Summer Newsletter 7

Dear Parents & Carers

I hope you all had a good break over half term, whether you managed to get away or stayed at home, whether you embraced the Platinum Jubilee celebrations or locked yourself away in a darkened room binge-watching The Crown.

We’ve started the final half term of this academic year - I can’t believe how quickly time has gone by. Our Y6 pupils begin their countdown to leaving us for a new chapter at high school. I heard a Y6 pupil say to his teacher, “That’s the last dinner money cheque I’ll hand in at Woodlands.” Y6 pupils will be checking off a whole list of things as the term draws to a close: last sports day at Woodlands; the last show for parents; the last day on duty for Playground Pals, Sports Leaders or Tech Crew; their last meal from Holy the Chef. In under a fortnight, the our Y6 children will be at PGL (Boreatton Park, Shropshire) for their outdoor pursuits adventure holiday: launching themselves down zipwires, building ‘unsinkable’ rafts & conquering the giant swing. Everyone involved is getting very excited!

Next Thursday, Woodlands school councillors (Y3-Y6) will be heading off to the Houses of Parliament for the day; they’ll get to visit both the House of Commons & the House of Lords, & learn more about how our parliamentary system works. The have a trip on the London Eye booked too. Everyone involved is getting very excited!

Here’s this week’s ‘nudges’ to help you start a conversation about your children’s learning…

 Nursery

What does Maui use his hook for?

{Literacy: ‘M?UI Hooks the Islands’ Gabrielle Ahuli’i}

Reception [Red & Blue]

Do dinosaurs exist today? What do you think happened to them?

{Understanding the World}

Y1&2 [Green, Yellow & Purple]

Can you name any of the seven kingdoms in England during Anglo-Saxon times?

{History topic: ‘Anglo Saxons’}

Y3&4 [3A, 3/4M & 4G]

Can you identify some electrical appliances around your home & say the types of electricity they use?

{Science topic: ‘Electricity’}

Y5&6 [5D, 5/6P & 6R]

Which paragraph of your non-chronological report on the ‘Space Race’ are you most proud of?

{History topic ‘The Cold War’}

This week, our whole school attendance is 94.9%, which crept up from last week but still a good way short of our 97% target. We have 4 classes who have hit or bettered 97% attendance: Red Class (97.2%), 3/4M (99.6%), 4C (99.2%) & 5D (99.6%).

Punctuality has very good this week. Although we only had 3 classes who had no late marks this week (Blue Class, 3G & 3/4M), we’ve only had 11 late marks across the whole school. 10 late marks ‘before the register closed’ – that’s before 9.20am & 1 late mark ‘after the register has closed’, that’s after 9.20am.

I wanted to remind you of a change to our uniform policy from September 2022. This is the text of the ParentMail I sent in April outlining the changes:

I would like to give advance notice of a change in uniform policy which will come into force next academic year.

 As from September 2022, children will no longer be allowed to wear trainers to school. Instead, black school shoes will be required for all pupils from reception to Y6.

 Unfortunately, too many styles & colours available in training shoes mean that our uniform policy is being breached on a regular basis.

 I wanted to give families sufficient notice in case you are buying new footwear in the coming months.

 Shoes should be made from leather, faux-leather or vegan leather.

 Trainers will need to be kept in school for when the children run the Woodlands Mile & play on the school field at lunchtime.

[Update: after feedback from parents, we will allow children in the juniors to change into their trainers for lunchtime, even if they are not on the field that day.]

I have attached a flyer about a beach clean up event at 10am on Sunday 19th of June at National Trust Formby, (Victoria Road). What a great way to start Father’s Day - after helping keep our beach beautiful, you could call in at Squirrel Coffee & treat yourself to a bacon roll & a cuppa.

One final plea, if your child has long hair please can they tie it back using a bobble. Thank you.

Have a great weekend.

KD Williams

Headteacher

Last word

When are most frogs born?

In a leap year!

Thanks to Darcey