The courtyard area is once again open this afternoon for business as usual, but please can I ask that you encourage your children to always walk on the left so that we avoid clashes and bumps because the pathway has been narrowed slightly.

Can you also remind your children that they are not to lean on the Herris fencing, or obviously climb on it, as we have had to remind quite a few children of this throughout today. There will be further changes to the courtyard area so that the contractors can marry up the existing paving with the new, so we will of course keep you informed to make sure you know exactly what is going on in order to minimise disruptions to you all.

The children’s tiles have come down and many have asked what we are going to do with them, so I am going to chat to staff to see if they can be displayed somewhere.  If not, we will find a way for you to come and collect your child’s picture as they have grown very attached to them.

Thank you as always for your patience and positive attitudes whilst we have our building works. You can now all see what wonderful progress has been made and it won’t be long until we can all enjoy what is a fabulous learning space for our children at Great Binfields.

Kind regards

Jules Rogers

Check out this page on our website. http://www.greatbinfields.co.uk/forest-schools/

We have photos of our Forest Schools sessions on there and if you scroll to the bottom, you will see that today the children have made log dogs and played/explored around our school woodland with them. Brr it was cold but they had an amazing time and were able to appreciate a crisp winter's afternoon at the same time too. Another one of those magical moments at GBP which we all cherish.

Dear Parents

If different pick-up arrangements are planned, can you please contact the office so we can pass the message onto your child's class.

A few teachers have reported that when releasing children at the end of the day, some parents are saying that they are taking home another child too and the teachers are unaware. 

For safeguarding purposes we are unable to let your child go with another adult without advance warning.

Regards

Admin

Yesterday Year 5/6 enjoyed a trip to Highclere Castle to look at the awesome Ancient Egyptian exhibition. During their time there they had a tour of the castle grounds, looked at various Ancient Egyptian artifacts, dressed up in the traditional Egyptian clothing if a pharaoh and even took a trip into Tutankhamun’s tomb! Take a look at our photos to see how much fun we had!