As a Church school, our celebration of the major Christian festivals is an important part of our community life.

Egglympics competition Monday 18^th – Tuesday 19^th March

This is a fun Easter competition from the PTA to decorate an egg along the theme of celebrating the Paris Olympics this year.

This rich theme asks the children to decorate an egg representing any sport that is in this year's Olympics. For inspiration, you can see this full list of sports that are included this year: Olympic Sports - Paris 2024. Please label your entry with your name and class, and think about how your egg will be supported and displayed. The egg can be playing the sport or representing the sport.

Eggs should be brought into the school library between 18th and 19th March for judging on Wednesday 20th March. There are prizes for 1st, 2nd and 3rd for EYFS, KS1 and KS2. Now it's time to get creative!

Easter service

We will be holding our traditional Easter service for the children in the hall on the afternoon of Wednesday 27th March.

Easter holidays

We break up for Easter on Thursday 28th March and return to school on Monday 15th April. Please see our newsletters and below for details of holiday activities which may be of interest to families.

Easter walking trail

The PTA is arranging an egg-citing Easter trail around Saltford for families to do during the Easter holiday. It is designed for you to enjoy getting out and about in the village on a buggy-friendly trail to find art created by the children, funny jokes and to piece together a code that you can crack to claim a prize.

Maps and prizes are available for £2 from Saltford Community Library (open Mon – Fri 9 – 1 & 2 – 5 and Sat 9 – 12).

The trail will run from Tuesday 2nd to Monday 15th April.

Holy Week services in Saltford, Corston & Newton St Loe

Multi Sport Fun Days at Saltford School from Matt Analts

This camp will include a variety of sports including Basketball, Football, Tennis, Dodgeball, Hockey, Rounders and many more! The days will be aimed at all abilities and work on improving all skills, throwing, catching, kicking, striking, hand/eye co-ordination. Learning different games and have an enormous amount of fun! The three days are open for all pupils currently in Year 2-6. Plenty of competitions and prizes to be won!!

Venue: Saltford Primary Playground/Badger room and Hall (if wet weather).

Dates: Tuesday 2nd , Wednesday 3rd, Thursday 4th April 9-3pm

Cost: £30 per day or £80 for all 3 days. Mornings 9-12pm and Afternoons 12-3pm available at £15 per session.

Please see the flyer here for full details of how the days work and how to book.

World Book Day is always a special event in the school calendar where we get to share everything we love about books and reading. This year it takes place on Thursday 7th March.

Free Book Tokens and books

Every child in the UK and Ireland will receive a free £1 World Book Token (to be sent home in reading folders in the week beginning 5^th February). These can be redeemed at all participating bookshops from Friday 15^th February – Sunday 31^st March 2024 (Minimum redemption £2.99, one transaction per Book Token). We will also be able to accept them towards the cost of a book at the forthcoming Travelling Book Fair at school. The token can also be directly exchanged for any one of a variety of special £1 titles. Please see the full list here: www.worldbookday.com/books-and-tokens/books/

Travelling Book Fair

The fair will be taking up residence in the school library between Thursday 14th and Wednesday 20th March. It will be available for browsing and buying between 3.15pm and 4.15pm on each of these days. We earn free books for our school when you buy your children's books through the fair. Please see further details and payment arrangements in our letter to parents here. Payments can be made through the book fair website also using this link: bookfairs.scholastic.co.uk/pay/1276735. You can see the flyer here for a reminder of some of the titles that will be on offer 

Poetry competition for WBD

As part of our World Book Day celebrations, we have launched a poetry competition for all our budding creative writers. We would like the children to write a short poem (one side of A4 maximum) on a theme of their choice. It would be lovely to see some poems on the theme of books and reading, but this is not essential. The top entries will be featured in our school newsletter and will win some fun, writing-themed prizes.

Please give entries to class teachers to pass on to Mr Styles. The deadline for entries is Friday 1st March.

In order to provide some extra inspiration, please follow the links to the activity sheets below. Our youngest children may want to simply decorate a poem or rhyme that they enjoy.

What is poetry?, Rhymes and limericks, Haiku activity sheet.

Dressing up day

We are excited to announce that this year we will be celebrating by having a dressing up day on Thursday 7^th March. Get ready to show off your love of reading by coming in dressed as your favourite character. This can be as simple or as extravagant as you wish and the adults will be joining in too!

If you would like some ideas about what to dress up as, please visit www.worldbookday.com/resource/dressing-up-ideas-for-parents/

Celebratory school dinner

There will be a special school dinner menu on Thursday 7^th March to celebrate World Book Day. Please see the menu here and book your child’s school lunch in the usual fashion.

Author visit

We are thrilled to have an award-winning author visiting our school as part of our World Book Day celebrations. On Tuesday 19^th March, we will welcome author PG Bell who will be talking about his book series 'The Train to Impossible Places'.

There will be a special assembly about being an author, as well as a workshop with some of the children. There will also be a book signing at school, and all parents have been sent details of how to order a book. For your book to arrive in time for the book signing, orders must be emailed through by Friday 8^th March, although books can also be ordered after that date. Ordering these books in this way will mean that the school will also benefit from some free books for our library.

Please read this letter for a reminder of the information that parents have been sent regarding PG Bell and the process for and benefits of ordering his books.

Our popular Film Night is fast approaching (Friday 22nd March) and we are pleased to confirm the movie choices are:

EYFS/KS1 - Trolls Band Together (U)

KS2 - Elemental (PG)*

The ticket price includes a small bag of popcorn and chocolate for each child. We are asking children to bring their own reusable water bottles to help reduce plastic waste.

As usual they can come in their pyjamas, onesies or comfy clothes and bring a sleeping bag/blanket and teddy so they can snuggle down and enjoy the film with their friends.

EYFS/KS1 should arrive at 4.30pm. The film starts at 4.45pm prompt. Collection at 6.15pm

KS2 should arrive at 6.45 pm, film starts at 7pm prompt. Collection at 8.30pm.

Tickets are on sale online (www.pta-events.co.uk/saltfordschoolpta) for £4 each from 6pm on Monday 11th March.

*Please note that by purchasing a ticket you are agreeing that you are happy with your child watching a PG rated film and any content contained within.

We will also need helpers so please sign up when you are purchasing your ticket if you can help out!

We will be holding our traditional pancake races on the last day of term, Friday 9th February. Children should bring in a pan and a pancake (in a named carrier bag) and we will hold pancake events on the playground for FS/KS1 and KS2 pupils.

These races celebrate Shrove Tuesday which falls during the school holidays this year, on Tuesday 13th February.

There will also be a special pancake dessert on the school lunches menu available on Friday 9th. Please order following the usual process for school lunches.

Shrove Tuesday is the day before Lent begins. Lent is the period of six weeks 40 days (not including Sundays) leading up to Easter, the most important festival in the Christian calendar. Shrove Tuesday is also known as Pancake Day because this day was traditionally the last chance to use up the foods Christians would not be eating during Lent.