1. Most of the important things in the world have been accomplished by people who have kept on trying when there seemed to be no hope at all.” Dale Carnegie Year 6 at Rock UK Value of the month Our value of the month is Perseverance. This is a particularly apt value as we approach the end of the year with still much work to do. The Y6s have certainly showed this value during their own personal challenges at Rock UK and all children have done end of year tests. Through assemblies, we looked at the link between perseverance and frustration and considered ways in which we stop persevering when we are frustrated. This was explored more fully in a subsequent assembly and the children worked hard to understand a short film entitled ‘The girl and the robot.’ Martin Smith, Headteacher Upcoming events Tues 1st July Pupil Progress Meetings Wed 2nd July Sports Day: 11am FS & KS1 | 1.20pm KS2 Thurs 3rd July | 9.15am New Reception parents Y2 Class Assembly New class taster day (am) Fri 4th July FOPHS disco and camp out Non-Uniform day – bring a bottle Tues 8th July | 3.30-6.30pm Parent Consultation with Herts Catering taster session Wed 9th July Parent Consultation 5-7.30pm Celebration Evening 5-7.30pm Theatre Company Visit Fri 11th July Y1 and Y2 trip to Brighton Sat 12th July | 12-3pm Summer Fair Tues 15th July | 2pm Upper KS2 Performance Wed 16th July | 6pm Upper KS2 Performance Thurs 17th July | 2.30pm Ukulele performance Y4 Fri 18th July Y6 Leavers assembly 9.15am School closes at 2pm ISSUE 20 | June 2014 Rock UK The Year 6 children had a wonderful time at Rock UK. A big thank you must go to Mrs Axford, Mrs Smiles and Mr Gower for making the week such a well-planned success as the children enjoyed a myriad of activities including raft building, high ropes and getting as muddy as possible! Such is the level of care and quality tuition that staff at the centre provide, we have booked the trip for 2015 and 2016 to avoid disappointment. “

2. 50th Celebration Day! It was wonderful to celebrate our special day with the community. The children enjoyed their picnics, celebration cakes, photos and of course the bouncy castles! Many school governors and past pupils joined us for the day and we heard memories from Jean Garner (Chair of Governors) and others. You may have seen the photos published in the Hemel Gazette and we hope the children will treasure the memories and come back and share them when we are celebrating our 75th! Big thanks to Simon Belson for taking the 50th shot shown above. We are going to investigate prices of having this printed and hope to send this home with each child as a commemoration of the day and year. We will also have a special enlarged version of this in our entrance hall.

3. Week of 06/06/14 Reception: Mia Okander Year 1: Phoebe Whiteman Year 2: Samuel Brinklow Year 3: Matthew Conlon Year 4: Nicole Johnson Year 5: Ben Smith Year 6: Class at Rock UK Week of 13/06/14 Reception: Alfie Surety Year 1: Ella Smith Year 2: Daniel Martinez-Wise Year 3: Charlie Carroll Year 4: Joshua Harpley Year 5: Pippa Marchant Year 6: Lois Axten & Chloe Pickett Week of 20/06/14 Reception: William Morgan Year 1: Finley Smart Year 2: Jack Lee Year 3: Tyler McAuliffe Year 4: Aiden Dabare Year 5: Alfie Brown Year 6: Oliver Marchant Week of 27/06/14 Reception: Ava-Lee Sarosh-White Year 1: Jayden Harry Year 2: Francesco Oliver Year 3: Ryan Pearce Year 4: Jude Tate Year 5: Muneeb Usman Year 6: Oliver Pleece Stars of the week to everyone! Well done News in brief Taekwondo club to be run as a lunch time club. Details on this available soon. Children will meet their new class teacher after the Y2 class assembly on July 3rd for the morning. New clubs starting next year – Environmental, Choir and Astronomy. Details in the Autumn term. If you would like to contribute towards a gift for Mrs Jean Garner who steps down as Chair, please send a donation marked in an envelope to the school office – details of this news item in next month’s newsletter Class teachers 2014/15 There is an accompanying letter which gives more detail to arrangements for next year but below is a summary. RECEPTION Miss Best with Mrs Laird YEAR 1 Mrs Edwards and Mrs Mounsey with Mrs Egerton YEAR 2 Mrs Haswell with Mrs Macleod and Mrs Johnson YEAR 3 Miss Woollatt with Mrs Walters YEAR 4 Mr Lawrence with Mrs Scales and Mrs Cook YEAR 5 Mrs Thingsaker with Mrs Parsons and Mrs Lilley YEAR 6 Mrs Axford with with Mrs Smiles West Herts Teaching School We are delighted to have become an official partner of the West Herts Teaching school. The way student teachers are being trained is radically changing across the country with more and more graduates coming through the schools direct route. This is essentially training primarily based in schools rather than Universities. Mrs Shelly McCall and Mrs Gemma Windle will be joining us in the Autumn term in Y5 and Y6. Pixies will be their home base for the year, though at points in the year, they will have training at Bovingdon and Hammond Academy and will also have a short placement at another school in the Spring term. The benefit for the school is enormous with extra help and support for the children and a second teacher at hand! We are also proud to be involved in the training of the next generation of teachers which is only entrusted to ‘Good’ Ofsted graded schools and will be in an advantageous position to recruit high quality graduates if needed in the future. Chocolate and Nuts A polite reminder that children on packed lunch should not have any food containing chocolate or nuts. We do have children who have serious allergies regarding the latter in the building and though the children know it is wrong to share/swap food, this is no guarantee that they won’t do it. We are also committed to the healthy schools programme and want to encourage the children to be fair in this respect.