Good afternoon,

All of the staff would like to thank children and parents for the Christmas gifts that they have received. They are very much appreciated and we wish you all a happy and peaceful Christmas and New Year.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank you all for your support this term. It has been an extremely busy term and the children have worked hard and have been a credit to the school despite the many changes we have had to put in place. I would like to praise the children for 100% enthusiasm in everything they do and they certainly put into action our mission statement:'We do our best by following Jesus.' I would also like to thank TAPP for their tremendous efforts this term fundraising to support the school so that the children have the best opportunities possible. We look forward to seeing everyone back at school on Tuesday 5th January; Monday 4th January is a teacher training day.

This week, the whole school helped to put us all in the Christmas spirit with their spectacular Christmas performances! Later in the week we had a visit from Santa and his Elves followed by a pantomime. 

The children all enjoyed their special visit from Father Christmas yesterday and for all those children who weren't at school yesterday he has recorded a message for you too which can be viewed by clicking on the link below.

Please see some of the comments we have received from parents about the children's Christmas performance:

"Just a note to say how fabulous the Christmas concert was! It was such a lovely creative idea! A massive well done to all of you, it was so nice to see something that all the children were able to be a part of. All the children were amazing and had learnt their sign language songs brilliantly!

Thank you to all the staff for putting the time and effort in to still bring a little bit of Christmas spirit to us all during this very unique time!"

“It was lovely to see all of the children singing and getting into the Christmas spirit”

Reception and Key Stage One had a treat on Thursday morning. Father Christmas appeared on our screens from the North Pole to read us a story. We shouted for Father Christmas and he appeared at the North Pole but he was asleep. We managed to wake him up. It was snowing. He read us a story. We listened really well and then joined in some Christmas songs at the end. We even had a little dance. It was magical! 

On Monday afternoon, Year 6 took part in a virtual 'Vocations Workshop' where they had the opportunity to ask lots of questions about the different roles people are called by God to undertake in the Church.

This half term, we have been focussing on the virtues: 'intentional and prophetic'. An intentional person is someone who lives deliberately; someone who builds up their own worldview and then tries to live by it. To live intentionally is to march to the beat of a different drummer. The busy-ness of life can sometimes feel overwhelming.
Each class voted for the pupil they thought had best demonstrated these virtues and so did their class teachers. The winners were then announced in our virtues assembly where they were awarded with a certificate. Congratulations to all these winners. At the end of our assembly, we all watched Archbishop Bernard's Christmas message which you can view on the following link:

Your child will have received a letter today explaining about regsitering for ParentPay. This is a service that will allow you to make secure online payments to school for trips, mufti days, muisc lessons etc. The letter contains your unique login details for your child/children. Please access this over the holidays and speak to the school office in the New year if you have any issues.

We will continue to celebrate the children's achievements when we return in January.

Reception Class were so excited today to receive a Christmas Card from the Animal Sanctuary thanking them for their fundraising-see below. They also received a certificate of adoption for Harry the Pony. Well done, Reception.

Thank you to Miss Crumpler and Miss Holtom for recording this week's Christmas stories. I am sure you will enjoy them.

We love reading in Year 2! On Thursday we watched author and illustrator Nathan Bryon and Dapo Adeola read their amazing picture book "Look Up!". We also learnt to draw one of the characters from the story.

This term, Year 6 have read Kensuke's Kingdom by Michael Morpurgo which they missed out on reading in Year 5 so they asked if they could still read it this year instead. They really enjoyed reading this story together and finding out what would happen next with all its twists and turns!

“This book was interesting. It was exciting to read what was going to happen next. My favourite part was when Michael got stung by the jelly-fish because you didn’t know what was going to happen to him.” – Jensen

“I really enjoyed this book because it was really interesting to find the background story behind Kensuke. It was also interesting to find out how Michael would survive on the island. I would rate it 10/10.” – Erin

“Kensuke’s Kingdom was a really good book to read and I really enjoyed finding out what was going to happen next. I loved reading it with the class and I would recommend others to read it. My favourite part was probably when Kensuke and Michael started to get to know each other.” Poppy

“It was a very good to read and you never knew what was going to happen. One paragraph Michael and Kensuke were friends but then in the next something might happen for them not to be! It was really sad when the monkeys died but luckily at the end things turned out ok.” Tom R

Public Health England has asked that schools for six days after the final day of teaching help with trace and tracking of contacts of Covid-19 cases. For this reason if a pupil or member of family who lives in your house has a positive test result we will ask you to contact school on the out of hours number. The contact number is 07795 356221. Please send a text message to the number and a member of staff will call you back. The number will be checked at regular points during school hours.

If you would like your child to begin or continue with online music lessons provided by Severn Arts please follow the link below to book your child a place for the Spring Term.

As we are unable to hold face to face meetings between teacher and parents we have set up year group email addresses for you to communicate with staff. Please note that emails received after 6pm will be answered the next working day and none over the weekend.

General enquiries: office@st-ambrose.worcs.sch.uk

Reception:Reception@st-ambrose.worcs.sch.uk

Year 1: year1@st-ambrose.worcs.sch.uk

Year 2:year2@st-ambrose.worcs.sch.uk

Year 3:year3@st-ambrose.worcs.sch.uk

Year 4:year4@st-ambrose.worcs.sch.uk

Year 5:year5@st-ambrose.worcs.sch.uk

Year 6:year6@st-ambrose.worcs.sch.uk

Applications for Reception Class 2021 have now opened and must be completed online by 15 January 2021. We welcome applications from all families of all or no faith. If you know of any families who are presently applying for a school place please encourage them to contact school. Again, if you have any queries regarding applying please do not hesitate to speak to us.

Due to the new national restrictions in place, Teapot time will be cancelled until these restrictions are lifted. We will notify you in due course of the next meeting.

Kind regards,

Mrs Brocklesby.