Clay Cross and District Music Festival 2015

Rehearsal dates

The schools are divided into three choirs for rehearsals. Stretton Handley are part of Choir A and Choir A rehearsals are at Holmgate Primary school this year.

Mrs Dunbar will meet the children at the main entrance of Holmgate Primary or Tupton Hall on rehearsal days at 9.10 am after the start of the school day and children are collected from main entrance at finishing time to be returned to school.

Rehearsals – Wednesday mornings

16th September 2015    9.15 am – 10.30 am   Holmgate Primary School (CHOIR A)

23rd September 2015     9.15 am -10.30am     Holmgate Primary School  (CHOIR  A)

30th September 2015         9.30 am -12.00pm       Tupton Hall                          (All choirs)        (Mrs Dunbar will meet children at the main entrance at 9.15 am. Please park in top car park and walk children down to the main entrance. Please collect from main entrance at 12.00pm to return children to school for lunch)

7th October 2015                9.30 am -12.00pm       Tupton Hall                         (All choirs)        (Mrs Dunbar will meet children at the main entrance at 9.15 am. Please collect from main entrance at 12.00pm to return children to school for lunch)

14th October 2015           9.30 a.m. – 2.30 pm. Winding Wheel, Chesterfield – Dress rehearsal Meet and collect in ‘donut’ carpark at 9.15 am to walk to Winding Wheel and collect at carpark at 2.30pm. (Packed lunch required. Children may go straight home at 2.30pm)

Performance – Thursday 15th October Winding Wheel – 6.15 pm for children  (Concert 7.00 – 8.30 p.m. approx. Tickets for the performance will be available from school nearer the performance date – details to follow.

KS2 Quad Kid Athletics – Tupton Hall 17th July

Quad Kid Athletics 17th July – Tupton Hall

KS2 children are again invited to take part  with cluster schools in the Quad Kids Activity day at Tupton Hall on Friday 17th July. Children should wear their school PE kit as this is a school event and also please remember suncream and water bottle. Please see separate letter for further details and permission slips. Younger children may be collected from school before the end of the school day in order for parents to get to Tupton Hall to collect older siblings. Thank you.

Brackenfield Well Dressing 23-25th May

BRACKENFIELD WELL DRESSINGS 23rd-25th May 2015

Come along to Brackenfield over the bank holiday weekend and have a look at the school well dressing along with others by Wessington School and the church.

The theme this year is ‘anniversaries’ and we have chosen the 75th anniversary of Bugs Bunny’s first appearance on the silver screen.

well dressing 2015
Anniversaries, Bugs Bunny – 2015

The well dressing has been designed and made by children, staff and friends of Stretton Handley Primary School. The frame was brought to school for us to work on during the week and we have used natural material, leaves, petals and seeds to make the design. The central panel is Bugs Bunny and the side panels show some of the other famous Looney Tunes characters, including Road Runner, Daffy Duck, Tweety Pie and the Tasmanian devil.

Past well dressings made by the school are available to view to view on our website.

Swimming gala results

The children took part in the swimming gala at Sharley Park leisure centre on Thursday 26th March 2015. 8 swimmers, 4 boys and 4 girls from year 3 up to year 6 made the Stretton Handley team.
This year’s team achieved the best results the school has ever had. All 8 children managed to get to a final and so all received a certificate.

The results were as follows:
Boys 25m butterfly: LT 3rd in heat, 6th in final.
Girls 25m butterfly: HL 3rd in heat, 6th in final.
Boys 25m front crawl: MM 5th in heat.
Girls 25m front crawl: HR 4th in heat.
Boys 25m back crawl: NH 2nd in heat, 2nd in final.
Boys 25m breastroke:RL 4th in heat.
Girls 25m breastroke: ML 4th in heat.
Boys 50m freestyle: LT 3rd in heat, 5th in final.
Girls 50m freestyle: HL 3rd in heat, 6th in final.
Boys 4 x 25m freestyle relay: NH, LT, RL, MM 4th in heat, 6th in final.
Girls 4 x 25m freestyle relay: HL, MT, LG, HR 4th in heat, 6th in final.

Well done to all 8 children who showed excellent sportsmanship throughout, cheering each other on for all the races.

NACE photography competition – highly commended

Nace Competition - Highly commended

NACE Photography Competition 2015 results – Congratulations GF at Stretton Handley Primary School for a ‘highly’ commended’ entry to the competition. 

 “We were overwhelmed with the response to the photography competition this year, receiving over 1600 entries – three times the number from last year – so many beautiful and quirky images, it was such a difficult task to select the winners. It was an absolute delight to see how the young photographers had interpreted ‘I Spy’, so much imagination went into the entries revealing some very talented photographers. Thank you to all the teachers who inspired their pupils to enter and parents who supported the entries sent through to us this year. Watch out for next year’s competition opening in November 2015.”

Mary Fitzpatrick NACE Trustee and Judge

All winners and highly commended certificates and letters will be sent out from the NACE office this week.

Cooking up a Red Nose Day!


Thank you to everyone who supported Comic Relief by donating £1 or more raising a grand total of £84. The Children looked great dressed as chefs and cooks and the Infant children made some lovely biscuits for everyone to eat!

‘Blogging’ Competition winners – £400 sporting equipment voucher!

A few weeks ago Mr Cooke entered a blog about ‘Inclusion’ into a School Sport competition .

Dear Stretton Handley CE Primary School

Congratulations! You have won a prize for your blog about ‘Inclusion’ as part of the Reward & Recognition Scheme. The prize is a voucher worth £400 to spend at Youth Sport Direct to buy equipment for school to promote enjoyment and participation in PE and Sport.

Well done Mr Cooke!

RE Quality Mark GOLD achieved!

reambassadors2Stretton Handley CE Primary School has achieved the top GOLD award for the national RE Quality Mark. The REQM recognises high quality learning in religious education. There are only three schools in Derbyshire that have achieved REQM and of those we are the first school to achieve GOLD. This is fantastic news.

Thank you to all our children, especially the ambassadors who met with the assessor and spoke so passionately about our school. Thank you also Mrs Knight, our RE subject leader who has worked hard with staff and children and collated the evidence file.

Artsmark achieved!

Artsmark status

ARTSMARK_BLK2We are delighted that Stretton Handley CE (VC) Primary has been awarded Artsmark status.

Artsmark is Arts Council England’s flagship programme which enables schools and other organisations to evaluate, strengthen and celebrate their arts and cultural provision. It is delivered by Trinity College London and 10 regional Bridge organisations drive participation.

Achieving Artsmark status demonstrates that our school has a number of very special qualities. It demonstrates that we:

  • have an excellent arts and cultural offer
  • are forward thinking and open to development
  • are committed to investing in our staff and young people
  • are committed to listening to our children and providing opportunities for our community
  • have an effective approach to building sustainable relationships with arts and cultural organisations
  • value the arts and culture through a broad and balanced curriculum

To achieve Artsmark, we had to undergo a rigorous application process, followed by a validation visit from a professional arts consultant. We were assessed on many areas of our provision including arts in the curriculum, extra-curricular arts activities, how we work with artists and arts organisations and how well how our arts provision impacts on staff development and the wider community.

We hope you share our pride in being nationally recognised for our arts and cultural provision. We  would also like to take this opportunity to thank all our staff and children in making this possible.