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I’ve written about the importance of play in our Newsletter previously, but a recent article from The Guardian has prompted me to revisit this crucial topic. Call to revive play at UK schools to tackle ‘escalating crisis’ in child health | Children | The Guardian The article outlines a compelling vision from The Children's Alliance for the Department of Education, advocating for every school to have a play plan that would be covered under inspection. Importantly, this proposal extends beyond the Early Years to include all primary-aged children. Childhood is an increasingly fleeting time. As parents, we often feel pressure to ensure that our children participate in a full range of activities, inadvertently squeezing out time for free play a distinctive feature of childhood in the past. I recall my own happy memories of playing outside every day during the holidays with friends, riding bikes, climbing trees, building dens, and making perfume from rose petals! This week, I’ve asked many children about what they are looking forward to doing during half term, and I was struck by how many are simply looking forward to playing. Play, both at school and at home, is vitally important for our children. It is most beneficial when children have open-ended resources and the freedom to follow their fascinations, free from adult direction. Child psychologist Jean Piaget famously said that “play is the work of children.” His theory of cognitive development through play has been supported by research, including the work of Vygotsky and Froebel, who argue that imaginary play is vital to children's cognitive, social and emotional development. Play is not an alternative to learning; it is learning. It provides a space for children to make sense of the world, test out ideas, learn to assess and take risks, be creative, imaginative, explore, communicate and collaborate.
When considering offering our children time for free play, we also need to view boredom as an opportunity rather than a problem. Boredom can benefit our children by encouraging them to think creatively and imaginatively. This New York Times article "Why Boredom Benefits Kids and How to Cultivate It This Summer - The New York Times (nytimes.com) suggests using 'boredom busters' questions that help children decide what to do next. These moments of 'unboring' themselves and daydreaming are incredibly valuable and as adults we do not always need too occupy our children.
On another note, I had a lovely evening last Saturday attending the FOSP ball. The Memorial Hall was transformed into a splendid Venetian dining room and looked stunning. Huge thanks to the ball committee Andy Lawrence, Victoria Woolf, Fran McClure, and Laura Tongue who worked tirelessly for months and throughout the evening to put on a wonderful night and to raise a fantastic amount of money to benefit both our school and the Yorkshire Children's Charity. We also enjoyed three wonderful music concerts this week featuring the choir and individual performances from children in Years 1, 2 and 3. A big thank you to Mrs. Hayden for organising the concerts and to our peripatetic music teachers, Mr Brewer, Mr Britton, Mrs Burkinshaw, Miss Cunnold, Mrs Ferguson, Mr Fitzmaurice, Mrs Gray, Mrs Haley, Mr Heywood, Ms Leaman-Brown and Miss Smith, for their hard work and dedication preparing and supporting the children.
Additionally, I am thrilled to announce the arrival of two new babies in our school community. Congratulations to Miss Evans on the birth of Delphi and to Miss Platts on the birth of her baby girl, who is yet to be named.
I wish you all a wonderful half term.
Newsletter No: 29
Friday 24 May 2024
DIARY FOR WEEK COMMENCING
3 June 2024 (start of 2nd half term clubs)
School Council
Year 1 Lexia
Year 2 Art
Year 3 Cricket*
Year 1, 2 & 3 Lioness Football*
Year 1, 2 & 3 ASC
Year 1 Outdoor Games
Year 1 Wellbeing
Year 2 Cricket*
Year 2 STEM
Year 3 Tennis*
Year 3 Swimming
Year 2 & 3 Dance*
Year 2 & 3 French
Year 1, 2 & 3 ASC
Year 1 Football*
Year 1 Yoga*
Year 2 & 3 Choir
Year 1, 2 & 3 ASC
Year 1 Clay Craft
Year 1 Board Games
Year 2 Tennis*
Year 2 Cooking
Year 3 Athletics
Year 3 Sewing
Year 3 STEM
Year 2 & 3 European Languages & Cultures
Year 1, 2 & 3 ASC
Year 1 Dance*
Year 1 Cricket*
Year 2 Board Games
Year 3 VR
Year 2 & 3 Football*
Year 1, 2 & 3 ASC
CoMPasS
M O N D A
Y
T
D A Y
U E S
W E D N E S D A Y
T H U R S D A Y
F
D A
R I
Y
SCHOOL COUNCIL
This week in School Council we went to meet (another!) Mrs Hall who teaches geography in St Peter's 13-18. She explained to the group how important recycling is to help look after and protect our world. She runs the eco club at 13-18 and arranges for special terracycling waste to be collected in school and taken to a special household waste unit in York calledStNicks.
Mrs Hall would love 2-8 to help with collecting this specialised waste so it can be processed safely instead of ending up in landfill. The school council reps will give their classes more information over the next few weeks but if you want to start saving crisp packets, old plastic pens and groundcoffeefoiltypebagswewillbe starting to collect them all soon. Thank you and well done Council for listening carefully to Mrs Hall and being so enthusiastic to help her. Remember small steps can make a big difference to looking after our world!
MUSIC ….
Wow what a fabulous end to a busy half term! This week we held three concerts to showcase the children's musical journeys so far.
Monday was the turn of Year 3, they were started off by our wonderful choir who sang two songs in three parts, and a third old favourite from Young Voices. We had confident soloists on lots of different instruments, violins, drums, guitars, piano, clarinet, cello and cornets followed by a performance from our ukulele group.
On Tuesday Year 1 took over, the whole year group opened the concert wowing the grown-ups by singing the alphabet backwards, followed by a combined song with recorder accompaniment. Our fabulous recorder players then took over with lots of group, duet and solo performances, the children were so brave and played with such confidence. The recorders finished off with Pineapples are Juicy, a firm favourite at 2-8! Zackaria gave a very special performance on the piano, playing the duet Playground Fun. The whole year group finished the concert with When You're Smiling, which we all certainly were!
Finally on Wednesday Year 2 had their time to shine, the choir started the concert off and were followed by over 40 children playing solos. Many instruments were represented, violins, cellos, piano, guitar and recorder. For many it was their first concert on their instrument and they certainly didn't let their nerves get in the way!
A huge thank you to all our amazing visiting music teachers who work so hard preparing the children for these events, and many thanks also to our wonderful audience and parents who support the children at home. It can be tricky to fit in time to practice at times but your efforts are very much appreciated!
Mrs Hayden
SUMMER CAMPS 2024
As our wonderful Holiday Camp Manager, Miss Flockhart, is due to get married this summer, and a list of works taking place over the holidays, we have taken the decision not to run our own holiday camp in the summer of 2024.
We do however, want to ensure there is a programme of summer camps available for our parents and therefore will be piloting a new multi activity camp to be run by an external partner, United Education. We hope that this programme will complement our own camps in future years and offer an extended period of provision throughout the holiday period.
This camp will run for 3 weeks over the summer holidays, together with our usual Petersport programme, Cricket Camp and some of our external camps such as Creative Coliseum, All out Cricket, Sells Goalkeepers and Core Netball.
Please see HERE for a full round up by week of activities we are offering this Summer.
United Education
We are very pleased to be partnering with United Education, who offer a plethora of activities ranging from sports and arts to science experiments and more, ensuring that there’s something enticing for every camper. To find out more from them and for booking links, please see our dedicated page HERE.
Whole School Fundraiser
As you are already aware, on Friday 28th June we will all take part in a whole school fundraising day for 5 charities. We are delighted to tell you that our fundraising page is now live.
We are circulating QR codes to the page here in school, but a direct link for you is here.
Thank you for your support of this exciting fundraising challenge.
Last Call for Prize Draw Entries
Don’t miss out on your opportunity to win an overnight stay at Goldsborough Hall. Generously donated by the Oglesby family, all profits will go to our Keys for Life Fund, helping more young people to attend St Peter’s with a bursary award. The draw closes on 31st May 2024
To enter please click here.
Lieutenant Colonel Barney Barnbrook
Regional Director North East and Yorkshire TAPiTAG
Join us for the Yorkshire Big Curry Lunch on Thursday 13th June at the Merchant Adventurers’ Hall, York. For more information, please visit our microsite:
The Yorkshire Big Curry Lunch 2024 - Army Benevolent
