Thank you to all the children who took part in our ‘Matchbox Challenge’. The aim of the challenge was to raise money to purchase new Accelerated Reading books for school. So far we have raise over £3000, which does not include the £668 raised from our recent Scholastic book fair. All of this money will go towards new Accelerated Reading book for the children to enjoy. We had some fantastic entries as you can see from the pictures below!

Three prizes (for Juniors and Infants) were available; the Best Decorated Box, Most Money Raised and Most Items in the Box. Prizes were given to children in assembly this morning – here are our winners.

Well done to:

Juniors

• Ocean Flanagan 4A – Most Money Raised
• Harry Sneddon 6H – Most Items in the Box
• Kaitlyn Watterson 6K – Best Decorated

Infants

• George Burdis RT – Most Money Raised
• Sophia Steer 2W – Most Items in the Box
• Chloe Collings 2H – Best Decorated

Representatives from the NSPCC visited our school today to talk to the children about staying safe and sharing worries with trusted adults. They were accompanied by Paralympic silver medallist, Tom Hamer who brought two of his medals to show the children. Tom talked about how he had overcome childhood difficulties with bullying and achieved his dream of being a successful swimmer. He explained how he had trained daily and dedicated his life to swimming, eventually winning two silver medals at the Rio 2016 Olympics. He admitted that sometimes he had faced difficulties but he had shared his worries with his parents who had understood him and supported on his journey to success.

The NSPCC gave us lots of advice about staying safe and encouraged us to tell someone we could trust about our worries so that they could help us. The children in Year 5 and Year 6 also took part in workshops about bullying, hitting and emotional abuse with the help of Buddy the mascot. It was great fun and very helpful. We all loved meeting Tom and hearing his inspirational story. Thanks to the NSPCC for making this a great experience and helping us to keep ourselves safe.

Today we all had a super day in school celebrating World Book Day. The children and members of staff came to school dressed in fabulous book character costumes. In Assembly the children enjoyed showing off their costumes to their peers.  There was also the opportunity to join in songs about reading and learn some simple dance moves.

During the morning the children were invited to visit the book stalls to buy used books that had been kindly donated. There were lots of fun reading activities and quizzes organised in classrooms some of which were designed by the children themselves.  Everyone had a great time and celebrated reading in true Helmshore style!

Well done to both of our Year 3 and 4 mixed tennis squads who came third and first in the mini tennis red competition at Fearns High school. The winning squad is now going through to the final in December – Good Luck!

Children from Years 3 to 6 enjoyed taking part in afterschool athletics club, making great use of the large indoor space available at Haslingden sports centre.

We would like to thank all our families for their generous harvest gifts for our local Rossendale Foodbank – RAFT. We have been overwhelmed by your generous contributions. The children enjoyed our Harvest assembly and brought their contributions to the hall.  We listened to poems and music which reminded is how lucky we all are and how important it is to help others.  Staff from school are taking the food to the Foodbank tomorrow and we know that Raft will appreciate all the items received.   Raft is run by volunteers, who weekly pack 30 or more food parcels for local families in need.  This includes food for pets too, special packs for new-born babies and packs for people who find themselves homeless.  Towards Christmas they try and make their food bags have festive items in them too and they also hold a Christmas Party for children.  After half-term we will be a collection point for RAFT on an ongoing basis and you are welcome to leave any food in the box which will be available on the yard.  Please do have a look at their website and Facebook page. Thank you for your continuing support.

World Book Day was lots of fun. Everyone in school dressed up as a book character for the day and participated in a variety of reading activities.  The children visited the School Book fair and enjoyed story sessions in the hall.  There were lots of different books to read and enjoy.