Inside Rushton - 05.12.25

Festive season is well and truly upon us! Hedgehogs and Badgers started the week with two exceptional performances of The Big Little Nativity - it was wonderful to see them enjoying taking to the stage and singing away. Well done to everyone for working so hard to learn their lines, stage directions and songs. A huge thank you to our staff for their hard work and efforts in putting the show together, and to our PCA for providing refreshments. Next week we have Squirrels and Kestrels winter performance, The Snow Queen, at 9.15am on Tuesday, and 2pm on Wednesday. Again, the PCA will be serving refreshments and selling raffle tickets and we can't wait to share it with you.

On Thursday we enjoyed a magical day, solving the mystery of the crashed sleigh! Lots of theories were circulating around school - including a hijack and kidnap by The Grinch, Santa having a problematic test run, and some naughty elves stealing the sleigh! Luckily, all of Santa's belongings have been posted back to The North Pole, so Christmas has not been cancelled, hurrah! Thank you very much to Northamptonshire Police for joining us in the morning to bring the scene to life, and to our parents that helped with arrangements and getting involved as you arrived in the morning. We have had lots of elves popping up around school this week leaving a trail of mischief and chaos - at last count I believe there were 11! We've enjoyed hearing all about the children's elves at home too - there is a real buzz of excitement around school.

On Thursday the PCA hosted a fabulous Christmas fayre - thank you to all the volunteers who helped to organise, set up and run stalls, and all of our families who donated prizes for the stalls and supported us on the day. It was a fantastic event and we look forward to sharing how the funds raised is used to support our children's learning and wider experiences in school. If you are able to support events in the future, please contact Nichola who will be happy to help. The PCA is a vital source of income for our school and helps to provide children with additional equipment and experiences throughout their time at Rushton.

Today we enjoyed our Christmas dinner and Christmas jumper day - thank you to our cook Nikki, and Bev, Sim & Miss Padgett for their work making the dining room so festive, and all the staff who helped to serve and share their dinner with the children. It's a lovely day of togetherness and a real highlight of the season.

On Tuesday we hosted the Pathfinder Schools curling competition - our Badgers representatives did a fantastic job and enjoyed telling everyone about it in assembly today. Well done to you all!

Thank you for visiting our book fair over the last week - your purchases have given us £200 to spend on new books for our class libraries, we are very grateful for your support.

Year 2 children have come home today with a log in to Times Table Rock Stars - this is an app and website that we use in school to help fast recall of times tables- please encourage your child to long on and practise their 2s, 5s and 10s. In Year 4, children will take part in the National Multiplication Tables Check (MTC) assessment and we find that pupils who are used to the online platform find it easier to achieve their potential in Year 4, as it is an online check. We will host an information about the MTC for Year 4 parents in the new year, as well as a Phonics Screening Check information evening for Year 1 parents, and a SATS information evening for Year 6 parents.

We have an entry at Rothwell Holy Trinity Church Christmas Tree Festival this weekend - it opens at 5pm today, please pop along and have a look at our entry, Essential Tree- ding, based on the 100 books to read before you're 11 and 3/4.

We are aware that our website is experiencing issues and we are working with our hosts to fix it as a matter of urgency, thank you for your patience - please contact the school office if you have any queries or need any copies of files ordinarily available.

Have a wonderful weekend, and thank you, as ever, for your continued support.

Miss Hannant

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