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.

Congratulations from Minister of State for Schools

Letter from Minister of State for Schools

Dear Parents, Governors and friends of the school,

Some of you may have heard that we were in ‘The Times’ recently as one of the top ten primary schools in Derbyshire. I am now delighted and proud to share with you information that I have received a letter from the Rt Hon David Laws MP, Minister of State for Schools congratulating us on the excellent performance of our children in the 2014 national key stage 2 tests, published on 11 December.

‘Your results show that 100% of your pupils gained level 4B or above in reading and mathematics and level 4 or above in writing. This makes you one of only 149 schools in the country to achieve this level of attainment.’

The letter goes on to congratulate staff, governors and pupils for their hard work and success and ‘you for your leadership in continuing the drive towards high standards of educational achievement.’

As you will know we remain committed to ensuring that we provide a well-rounded education for our children, one that is not just about academic results. We have recently applied for the Arts Mark – external accreditation to recognise our success in Arts provision across the school and we are also in the process of entering for the RE Quality mark.

We are all extremely proud of what we have achieved together and would like to thank parents for their continuing support.

Julie Dunbar
Headteacher

Our trip to Cromford Wharf

First we got on the bus and travelled to Cromford Wharf, we then got off the bus and looked at the boat. The boat was called ‘Birdswood’. We got onto the boat and sat down on our seats, then the boat started to move. The man told us that along time ago, the boat was pulled by a horse but today it had an engine to make it move. Whilst we were on board, we played ‘I spy’ and did some paper plate weaving. In groups we visited the cabin and saw where the family would have lived, there was a special pull-down bed, a stove for cooking and heating and a place for coal to build the fire, but there was no toilet! Along the way we saw lots of wildlife, and we even saw a dinosaur!
The boat turned around and we went back towards Cromford Wharf. We all had a fantastic time and said a big thank you to the volunteers who had looked after us.

Written by The Woodpeckers.

Big Schools’ Birdwatch 2015

birdfoodThis term Kingfisher Class spent some of their tuck shop enterprise money on a large sack of good quality bird food. They also purchased a bin complete with scoop to keep the food in good condition.

The purchase has certainly helped swell the number of birds visiting the school grounds and the children were rewarded with a very successful Big Schools’ Birdwatch. For the full results of this year’s survey, visit the school’s Wildlife Blog and find out about the new bird on the block!