The annual Carols at the Crossroads event took place this evening, led by Rev Jean de Garis with a little help from the big man himself, Father Christmas.

There was a super turn out, with lovely singing from Upton Infant School and Upton Junior School children. Thanks to Mrs Gdesis and Mr Welcomme for organising the choir.

It's December the first, and what better way to celebrate the advent of Christmas than with Upton Infant School's Christmas Fair.

This year there was something for everyone - food, fun, games, Father Christmas, mulled wine, toys, magic and so much more! We were delighted to welcome our children, families and friends to spend time (and money!) enjoying themselves and raising funds for school in the process. As you will be aware, we are trying to raise funds to replace our adventure playground, and the money raised today will go a long way to help us meet our target of £10,000. Thank you all for coming along and supporting us.

The event could not take place without a huge amount of work from our wonderful PSA team and dedicated staff. Thank you all for your efforts in making this a wonderful occasion. 

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas at Upton Infant School. Today our school council took a trip to the RSPB nature reserve at Arne to collect a whopper of a Christmas tree. It was a very cold morning, but the hot chocolate helped to keep us going.

Somehow we managed to load the tree on top of Mr Williams' car and bring it back to school, where all 270 children added their own decoration to it. 

We are now very proud of our beautiful tree and are very grateful to the Squirrels' teacher Miss Hooper and the Arne wardens for organising this.

The children have been spending many of their afternoons this week learning about bullying. Through circle time, art and drama, the children have been understanding what bullying is and what we can do to stop bullying altogether. We have learnt that bullying is:

Intentional, hurtful and happens more than once, even when you ask them to stop or show that you’re upset.

We have also learnt that there are four types of bullying:

Physical, social, verbal and cyber bullying.

As part or the children’s learning we are introducing a whole school home-learning competition. We are asking the children to design their own anti-bullying poster. It can be made in whatever way you choose, but it must include the anti-bullying tagline “Power for Good”. The winner of the competition will have their poster professionally produced and used around Upton Infant School. Entries are due in on Friday 25th November. We look forward to see the children’s efforts!

Our wonderful PSA organised a super quiz night last Friday with quiz master extraordinaire, Mr Hesketh, doing a marvelous job at keeping the crowd entertained throughout the evening.

The licensed bar ensured everyone was suitably refreshed throughout the night, and helped to raise a super total of £330 towards our fundraising target of £10,000 to replace our worn out play equipment.

What a 'spotacular' day we had for Children in Need. The children came to school dressed in their spottiest outfits. Pudsey Bear's good friend Buddy Bear led the school in a teddy bear wake 'n' shake helped along by some of the staff.

Thank you for your generosity - the school raised £240 for this worthwhile cause.

Today was an exciting first at Upton Infant School. We were visited by a professional sound engineer called Geoff to record our super singing. He brought lots of special equipment with him, spent time with each yeargroup and joined us for singing assembly to record our whole school songs.

If you are still hoping to buy a CD please return your letter to the school office along with the money. CDs cost £7.99 each, would make a brilliant Christmas present and the money raised will go towards our 'Target 10' replacement playground equipment fundraising initiative.

Our Year Two children have been off on their travels this week, learning how to keep safe at the Safe Wise Safety Centre in Bournemouth.

The children had a fascinating time learning how to keep safe at home and when out and about as part of their 'Fire Fire' topic.