Christmas has well and truly landed at Maidensbridge! We all started to feel the Christmas spirit with our fabulous trip to the theatre last week to see 'The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe.' The children were excellent and it was a pleasure to see them all enjoying the performance. That has continued in school with the beautiful singing from KS1, as they practise their own Nativity performance and everyone's classroom decorations are now standing tall.

Thank you to everyone who donated to Children in Need. As a school we raised £161.50!

Thank you everyone who purchased poppy merchandise to raise money for the Poppy Appeal. We raised £479.80. This was the most we have ever raised so thank you so much for your support with this very important charity. Well done to our Charity Ambassadors who visited the classes every day to make sure all the children could buy the merchandise to support this important charity.

Starlight Bunting is a charity that provides decorative, Christmas bunting for children's hospital wards all over the country. The charity ambassadors asked all of the children in school to play their part by colouring in and decorating the bunting templates that were handed out. They were amazed by how many children had taken the time to do this. The bunting was then laminated and attached with ribbon and sent off to the charity. We received a thank you certificate and we are very proud to be the first Maidensbridge pupils to have contributed towards this charity and to cheer up so many children over the festive season. Harry, Riley and Sabrina.

It has been great to see the children tackling a new challenge this year with their performances of Choral Speaking in our celebration assemblies. Year 6 and Year 5 have so far set a very high standard and have, as a class, performed some fantastic pieces of performance poetry; learning skills in speaking and listening, delivering actions and words at different tempos and volumes to portray the meaning behind the words, as well as performing to an audience. We look forward to every other class sharing this with us over the year.

Thank you to all of the children who attended our open event and supported Maidensbridge so well. We were all so proud of them and we received lots of feedback from the visitors about how polite our children were and how knowledgeable they were about our school. A special thank you to our Head Boy, Head Girl, Deputy Head Boy and Deputy Head Girl who presented in front of a room full of adults confidently and clearly, with their own speeches that they had worked so hard on at home. Amazing resilience and confidence!

Thank you to the HSA team who have worked tirelessly, as always, this term to put on many events and occasions that have raised vital money for the children in our school. Our Bonfire Event was received with such warm and positive feedback from our community with over 1300 people coming together to share this event! 

The HSA will have also put on 2 discos this term and will be providing raffle prizes at our performances. This crucial fundraising has contributed to the refurbishment of the new Yr5/6 toilets, they gave £1500 towards our whole school theatre trip to keep the costs as low as possible for parents, they have provided all book bags and water bottles for Reception and are also planning a huge spend on phonics books for our KS1 children to take home that were recommended by OFSTED last year but are a significant spend of £2600. We appreciate this help and it is invaluable to the children at Maidensbridge.

The HSA would love to get to know more parents and their door is always open if you would like to get involved with some of the fundraising events. Our school survives on the goodwill and support of our volunteers and parents. Please email info@maidens.dudley.sch.uk if you would like to know more about how to get involved and we will pass these on to the committee members of the HSA. Watch out for the HSA newsletter coming soon!

I am very proud of the first members of our Netball Team for this year. We have faced The Glynne and although it was a tight 3 quarters, The Glynne won in the end 11-2 and our game against the Straits was fought in freezing cold and wet conditions, losing 16-6 but the resilience and skill on display was fantastic! We have also played Church of the Ascension on our home turf and again came so close but lost 8-2.

Well done everyone! Our school attendance reached 97% this term, which is the highest it has been for many, many years. A great start to our academic year for everyone.

Can I please remind parents about maintaining our high expectations of uniform. Over the last few weeks we have seen trainers on non-PE days, shaved styles in to haircuts, bracelets and jewellery and non-Maidensbridge colours for hoodies and jumpers. We do not expect children to always be wearing uniform with the school logo, as we know this can get expensive but we do expect alternatives in the correct school colours and not expensive brands or sportswear that is not uniform. We are very fortunate to have a policy where the children can wear their Maidensbridge PE kit twice a week but we do expect that this is adhered to. We have so much lost property because children have not got their names in jumpers, hoodies and cardigans, please take the time over the holiday to make sure your child has their name in their uniform and then we can get these back to you easily. If you would like to take a hoody or jumper for free from our lost property collection (they are mostly brand new) please come to the school office and ask for the size you need. The full uniform policy is available here.

Please call: 0300 555 0050

If you are concerned about a child’s welfare please speak to a DSL in school, or call Children’s Social Care on the number above.