We had a visit from the Devon air Ambulance today with an excellent introduction and informative assembly for the whole school. Marilyn Mcqueen delivered the assembly with a guest appearance from Ambrose their bear mascot (which the children loved.) We will look to put on a fund raising event soon.

A fantastic week of campaigning is over, culminating in todays election for the Bishops Nympton pupil council. Last week saw our pupil council candidates on the election trail. The candidates made an amazing effort to win over voters for their party.

Posters, flags, stickers and rosettes had been created and displayed around school. Several candidates were brave enough to stand up in assemblies throughout the week and perform a speech to the voters implementing their ideas and values.

However, despite the fabulous efforts by all, there is only a limited number of places on the pupil council available. The candidates can now only wait to see how the voting pans out following todays election.

All staff and children visited the polling station and placed their vote into the ballot box. Results will be announced next Thursday.

This has been a great experience and allowed us to learn about democracy and the inner workings of our country. A huge well done to all of our candidates for a fantastic effort with their campaign. I am sure, that whomever is elected into pupil council will do a sterling job creating an improved school for us all.

Mr Scandrett

We have started the year raring to go and full of smiles, enthusiasm and pride. Our children have returned to school looking, I am sure you will agree, very dapper in their new uniforms. When asked, all children are really enjoying their new ties in particular. The children have adapted so quickly and the prediction of some children fiddling and getting distracted by them has not come to fruition at all. The children wear their new uniforms with pride and a huge thank you to parents for supporting this change.

Mrs Scandrett

Yet again our children from Class 3 planned, resourced and ran a very successful business afternoon on Friday 7th July. This is our fifth year running this programme and each year the children work harder to create businesses which will appeal to children of all ages. This year we also had a group who considered the requirements and needs of our visiting parents by running a successful tea and coffee stall on the side. This was run by ‘Coffee stop, tea shop’ (Olivia, Seth and George).

As you will see from the attached photos the children managed to offer a variety of stalls fronted by their own design boards. We spend a lot of time in school creating their design boards and also recording video adverts to advertise their wares. These adverts are shared with the rest of the school in the lead up to the event.

This initiative offers the children a real chance at being entrepreneurs and each year we always offer a little something different. A particularly good idea this year was from a group called ‘JEMS’ (Matthew, Jayden and Emily) who offered, as their main prize, a £2 off token for our upcoming show DVD ‘Shakespeare Rocks’. This shows a super understanding as to what it takes to entice customers by offering appealing prizes. Well done that team!

A huge well done to all the children in Class 3. You did it again!

We have had some brilliant results this year and would like to share our success with you.

We had excellent results in Class one with all children passing their phonics screening with 35 or above.

In our KS1 SATS results the children achieved above 75% for both reading and writing and 50% for numeracy.

In our KS2 SATS results the children achieved above 82% for both reading and writing and above 50% for Numeracy. There were two children who did not make the 100 scaled score for Numeracy but were extremely close with 99 and 98. We will await our progress figures in the Autumn term but indications are that our children have made huge individual progress which has been recognised within school and hopefully also celebrated at home.

I am sure all parents are extremely proud of their children, as are we at Bish Nym.

Mrs Scandrett

We had an ‘egg-cellent’ turn out today from children entering our Easter sculpture competition, which tied in with our space theme this year. The entries were very creative and really captured a sense of what they have learnt about the planets, space and comets this term. There were many aliens and beautifully crafted blown eggs also.

We had a 3rd, 2nd and 1st place winner from each class with eggs for prizes, very kindly donated by the PTA.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank the PTA from all the children and staff at Bish Nym as they work tirelessly to raise money for the school and have been tremendously successful this term. They will also be serving refreshments and holding a raffle at the church this afternoon after our Easter assembly. All are welcome to attend.

Mrs Scandrett

All the children took part in an Easter egg hunt this morning in their paired reading partners. They were given half an egg each and had the challenge to find the other half (which had been expertly hidden by the teaching assistants during the morning). Children worked exceptionally well together and all had a great time. They were then given some sweets upon finding their eggs, which were kindly donated by the PTA.

Mrs Scandrett

We have been raising awareness of the Brain Tumour Research charity throughout the week at Bishops Nympton primary school. School council have been selling pin badges and wristbands during playtimes and on Friday we ended the term with our wear a hat day.

We can proudly announce that we raised a hat-tastic £163.76. A huge thank you to everybody who has supported us in this venture.

Mr Scandrett

Mrs Kiff held a very successful open morning on Thursday 30th March whereby parents were invited to look around the unit and join their child to make an Easter bonnet. The bonnets were then judged (with great difficulty) by Mrs Scandrett during the morning. There were two overall winners but all entries were beautiful and very creative.

Well done to the Early Years team and have a great Easter holiday.

Mrs Scandrett

We are celebrating after Ofsted graded us as ‘good’ in all areas following a one day inspection on 22nd February 2017.

In the report, the Ofsted inspector stated “the leadership team has maintained the good quality of education in the school since the last inspection” and that we are “committed to improving the school further.”

I am sure you will agree, as you look around the school, that there have been a number of visual improvements throughout from our displays, the school grounds to the work in the children’s books and this was recognised by the inspector as he went on to state “staff are determined to make sure Bishops Nympton school continues to go from strength to strength.”

The inspector spoke at length to our children and was pleased to hear that they “enjoy coming to school and working alongside their friends and teachers” and that we are “a friendly school, where any concerns are quickly sorted out.” Our children were able to share their work with the inspector with enthusiasm and were able to show how they have improved, especially within their writing.

We are truly a strong team who work hard to provide our children with the most stimulating and inspiring education that we can and provide numerous enrichment opportunities from a number of clubs on offer, the Tim Peake project we have recently been involved in and the rapidly developing grounds projects led by Mr Scandrett. We strive to see ways to improve and work hard to ensure that our school is a safe one. It was great to hear that the inspector also found that “safeguarding arrangements are rigorous and robust.”

Well done to all the children, staff and parents for, what I am sure you will all agree, is an excellent outcome.

Mrs Scandrett