William Barcroft Junior School
'Success and happiness for all'
'Pupils are very happy to attend this nurturing and inclusive school'
'The school has high ambition for pupils' achievement'
'Pupils know they have a strong voice'
'The school's pastoral care is exemplary'
Ofsted report - June 2025
https://reports.ofsted.gov.uk/provider/21/143884
Message from the Principal:
Good afternoon everyone and welcome to this week’s newsletter. As always this has been a busy fortnight where we have been contributing in the community with our litter picking and singing in the care home, experiencing delight and joy in school with the planetarium and being very creative with our Christmas baubles! We have discussed ambition when we had two fabulous visitors from GTFC (Charles Vernam and Cam McJannet), where the children asked some wonderful questions! We are now busy preparing from our learning showcases for you to enjoy in the coming fortnight.
We would like to let you know that there may be a longer wait than usual for appointments with our SENDCo, Mrs Asher. There has been a significant rise across the whole country in the number of children who need SEND support and as a school we have now risen to over a third of pupils on the SEND register. At the same time, many external professionals—such as Educational Psychologists, Speech and Language Therapists and other support services—are also experiencing longer waiting lists, which in turn impacts on our ability to gain access to these services and gain the support we need. Because of this national increase in demand, our own appointment times are taking longer than we would like. Please be assured that we are doing everything we can to support your child in school regardless of diagnoses on paper. If you have urgent concerns, you are always welcome to contact the school office, and we will do our best to help. You will hear from us with an appointment in due course if you are waiting. Thank you for your patience and understanding.
We have had a full external Safeguarding Audit this week where our policies, procedures, systems and stakeholders’ voices were thoroughly checked and scrutinised. We are incredibly proud of the outcome and I would like to share the final summary for your reassurance:
Overall, safeguarding is a significant strength and point of pride at William Barcroft Junior School. The school’s policies, procedures and day-to-day practice work together to protect children effectively, frequently exceeding what would typically be expected. This collective commitment underpins the school’s culture of success and happiness for all - something clearly felt and expressed by pupils, staff and families alike.
Thank you to those parents who gave up their time for this.
This year we will again be finishing the term with a community sing. This has been a lovely end to the term before we break up in previous years and will happen as usual on the big playground at the back of the school. We will of course be providing you with hot chocolates to enjoy whilst listening to the children perform their songs. This will start at 12.45 and finish in time for whole school close at 1.05pm (Friday 19th).
Thank you everyone. Please enjoy looking at what the children have been up to and have a lovely weekend everyone.
S Sargent
Principal
If your child is absent, please contact the school office via telephone rather than the enquires email so that we can log your child's absence before the registers close.
This week's lower school attendance winners are:
1st place - Tulips
2nd place - Daffodils
3rd place - Bluebells
This week's upper school attendance winners are:
1st place - Magnolias
2nd place - Snowdrops
3rd place - Lillies
Autumn 2
Tuesday 9th December - Church visit
Thursday11th December - Y3 Learning showcase
Thursday 11th December - School production (production club) 2pm and 4pm
Friday 12th December - Y5 Learning showcase
Friday 12th December - Christmas panto day Year 3 and Year 6
Monday 15th December - Christmas party day
Tuesday 16th December - Y4 Learning showcase
Tuesday 16th December - Christmas jumper and Christmas dinner day
Wednesday 17th December - Y6 Learning showcase
Wednesday 17th December - Christmas panto day Year 4 and Year 5
Thursday 18th December - Talent Showcase
Friday 19th December - Community sing 12.45pm
Break up for Christmas for ALL pupils - Friday 19th December at 1.05pm
Children return on Monday 5th January 2026
Term dates
Please check the website for 2025 - 2026 term dates.
General Information
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 note, electric scooters are not allowed on the school site due to health and safety regulations and not having the facilities to store them in school.
Please do not bring pets onto the school site due to health and safety regulations. This includes picking up from after school clubs.
PE Kits
PE kit MUST be brought to school on your child's PE days,
Year 5 and Year 6 - Monday and Wednesday
Year 4 - Tuesday (the other session is swimming)
Year 3 - Tuesday and Thursday
PE kit should be worn for every PE lesson to ensure children are successful and safe during their session. Please ensure your child is wearing the school PE top with the WBJS logo, black or blue joggers/shorts and comfortable trainers.
WBJS Newsround
Take a look at all the fantastic learning that has been taking place this week! Year 3 have been learning about friction in Science, year 4 have been writing their first newspaper report of the year based on the book 'Stitch Head', year 5 have had a fantastic visit from the planetarium and year 6 have been focusing on consolidating their fractions knowledge.
We had such a wonderful and heartwarming visit this week when a small group of children went to Lindsey Care Home to sing Christmas songs for the residents. The children were absolutely fantastic, sharing their festive cheer and bringing smiles to many faces! A particularly memorable moment was when one resident was so touched by the performance that he kindly bought a small gift for every child! The staff and residents were incredibly appreciative, and we have already received an invitation to return. We are so proud of the children for representing our school so beautifully and spreading such joy in the community.
Get ready for a day of festive fun and charitable giving as the school celebrates Christmas Jumper Day for Save the Children on Tuesday, December 16th! Students and teachers are invited to swap their usual uniform for their festive Christmas jumper. By making a small donation each member of the school community helps raise vital funds. This money goes towards Save the Children's work, providing life-saving medicine, food, education, and protection for children facing tough circumstances in the UK and globally. It’s a brilliant way for the school to embrace the holiday spirit while learning about the importance of empathy and supporting a great international cause.
Please see the link below to make your donations:
https://superkind.org/campaign/william-barcroft-christmas-jumper-day
Thank you.
We had a very exciting afternoon on Tuesday as Grimsby Town Football Club first team players Cameron McJannet and Charles Vernam came to visit us in school.
Children were incredibly excited to see the players and many children had the opportunity to take part in a Q&A session with them. Both players commented on what fabulous questions our children asked them and really enjoyed their time being put on the spot!
After this, the players went out to join the GTFC girls football club to see delight and joy in action! The girls involved were keen to show off their skills and it was a fantastic opportunity to raise the profile of girls football.
This week in year 5 we had a fantastic opportunity to visit the planetarium. This was a wonderful opportunity to deepen our understanding about space and the solar system. We really loved seeing the stars and spotting constellations in the sky, learning all about the phases of the moon and even viewing the planets and showing delight, joy and curiosity over the sheer size and qualities of them! We continued our learning in class by making our own set of Google Slides to show off what we had learnt.
We spent some time out in the community last week completing a litter pick with some of our Eco Warriors and volunteers.
Jim - The Canoe River Cleaner - and Eve and Fin from NELC came to support with this.
This is what Jim had to say:
It was beyond wonderful to spend an afternoon in the company of some amazing nitwits and William Barcroft.
There was an even spread of children across the years, who displayed a keen interest in the environment, and despite the high energy and excitement, they had some wonderful questions and clearly wanted to make a positive difference. It makes my job easier.
The kids were fantastic, and there were a few nice interactions with general public who loved seeing what they were up to. One moment really stood out: a lady peeked through her living room curtains to find the source of the noise, and the smile that spread on her face said everything. It clearly meant a lot to see these young champions doing something positive, and that's what this project is really about. It's more than just picking litter, it's showing our community that we care about where we live.
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/
We are pleased to announce that the Humberside Police 'Mini Police' project has started again at WBJS. Usually the scheme is delivered during the Summer term only but last year we had so many pupils asking to join we have pleaded for them to come back and deliver the sessions twice a year for our school - which thankfully they agreed to do! There will be 7 weekly sessions for the children to take part in followed by a presentation to their parents/carers in January.
On Thursday 27th November, 10 of our pupils of all ages met with PCSO Barber for session 1 where they had an introduction to the project and discussed challenging diversity. Next session the CSI (Crime scene) team will be in school.
Children who have had parental consent have been receiving their flu vaccinations over the last month at WBJS. If you still require a flu vaccination for your child, please see the relevant information here for a local drop in session on Saturday 6th December.
Thank you.
Change the life of a local child, be a foster carer. Enquire today Fostering in North East Lincolnshire | NELC
As a foster friendly school, we want to raise awareness of the need for local foster carers to come forward in the area. If you think you can make a positive difference to a child’s life, enquire today. Fostering in North East Lincolnshire | NELC https://youtu.be/sNXx6dycp3Y
For all SEND enquiries please contact Mrs Asher our school SENDCO.
For a multitude of different reasons the advice we give to children and young people is to be careful with what they're sharing online, including images. This can be anything from protecting your privacy to very serious harms such as blackmail including sextortion. For example, an article in the Guardian refers to a report from the NSPCC where nearly 1 in 10 parents say their child has been blackmailed online and the National Crime Agency are receiving around 110 reports of sextortion each month.
That education we give to children and young people extends to parents, caregivers, schools and anyone else that may share data, such as images, of children. We must be mindful of the potential uses of that data.
The Irish Data Commission has recently released a short (40 seconds) light-hearted but serious video about the risks of sharenting along with some useful advice.
You can see the video and advice HERE and you can read the Guardian article HERE.
Please check out the following links to our X (Twitter) accounts and see what each class have been up to this week in real-time!
