“Developing the whole child, spiritually, mentally and physically in a caring Christian

Environment through close links to the Church and Community”

                                                                                         Friday 5^th December 2025

Dear Parents and Carers,

What a truly festive week it has been!  A wonderful highlight was yesterday’s Christmas Fayre. A heartfelt thank you to everyone who supported the event—whether by hosting a stall, donating prizes, or attending. The raffle is still ongoing, so if you didn’t get a chance to purchase any tickets, please feel free to pop into the school office.

A big well done to our Festive Jingle Joggers, who brought energy, colour, and plenty of Christmas cheer to the week.

We were also delighted to welcome a very special visitor—Santa, who spent time chatting with our St Anne’s children. His Elf reported that he was very busy listening to all their Christmas wishes!

Another highlight of the week was a visit from Mrs Marshall, our new Deputy Headteacher. She spent time in Class 5 and enjoyed getting to know the staff team. We look forward to officially welcoming her when she joins us in January.

We also have more lovely staff news to share. Our Office Manager, Miss Fenton, was married last Saturday and is now Mrs Brightman. We send our warmest St Anne’s congratulations to her and her new husband.

Next week, we look forward to our much-anticipated Nativity performances, which always bring such joy to our school community. The following week, our school choir will take part in the Portland Carol Concert, where they will help spread Christmas spirit through song.

In addition, next week the staff are kindly giving their time to provide a ‘Movie Mob’ session, offering families the chance to take care of those last-minute festive bits and pieces whilst the children enjoy a seasonal film together.

As we move further into this special time of year, we are reminded of the warmth, kindness, and community that make St Anne’s such a wonderful place. Thank you for your continued support, and we look forward to sharing more festive moments with you in the coming days.

     

Care Home Collection

We hope you are having a jolly good day! We are excited to share a heart-warming initiative that our School Council, along with a wonderful group of Class 6 pupils, is organising this festive season. We are partnering with the Old Vicarage Nursing Home to surprise each of the 29 residents with a personalised Christmas gift bag! 🎄🎁

We would love your help in putting together these delightful gift bags. We are kindly asking for donations of the following items:

• Small boxes of chocolates
• Biscuits
• Toiletries
• Hand creams
• Socks
• Gloves

Your generous contributions will help spread joy and love to those in our community who may need it most. Please bring any donations to the school office, and let’s make this Christmas truly special together!

It’s NEXT WEEK!!  Bag2School – Bags and Shoes – bring to school on Tuesday 9 December.

Please fill your bag (sent home a couple of weeks ago) with all unwanted textiles – this can include adults’ and children’s clothes, shoes (tied together please), hats, belts, handbags and soft toys, (please refer to https://bag2school.com for full details). In addition to raising much needed funds, it will also raise awareness amongst the children of the benefits of recycling and reuse.

Bag2School will be collecting from St Anne’s School on:

Tuesday 9th December ONLY

Drop your bags in the class room when dropping off or picking up.

Please do not bring bags before this date as we have nowhere to store them.

Holiday Activities and Food (HAF)

The HAF programme is open to children and young people aged between 5 and 16 years (age 4 if in reception class full-time) and receiving benefits-related free school meals. This is different from the universal infant free school meals that children receive in reception, year 1 and year 2.

If you think you are eligible for free school meals but you have not applied, you can apply for free school meals online: www.nottinghamshire.gov.uk/freeschoolmeals

 

The HAF scheme can fund a small number of those who are not eligible for benefits-related free school meals. These places should be discussed on a one-to-one basis with a member of the HAF team. To be eligible for a discretionary place, families will need a professional referral from a support worker, social care or school team.

More information on this scheme can be found on the leaflet sent out with the newsletter and available on the school website.

Hot Chocolate and Doughnuts

After school on a Friday, until the end of term, we will be serving hot chocolate and doughnuts on the KS1 playground (bring your pennies) – to help raise funds for our School Fund.

School fund, is mostly made up of voluntary donations, and it supplements the public money to pay for enriching activities, better facilities, and extra resources beyond the core curriculum, covering things like contributing to school trips, sports equipment, playground enhancements.  These things are essential to enriching children’s time at school but sadly not funded by the state.  

Movie Mob – Thursday 11 December

Movie Mob returns on Thursday.  An email has been sent out and children need booking on via the Arbor ‘School Shop’.  Cost is £5.00 and includes a snack and drink.  Collection at 5.15pm on the KS1 playground only.

After School Club

There are lots of lovely festive activities planned at After School Club for the next two weeks. Take the opportunity for some Christmas shopping, whilst the children have some fun!

News from the Classes

Reception

Class Reception have been continuing their work on the topic People Who Help Us, exploring the important roles of community haelpers such as dentists and opticians. The children have shown great curiosity as they learn about how these professionals support our everyday lives and have enjoyed sharing their experiences of visiting these places. Excitement is also building as the Nativity preparations are now in full swing. The children have been practising enthusiastically and are looking forward to sharing their performance with families next week.

Class One

This week, Class 1 have been meteorologists in science. They spent time looking at the weather forecast and predicting which weather that they thought they would see the most of. Then they logged the weather each day, and created a pictogram to show which weather they had the most of. They placed a rain gauge outside to see how much rain they would collect, overall, they collected just over 90ml of rain. They placed a thermometer outside each day, measuring the temperature, and they logged sunrise and sunset every day.                                  

Class Two

In Class 2, children have continued their work on addition and subtraction in maths looking at comparing answers, to help them understand which number is greater. 

In RE, children have been learning about the importance of the shepherd in the nativity story and created a lovely piece of art work to represent this. 

During their English lessons, the children have been enjoying the Grinch story and thinking about 'how he stole Christmas' so they can write their own instructions. In Geography, we’ve looked at Victorian houses and modern houses, their features and where we can still see them in Worksop.

Class Three 

Class 3 got in the festive mood on Thursday with the School Games Jingle Jog. Despite the wet weather, they had a fantastic time. In maths year 3 have been started their multiplication and division unit focusing on grouping and sharing and starting their learning on the 3 times table. In science year 3 learning about endoskeletons and exoskeleton and the advantages and disadvantages of each. In history year 3 learnt about the similarities and differences between art, culture and lifestyle in the stone age, bronze age and iron age.

     

Class Four

This half-term in PE, our focus has been ‘tag’ rugby.  The children have learnt to pop pass and pocket pass.  They are also beginning to play confidently with other rules and tactics, such as dummy passes, backward passing and what happens when a player makes a forward pass or a knock on.

Class Five

It has been a very exciting week in Class 5 as we welcomed our new class teacher, Mrs Marshall. The children made her feel incredibly welcome and have enjoyed getting to know her and are already looking forward to having her as their teacher.  In maths, we have been developing our understanding of unit and non-unit fractions, working on recognising and finding equivalent fractions. The children have shown great determination and curiosity as they explored different representations and strategies. In writing, we have continued our work on The Promise, delving deeper into the themes and language of the text. The children have now begun planning and thinking about their own versions of the story, drawing on the rich imagery and ideas we have explored together.

Class Six

This week Class 6 have been building vocabulary and learning about past progressive tense to create a letter in the character of a World War II soldier. Their understanding of letter features and tone of writing is improving in each session and some great emotive writing has been created. In Maths, the children have been learning how to multiply and divide fractions, they are also developing the skill of answering more complex reasoning questions.

Congratulations to our Stars of the Week this week

There is no star this week due to nativity dress rehearsal.

Out of School Achievements:

These will be saved for our Star Assembly next week, when we will celebrate children’s successes.

Church Services

10am StA@10 St Anne’s Together, led by LLM Claire

6:00pm StA@6 led by Revd Edith

Don’t forget Wednesdays at 3.20pm St Anne’s Connect – a service for all the family in the school hall. Sandwiches, crisps and a sweet treat for everyone, with juice and hot drinks. We then join for a 30-minute service of worship and fun together.

2025-2026 Attendance

Class	Attendance
R	99.63%
1	91.54%
2	85.32%
3	87.93%
4	96.73%
5	95.34%
6	95.56%
ALL:       93.36%

 

Prayers from Joshua and Harriet R in Class 6

Dear God,

Help us to be kind and to always tell the truth, and to be patient.

Amen

Dear God,

Give us the strength to acknowledge our mistakes and choose our words carefully.

Amen

Mrs Middleton & the St Anne’s Team

Diary Dates

ADVANCE DATES TO AVOID BOOKING ANYTHING

Inset Days			Key Statutory Weeks (Assessment)
Friday 13 February Monday 27 July			Year 6 SATS Week – Monday 11 May to Thursday 14 May 2026 Year 1 Phonics Screening – Monday 8 June 2026 (2 weeks) Year 4 Multiplication Check – Monday 1 June 2026 (2 weeks)
Please ensure your children are in school during these times as their data will count even when absent.
Looking Ahead
December	9	Reception Nativity 9.30am / KS1 Nativity 2.00pm
	10	KS1 Nativity 9.30am / Reception Nativity 2.00pm
	11	Movie Mob – book on Arbor
	12	Christmas Craft Afternoon at 2:30 pm
	16	Portland Schools Carol Service
	17	Christmas Dinner Day/ Party Day
	19	End of term Service 2:00 pm in the church
January	5	Return to school – Term 2
	12	Class Reception – Forest School
	19	Class Reception – Forest School
	26	Class Reception – Forest School