Pensby Post Autumn 2017

Pensby Primary School

This term has been very busy with
more improvements of the site. The

new sensory garden (mainly for
Stanley School) has been constructed
and looks fabulous. The main path

for the new Pensby 10 year
celebration garden has been
completed and is a great start to the

developments to come.

Pensby Post
Autumn term 2017

Headteacher’s Words

Dear families,

We are almost at the end of the first term of the year and it has certainly been a memorable one! So much
has happened during the term and it is clear that the children in all the classes have had an exciting and
interesting start to the academic year.

This ‘new look’ Pensby Post, is shorter than usual and you will notice that there are no class pages. This is
because our website is so well used by staff, that the old style Post would just be repeating information you
have already seen on the class pages. Instead, this new look Pensby Post gives details of whole school events
that have taken place in the term that you may not know about from the class pages. It will also contain in-
formation pages from the PTA, Governor, Office etc. when appropriate.

This term we have seen yet more development of the school site. The central sensory garden is now
complete and looks amazing. This is mainly for the pupils of Stanley to use, but our pupils will be able to use
it too. Please come along on Friday 22nd December, when you collect your child and come and have a look at
this great addition.

Our staff, PTA and Governors have been planning a special event to celebrate the 10th anniversary of Pensby
Primary School opening. They have been working on the development of another garden adjacent to the top
playground. This development has already begun and new path onto the garden area has been completed—
again go and have a look on Friday 22nd December. A celebration evening is being planned as well. More
details of this can be found on the Governors page and PTA page.

This term, our Nursery provision was one of few facilities to offer the 30 hour child care provision. This has
proven to be extremely popular and our Nursery is now full. This is great news for the school, for the families
and for the those children lucky enough to have a place. However, the Governors are aware that this means
some children cannot access the Nursery provision and we are looking at options to address this.

This term, it has been lovely to see more and more families regularly accessing their child’s online reports
and data through SPTO. This has been used in school for almost 3 years now and it is a very powerful
communication tool. The staff have taken this time to ‘get to know’ what it can do and in all honesty, we still
probably only know about half of it’s capabilities! The move to the new curriculum coincided with this online
report system and it has taken a while to all gel together...but it has! At our parents evenings next term, the
staff will talk with you about SPTO and how it tracks your child over the year. Linked to SPTO we have been
trialling the behaviour reward card system this term. This has been very successful and has allowed families
the opportunity to communicate back to school, which is excellent. We will be adopting this system fully and
our school behaviour policy will be updated next term to reflect this. The updated policy will go on the school
website and we will let you know when it is ready.

As well as being part of the Federation, this school is also very active and well respected within the local
authority. I am involved in quite a few projects in Wirral this year and this will explain why sometimes I am
not here—I am definitely not on holiday!! I am very privileged to be able to support other Wirral schools and
be part of a team that drives school improvement. This does not mean that I think Pensby Primary is perfect
and there is no work to do here! All schools should be constantly striving to improve and this is a culture that
is incredibly strong in Pensby and I have an amazing staff team to be thankful for in that respect.

On behalf of the staff, thank you for a very fulfilling and rewarding first term of the academic year. We all
wish you a happy and enjoyable break and look forward to seeing on the first day back in school on Tuesday
9th January,

Mrs K Brown

Headteacher

2016/17 WINNING TEAM

The children in years reception up to year 6, are all in a team.
We have 4 teams named after 4 of the roads that are around
the school site—Greenbank, Ashlea, Penmon and Kentmere.
Every week the children get team points for working hard and

behaving well and each week these are added up. The
winning team each week wins a piece of a rocket! The rockets

are in the hall for each team and when a piece is won, the
children can see their rocket developing. At the end of the
year, the winning team is the one that completes their rocket
first—for 2016/17 this was Ashlea! The children in Ashlea
team are pictured here celebrating their win! They each

received a gold star badge to wear!

Christmas Performance 2017

This year the
children in reception
up to the children in

year 6, took us
around the world

to show how
Christmas is
celebrated.After the
performances for
the families, the
children watched
each other perform.
It was amazing!

Sanctuary Care Homes Work

The Pensby Hotel has
been an iconic build-
ing in Pensby for many
years. Now it has gone
and a new care home

stands in it’s place.
Some of the year 6 chil-

dren were invited to
visit the site and see
the construction in
progress. The children
even got to operate the
crane! It was a very in-

teresting visit!

The school has been asked to fill a
time capsule that will be buried in

the grounds of Sanctuary Care
Homes for the next 60 years. Each

class has thought about life in
Pensby now and what it might be

like in 60 years time. The time
capsule is very small so the chil-

dren’s ideas have been scanned
and put on a USB drive—this has
saved a lot of space! Some of the
children will return to bury the
capsule early in 2018. During the
visit to Sanctuary care homes,
the children studied the plans
and chose a place to bury the cap-

SOUTH DEESIDE PRIMARY SCHOOLS

FEDERATION—MUSIC FESTIVAL 2017

Many years ago, in Wirral, the Local Authority used to organise a
music festival for Wirral Schools. Due to staff cut backs, this has
not been run for several years…..so the 6 schools in our federation

came together in the summer for our very own music festival.
Each school had practised a song to be performed. They had all
also learned some songs that would be sung by all 6 schools to-
gether. The event took place at Pensby Primary School in the hall
and was organised by Mrs. Shaw. It was a really lovely event and
the singing was beautiful. During the break, all the children came
together and chatted—they all knew each other! Everyone agreed
that this was such an enjoyable event it will be repeated each year!

Governor’s Page

Dear families,

Our school is almost 10 years old! The years have gone by so quickly and such a lot has hap-
pened in those 10 years—look at where we are now!

I was involved in the formation of the new Pensby Primary School. I was a Governor at both
Pensby Infant and Pensby Junior schools at the time. The infant school, along with Pensby Jun-
ior School and Pensby Park Primary School, got the news they were to amalgamate and be-
come one school. It was a huge task and one where time was constantly against us—we had to
appoint staff and then start work on designing a new building. The governors of the 3 schools
had to come together and work effectively and efficiently to form the new school. The appoint-
ment of the Headteacher was the first key action. This happened in May 2008, when we ap-
pointed Mrs Brown. Then the next appointment was Mrs Thomas as the Deputy Headteacher
(June 2008). We could then appoint the staff and this took right up to the end of the summer
term 2008! During this time we also had to decide a name for the new school. In September
2008 we finally opened Pensby Primary School! That was just the start of the hard work. We
now had to develop the new school and design the new building.

Looking back I think that the whole school team did an incredible job, in such a short space of
time. 10 years on, our school is strong, successful and most importantly a happy place to be for
everyone...what more could we ask!?

We want to celebrate our 10 year birthday in September 2018. We have set a date of Saturday
29th September for an evening celebration for families and staff—let’s all come together and
enjoy a lovely evening. More details will follow. We have also started to develop a new garden
for the children of the school that they will be able to use all year around. The new path onto
the garden is just the start of this garden and we want to fill it with the things the children have
asked for. We are working with the PTA and staff to develop this garden and hope that many of
you will help with this.

Above all, I am delighted that as well as carrying out their statutory duties, our governing
body is very much involved in the life of the school and being part of this 10 year celebration
shows this very clearly. I thank all the governors.

Please check on governor matters through the school website, where you will find minutes of
our meetings etc.

May I also take this chance to say thank you to all the staff for the production of yet another
wonderful Christmas carol concert. It was a lovely way to celebrate the cultural diversity of our
school as well as making everyone feel very festive.

From all the governors, I wish you Season's Greetings however you may choose to celebrate
this festive season with your
families both far and near.

Ukulele lessons!

Last year was the first year, that the children in year 4 were given free
ukulelelessons in school. The ukulele is a member of the lute family of

instruments and has 4 strings. It quickly became apparent that the
children thoroughly enjoyed this instrument and many of them purchased

their own ukulele’s...and they come in many colours and patterns! The
staff didn't’ want to miss out so they sat alongside the children and

learnt as well. At the end of the year the children gave a
wonderful performance to their families! Now they
are in year 5, some of the children have opted to have

more ukulele lessons (at a reduced rate). This years’
year 4 children have already started their ukulele les-

sons—and they are loving it!!

Art Exhibition

The recent art exhibition was
incredible! The art work was very

professional and displayed so
well. The cheese and biscuits
were also well received. The event
celebrated the talents of the
children—and gave a chance for
us all to come together and enjoy
the children’s achievements.

PTA Page

The Autumn term is always very busy for
your PTA… but very enjoyable!

This year we welcomed some new parents to our meetings and
events and that was fantastic. The more people that come along
and help, the more we can do. Our next meeting is on Thursday

11th January at 7.00pm, so please come along.

We tried some new ideas this term, introducing a new style disco
‘neon’! This was better than we could have imagined and the
children literally glowed all night!

This term we asked the children and their families about the PTA
and what they liked/didn’t like and what they wanted in the future. It

was very satisfying to read that many of our families really
appreciate what we do and like to support our events. There were

many suggestions for things we could do in the future and the
times we could do them and we would really like to work towards

these—to achieve this we need more people to come along to
meetings and get involved.

Your PTA are also involved in the development of the 10 year
celebration garden and in the whole school event that will happen
on Saturday 29th September. We want this to be an event when the

children and their parents/carers can join us all to celebrate 10
years of Pensby Primary School. We have a meeting for this on

Thursday 11th January at 6.00pm (just before the main PTA
meeting at 7.00pm) so if you just want to get
involved in this event, that meeting is for you.

We want to end by thanking you for supporting us
this term and helping to make all the events such as

success. Have a happy Christmas and here’s to
2018!

Choir Performances 2017

The school choir have performed
magnificently once again this term. They
went to Kylemore Community Centre and
Fairfield Nursing home. The joy they bring
to the audiences there is wonderful to see—
they bring Christmas to life! This year, they
opened the Christmas performances with a
stunning song. Mrs Shaw and Mrs Putman have worked so
hard with the choir and they are very proud of them… we

all are!

Nursery Carols and Santa Visit

Our youngest children
in Nursery entered
into the Christmas
spirit for their Carol

singing. Many of their
family and friends

came along to watch
and it must have been
quite scary for them—
but they stood so well

and tried so hard!
They sang 4 really
hard carols! Wow!

Santa visited the
Nursery children
after their singing. In
the afternoon, the
children in years
Reception to year 4
visited him in his
grotto. Santa went to
the classrooms to
see years 5 and 6
after that! Everyone
in the school got a

present from
Santa..they must be

on the ’good’ list!

School Office Page

Dear families,

The office has survived a very busy term and we thank you for bearing
with us when things get particularly busy!

A reminder that our updated mobile policy is that phones are on silent
and not used in the building except in the office area. This is to safe-
guard the children and that has to be the priority.

We are now using email as much as possible to communicate with
you ...but we need your email address to be the right one! If you
change your email address, please let us know so we can update this

on our system to ensure you receive school emails.

We put any forms you may need for medicines, holiday requests etc.
on the office page of the school website. We also add information
about events that may be useful to you. Please check this page
regularly:

http://pensbyprimaryschool.org/school-office/

The school office’s busiest times are between 8.30am and 9.15am and
3.00pm and 3.45pm. We recommend avoiding these times if you can.
You can leave a message to let us know about your child’s absence
from school by calling 0151 348 4145. Please let us know if your child

is ill before 8.30am by leaving a message. You can also leave us a
message and ask us to call you back by dialling the same number. We

do return calls as quickly as we can.

Finally, we thank you for your support this term. The office is a very
busy place and we appreciate your patience when we are busy. The
office team come to school each day, like all staff, hoping for a nice
day and hoping we can meet all requests and make everyone happy—

this is really hard to achieve!! Having families and children that
understand this and are lovely goes a huge way to making everything

better!

HAPPY CHRISTMAS FROM ALL OF US TO ALL OF YOU!

Mrs K Yeardsley-Jones, Mrs J Macrae, Mrs D Shaw
and Miss H Lloyd-Jones

Children’s
Christmas Fair

2017

This is the third year that the
children have enjoyed their own
Christmas Fair—and they love it!
It is an excellent opportunity for
them to manage their own budget
and go around to the stalls with

their friends!

The staff had created a bottle
stall, a craft stall, games to
play, items to buy and many
other things! In the

afternoon, every child visited
Father Christmas and

received a gift. It was also
Christmas jumper day so it

felt very
Christmassy and

magical!

ROUND TABLE CAROL WAGON 2017

On Monday 4th December it was Pensby Primary’s turn to do the
Round Table Carol Wagon. We were so lucky because at the end of
that week a very cold snap in the weather kicked in! The Round Table
were very impressed with how many volunteers we had and the num-
ber really helped to make it a thoroughly enjoyable evening. Every
house we called at was in good spirits but it was noted that an awful
lot of Pensby were tucked up in pyjamas and dressing gowns!! One of
the highlights of the evening was a little girl who was so
excited to see Father Christmas, she literally screamed and
jumped for about a minute! This event helps to raise funds
for our school as well as other charities so thanks to the

Christmas
Lunch!

Our amazing kitchen team
prepared Christmas lunch for
250 children...and yes there
were sprouts! All the children
were served their lunch at the

same time—in the atrium!

All the staff in the school
come together and make this

the day they serve the
children. The atrium is filled
with dining tables and place

setting are laid. Some staff
even came dressed in full elf
outfits! Crackers are pulled,

jokes read, paper hats are
placed on heads and

Christmas music is played!
It’s a brilliant lunch!