Cefn Fforest Primary Weblog

Today at Cefn Fforest we welcomed a very important person ( and his son). Our special visitor was Mr Dapo Akanbi, who is an Ambassador from Nigeria.

The reason for Ambassador Akanbi's visit is that he is in Wales visiting his son Kay( picture below) and his family. Kay is Mrs Mortimer's son in law.

He very kindly agreed to come into school and speak to our younger pupils, explaining not only what Nigeria is like as a country, but also telling us about some of the jobs an Ambassador does as a representative of Nigeria's President.

We learned a great deal about Nigeria today including what the country's flag is like.

( click on the photo to enlarge ) It shows the Ambassador talking to School Council members.

The pupils throughout the Infant and Junior School asked some excellent questions and gained a great deal of information this morning. Ambassador Akanbi was introduced to our new School Council representatives from Year 3, 4 and Year 6. Later he also met 3 of Cefn Fforest Primary School's Year 6 Journalists.

Kay Akanbi on the left and Ambassador Akanbi on the right meet 3 Year 6 Making the News Reporters.

( click on the photo to enlarge )

**School will be closed for the Half Term week and will re-open on Monday 6th November**

**Parents are asked to send in money for School Photographs after half term**

Have a very good week and we will see everyone back in school a week on Monday.

Preparations are going full steam ahead for CFP's Harvest Festivals, as we said yesterday many thanks to our local Asda Superstore in Blackwood for supplying the school with ' Foods from around the World'

   This gift will certainly enable us to put on a super show tomorrow. A dedicated group of teachers and teaching assistants have been working hard to prepare both halls for their big day.

(Click on the picture to enlarge)

As you can see there has been a transformation of the Junior Hall in particular, so many thanks to Miss Watson (oops sorry for previous ommision!!) Mrs. Carter, Miss Mallon, Mrs Davies, Mrs Bishop and  for all of their efforts to make our Harvest Time a real celebration.

( Click on the picture to enlarge )

We look forward to welcoming Infant parents to the Infant Hall tomorrow and could we remind you once more that our Silver Collection will be taken for the Premananda  Orphanage.  http://www.orphancentre.org/

 The Junior harvest in full swing with Rev Roy on the left before he told us how God surely enjoys a party, as he gave the Jews 3 Harvests throughout the Year. We sometimes forget the effort needed to bring us the food we eat. ( Mr Gannon said that we can't have 3 weeks off to celebrate 3 harvest as the early christians did !!!! shame...)

 ( clickon the picture to enlarge)

Below is our Harvest Loaf ( before it was cut up and eatenby the pupils) - Thanks to the bakery in the village for supplying both of our Harvest Loaves today,

Other news our Year 6 pupils will be going over to Blackwood Comprehensive School on Friday for their 'Year 6 Challenge Day' Good Luck to all involved have a good day on Friday.

Belated congratulations  from all of the staff and pupils of Cefn Fforest to Mrs Rees and her husband. Mrs Rees gave birth to baby Isobelle (7lb 61/2oz) last Wednesday at 2.30am - Well Done Miss

Mrs Rees with Mrs Edwards in July

** Thank You ASDA Blackwood **

Our local Asda store in Blackwood Town Centre has kindly donated a selection of foods from around the world - to decorate both the Infant and Junior Halls for our Harvest Festival celebrations on Thursday of this week. Thank You very much to the staff of Asda Blackwood from everyone at Cefn Fforest ( thank you also to Mrs Carter for going to the store and discussing the gift )

I am sure that the diary for the week ahead will fill up soon - keep ahead of the rest by regularly checking here for updates on the latest news.

So far the only date in the diary for this week is Harvest Festival Celebrations on Thursday 19th October with celebration on Harvest Around the World to be taken by Rev Roy Evans - the children are asked to bring in money for a Silver Collection on that day, all donations will be going towards sponsoring a child at the Premananda Orphanage in Andrha Pradesh, India.

We have been supporting the orphanage with donations over the past 4 years and have so far sponsored quite a few children, so do help us to continue this work with your silver donation.

 The aim of the centre is to rehabilitate some of the 'street children' and orphans, the centre aims also to try to stop child labour and exploitation of these children.

If you want to find out more about the work that they do at Premananda follow the link - http://www.orphancentre.org/ 

You can also find the nearest town Ongole in Andrha Pradesh using Google Earth - take a look !

 Thank You

What a busy day at CFP today, the weather gods smiled on us after a less than hopeful start and this heralded a flurry of activity in the garden - with Mrs Richards and Mr Bird being first in action tending the friendship garden.

While the rest of the school prepared for planting -  we have been gifted a large selection of old tyres that it has been planned to place around our Infant Yard and plant up with bulbs, today was the day!

The pupils and staff made an early start getting tools prepared before the start of school - and it wasn't long before all

Year Groups were out planting - 'green fingers' showing all over the place.

The hard work continued throughout the school day and it was our Year 3 pupils who finished their gardening at 3.20 this afternoon.

Wow what a great day at CFP!!!

Good news we are going to attempt our Environmental Day Planting tomorrow - Friday 13th October - It will be a non-uniform day ( jeans/old clothes) to enable most classes to get their planters started. If you have any compost lying around unused - we can use it !!! also tools for digging and planting would be useful - so go on -Have a look in your shed - you never know what you might find !!!

Other news - Friends of the School are running a 'Guess the weight of the Pumpkin' competition ( The Giant Pumpkin is at present in the Infant Hall and is enormous !!!  Have a guess (10p a go ) prizes will be awarded next week for closest quess.

If you follow the link to our Flikr Photoset on the left you will see a photoset from the Year3's visit the St Fagans Celtic Village today.

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Today Friday 6th October saw the first meeting of the new school year for the Eco-School Committee. They have a very challenging task this year with Miss Mallon's assistance they have to build on the work of last year's group, which saw the school achieve the Bronze and Silver Awards. We are now looking at further Environmental Initiatives which will hopefully lead to the school being awarded the Eco-School Flag in the near future.

This has also been the first week of our new prefects -Year 5's are taking over prefect duties as our Year 6's are going to be trained as 'Buddies' for Key Stage 1 and 2 pupils. Their training begins next week, we have avery committed group of Year 6's who have put themselves forward for this new initiative.