The children celebrated what has been a hugely exciting topic with the inaugural "Uptonstock" festival. This was a chance for Year Two to showcase their singing and dancing skills, whilst also showing off their amazing 60s costumes and ( a variety of well practised) poses on the catwalk. After the show finished, the home learning projects were displayed for all to see. What a start to the year for Year Two, and an exciting start to their new topic awaits....

Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No it's the staff of Upton Infant School launching the new Superhero writing targets.

 

The children had a superhero themed day carrying out fun activities whilst discovering what their new superhero writing target will be. Each teacher has been turned into a 'Superhero', each one relating to a certain stage in the children's writing development. We hope the children will be motivated to achieve their targets and collect the various 'Staff Superheroes' and therefore make good progress with their writing.

 

All the targets include the symbols which are used when introducing the children's learning and marking their work. When a child has shown they have achieved their superhero target, they will move onto the next superhero and take their completed one home.

 

Thank you to Mr Salmon for sending in this video of the staff in action during their Superhero 'flash mob'.

 

 

 

Upton took two football teams to Hamworthy Park Junior School for the first competition of the "Harbour School Sports Challenge", a competition between local schools to introduce more competitive sport for infant school age children. The tournament was a huge success, with teams from Turlin Moor, Twin Sails Infant and Lytchett Matravers Primary all showing good skills and teamwork in all their games. Both Upton teams put up a brilliant fight, with the "Rovers" making it all the way to the final, where they eventually lost to Turlin Moor.

 

A big thank you to all the children for putting in such an excellent effort, and to the parents for their support.

We had a tremendous day on our annual Farmers and Scarecrows Day.  The children looked great in their outfits and the contribution of food items will be distributed amongst the local community.

 

During the day the children did an array of 'Harvest' related activities including pressing apples to make pure juice - which tasted delicious.

 

On Thursday the Young at Heart group from Upton will be visiting the school and the children will be performing a series of Harvest songs for them.

The excitement had been building all week. Children, staff and parents had been looking forward to the rumoured visit of DJ Casper who, unbelievably, had been booked to launch our new reading reward scheme.

 

The whole school gathered on the playground to welcome DJ Casper and to join him in a performance of his dance floor-filling hit, the Casper Slide. As the big moment approached, Mr Helm received a disappointing phone call to say that sadly DJ Casper would be unable to attend, but to compensate he had arranged for his friends, the Mascot Band, to perform instead.

 

The Mascot Band did a fantastic job of launching the new reading reward scheme in which children are able to collect coloured wrist bands in recognition of their regular home reading.

Our first Urn 'n' Learn event of the new school year took place today. Parents were invited in to join their child for the first lesson of the day. We really value the opportunity to share with parents the learning which takes place at Upton Infant School and it was great to have such a good turnout.

 

Following sharing in the children's learning, parents and friends of the school then join us for a coffee morning in aid of MacMillan Cancer Support. So many of the parents and staff had baked or bought cakes to sell at the coffee morning, and with so many delicious offerings to choose from, it is no wonder Mrs Earl was said to be suffering from heartburn.

 

Thank you everyone for supporting this very worthwhile cause which is dear to so many of our staff and friends of the school. A total of £320 was raised.

 

During the day, children were also busy thinking about how else they could be responsible, as part of our half-termly focus on 'Mr Responsible'. This culminated in the school council elections, with six responsible councillors being voted in to represent their classes for the year.

Like something out of an episode of Dr Who, Upton Infant School was invaded by an army of teachers last week, meaning there was a teacher for every six children at school!

 

However, on closer inspection, it was the students from the Poole SCITT course who are currently at the beginning of their teacher training. The group of students will be attending for a number of sessions over the year as part of the maths element of the course.

The very first 'Friday Fun Run' took place this afternoon. All Year One and Two children and their teachers donned their PE kits to complete laps of the school grounds.

 

The emphasis was very much on the fun, with en-route entertainment provided by jugglers, musicians, plate spinners ad bubble blowers.

 

Each class was working as a team to completed the most number of laps collectively. The idea for the Friday Fun Run was born out of the school's aim to develop happy, confident and healthy children.

 

Everyone is very much looking forward to next Friday already!

On Monday, an urgent tannoy announcement by Mr Helm asking the Year Two teachers to meet him outside turned into something quite different! The children watched in amazement as Mr Cole, Miss Dominey and Miss Close found a time machine, and via a live feed Mr Cole went back to the World Cup in '66, Miss Close met Neil Armstrong on the Moon and Miss Dominey got her dancing shoes on. The children completed a variety of sixties inspired activities during the day, including designing their own symmetrical football strip, creating a rocket and learning the Jive, the Jerk and the Twist!

It has been an indifferent start to the introduction of free hot school meals.  As a small Local Authority school without a sizeable kitchen we relied upon Dorset to arrange everything for us.  They awarded the contract and dealt with all the negotiations.  Unfortunately the company they chose (Chartwells) has not had a great first week.  This has mainly been due to their proposed hub premises in Ferndown burning down during the summer so they are in temporary premises in Bovington using a kitchen which evidently cannot cope.

 

Each day this week we have had issues with the delivery (or non delivery) of food and vital equipment.  For instance on Friday we were not delivered enough chips and so we had to go to the chip shop to supplement the amount so that all the children could enjoy their much anticipated fish fingers and chips.

 

If you have read the local press and watched local TV you may well have noticed that this has been an issue across Poole, Bournemouth and Dorset.  After school on Friday we were contacted by Chartwells to let us know that all the pupils in the schools they supply (approx. 12,000 pupils) will be served cold lunches next week (packed lunches) by the company to give them a week to solve their kitchen problems.

 

Naturally we are very disappointed with this news but fingers crossed that it is one step back to take a giant leap forward.  We will keep you updated as and when we receive more news.  If you read this over the weekend can you please spread the news to fellow parents so that they can also read it?  Thank you.

 

On the positive side the children have adapted very well to the new routines and lots of them appear to be receiving green stamps.

 

Mr Helm

 

PS. If anyone sees Nick Clegg MP over the weekend can you ask him to call me so I can have a little chat about the logistics or implementing a major idea in a very short amount of time with little extra money!