This week we have been starting to think about our new value 'Trust' and already have a really clear understanding of what this means and what it looks like in action. 

It has been another busy, productive week across school with cricket coaching in Years 2, 3, 4 and 5, Peace workshop work in Year 5 and we welcomed Mr. Spencer back for PE today which was lovely.

Our school librarians had a special visit from Angela, who works in Kington and Leominster libraries, and she gave us some brilliant advice about how to keep our school library engaging, organised and easy to use. Classes across school continue to visit Kington library at least once a term and this is a very important community link for us. We encourage you all to become members and to enjoy time exploring their wonderful books.

Last week we also had some special visitors in school who were particularly enjoyed by our Reception class....chicks! Our Reception children loved seeing the chicks up close and were so careful and caring when welcoming them to their fantastic learning space. Reception also combined their weekly 'welly walk' with their story 'We're going on a bear hunt' and found the most amazing things in nature as they walked.

This week we have been so pleased to celebrate Headteacher stickers for really super reasons including amazing progress over the half term, showing resilience when faced with a difficult situation,  being a supportive friend, brilliant spelling, working with superb focus, effort and determination and showing fantastic cricketing skills.

We hope that everyone has a great weekend and we look forward to welcoming you back on Monday morning, ready for our last week before the half term holiday!

We have had a lovely week in school with moments of beautiful sunshine which have been welcomed by everyone.

We have been thinking about the value of 'hope' in our assemblies and have learnt 2 lovely songs to reflect this and we thought that we would share the words of one of these with you. We really enjoy singing this together and think that it reinforces our value well.

The song is called 'I have a song to sing' and is written by Mark and Helen Johnson for Out of the Ark music.

I have a song to sing,

It has a simple melody, 

Let everybody sing,

There's life in our unity,

There's hope in our song.

Our Headteacher stickers this week were awarded for. amazing early writing, working hard in all areas but especially reading including at home, being a positive role model in all that they do, showing our school values all of the time, being a supportive friend to others, wowing their teacher with extra maths completed at home, coming back to school with a great attitude and showing wonderful resilience when faced with a challenge.

In our assembly we also met our mini versions of Jack and Custard which caused a lot of excitement in the hall as did Reception coming to assembly for the first time! Reception did so well and joined in fantastically.

This week we were also excited to hear more about the 'Young Voices' trip from last Friday. You can see from the pictures the amazing experience that they had. Thank you to all of our brilliant staff who planned and organised this wonderful trip.

We would like to draw attention to a new area of our website for parents which contains advice and information about accessing online resources at home. This can be found under the 'Parents' tab. We hope that these resources will be useful to you.

We also have our 'Parents' Forum' next Thursday at 2.30pm where we will be discussing our school website developments and asking for feedback on the current website features and information that support our families the most or any new ideas to consider. If you are able to attend please let the school office know in person, telephone or by email. We look forward to seeing you there.

We hope that everyone has a good weekend, despite the predicted weather, and we look forward to seeing you on Monday.

It has been so lovely to welcome everyone back to a new school term but also a whole new calendar year! We hope that everyone had an amazing Christmas break and have had a super start to their New Year.

We have only been back together for 3 days but they have proved to be just as exciting, happy and busy as our 5 day weeks normally are!

We started the week with a 'welcome back' assembly where Mrs. Welson was able to share our first 'pup-date' from the Guide Dogs sponsorship which we started just before the holidays. We have had pictures of Custard and Jack and a lovely letter telling us all about their first experiences as they start their training. 

We also began to think about our new value for January which is 'Hope' and shared ideas about what we thought this value meant and how it can be shown. We will continue to explore this new value in Monday's assembly.

This week's headteacher stickers were awarded for a variety of fabulous reasons, as normal, but this week included settling well into our school, starting the new term in a really positive way, showing great effort when working on challenging learning and supporting their friends in a very kind and caring way. We were all very impressed that in just 3 days these qualities had been able to be spotted. We also welcomed our new lovely student teacher Ms. Shipley who has been working with our fantastic Year 5 class for a couple of days and has enjoyed the start of her placement with us.

It has been such a chilly start to our new term but everyone has been so sensible wrapping up warm and being patient about playtimes and lunchtimes which have needed to change a little this week - thank you everyone.

We hope that you all have a great weekend and look forward to seeing you all on Monday.

We have had such a special week in school with the opportunity to all share both the KS1 and Early Years Christmas performances. Everyone who has been lucky enough to be in the audience for these special events have been excited to hear such beautiful singing, see the wonderful acting, narration and dancing from our younger children. This has been a truly magical start to our Christmas celebrations, thank you to all of our brilliant staff who have supported our children to share such fantastic performances. We look forward to sharing our KS2 Christmas Concert with our families, next Tuesday 6pm at St. Mary's.

This week has also been an opportunity for strengthening more community links with a group of enthusiastic singers entertaining residents of Marwick Close which was a lovely experience.

Years 5 and 6 had an exciting trip to Birmingham Botanical Gardens to learn more about the natural world and biomes in particular. Everyone had a fabulous time and enjoyed the chance to explore and discover new things about places and the animals which live in them.

Our headteacher stickers this week were awarded in our classrooms and reasons given were as varied and wonderful as they always are! This week children were chosen for showing our school values at all times, conquering fears to take part in performances and new experiences, showing superb knowledge and understanding on the trip, consistently being a positive role model and for showing determination to keep doing their best especially at this very busy time of the term. Congratulations to all.

We are looking forward to a really exciting last week of term next week, which will include KS2's Christmas performance, Christmas lunch day, Year 6 stalls, class party day (where we can wear our party clothes/Christmas jumpers), our Friends of Kington Primary School's fundraising stall (more details to follow) and Achievement assembly.

We hope that everyone has a lovely weekend and we will see you all on Monday.

As I write this, our lovely team of Friends of KPS are busy preparing the school hall for tonight's Bingo. The prizes are a plenty as are the dabbers!  Thank you in advance to everyone who organises these events as there is a lot of preparation and thought that goes into it but the team are always happy in their work!  If you would like to join the Friends team and help fundraise for all the children, please come and see Mrs Price in the school office.

Other events at school this week included the workshops for our Year 1 and Reception parents to help them support maths or reading at home. Thank you to those who attended and it was lovely to see the children feel so proud about their learning. If you were not able to attend but would like more information, please do see your class teachers and they will be happy to go through it with you.

Congratulations to all of our Headteacher Sticker winners this week - a truly 'peaceful' bunch as they have all been spotted putting our values into practice with lots of children working very hard in everything they do but also working well with other people, showing resilience and being calm and kind.

Lots more photos to share with you today from throughout the week. 

Last Sunday, staff, children and families attended the Remembrance Day service and parade held in Kington and we were very proud of our three Year 6 pupils who placed the wreath on behalf of our school.

Year 6 then led our Remebrance assembly on Monday using some clever silhouette drama to bring their own WW1 letters home from the Western Front to life.

We also held a Multi-Faith day on Wednesday (as well as Forest School for Year 5) where the children moved around the classes learning all about the festivals that are important to different religions and how they are celebrated.  There was lots of craft activities and discussions going on in school including some very delicious Challah bread that Year 1 and 2 made which Jewish communities make to celebrate Shabbat.

Congratutulations to our very worthy Headteacher Sticker winners today - they were so proud to earn their award and have all been demonstrating peace in their behaviour this week in school. 

Thank you to all our families for helping us to take part in Children in Need today - we raised over £190 for a very good cause indeed. 

Have a lovely, peaceful weekend and take care.