Please don't worry, that not much is showing, this page is occasionally used to highlight particular stories that don't feature in the half termly newsletter

• Bike It!

  Wed 06 Nov 2024

  Through the hard work of our JTAs over the years, we have attracted the attention of the Cambridgeshire County Council, who have recommended that we join up with Sustrans to take advantage of their ‘Bike It!’ scheme. This initiative will see the folks from Sustrans visiting us on a regular basis for all sorts of promotional activities. This week, they visited to launch the initiative, and undertook one of their Dr. Bike sessions – in which they offer free tune-ups (including replacement parts like brake pads) to all the bikes that are brought to school that day! I think that they were a bit overwhelmed by the number this time though, and did not manage to get around them all before the end of the school day. Fear not, however, for they will be back in early November, when they are offering free cycle lights to be fitted to every bike too! They will continue working their way through the bikes at an extra Dr. Bike session on this day too. Tabassum, Elliot, Maryam and Pratyush are graduating from JTAs into a new role, becoming the ‘Bike It Crew’. They will be helping us to implement a lot of the Bike It events across the school. The next event is special ‘Learn to ride’ sessions which will be coming up in the week after half-term (see advert on the next page – and the letter sent out separately). We will also be having a FREE BIKE LIGHT give away on 18th November – literally anyone who brings a bike to school that day gets a free set of lights fitted! We will also run a Dr. Bike session on that do too!

• School Council Elections

  Sun 06 Oct 2024

  We started the year by electing a new school council for the year from Year 1 upwards. The School Council meets regularly to discuss issues that the children feel are important, as well as giving the teachers the children’s views on matters arising around the school. Last year they helped us with recruitment and supported the governors in their monitoring visits too. We are hoping that this year they will help us in our efforts to bring greater levels of sustainability to the school.

• Sports Day 2024

  Thu 18 Jul 2024

  After the success of the last couple of year’s Sports Day, we decided to run it identically this year. In the morning, we had a selection of ‘round robin’ field events where the children competed for their Houses in their class groups. In the afternoon session the children competed in track events with parent spectators.

   

   

   

  The weather was warm but nice and cloudy in the morning ideal conditions to run, jump and throw in! The children enthusiastically competed in their classes, a round robin of 6 field events including long jump, hurdles, javelin, sack race and a very complicated obstacle course involving an upside-down bench and a chair! Each time they won an event their house gained 4 points, 2^nd 3 points etc. At lunch these points were added up to make a morning score for each house – this was very close between all 4 houses so there was still all was to play for in the afternoon...

   

  Unfortunately, this is when the sun decided to shine through and the afternoon was very hot! The children dealt really well with the conditions and all competed beautifully showing great sportsmanship throughout. The atmosphere was absolutely wonderful.  Both the children and adults alike supported and congratulated all the children taking part - not just those from their class or house but everyone. The children showed resilience, respect, determination and kindness. A massive thank you to all adults who attended, as well as all the staff for making the event such a success; congratulations to Earth house for winning  the ‘Sports Day Cup’ too. S

• Holi

  Thu 28 Mar 2024

  Children at Ridgefield found out a lot more about the Hindu festival of Holi this week. They were visited by Hinduism Education Services who gave the children a huge insight into this wonderful tradition, including storytelling, dressing up in traditional Indian costume, developing their understanding of Hindu worship, culture and values – including atman, reincarnation, moksha and karma.

• Speaking Publically

  Thu 28 Mar 2024

  Key Stage 2 children at Ridgefield have been taking part in a Public Speaking Competition organised between local schools this term, with the final taking place last week.

   

  Children from Years 3, 4, 5 and 6 were free to enter in their own classes and had to give a 2 minute talk about a topic of their choice. The children from the class then voted for the best public speaker, who went through the grand finale.

   

  First, however, all the year group winners attended a special training session at Queen Emma Primary School, at which a member of staff from Peterhouse, one of the colleges of Cambridge University, came to teach the children a little about how to be a confident public speaker. The children were also given the topics they would have to talk about at the grand finale.

   

  Year 3 and 4 were given the topic ‘Children should decide what they should learn at school’. Meanwhile Year 5 and 6 children were asked to discuss ‘Deep sea exploration or deep space exploration?’.

   

  Ridgefield’s finalists were Eabhi, Alfie, Maryam and Rizwana. They travelled to Peterhouse on 19^th March where they delivered their speeches to the judges in Peterhouse’s amazing auditorium, in front of the other finalists and their supporters. It was a nerve wracking experience!

   

  The overall winners were Morley Primary School, but whilst we didn’t win the trophy, the children all delivered first rate, practiced speeches which did Ridgefield proud.

• Boots to Africa

  Thu 28 Mar 2024

  We were joined earlier this term by some of the players from the Cambridge United squad who introduced the children to their charitable campaign ‘Boots2Africa’.

   

  Formed in 2016, in just two full seasons Colchester-based Boots2Africa have amassed and dispatched over 7000 pairs of donated boots and 15000+ items of kits to Africa’s poorest children and young adults in Universities, schools, sports academies and community group at virtually zero cost. 

  The premise is simply. Children grow out of football boots. Boots2Africa will collect these, recondition then and ship them

  out to Africa so that they get another life with a child who will really apprecaite them. Older people also get through football boots too, then these boots can be reconditioned, or even properly recycled so that it helps the environment too.

   

  We have a Boots2Africa collection box at Ridgefield. If you have an old pair of football boots at home and you don’t know what to do with them, why not bring them in and donate them to this fantastic appeal, so that someone else will get the benefit of them in the future?

• Happy Birthday Ridgefield!

  Fri 20 Oct 2023

  This year we are commemorating the offical opening of Ridgefield Primary School 20 years ago. In that time the school has grown, changed staff and seen some difficult times. However, one thing has remained throughout – that the school has been at the centre of a buzzing community at all times!

   

  Each year we have themed weeks throughout the year. This term we have had an English focus week and our theme has been Ridgefield’s 20^th Birthday.

   

  One of the English events was for children to make a Birthday Bake which they could enter, along with the recipe and ingredients list. You can see some of the entries on the next page.

   

   

   

  …Continued on Page 2

  We also commissioned our school caterers to make a big birthday cake for Ridgefield and lots and lots of smaller cup-cakes for the children to have as pudding on the final day of the half-term! Thank you to everyone who entered a bake!

  

• Aladdin Trouble

  Fri 28 Jul 2023

  Ridgefield has been gripped with panto-fever for the last few weeks of the summer term! Oh no it hasn’t! Oh yes it has!

   

  This year Key Stage 2 banded together to create a smashing performance of Aladdin Trouble, the classic tale from 1001 Arabian Nights. Whilst the main actors were drawn from our willing volunteers in Year 6, children from across all 4 Key Stage 2 classes took part, with roles from chorus to choir open to children from Years 3 – 6. The main role of Aladdin was performed by Isaac, whilst Jasmine was performed by Frannie. Wishy and Washy were played with huge enthusiasm Nehan and Aleks, whilst the hilarious pantomine dame, Widow Tanky was performed by Winona, and Luca performed as Jasmine’s father, the Sultan. Noah performed brilliantly as the Genie of the Lamp, brilliantly supported by Sofia, Zahra and Yu Xuan as the three wishes. Of course, every story needs a villan, and ours was performed admirably (or should that be dispicably!) by Addie, ably accompanied by Ella and Billy in the roles of Wantu and Wantu… a pair of magically brain-addled rhyming twins!

   

  The cast performed to the rest of the school, then to the parents at three separate performances each with high levels of energy. The children loved having the chance to tread the boards and it was clear from the singing that all their efforts paid off! All in all, it was a fantastic experience with too many standout performances to mention everyone! And as for Aladdin’s final wish – “Let’s put on a production like this every year”: Your wish is my command!

• Happy Spring

  Thu 20 Apr 2023
  On Friday 31^st March, the whole school came to the hall festooned in a huge array of spring-themed Easter hats.

   

  The children sat around the outside of the hall, creating a ‘parade ring’ in the centre. Class at a time, the children came out into the centre and danced around the circle, showing off their wonderful creations and reveling in the end-of-term-ed-ness!

   

  Each class was judged and prizes were awarded to the winners, however, everyone who took part was worthy of a prize because the children (and the adults!) threw themselves into the celebration with great gusto!

   

  The winners were Isaac (6), Aleemah (5), Mia (4), Derin (3), Hannah (2), Ben (1), Anna (R) and Teresa (N). Well done to all of them!

• Visited by our MP

  Fri 10 Feb 2023

  On Friday 3^rd February, we were visited by Daniel Zeichner, MP for Cambridge. Daniel visited Ridgefield following a visit by Year 6 to the Houses of Parliament in November. He started by talking to all the children in KS2 about his role and what it means to be an MP. This was followed up by around 15 minutes of questions and answers.

   

  Following on from this assembly, Daniel moved through with Year 6 to their classroom, where they asked more detailed follow up questions for another half-an-hour.

   

  The children quizzed him on his motivation for becoming an MP, his family history and whether he enjoys his work or not. Daniel said that he had not been 

  asked so many questions about himself for a long time! He is often asked about policy decisions or what his political party would do differently if they were in power. However, the children were far more interested in understand what the role entails and why anyone would want to do it.

   

  After Daniel was grilled by the children of Year 6 it was his turn with Mr. Axten-Higgs! They discussed the state of school funding and the impact that the recent strikes were having on the primary sector. Mr. Axten-Higgs was particularly motivated to press upon him the impact of the chronic underfunding of Special Educational Needs within education and the impact that this black hole was having on schools across the state sector.

   

  All in all, it was interesting to have a visit by an MP to Ridgefield. The children were incredibly welcoming, incredibly interested and polite. This visit now completes a kind of hat-trick particularly for Year 6, who have now visited the Houses of Parliament, meet a member of the House of Lords and met a member of the House of Commons all within 4 months!