Welcome
Welcome to St. Mary's C of E Primary School website. Please feel free to browse the pages you find here. If you have any suggestions for improving this site, or any other comments or queries, please contact us via e-mail or 'phone.
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Snowy weather:
The first week of this Spring Term 2010 has been marked by some of the coldest and snowiest winters in recent memory. Throughout the last week we have stayed open where almost every other school has closed for some time. The 150 children who came to school when the snow was fresh had a wonderful time playing in the snow with their friends. We managed to stay open because the site is fairly safe and enough staff were able to get to work to teach the children. The staff at St. Mary’s have consistently shown a willingness to get in to work from wherever they live, throughout the bad weather, (as they did last year), and without them we could not have managed it!
New Roof:
We are delighted to have the new roof on the school finished (almost!). There are just a few minor details to complete, but at last we are dry and the main school building has been given an excellent face lift. The builders have worked throughout the Autumn Term in atrocious conditions, but have managed to deliver the project on time. The next stage of development for the buildings is for the Governors to explore the possibility of building in some renewable energy sources. Watch this space!
OfSTED Inspection October 2009:
On 15th and 16th October 2009 we were inspected by three inspectors from OfSTED. They look at all areas of school life, but particularly concentrated on:
The degree to which the school has improved in writing and mathematics,
Improvements in the Foundation Stage,
The effectiveness of the use of assessment to help pupils make improved progress
How well the After School Club is providing for children.
The results of the inspection were extremely positive. The judgment was that “St. Mary's is a good school. It is improving well and has a number of notable features”. We were judged to be good in all areas (The exception was pupils' attendance, where the judgment was 'satisfactory', because the percentage was slightly below the national average.)
Therefore, this is a school with no areas of weakness, only strengths on which to build. There are two suggestions as to how to improve further: to be more consistent in the way children have opportunities for self evaluation, and to improve the opportunities for children to choose where to work and play, both indoors and outdoors, in Foundation Stage.
The whole report can be downloaded or read by clicking this link.
St. Mary's 2009 OfSTED report.
Enjoy-a-Ball
On Thursday 12th November, children from years 1, 2, 3 and 4 were given a taster session of Enjoy-a- Ball, an out of school club aimed at young children to encourage them to be physically active and developed their PE skills.
If you are interested in your child joining this club then please contact Alex Farmer on 07791382443 or if you want further information then their website is www.enjoy-a-ball.com
Maasai Warriors
On the 22nd of October 2009 we were visited by some Maasai warriors from Kenya who shared with us their traditional dances and talked about their culture and way of life at home.
The children and the teachers had a go at singing and chanting some Maasai songs as well as joining in with the dancing.
There was an opportunity for the children to ask questions to the Maasai to find out more about what life was like for them back in their village.
The Departure of Father Mike.
On Tuesday 22nd November we said goodbye and thank you to Father Mike (the Venerable Mike Edson, Rector of Bideford) who is retiring at the end of the month. Mike Edson has been associated with St. Mary’s School since his arrival in Bideford and for the last three years has been Chair of Governors.
He was presented with a folder containing children’s memories of him, most of which were occasions which made us laugh. The choir sang and the children cheered him into retirement.
We would all like to thank Father Mike for all his contributions to the school. We will miss him!
This is a link to Devon County Council for information.