From the Headmaster

In so many ways this has been an “outstanding” term at Hallfield. On 2 February, I received “the call” from ISI confirming the EYFS Intermediate Inspection would take place on the 8 & 9 February. Two inspectors duly arrived and from ‘start to finish’, both inspectors were hugely impressed with the quality of teaching and learning in the classrooms and the mature way in which the children conduct themselves in school. In all 4 areas, the setting was rated “outstanding” and therefore “outstanding” overall. Mrs Oliver - Head of EYFS, all of the EYFS staff and children should be congratulated for this remarkable achievement.

Congratulations also to Astrid (5L) who has been selected to play in the National Children’s Orchestra. She is pictured here playing her clarinet and looking forward to benefiting from this wonderful opportunity.

The 11+ results and offers are currently being finalised for our Year 6 children. 77% of the children have been offered a LA Grammar School place and this total could further improve if children are offered places from the waiting list. In addition, the Year 6 children have also been awarded 28 Scholarships with 7 to EHS, 7 to KES, 2 to KEHS, 7 to The Priory & 5 to Solihull. These are a fantastic set of results. Congratulations to our Year 6 children and well done to the staff and parents for guiding the children to their success.

Tania and I would like to wish you and your families a very enjoyable and restful Easter holidays.

Hallfield SchoolChurch Road Edgbaston Birmingham B15 3SJ

0121 454 1496

office@hallfieldschool.co.uk

www.hallfieldschool.co.uk

@HallfieldSchool

Hallfield Focus

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Inside this Issue

From the Chairman 2

PTA News 2

Hallfieldfirst 3

Pre-Prep 4

Upper School 6

Hallfield Vision 8

… on the Spring Term 2016

From the ChairmanThe EYFS Governor, Sheila Sherlock, and I were delighted to attend the feedback session for the EYFS inspection last month. I hope that you will enjoy reading the “outstanding” report. It is very clear that Mrs Oliver, in her short period as Head of EYFS, has already made a difference and her leadership has made an incredible impact to this essential and important part of the school. 100% of parents who replied to the ISI questionnaire confirmed that “they would recommend Hallfield to their friends”.

I was also delighted to hear from the inspectors that they were very impressed with the recent investment, made by the school, to improve the facilities in the EYFS setting including the extensions to the Foundation & Reception classrooms, as well as the recently refurbished and completed outdoor learning areas for the children.

May I wish you all a well deserved Easter holiday.

Keith UffChairman of Governors

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Sport reliefOn Friday 18 March Hallfield children danced and ‘played their way’ to a day of fun and sport in aid of Sport Relief. £637.23 was raised throughout the day – thank you to everyone for supporting this event and very worthy cause.

Mrs Woodward & Mrs Checketts Charity Coordinators

PTA2016 began with a “flying start” at the Snow Ball held at the ECC. Over 240 guests from Hallfield, EHS & the OHS danced the night away to live music from The 80’s Project and Disco. Before the dinner £1,050 was raised for the worthy cause of Air Ambulance with a game of “Heads & Tails”... won for a second year by a Hallfield parent! Next year’s event will take place on 4 February 2017 with a Valentine’s Theme!

Children and parents had fun at the Easter Egg Hunt in the school grounds on the last Saturday of term. The children enjoyed playing games, finding the hidden Easter Eggs and spotting the Easter Bunny while the adults enjoyed watching their children having fun and eating the lovely hot cross buns.

Our final event of the year will be Hallfield Day on Saturday 2 July - 12.00 - 4.00. The theme will be CS Lewis’ “Mad Hatter’s Tea Party” and some of the children will be taking part, and acting out the play in the school grounds. See you there!

Kavita ChauhanPTA Chair

Hallfieldfirst NewsWhat a busy start to the year and the spring term! We welcomed lots of new children and their families to the nursery and we also said ‘welcome back’ to Clare Kimberley (Nursery Manager) and Victoria Hulland (Third in Charge

Eeyore’s Room Leader) who both returned in February from their maternity leave.

The Spring term at Hallfieldfirst has included celebrating various festivals such as Lohri, Chinese New Year and Pancake day. We have also made lots of lovely messy creations and Owl’s Room (children and staff) particularly enjoyed exploring paint through their body painting activity.

The weather has been very unpredictable but this hasn’t stopped us all getting outside to explore! We enjoyed playing in the mud kitchen outside in the garden and going on walks around the school to find lots of big puddles to splash in!

We recently celebrated World Book Day by dressing up as our favourite nursery rhyme and book characters and we read lots of stories throughout the day. We also took part in Shimmy with Timmy in support of Sport Relief and everyone enjoyed learning how to barn dance! At the end of March we held our annual Stay and Play week and, this year, parents were invited to join their children to create some lovely yummy Easter treats.

Finally, we wish good luck to Michelle Horner as she starts her Maternity Leave, and say congratulations to Michelle Allden who gave birth to her second child, Ella-Rae on 1 March.

Dates for your Diary

Nursery will be closed on Friday 25 and Monday 28 March for the Easter Break and will reopen on Tuesday 29 March at 8.00 am

• 3 - 6 May Hallfieldfirst 10th Birthday Celebrations

• 16 - 20 May Physical Development Week

• 13 - 17 June Big Toddle

• 28 & 29 June Parents’ Evenings

Nursery will be closed on the following dates (bank holidays): Monday 2 May, Monday 30 May, Monday 29 August

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Pre-Prep News

What an “outstanding” term it has been in the Pre-Prep! We were delighted to be able to share our inspection report with parents and we are very proud of all our children’s amazing achievements.

Highlights this term included the lovely Mother’s Day assemblies where the children explained why they love their mums so much and, afterwards, presented them with some very special gifts. Parents were impressed with the high standard of performance in the Elocution Competition from children as young as three years old!

Our guest adjudicators - Mrs Piddock and Mrs Kembery - had the unenviable task of selecting first, second and third places. Congratulations to all our finalists – full details can be found in the end of term letter from the Headmaster.

The children have enjoyed various workshops and outings this term and the Year 1 pirate workshop was particularly popular with children and parents, who dressed as pirates and took part in themed activities. Transition enjoyed a trip to the Birmingham Wildlife Conservation Park; Foundation enjoyed their visit to Twycross Zoo and Reception visited the fire station and afterwards enjoyed playing in their fire station role play areas.

In Transition the children have been having fun playing with new resources as part of our continued refurbishment programme. The digging area outdoors is especially popular as are the builder’s role play resources.

Next term we are looking forward to (hopefully) sunshine and many outdoor play and learning opportunities.

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Dates for your Diary• 3 May Year 1 & Year 2 Stay and Play

• 14 June Year 1 & Year 2 Sports Day

• 15 June (9:15) Foundation & Reception Sports Day

• 15 June (11:00) Transition Sports Day

• 17 June (am) Pre-Prep Sports Day (Reserve)

• 17 June (2:00 pm) Year 2 Play to Parents

Year 2 ExplorersThe term began with exploring the ‘Amazon Rainforest’ whilst working on our presentation skills at the same time! A lot of hard work went into the presentations and the children enjoyed learning about the plants and animals which live there and why the Rainforests are so important.

Our trip to Birmingham ‘Back to Backs’ allowed the children to re-enact the lives of poor Victorians and they learnt about rural working life in the past during our visit to Shugborough Hall Farm.

It is clear to see that we have some budding artists in Year 2! In particular the children created their own fantastic versions of ‘Surprised’ by Henri Rousseau and produced super creative pieces at the Barber Institute of fine arts.

World Book DayAs part of World Book Day celebrations, Reception classes baked cookies to eat whilst listening to stories.

Under the watchful eye of Mrs Woolley, the children stirred, whisked and mixed their cookie dough to perfection. They had to be extra careful as everyone was dressed as a character from their favourite stories, so we had princesses, pirates and even the ‘Cat in a Hat’ busily cooking (although he took off the Hat!). The day was a huge and delicious success.

Year 1 Play: Pirates v MermaidsThis term Year 1 have been learning about different parts of history. As part of this they learned about pirates. So, what better way to continue our learning than with a play! The children worked very hard to prepare and learn their lines and they gave an Oscar winning performance! The play, set at ‘Me Hearty High School’ was a swashbuckling adventure on the high seas teaching the Pirates and Mermaids how to be kind to one another.

The children thoroughly enjoyed learning all of the catchy tunes along with a few dance moves and enjoyed dressing up in their best costumes.

After the play was finished, Mrs Martin began her maternity leave – and baby Harry was born that very night! We send our best wishes and we look forward to seeing them soon!

Upper School NewsIn the Upper School this term we have enjoyed a combination of exciting trips out, lots and lots of competitive sport as well as the usual routine of hard work in classrooms and the rigours of examinations and assessments. Our Year 6 children have now received their school offers for next year and the news has been overwhelmingly positive. Many children have received offers from a number of schools and an impressive number of scholarships.

All year groups have also had the opportunity to take a break from the classroom and enjoy educational visits off the school site this term as well. Year 3 enjoyed a day of science activities at Thinktank, whilst our Year 4 children spent a day at the Conkers science theme park.

Continuing the science theme, Year 5 spent the day at the NEC looking around the inspirational exhibits at the Big Bang Fair and the Thursday lunchtime challenges for Year 5 have again been entertaining with topics ranging from paper bridge building to dingbats.

We also organised a new trip this year with our Year 6 pupils, taking them for a 3 mile walk along the canal near to the school looking at the benefits of urban regeneration. This was a joint exercise by the history and geography departments and opened the children’s eyes to the complex and changing heritage of Birmingham’s canal network. It was fascinating to see the stark contrast between the older run down areas north of the city centre and the shiny new steel and glass structures of Brindley Place and Gas Street Basin. We even saw glimpses of the new development at Paradise Circus which will take the city into the next decades and beyond.

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Year 5 Maths Challenge at Wrekin College Zayd Syed, Sana Sibal, Rohan Galappathie and Jessica Brench were selected to represent Hallfield at a Year 5 Maths Challenge at Wrekin College, Telford on Friday 4 March. Exactly 150 pupils from over 35 schools took part. The challenge involved pupils working in pairs to solve a variety of puzzles with the emphasis on fun and enjoyment. Year 10 pupils from Wrekin College were on hand to act as markers and provide feedback.

Zayd and Sana finished a very creditable equal 17th out of 38 in their half of the competition while Rohan and Jessica did even better in their half, managing to finish equal 8th out of 37. All four pupils enjoyed the day and represented the school splendidly.

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Dates for your Diary• May 3 to May 6 Year 5 Exam Week

• May 3 to May 6 Year 4 Residential: Brecon Beacons

• May 9 to May 13 Year 6 Community Week

• May 23 to May 27 Year 6 Drama Week

• June 6 to June 10 Year 6 Residential: Ullswater

• June 14 to June 17 Year 5 Residential: North Yorkshire

Elocution Competition After a week of intense first rounds and some very difficult judging decisions, the final of the Upper School Elocution Competition took place on Tuesday 8 March. The audience was treated to a wide range of poems, from comedy pieces by Spike Milligan to a classic war poem by Wilfred Owen. Our adjudicator, David Morgan, Deputy Head from Solihull School, was hugely impressed by the calibre of the finalists and described it as “an outstanding celebration of the spoken word”. Well done to everyone who took part and congratulations to all our finalists – full details can be found in the end of term letter from the Headmaster.

A BIG thank you to all the children and families who put together their ideas and designed our ‘book bench’ for The Big Read! We were so impressed, not only with the designs but with the enthusiasm towards the project! We had a very difficult time picking just a few children to produce the final book bench design. Congratulations to the following children, they can’t wait to get started!

Year 3Sophie GautamRitik Jose

Year 5Sana SibalManish Doal

Year 4Hannah BartlettDarshan Vijayaraj

Year 6Shweta AbrahamAli MasterShreya MachadoEmmeline Villiers-Cundy

Invitational Schools Cross Country 8 schools attended this year’s event in near perfect conditions. Congratulations to Amira Hamilton (U9 Girls’ winner) Ronan Maher (U11 Boys’ winner) and the U9 Boys’ Team who came 1st overall. Thank you to Garry Cook (former Hallfield teacher) and Kathy Cook (both former GB runners) for presenting the prizes.

A BIG thank you to all the children and families who put together their ideas and designed our ‘book bench’ for The Big Read! We were so impressed, not only with the designs but with the enthusiasm towards the project! We had a very difficult time picking just a few children to produce the final book bench design. Congratulations to the following children, they can’t

Year 4Hannah Bartlett

Cross Country 8 schools attended this year’s event in near perfect conditions. Congratulations to Amira Hamilton (U9 Girls’ winner) Ronan Maher (U11 Boys’ winner) and the U9 Boys’ Team who came 1st overall. Thank you to Garry Cook (former Hallfield teacher) and Kathy Cook (both former GB runners) for presenting the prizes.

Symphony Hall Performance Three children from Hallfield took part in a live Radio 3 broadcast from Symphony Hall on Thursday, 21 January 2016. Astrid, Shreya and Rohan met Dame Judith Weir, the ‘Master of the Queen’s Music.’

Leaving from the ‘Artist’s Entrance,’ one of the children very excitedly said at the end, “I just loved hearing and watching the different sounds created by the percussion instruments.” Simon Halsey, who was awarded the 2014 Queen’s Medal for Music, conducted the performance and he was delighted to be photographed with the children, preserving a wonderful memento of their special occasion.

Hallfield VisionFrom the ChairmanThe Snow Ball, held at Edgbaston Cricket Ground on 23 January and jointly organised by Hallfield, Edgbaston High School and the OHS, was hugely successful and thoroughly enjoyed by over 240 guests; it certainly ‘set the bar’ very high for 2017! Next year, this event will take place on 4 February with a ‘Valentines’ theme... I’m sure tickets will sell fast! Since the ball, there have been further opportunities for OHs to meet up at our increasingly popular reunions – in London on 3 March and at our local reunion in Edgbaston, on 16 March.

Our younger members return in May for our new format ‘Activity Session’ and the Annual OHS v WHOBA Golf Tournament in June remains a firm favourite with many of you! Hallfield Day, on 2 July, will round off the (school) year in style and we very much hope to see you there – fingers crossed for glorious weather (just like last year!). More details of all events will be sent out soon.

Have an enjoyable Easter break!

Best wishes

Richard HarperOHS Chairman

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Dates for your Diary• 14 May Recent Leavers’ Activity Session

• 10 June Annual Golf Tournament

• 2 July Hallfield Day

• 14 September Informal Reunion • 16 September Recent Leavers’ Football/Hockey

• 17 November AGM

• 4 February Valentine Ball

Looking back to the future: The Old Hallfieldian Society

Contact the OHSRichard HarperChairmanrichardharper7@icloud.com

Celia HooperExecutive OfficerC.Hooper@ hallfieldschool.co.uk

Tania Outwin-FlindersCommunications OfficerT.Outwin-Flinders@ hallfieldschool.co.uk

London ReunionThere was a great turnout at our London reunion in the Punch & Judy pub in Covent Garden. OHS Chairman, Richard Harper, Celia Hooper and Tim Venner were there to greet the OHs and former teacher Terry Stephens was there by popular demand, regaling us all with his stories!

We were pleased to see Amelia Derry who was the first girl to join Hallfield in 1995. Amelia is now living in London and working at Goldman Sachs.

It was wonderful to see so many Old Hallfieldians, around 30 in all, who had taken the opportunity of our second annual London Reunion to meet up with old friends; it is good to see that friendships made at Hallfield continue long after OHs leave the school. (See website for full report

and photos).

Do You Remember Sidway Hall?During WW2, when Birmingham and the West Midlands were being bombed, some Hallfield boys were evacuated to a beautiful country house called Sidway Hall, near Market Drayton. Luckily, the Headmaster, Mr Vaughan Rigby, had enough petrol coupons to commute by car from Edgbaston to Sidway! About 35 boys, of which I was one, chose to do this and it was a good experience of boarding before moving on to public school. In about 1944/5, the whole school was reunited in Edgbaston by which time the school had acquired Maple Bank. Keith Taylor (OH 1939 - 1946)

Daniel’s Nat West Semi Final Thriller at Allianz ParkThis year’s U15 Bishop Vesey’s Grammar School rugby team made history as the first rugby squad from the school to progress so far in a national competition, in the history of the school. Scrum Half for the team was Old Hallfieldian, and Allday Cup winner, Daniel Black.

The semi-finals of the competition were held at Allianz Park (home of Saracens RFC) on Sunday 6 March, against Sir Thomas Rich School, Gloucester. Trailing 20 – 5 at half time, Bishop Vesey’s staged a great

comeback but ran out of time and the final score was a 23 – 19 to Sir Thomas Rich’s who will go onto play in the final at Twickenham. Well done to Daniel and his team.

Photo courtesy of Geoffrey Iley