7 March 2025

Dear Parents and Carers

Wow – what a week! Both the infant and junior sites were transformed into Fairy Tale Land by our hugely creative team. Our STEM week has been a real success; the children’s enthusiasm, engagement, perseverance and learning has been remarkable. The STEM week (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths), which was themed around fairy tales, began with an author visit at both the infants and juniors on Monday that brought working scientifically to life – who knew that pink wafers would make the strongest biscuit house! The children followed the Big Bad Wolf's lead and asked plenty of scientific questions. Some of their investigations included exploring what would have happened to the Gingerbread Man if he had fallen into the river, discovering that wolves can't blow Maltesers across a room (let alone blow a house down), and collecting their own fingerprints to find ways to prove that it was Goldilocks in the Three Bears' house. Throughout the week, I’ve seen bridges being built for the Billy Goats Gruff, instructions created and followed for towering beanstalks, tessellating shapes designing the largest possible ‘Piggy Palace’, as well as plenty of reading and sharing of stories. Lots of the learning this week has been practical, investigative and problem solving in nature. This has allowed for plenty of collaboration and ‘struggle time’; there’s been times I could almost feel the children's brains thinking. All this has taken place in addition to the usual amount of PE, Art, Music, Phonics and in Year 6, even a trip to the Science Museum to enrich their understanding of the topic, 'It's a wonderful life!' A particular focus for them was the digital gallery of 'Who Am I?', where they were able to find out lots of information about their bodies and brains. There were lots of - hands on activities and a great time was had by all. What a timely visit to enhance our STEM week experience!

World Book Day formed part of our week. Rather than just dedicating one day to this, our whole week has been focused on books. As you know, at HTPD, we are passionate about reading, not just the teaching of reading but reading for pleasure and developing a love of books. For us, the focus of World Book Day (or week for us) is on enjoying books rather than dressing up. This is so much more positive for some children (and parents!) who find costumes rather stressful! All the classes enjoyed reading the shortlisted titles for the Waterstones Illustrated Book of the Year, and voting for their favourite. Our incredible librarian, Geraldine, spends time each week with every class but her phenomenal children’s book knowledge came into its own this week; I don’t think there was a book I came across in the Eco Team run book swap that she wasn’t familiar with! I hope your child came home with a good new read, whilst giving a home to and re-cycling and old title!

The beginning of Lent was marked this week with a Shrove Tuesday assembly at the infants, led by Curate Clare Marren and Ash Wednesday at the juniors, led by Rev. Simon Butler. On Tuesday, a small group of lucky Year 4 children were able to take part in the Guildford Pancake Race. In front of a busy crowd, the children dashed along the cobbles of the High Street, expertly flipping their pancakes as they went. They represented the school brilliantly and even got to visit the mayor's office in the Guildhall to collect the prizes.

On the sporting front, all of Year 2 and a group of Year 3's & Year 4's were busy this week competing against other primary schools at the Sportshall Athletics competition at the Spectrum. Everyone had a fantastic time. Huge thanks to our very own sports coordinator, Laura Sutton for arranging this for all the Guildford primary schools. I was especially glad to hear that the children from HTPD were excellent ambassadors, behaving beautifully, supporting one another and taking part with huge determination.

Two Year 5 teams played netball against QE on Monday after school, winning both their matches. On Thursday, two Year 4 teams played Tormead and just one Year 4 team are also taking part in a tournament at St Catherine's on Friday afternoon. It's lovely to finally play in the sunshine.

I’ve enjoyed seeing many of you at parents’ evenings this week. Thank you for taking the time to come in, look at your child’s work and talk about their progress.

It’s great to see our school values being lived out, with an enthusiastic “zest for learning and love of life” this week. After a very busy week, I hope you have a restful weekend, hopefully full of reading new books together!

Best wishes

Vicky

Thought of the Week: Love is not selfish – are you someone who finds it easy to share?

Infant

ParentPay - Pewley

Just to let you know the dates of past, present and future trips, with balances still owing. Please kindly log in and check your child/children's www.parentpay.com account/s across our two schools. Thanks to those already settled.

Payment due dates for trips and swimming:

Year 2 National History Museum due 14th March 2025
Year 2 St Paul's Cathedral due 21st March 2025
Year 2 Swimming lessons due 31st March 2025 / Autumn
Year 2 Swimming lessons due 31st March 2025 / Spring
Year 2 Swimming lessons due 31st March 2025 / Summer
Year R Chicks due 28th March 2025
Year R Cooking lessons due 21st March 2025
Year 1 Mill Farm due 21st January 2025 / Fully paid up

Menu: Week 3 beginning 10 March.

Junior

Holy Trinity – Parent Pay

Payment due dates for Residentials, trips and swimming:

Catchup Swimming lessons due by 2nd April 2025
Year 3 Greek Cooking lessons due by 7th February 2025
Year 3 Swimming lessons due by 31st March 2025
Year 4 Brooklands Museum due by 21st March 2025
Year 4 Butser Farm 2025 due 21st March 2025
Year 4 Swimming lessons due by 31st March 2025
Year 5 Brenscombe Farm Residential due by 25th April 2025
Year 5 Tower of London due by 21st March 2025
Year 5 Winchester Science Museum due 21st March 2025
Year 6 Preston Montford Residential due by 9th May 2025
Year 6 Wisley due by 21st March 2025

Dates for the Diary

Monday 10 March – 3G Swimming
Wednesday 12 March – 4SP Swimming
Friday 14 March – PTA Doughnut Sale after school
Monday 24 March - Y5 Brenscombe Farm Residential Trip Meeting with Parents at 6.30pm
Saturday 22 March – PTA Curry and Quiz Night 7pm (Christ Church, Waterden Road)
Thursday 27 March - Year 6 Summer Term Briefing 6–7pm
Wednesday 31 March – Guildford Primary Schools Music Festival at GLive
Thursday 3 April – School Disco (Ticket info to follow)

Cancelled Clubs

Wednesday 12 March – Creative Writing
Thursday 13 March - Y3 Football Club and All Girls Football Club

Menu: Week 3 beginning 10 March.

Fixtures

Week Commencing Monday 10 March

Thursday 13 March - Y6 Football Festival at Holy Trinity. The team will be sent out on ParentMail.

Thursday 13 March - Y5 Netball v Tormead. The team will be sent out on ParentMail.

Monday 17 March - Y5 Netball Tournament at George Abbot. The team has been sent out on ParentMail.

Wednesday 19 March - Y6 Netball v QE at Holy Trinity. The team will be sent out on ParentMail.

Thursday 20 March - Y5&6 XC at St Joseph's. The team has been sent out on ParentMail.

PTA - FOPS & HTSC

Curry & Quiz Night!
Tickets are selling fast to our Curry & Quiz night on Saturday 22 March, 7pm at Christ Church Waterden Road. Make sure you book your ticket here soon to avoid disappointment! There will be a fully stocked bar, with a welcome drink and food included in the ticket price.

We're also looking for raffle prizes for the night. Please let us know via your class reps if you have anything you could donate (e.g. wine, vouchers, games, etc.) or local business contacts you'd be happy to ask.

HTPD Fun Run
Plans are growing for our Fun Run on Saturday 7 June, 1-4pm. The sun is out, the ground is drying up and conditions are perfect to start training! We're excited to share that tickets will be launching on Friday 21st March, and we have some excellent sponsors on board who we will be announcing soon.

We are still looking for people to volunteer to help with logistics for this event so if you're interested, please email htsc@htpd.surrey.sch.uk (HTSC) or fops@htpd.surrey.sch.uk and we'll be in touch.

Sponsored Read

Today is the final day of the sponsored read. Well done to everyone who's taken part, we hope some new favourite books have been discovered over the past few weeks!

For HT:

All that's left to do is fill out the sponsorship form, gather up the sponsorship money, and hand both in together to the HT school office by 11 March. Payments can also be made directly to the HTSC bank account as follows:

Payee: Holy Trinity School Community Sort Code: 30-93-74 Account number: 00329472. Please reference this with your child’s name and class.

For PD:

Sponsorship donations can be made with cash at the PD school office or online here.

Thank you!

HT School Disco

HT will be hosting a School Disco for Years 3-6 on Thursday 3rd April. This will be a wonderful opportunity for the children to enjoy time with their friends in a safe and supervised environment, with parent volunteers and HT staff on-site.

The event will be held in two sessions:

Year 3 and 4 – 4.15pm to 5.30pm
Year 5 and 6 – 5.45pm to 7pm

The disco will feature age-appropriate music, exciting activities, a tuck shop, and pocket money stalls, along with a selection of refreshments. Please note: Due to capacity restrictions, parents will not be permitted to remain on-site unless they are volunteering or have prior consent from Vicky.

A sign-up form for volunteers will be sent out in the coming weeks. Please kindly consider signing up to help out as the event will only be able to take place if we have enough volunteers. This event is organised in partnership with HTSC, with all proceeds going to support the Year 6 leavers' fundraising efforts.

We look forward to welcoming your child for a fantastic evening of fun, laughter, and dancing with their friends! Save the date! Ticket info and further information to follow.

Other

Surrey Hills Spring Fair, Saturday 5 & Sunday 6 April – see flyer.
Grace Church Guildford, Holiday Bible Club – see flyer
Planet Soccer - Easter Football Camp – see flyer
Wintershall Free Performances – see flyer