Mrs Stokes writes, “Congratulations to all the children at Dacre Braithwaite who took on the Christmas reading challenge. We're delighted that so many children kept reading over the holidays and have been enjoying reading the book reviews and seeing all the fantastic books that you've received for presents. It's brilliant to see such enthusiasm for books and reading. We are busy sorting out the multiple entries for the challenge draw for the book tokens and this will take place at Barnabas assembly on Friday 17th January.

Good luck to our fantastic Dacre B's Super Singers choir today. They are travelling down to Sheffield arena today to take part in the 'World's biggest school choir' Young Voices concert. They have been practising for weeks and can hardly believe that the concert is finally here. We've certainly enjoyed hearing the joy of singing echoing in the school corridors on a Friday afternoon at rehearsals and we look forward to finding out all about the concert next week. Enjoy!

You’ll find an invitation In the Bulletin Bags, from Harrogate Music Centre for free beginner Instrumental music classes starting in January. We understand that the brass and woodwind lessons are for children in Year 3 and upwards and the strings lessons from Year 1. The lessons will take place at Harrogate Music Centre on Saturday mornings. Please contact william.osborn@northyorks,gov.uk to express your interest or for further information.

We had another super act of collective worship on Thursday from our Open the Book Team. It was lovely to see the team back in school after the festive break and they acted out the only story in the bible about Jesus as a child. (ably assisted by Sophie and Ezrah!). We talked about how Jesus had been left behind in the temple and how he had made his parents worry and how this shows he was human like us! The children really enjoy these assemblies as the team act them so well and have such fabulous props to make the stories real!

In the Parent Questionnaires, several people suggested having some coaching in sports sessions before children took part in competitions, so today marked the start of a series of cricket lessons for all of the children in school. Each Friday (up until Easter) Mark Jobling is coming into school to teach some top tips in cricket and to develop the children’s batting, bowling, throwing, and catching skills. Who knows what latent talent we may have hidden and where the next Heather Knight or Joe Root may come from?

We are still collecting stamps for the Great North Air Ambulance. There needs to be a 1-2cm border around the stamp please when cut from an envelope and there is now a lovely big box in the porch to put your stamps in! For more info go to - https://bit.ly/34c3bdS 

Thank you for all of the positive comments we are receiving about the new website. In order to make the newsletter easier to read on a mobile phone you can click on the blog section https://www.dacrebraithwaite.n-yorks.sch.uk/blog for a more screen friendly style. I am still looking for some testimonies for the front page, and who better to ask than our parents? Please could you email me any comments that you would be happy to have anonymously on the website? (headteacher@dacrebraithwaite.n-yorks.sch.uk) Thank you! 

We are starting a new Christian value this half term which is the value of ‘creativity’. This week’s ‘thought for the week’ is from Albert Einstein who said, “Creativity is intelligence having fun.” That made me smile when I read it – I wonder if you agree?

This week’s SilVerstiX winner was Will who was excellent overall. Paul mentioned that Hannah and Victoria also played very well! Well done!