William Barcroft Junior School
'Success and happiness for every child'
We are very proud of our school, the children, staff and environment and of course the great support we receive from our parents.
For more information, please visit our full website by clicking here.
In a recent parent questionnaire, parents said the following:
99% of parents say their child is happy at William Barcroft Junior School
98% parents say the school have high expectations
99% of parents said their child does well at school
100% of parents say their child felt safe in our school.
Message from the Principal:
Good afternoon everyone and welcome to our latest newsletter. It’s been a busy fortnight and we have lots to share with you.
Firstly, thank you to everyone who attended the year 6 Back to Bear residential meeting on Monday. We would love to take as many children as possible on this, so please do pop in for a chat if you haveany questions, queries or concerns.
In just over a week’s time it is Safer Internet Day. We will of course be having a huge focus on this in school but would also encourage you to take this opportunity to chat with your children and check settings on home devices too.
Just to update you, our outdoor track is in full use now and children are working hard at improving their fitness. We have weekly certificates for effort and progress and one lucky pupil each week wins a £10 amazon voucher!
As the children may have told you, we have bought a huge, brand new selection of reading books for them to take home. Children are really enjoying choosing from these and completing their quizzes. All that we ask is that children do their best to look after them at home and return them in book bags so
that they don’t get damaged in wet weather.
Please enjoy looking at what the children have been up to in each year group, and I hope you all have a lovely weekend.
S Sargent
Principal
This year in school, we aim to improve attendance and punctuality as a key priority.
Here are the attendance figures per year group:
Week beginning 15/01/2024
Year 3 - 91.2%
Year 4 - 93.61%
Year 5 - 94.73%
Year 6 - 88.29%
Week beginning 22/01/2024
Year 3 - 90.27%
Year 4 - 88.19%
Year 5 - 92.84%
Year 6 - 93.82%
Here are the attendance figures per class:
Here's an example of how your child's attendance is calculated:
5 absent days = 97%
10 absent days = 95%
It is important that you try to get your children into school as much as possible so that they receive the best education and school experiences possible. If your child's attendance drops below 97% the school will monitor this and offer support to parents to help improve this.
If you would like to discuss this more, please contact the school office.
Don't forget we have the attendance treat before Easter half term!
WB 29th January - HLT Football League - Healing Academy (Away)
Thursday 1st February - Y3/4 Dodgeball Competition
Tuesday 6th February - Safer Internet Day
Thursday 8th February - Y5/6 Dodgeball Competition
Friday 9th February - Chinese New Year celebrations
Friday 9th February - Last day of Spring term 1
Monday 19th February - Return to school for Spring term 2
WB 26th February - HLT Football League - Great Coates Academy (Away)
WB 4th March - Parents evening week
Friday 8th March - World Book Day
Wednesday 13th March - Cross Country at Weelsby Woods
Friday 15th March - Comic Relief Day
WB 18th March - HLT Football League - Healing Academy (Home)
Monday 25th March - Year 3 Learning Showcase AM
Tuesday 26th March - Year 6 Learning Showcase AM
Wednesday 27th March - Year 5 Learning Showcase AM
Thursday 28th March - Year 4 Learning Showcase AM
Thursday 28th March - Last day of Spring term 2 - Easter holidays begin.
Tuesday 16th April - Return to school for Summer term 1
What's happening in class at WBJS?
YEAR 3
In English we have just finished writing a diary entry in perspective of one of the characters from our Flood picture book. We have spent a lot of time editing these and checking they have included a range of diary features including first person, past tense and informal language.
In maths we have completed our multiplication and division topic. We have spent the past couple of weeks practicing bus stop method by using practical resources and then progressing to solving worded problems.
In Year 3 we have loved our afternoon sessions, especially art and science. In art we have been looking at primary and secondary colours, and which of these colours complement each other. Our rocks topic in science has also been incredibly fun. We have learnt that the three different types of rocks are sedimentary, metamorphic and igneous, and what the differences are between these. This then led onto us creating these different rocks using biscuits, sweets and chocolate. Take a look at the pictures to see what we created.
We have also spent the past two weeks improving our geography skills such as map reading and grid references. We thoroughly enjoyed exploring the atlases and we are now able to check where each country is in the atlas by looking at the index.
YEAR 4
This week we have started delving into our new topic of the rainforest. We are currently reading all about how a group of children are learning to survive in the rainforest whilst writing our own adventure story. We have also begun learning about why the rainforest is so important for the world. We were shocked that 80% of the world’s oxygen comes from rainforests! We have also researched which animals may be found in the rainforest and how these species can actually be really rare and unique to this biome.
In maths we have been consolidating our knowledge around using the bus stop method for division. This has been a tricky concept but we have finally cracked it. Extra practise of the 4 operations at home alongside times table practise is always a great way to feel more confident with this.
In Miss Beesley's maths group we have been practising counting and partitioning to 1000 using fun activities include breakfast cereal! Ask us about this and we will demonstrate it to you at home.
During our PSHCE lessons this term we have been discussing our local community and how we can help one another. We have recently discussed how we can volunteer to support and help people or animals in need in our local area and how we can make our world a happier, safer place.
YEAR 5
In year 5 we are getting really excited and immersed in our space topic-one of our favourite tasks is observing the phases of the moon over time. Have a look at the moon with us and ask us what phase it is in. Here is the website we have been using: https://moonphases.co.uk/moon-calendar
Curiosity-a Mars rover- has been the focus of our work in English. We have just finished writing an explanation text about how it reached Mars. We are preparing to write a newspaper report on it next. It would be great if you could have a look at some newspaper articles with us- maybe it could be one of our reads.
We have just completed a unit of multiplication and division in maths: we have learnt how to multiply a 2-digit number by a 4-digit number and also short multiplication. We are just beginning our next maths unit on fractions. Times table will really help us, so the more we are able to go on TTRS at home, the better.
YEAR 6
Year 6 have been enjoying our new English book, The Hunger Games. The children were amazed at just how far our protagonist, Katniss Everdeen, will go to save her younger sister. We’ve written some incredible newspaper reports on the Reaping, focusing on journalistic style writing and the formality of language. We’ve also enjoyed delving deeper into the politics of the Capitol and the divide between districts. In Maths, we’ve been consolidating our knowledge of measures including length, capacity and mass. We’ve focused on how to convert metric measures and applied this knowledge to real-life concepts and situations. We’ve also learnt how to use ratio language and how to solve ratio problems. In science, we’re discussing the theory of evolution and looking at links between Lemarck’s giraffes and Darwin’s theories on evolution. We’ve discussed inheritance and variation within DNA and offspring and delved deeper into how animals are suited to their environments such as the Arctic fox.
The children should also be bringing their CGP books home to complete with requested pages. Can we please ensure the children are reminded and supported with this revision in the run up to SATS, along with the 3 weekly reads completed, thank you.
Take a look at this week's Star of the Week, our Time Table Rock Star champions, our Readers of the Week and our exciting birthday celebrations.
A special well done to 3C and 5HS who were our attendance winners and
3A, 5D and 6B who were our reading class of the week!
Maths
Look out for a competition that we have entered on Rockstars. The details are below:
UK’s leading child protection charity and Times Tables Rock Stars are teaming up for the 8th year in a row to celebrate the NSPCC’s Number Day. Have your school reach new heights with NSPCC Rocks. The online times tables competition that will boost maths confidence alongside accuracy and recall speed.
HOW DOES IT WORK?
Learners will answer as many multiplication and division questions correctly as they can. The winning school and class will be based on the highest average number of correct answers per pupil.
RULES:
Every correct answer that a student gives, in any game type, between the hours of 7:30am GMT and 19:30pm GMT on Friday 2 February will contribute to their class and school score.
There is a 60-minute limit playtime per player.
Each class has a minimum player count of 10. If fewer than 10 in the class play in the competition, their total will be divided by 10 regardless.
If your child does not have their log in details please ask them to prompt their teachers.
Home Reading
Here are the percentages for home reads per class over the last week. Our school expectation is 3 weekly reads per week and this is taken on a Thursday. Please ensure your child has their reading record every day to be checked. Well done to those classes with 90% and above!
What are we currently reading in English?
Year 3 are currently reading The Flood in their English lessons.
Year 4 are currently reading The Explorer in their English lessons.
Year 5 are currently reading Curiosity in their English sessions.
Year 6 are currently reading The Hunger Games in their English sessions.
Drop everything and read!
Here are our current class readers. These are books that have been chosen by the children. Please ask your child what is happening in their current class read!
3A – The Nothing To See Here Hotel - Steven Butler
3C- The Nothing To See Here Hotel - Steven Butler
3S - The Nothing To See Here Hotel - Steven Butler
4B - Land of Roar - Jenny McLachlan
4LB - The Witches - Roald Dahl
4V - Land of Roar - Jenny McLachlan
5D - Matilda by Roald Dahl
5HS - The Boy at the Back of the Class - Onjali Q.Rauf
5S - The Executioner's Daughter - Jane Hardstaff
6B - The Vanishing of Aveline Jones - Phil Hickes
6F - The Vanishing of Aveline Jones - Phil Hickes
6S - The Vanishing of Aveline Jones - Phil Hickes
General Information
We have a new information rack in our school office with helpful information and advice for our parents.
At William Barcroft Junior School we pride ourselves on having high expectations about the school uniform. Recently we have noticed that a number of children have not been wearing appropriate school shoes. If your child arrives at school without the correct footwear they will be provided with a pair of plimsolls to wear for the day. Thank you in advance for your support
Uniform Direct are our uniform provider for our school and provide a wide range of William Barcroft Junior School uniform available to purchase from the Grimsby store, at 54 Victoria Street (opposite Marks and Spencer Food Hall).
Please do not ride bikes and scooters on the school grounds, this is for children and adults. This is for the safety of our children, thank you.
Please do not bring pets onto the school site due to health and safety regulations.
PE kit MUST be brought to school on your child's PE days,
Year 3 will have PE Monday and Wednesday
Year 4 will have PE Tuesday and Thursday
Year 5 will have PE Monday and Wednesday
Year 6 will have PE Tuesday and Thursday
Can you take photographs in school?
Please ensure if you do take a photograph of your child on school site, that this is ONLY when you are told to do so by a member of staff and that the picture is of only your child. For example: After our Star of the Week assemblies.
Snapchat - New Parental Controls
Last week Snapchat expanded their Family Center tools which, amongst other features, allows parents to restrict the ability for My AI to respond to chats. Further details of these new features can be found here.
values.snap.com/en-GB/news/expanding-our-in-app-parental-tools-2024
Assessing Smartphone Readiness
"Is my child old enough to have a phone?" It's a common, understandable question that we get from many parents, but it's also one that is very difficult to answer as there are so many factors involved. For younger children it's often peer pressure, with older children social isolation is very common. Often, advice has to be given particular to that child/family, rather than a one-size-fits-all solution.
The Institute for Digital Media and Child Development have put together some tip sheets for parents which we think are really useful. There are 3 parts:
Assessing readiness.
Preparing for healthy use.
What now?
You can view all the tip sheets below:
www.childrenandscreens.org/learn-explore/research/introducing-a-smartphone-assessing-readiness/
Follow this link to visit the safeguarding section of our website, and for a copy of our Safeguarding and Child Protection policy. https://wba.harbourlearningtrust.com/our-academy/safeguarding/
SEND Support
Free webinars- phonics and writing- settling into a new school
Witherslack Group have some free webinars taking place this month for parents and carers. Please see links below:
• SEN: Phonics & Writing
• Wednesday 31 January
