30th June, 2017

Dear Parents, It has been another busy couple of weeks at the Pelican, one of the highlights of which was the Pelican fete (see page 3).

Choir and Music Assembly The choir and band gave us a special start to our day when they sang a range of songs, some in parts and played their handbells melodiously. The children listened attentively. I am grateful to Mrs Gorick for developing the children’s skills and enjoyment of music.

Nursery Trip to see The Gruffalo The trip to The Gruffalo was a huge success. Thank you so much to the Nursery parent volunteers who kindly gave up their mornings and made the trip possible. The children will all have come away with lasting memories of one of their first experiences in a theatre audience.

Key Information (details below)

No clubs next week

Year 2 Productions and parties next Monday and Tuesday

On Wednesday, 5th July, term ends for Nursery and Reception at 11.45am and at 12 noon Years 1 and 2

THERE IS NO OWLS ON THE LAST DAY OF TERM

Oak Class Assembly, 9am Friday 23rd June

It was the first time the Pelican has ever hosted University Challenge and both teams performed well with excellent knowledge of Cambridge. In addition, the children proudly showed off their college crests and beautiful artwork resulting from their river trip. Thank you to everyone in Oak, including Mrs Brunt, Mrs Brixey and Miss Tramm, for a splendid assembly.

Reception Dinosaur Museum

Such enthusiastic museum attendants! Once our tickets had been stamped, we saw fossils, excavated dinosaur artefacts, sampled biscuits in the museum café and threw bean bags to “feed the dinosaur.” Both visitors and attendants had a very special afternoon and we now have a group of budding museum curators.

Healthy Hearts To support the healthy heart initiative organised by World Heart Day, Dr Shakur spoke to Nursery and Year 1 about how to keep their hearts in good order. The children were fascinated and I am grateful to Dr Shakur for taking the time to raise awareness of this very important topic.

Pelican Fete Mrs Piper and her helpers organised a splendid fete this year for one and all. The Pelicans opened the fete enthusiastically, the stalls were well attended, huge quantities of uniform were sold and there was plenty to eat for lunch – and tea. Once again, the wet sponge tent was one of the most popular events. The wind band from the Upper School accompanied proceedings and drew quite an audience. There were some marvellous fancy dress costumes and splendid raffle boxes for which hundreds of tickets had been purchased. Thank you to everyone who ran stalls, contributed produce, books, tombola prizes etc and also to everyone who came and spent their money so freely! A truly special Pelican day.

Ice Cream! As they came into lunch earlier this week the children were surprised to see the chef ready to explain to them how ice cream is made. He had vanilla pods, eggs, cream and milk as well as strawberries, chocolate drops and bananas. It is part of our caterers’ initiative to raise the children’s awareness of the origins of their meals. To top it all off the children had ice cream for dessert. We are looking forward to further demonstrations next term. Thank you, Holroyd Howe.

Ballet and Music exams A range of music and ballet exams have taken place in the past week. Tantalisingly, the children will have to wait several weeks to have their results, but I would like to say well done to all of them for taking part and thank you to their tutors for preparing them and giving them the confidence to perform. A good experience to build upon in the future.

Reception Woodland Academy Today Reception had a special visitor from The Woodland Academy. They spent the morning grouped into their new classes, participating in team building games to help them to get to know each other and they sang a funny song too! The favourite part of the morning was building their very own bug hotels to put in their gardens at home. They used bamboo, wood (for the insects to nibble on), tubes and straw – they are waiting to see which insect guests will occupy their luxury hotels!

Year 1 visit to the Cambridge Buddhist Centre Today Year 1 visited the Buddhist Centre in Cambridge. They were told the story of Buddha’s enlightenment and shared some calm, quiet moments of meditation. The children were in awe of Buddha’s shrine as they silently entered the hall, particularly the gold statue of Buddha with ‘an upside down strawberry on his head’!

Islamic Assembly At the end of Ramadan Dr Messahel came to tell the children about the Islamic religion. Her three children have all been through The Pelican so she brought a range of resources of the right size to share with Pelicans. They wore special clothes, learnt how Muslims know which direction to pray in and what the 5 pillars of Islam are.

Coming Up …

Year 2 Production and Leavers’ Party 4 – 6pm on 4th July A reminder that there are two opportunities to see the production: Monday 3rd July at 9.10am and Tuesday 4th July from 4pm. As 4th July is, very sadly,

our Year 2s final evening before moving up to The Prep we ensure they leave in style with parties for parents and children following the end of the production.

Parents are warmly invited to join staff for afternoon tea whilst the children have a Theatre themed party upstairs. Everyone will be ready to leave by 6pm so that families with Year 6 children may join The Prep leaving festivities on time. Please reply promptly to the accompanying Persepost to indicate the performances you will be attending. We need to prepare those Pelican chairs!

If you have not yet returned your order form for the production DVD and would still like a copy, please return your form to the school office by first thing on Monday morning.

Club Pelican

Most days are now either full or have few spaces available. If anyone is still thinking of booking a place please may I encourage you to make the request very soon. Places may be booked by contacting Mrs Butler at clubpelican@perse.co.uk.

A copy of the Club Pelican weekly timetables accompanies this Persepost.

Housekeeping …

Library Books and Reading Books A final plea for any remaining books lurking at home to be returned to school next week.

Clubs and Owls Clubs for this term finished today. There will be NO OWLS on the last day of term.

Michaelmas Term Larks and Owls Booking forms for Larks and Owls will be sent via PersePost at the end of August. Larks and Owls will begin on the first day of next term, Wednesday 6th September.

Minibus bookings for Michaelmas term Minibus allocations for Michaelmas Term will be made early next week. The service continues to be extremely popular. Please let the school office know if you no longer require a place you have been allocated. In the event of over-demand for places we try to make everyone’s collections easier on at least one day a week.

End of Term Arrangements

To assist with parking, Nursery and Reception children may leave on Wednesday from 11.45am, whilst Years 1 and 2 will come out at 12 noon.

Instrumental tuition All families who have requested instrumental tuition for their child from

September have now been contacted by Mrs Hipperson. Music tutors will be in touch with individual families during the summer.

Mayfield Primary Reading Bus The Communications and Development teams have been working with Mayfield Primary School, at the request of their Chair of Governors, who is a former Perse Upper parent, to help them raise £8000 for their double decker reading bus, which is now permanently parked in their playground. They have worked with a team of year 5 pupils on the creation of the campaign and are hoping to get the publicity ‘out there’ on social media to as many people as possible. The aim is to get 8000 people to all pledge £1! Anything Perse families can do to publicise this initiative on Twitter or Facebook etc. would be greatly appreciated. All you need to do is click on the link: https://hubbub.org/p/mayfieldreadingbus and then (after pledging your £1!) click on the Facebook/Twitter links to promote it amongst your followers and friends.

Finally …

A message from our Owls staff who would like to say a big thank you to all parents who telephone when they are running late, stuck in traffic etc. It makes a big difference to the children, enabling staff to explain when parents will arrive and reducing anxiety.

I shall be attending the Upper Speech Day tomorrow. It is always a joy to see ex-Pelicans there, often winning prizes or performing. I love to see them, remembering happy times with them in years gone by. Wishing you all a warmer weekend, Mrs W and all the staff at The Pelican

We value: endeavour, intellectual curiosity and scholarship, breadth and balance, one another