TranslateOn Thursday 17 December we had some special visitors in school! The Grinch, Elf of the Shelf and Santa visited! The boys and girls were so excited, a perfect end to the term..
From all at school we wish all of the children and their families a very merry Christmas!
Children in Mrs Gliddon’s class created this amazing pop art inspired by Roy Lichitenstein.
They are so lovely – well done everyone!
As part of Harvest Festival celebration, children could come to school today in their autumn colours by donating a food item(s). And look what happened – nearly 154kg of food!
Thank you to all children and parents who have made donations.
Here is a thank you note from Foodbank.
A Thank You Note from Foodbank
Have a lovely half term!
Please find below a letter from Lincolnshire Road Safety Partnership.
For more information regarding this year’s Summer Reading Challenge, please read a below letter from Arts Council England.
Summer Reading Challenge 2020 Lincolnshire Libraries
Happy Reading!
Is your home ready for a herd of cows and 100 farmers to visit?
We are really pleased to announce the launch of our first Virtual Food and Farming Day on Friday 3rd July 2020 with over 100 farmers and educators from local and national farms, food businesses, and much more streaming directly into your home or classroom with tractors, combine harvesters, cows, pigs and much more – all for free!
The day will also include a video from CBeebies presenter, pop star and farmer JB Gill, who attended the event in 2019. Speaking last year JB said: “This is my first time at the Food and Farming Day, but I have already seen how vital and unique it is in communicating with the next generation, not only to have more care and understanding for where their food comes from as consumers, but also to really consider the agricultural industry as a potential future employer.”
The new online event is in place of what would have been the eighth Food and Farming Day this year, which annually inspires up to 5,000 Key Stage 1 and 2 children (age 5-11) at our base at the East of England Showground, Peterborough, to connect with all things food, farming and the countryside.
Whilst our physical events went into pause as soon as lockdown hit, we immediately went into lockdown learning mode and have now produced over 100 free online learning resources published on our website to help parents with home-schooling and engage with the curriculum in inspiring ways you can find all of our online resources here (https://www.kids-country.co.uk/home-activities-resources/)
With the enthusiasm, dedication and passion from within the agricultural industry we are proud to launch the Virtual Food and Farming Day, which we actually hope will enable even more children than normal to take part and learn.
This will be a great stepping stone to what we hope will be the biggest Food and Farming Day on Friday 2nd July 2021, back at the East of England Showground.
The Food and Farming Day will be hosted on www.kids-country.co.uk as well as being posted across Instagram (@kidscountryuk), twitter (@KidsCountryUK), and Facebook (Kids Country UK). The event is free to access and will be live from 9.30am to 11.30am on Friday 3rd July 2020. The footage will remain available on the website for those that cannot make the event on the day and with everything from countryside skills to field to fork, and the global marketplace to all about animals, there will be a wide range of fun and inspiring footage!
As always, if there is anything that we can help you with your learning journey then please do let us know – we are always happy to help you facilitate inspiring, memorable and creative learning experiences within the classroom and outdoors, and that stands now more than ever.
Best wishes
Sandra Lauridsen
Education Manager
Please post your Art Work in the Post Box on the fence by the main entrance.
All Art Work is welcome!
During the lockdown, Kacey in Y6 put together two amazing presentation pieces on Islam and Titanic. Super well done, Kacey!
If you would like to share your work with us, please let your class teacher know!
Some of our Year 6 children have been busy!
Well done, Aliyah, Amelia, Cameron and Katerina! They all look utterly DELICIOUS.
What have YOU been up to?
Keep safe!
Dear all
I would like to send you all very best wishes from every one at the Bluecoat Meres Academies for the upcoming Easter weekend. These are challenging times. History is being made and in the future people will be learning all about what’s happening to us now and how we managed the changes to our daily life.
During the period of the Academy closures, on-line work for our children and students continues to be updated regularly. I would ask all parents/carers to encourage and monitor the completion of the on-line activities on a daily basis. This will ensure that when we re-open your child is well placed to resume their learning and to make the best possible progress in school. At the time of writing there has been no indication from the Department of Education of when schools will re-open and I am sure that we will all hear on the national news once a decision has been made by the government.
I asked our Academy Chaplain, Father Jonnie, to kindly provide a message about the importance of Easter Sunday to all Christians and it is a message that is particularly relevant to us all at this time. He writes that:
“On Easter Sunday we celebrate that Jesus rose from the dead and burst out of the tomb, that love and life and light are ultimately stronger than the grave. If Holy Week feels very real, then perhaps Easter Sunday feels very distant. It is at best a promise or a rumour, a whisper in the dark we don’t dare to believe. I shall be praying for you, and looking forward to the time we can be together again and celebrate the victory of life, hope, light and love, and give thanks for the many people who have shown love and courage.”
I was recently reading an article by an inspirational historian and TV presenter Lucy Worsley who explained that ‘Once you appreciate that everything changes all the time, there is hope that the world will be better again.’ We are living through a period when it is very important to remain positive, to be kind and hopeful, and to find joy in the world around us. We can’t be certain of exactly when, but what we do know is that we will overcome the Coronavirus and that normality will return.
I would like to offer my very best wishes for the Easter Weekend and please remember it is very important that we continue to follow government guidelines on social distancing and staying at home to support our NHS.
God bless and take care.
Mark Fowle
Interim Chief Executive Officer
Wednesday 25 March 2020
On Wednesday afternoon at school, your amazing children went on a learning walk and collected leaves, twigs, feathers and anything else natural that they could find. We all then returned to create this amazing artwork. Mrs Lindley and I were particularly impressed how all children were helping each other and how engaged they were in the activity from EYFS to Y6. Thank you so much!
Tuesday 17 March 2020
Hope Community Café, much loved by local residents and businesses, has stopped by with a box full of latte and hot chocolate and their delicious cheesecakes for the members of staff!
We were absolutely touched by their act of kindness under the current difficult circumstances.
Thank you Hope Community Cafe!
The Lower Site will re-open to all students on Tuesday 10 March 2020.
We are very sorry for any inconvenience and thank you for your patience whilst we resolved an issue with our heating system.
Childrens Guide To Coronavirus
31 March 2021
The DfE have announced that FSM families will be supported by a voucher scheme. Vouchers will be emailed to all FSM families, where possible, to be redeemed on a weekly basis at a local supermarket. The admin team are calling all families to verify their email addresses. If your child is eligible for a FSM and you have changed your email address recently please email this to BMA-Admin@bluecoatmeres.co.uk.
More information on the voucher scheme is available on this link.
Update 30 March 2020
The academy continues to be open to support key worker parents. The academy will be open to key worker parents throughout the Easter holidays and will only close on Good Friday and Easter Monday.
Update 19 March 2020
Following the Prime Minister’s announcement on Wednesday 18 March 2020, the academy will close to all students at 2.00pm tomorrow until further notice. As per the guidance, we will be providing childcare for students with parents who are key workers and you should have received a text message from the academy already regrading this.
If you have any queries regarding this provision please contact Julie Swatton via the academy office. If you have any safeguarding concerns during this period, please do not hesitate the academy on 01476 405200 or the Lincolnshire Safeguarding Children’s Partnership on 01522 782111 or the out of hours emergency duty team on 01522 782333.
As we enter this unprecedented period of uncertainty we would like to extend our very best wishes to all of our families. Our thoughts and prayers are with you throughout this time.
The academy is continuing to monitor developments closely in line with the guidance from gov.uk and Public Health England. The links below show the latest information available to us as a school:
CV BMPA Update For Parents 16 March 2020
We will update you with any changes via ParentHub and the school website.
The upper site is closed to years 3, 4 and 5 on Monday 24 February 2020 due their being no heating.
Year 6 pupils will be working on the lower site.
Years 3, 4 and 5 should complete homework on this link.
What a busy week it has been! In just two days we held five Christmas performances on both sites.
EYFS Christmas Carol Concert saw children in Nursery and Reception singing some of their favourite songs including Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer, Jingle Bells and When Santa Stuck Up the Chimney in front of their parents. KS1 children narrated Christmas Story and sang songs such as It Was A Starry Night, Away in a Manger and Little Donkey. On the upper site, KS2 children also sang some new Christmas songs and classic carols in the hall packed full of their parents and siblings.
They all worked very hard and all of their performances were a huge success!
Well done to all children and thank you to parents/carers for coming along to support them.
Have a lovely Christmas everyone!
We bade our farewell to six members of staff in Leavers Assembly on Tuesday 17 December. Children sang songs and presented their gifts to say a huge THANK YOU to each one of the leaving members of staff.
Mrs Bullimore and Mrs Smith were with us for many years and will now enjoy their well-earned retirement. Mrs Bullimore said, ‘I worked with amazing people and it has been like an extended family. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.’
Miss Harriss, Miss Perez, Mr Pettener and Mrs Hodson are moving on to pastures new. They will all be very missed by children and members of staff of Bluecoat Meres Primary and we wish them all the very best in their future.
On Thursday 21 November the children from Nursery to Year 6 celebrated World Hello Day by saying ‘Hello’ in the language of their choice.
How wonderful it is that at The West Grantham Church of England Primary Academy there are 13 different languages recognised as their first language for some of our children!
What is World Hello Day?
November 21, 2019 is the 47th annual World Hello Day. Anyone can participate in World Hello Day simply by greeting ten people. This demonstrates the importance of personal communication for preserving peace.
World Hello Day was begun in response to the conflict between Egypt and Israel in the Fall of 1973. Since then, World Hello Day has been observed by people in 180 countries.
People around the world use the occasion of World Hello Day as an opportunity to express their concern for world peace. Beginning with a simple greeting on World Hello Day, their activities send a message to leaders, encouraging them to use communication rather than force to settle conflicts.
(excerpt from World Hello Day website: www.worldhelloday.org)
On Friday 15 November children came to school dressed in yellow and/or as a rock star to show their support for Children in Need!
Yearn 1 children invited their parents in on Tuesday 12 November for a Gruffalo Tea party. They had prepared food to represent different parts of Gruffalo and wrote labels to tell the parents what the food was.
We all had a lovely time celebrating our topic ‘Where will Julia take us?’ and we look forward to reading more books by Julia.
An experienced school leader has been appointed to help further improve the academy.
Mark Fowle has been appointed interim Chief Executive Officer by West Grantham Academies Trust, responsible for this school and Bluecoat Meres.
Mr Fowle has over 36 years’ experience of working in schools, with more than 13 years as a successful Headteacher in Lancashire and most recently leading William Lovell in Lincolnshire, which enjoyed significant improvements under his leadership. He brings expertise in school improvement and he is passionate about providing the best possible education for every child.
The appointment follows the end of the Trust’s relationship Archway Learning Trust.
Interim Chair of the Board of Directors, Jackie Waters-Dewhurst said: “We would like to place on record our thanks to Archway for all it has done to bring about sustainable improvements at Bluecoat Meres and Bluecoat Meres Primary academies and for its help during a period of change.
“The Trust is now in a position to provide long term, sustainable improvements for Bluecoat Meres and Bluecoat Meres Primary academies.
“We are pleased to have appointed Mark Fowle as interim Chief Executive Officer. He brings an enormous amount of leadership experience and a proven track record of turning around schools.
“The Board is determined to focus on the future and provide the best possible education for our children.
“To that end, it looks forward to working with the new interim CEO, staff, parents and the rest of the school community as we continue to make positive strides in our improvement journey.”
On Wednesday 9 October 2019, we had a fantastic time building houses out of biscuits, icing and sweets. We persevered, even when the buildings collapsed two or three times. It was great to see everyone getting involved and helping each other.
