Where is Father Christmas?

On this special night where is Father Christmas. You can track Santa from here.

A Big Thank You from us all at Gelli Primary

May I on behalf of the staff and governors thank you for all your co-operation during the year. It has been a very eventful term with some great highlights. Please take time to browse our site to view some of the activities that the staff and children have undertaken. May I also thank you for all the cards and presents given to us this year. We are all well aware of the current economic climate and these gifts at this time have been very much appreciated. Year 5 have been writing poetry with Mr. Jones. They used the japanese form of poetry called haiku. Each haiku is made up of three lines. The first line has five syllables, the second seven and the third five. Haiku can be used very effectively to describe events such as the Nativity story. I challenged them to retell the Christmas story using haiku. They used Photo Story 3 to make a video of their work and collected images to illustrate the story, recorded their voices and added music at the end when they put their photographs on as a trailer. This was used in our Christmas assembly last Friday. This is a wonderful way of celebrting the true meaning of Christmas.

May I take this opportunity to wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

We will return to school on TUESDAY JANUARY 6th 2009 for the new term.

Eco Schools Yellow Woods Challenge

We’re taking part in the Yellow Woods Challenge…… the environmental competition run by Yellow Pages, working with the Woodland Trust and our local council. The aim is to recycle the highest number of old Yellow Pages directories per pupil and win cash prizes for our school. And for every pound Yellow Pages awards to schools, they give a matching pound to the Woodland Trust. When your new Yellow Pages directory is delivered, please help our school and the environment by recycling your old one.
Collecting old Yellow Pages directories
Children should only collect old directories from home and from people they know, with your permission. Please ask your family, friends, work mates and community groups to help our school by donating their old directories, too.
We need to collect the old Yellow Pages directories as soon as possible. If you have any questions about the competition and our involvement, please ask at the school.
For detailed information about the Yellow Woods Challenge, take a look at the Parents’ Pages on http://www.yellow-woods.co.uk/ or write to: Public Relations, Yell, Queens Walk, Oxford Road, Reading, RG1 7PT.

Dinner Money

The Local Education Authority is introducing a new dinner money collection system in the new year. ALL DINNER MONEY FOR THE WEEK WILL NEED TO BE PAID IN ADVANCE ON MONDAYS. I realise that this may prove inconvenient for some, but due to the complexities of the system Mrs. Thomas will need to input the information and balance the money on her computer each Monday. Your co-operation will be gratefully appreciated.

House Point Cup Winnners

This term’s house point initiative has been very successful. Each house has been successful in wining the weekly rounds. Here are the total points scored by each house during the term – OWAIN – 1838; GWENLLIAN – 1644; CARADOG – 1389; BUDDUG – 1246. Well done everybody. The winning house wins two weeks off school; there is also three runners up prizes of a fortnight off schools as well.

Eco Schools Mobile Phone Recycling

If you are fortunate to have a new Mobile Phone from Father Christmas, what are you going to do with your old one? Gelli Primary is now going to start recycling old mobile phones and hopefully raise money for school in the process. We will start recycling mobile phones after the Christmas holiday!

Thank you, goodbye and good luck Mrs. Davies

Mrs. Sharon Davies has been a Special Support Assistant with us here at Gelli over the past few years. She is leaving to take up a new post in the civil service. We wish her well in her future career and hope that she continues to be an active member of our PTA committee. Thank you Mrs. Davies for all your help and expertise.

Gelli Pupils take on Formula 1 challennge

Our pupils at Gelli Primary School are hoping to follow in the footsteps of Lewis Hamilton and become Britain’s next Formula One champions.
Year Six pupils have spent months designing and building their own mini F1 racer ready for a national competition.
They went head to head against 24 schools from across the country today in the Welsh final of the F1 in Primary Schools competition.
If successful, the pupils will enter the UK-wide finals in Birmingham in January to compete for a place in the world final held in Malaysia next summer.
Mrs. Fraser, our Design and Technology subject leader, who is helping the children with the project, said: “They have learnt a lot of different things. Not only have they learnt valuable new ICT skills, such as using computer-aided design (CAD) to design the cars, they have also learned how to be part of team, working together and running and managing a successful business.”
Year Six pupils formed a team of seven children taking part in the project. Lucy and Holly were the Team Mangers, Alicia, Shauna and Gemma the Designers and Rebecca and Jack the Computer Designers. The team is called the Rhondda Rollerz.
Mrs. Fraser added: “The children have spent most lunchtimes working on the car for the last month and a half. They’ve also stayed behind after school a couple of times a week, so it’s been a huge effort. This is the first time the competition has been run for primary schools and I’m lucky to be working with some really bright pupils."
The mini F1 car is made from balsawood and uses a gas canister to power it along at speeds of up to 60mph.
Cars will race against each other and the pupils will also be judged on a presentation they give to the judges at the finals. You can see more on our website by clicking on the school website site map and clicking on the F1 in Schools link

Class 3 and 4 visit Father Christmas at the Rhondda Heritage Park