Reaching high for the best for your child

Just a reminder that parents & carers are invited to come along with your child to the ‘New to’ meetings, where you will be given information about your child’s education, procedures and expectations for the coming year and meet the year group team.   Please see the relevant letters under Recent Downloads for more details.

Three weeks ago, Mr Brewis set #teamfairlands a challenge: to visit every single Beat Box in Stevenage!

On Sunday, Mr Staples, Mr Brewis and Mrs Yendell set out at 7am to complete the challenge... we had to dig deep to brave the rain and hills and seven hours later, we had found all 104 Beat Boxes and covered a complicated 48 miles. We only found two that weren't working - 325 and 345 - so there is no excuse for not getting out there yourself, Fairlands!!

Well done to Mr Brewis, who took charge of all the map reading - possibly the hardest bit of the challenge is the stop/starts and finding the boxes! Well done to Mrs Yendell - she had to be home by 2.30pm to watch her son perform in a dance festival, so that kept us motivated to keep pushing hard. And well done Mr Staples too... the only headteacher in Stevenage to complete the challenge? We will see...!

On our way, it was lovely to chat to other Stevenage residents and families who were out Beating the Street. What a fantastic intiaitive, which has really brought the community together. And special thanks go to Mrs Turner, who gave us delicious home-made brownies when we stopped at her house on the mad dash back home.

Lots of children pledged to complete extra miles themselves if we completed the challenge.... we will be checking to see if you do them! ;)

The box near to Coreys Mill – number 310 in the town network – has been tapped fewer than 200 times since the Beat The Street project to get Stevenage moving started earlier this month.

Now Herts County Council is offering anyone who taps it this weekend the chance to win a Toby Carvery meal for four. Councillor Teresa Heritage, County Hall’s lead member for public health, said: “I would really encourage people to get tapping and have fun this weekend – if you tap the lonely beat box at Corey’s Mill, near Sainsbury’s, you might win a lucky prize.”

Beat the Street is a six-week project which encourages people to get active by checking in at hundreds of high-tech beat boxes around Stevenage and three other towns in the county which have been identified as needing a push to encourage healthier and more active lifestyles.

The more boxes team members from schools and other groups tap, the greater the chance of winning a prize. If the total distance covered tops 500,000 miles £1,000 will be donated to Stevenage and District Riding for the Disabled and the Stevenage Arts Guild.

So far more than 200,000 miles has been covered and there are still four weeks to go.

The most tapped beat box in Stevenage is near Martins Wood Primary School which has had nearly 14,000 hits. For more visit www.hertsdirect.org/healthinherts.

Come and join us today on our Community Walk - we are setting off at 11am from Fairlands!

It's been great to see how everybody has risen to the Beat the Street Challenge. We have made a great start so let's keep going and rack up loads more points today!

Fairlands are taking part in a new, fun, real-life walking and cycling game. Every child in the school can earn points and win prizes by tapping special tokens onto sensors known as Beat Boxes as they travel around.

The Beat Boxes will be placed on lamp posts around our local area and will be activated on 3 June 2013.

Tapping more than one box activates your journey and records how far you have travelled, more boxes tapped = more points scored.

There is a website www.herts.beatthestreet.me that records each participant’s total distanceand various prizes up for grabs.

Be sure to look out for the letter and fobs that were issued on Monday 1st June.

Thank you to everyone who came to school dressed in yellow on Friday 1st May in support of Global Development Day.  We raised a very impressive sum of £409 which we have donated to charity called ‘Contact a family’.  You can find out more about the charity's work at www.cafamily.org.uk