Dear Parents and Carers,

It has been a much warmer week at Woodside, and it has been wonderful to see the children enjoying the sunshine and making the most of the school field during lunchtimes.

A big thank you to our Year 1 and Year 2 parents and carers who joined us for 'Parents in to Read' this Tuesday. It was a particularly special session for our Year 1 families, as our teachers were able to model a reading session first to demonstrate the skills we use in class before parents shared books with their children. Next week, on Tuesday, 28th April, we look forward to welcoming Year 3 and Year 4 parents for their session at 9:00 AM.

Tonight is our very exciting Attendance Movie Night! This is a special reward for all the children who achieved above 96% attendance during the Spring 2 term. We are so proud of their commitment to being in school every day, and we hope they have a fantastic experience at the screening this evening.

Looking ahead to next week, we have two important coffee mornings scheduled and we would love to see you there. On Monday, 27th April, we are hosting our 'Meet the SENCO' morning where you can meet Miss Hopeton, and on Friday, 1st May, we will be holding our PTA Relaunch meeting. Both are great opportunities to engage with the school and find out more about our upcoming plans.

We hope you all have a lovely, sunny weekend!

Iman Atwal

Headteacher

As you are aware, Integrity is our value this term. This week, Mrs Deveci focused on the importance of character. This included being someone who is responsible, conscientious, and honest in their behaviours and actions, where showing integrity is not just telling the trust, but showing it through the way we act.

Ask you child:

• What would you do if I was not here?

• How can you be responsible for your actions?

• What sort of person do you want to be?

💛Helping Your Child Feel Safe and Supported

SATs can feel like a big moment, and it’s normal for children to feel worried or unsure. With the right support at home, children can feel calmer and more confident.

You might notice:

Changes in sleep or appetite

Feeling emotional or easily frustrated

Avoiding work or saying “I can’t do it”

Complaining of headaches or tummy aches

These are common signs of anxiety and nothing to worry about.

🗣️What Your Child Needs to Hear

Keep messages simple and reassuring:

💬“You don’t have to be perfect—just try your best.”

💬“I’m proud of you no matter what.”

💬“SATs don’t define you.”

🧠Top Tips to Reduce Worries

✅Stick to routines

Regular sleep, meals, and calm evenings help children feel secure

✅Keep revision light

Short bursts (10–20 minutes) work best—little and often.

✅Make time for fun

Balance is key—sports, games, and downtime matter.

✅Try calm breathing

Inhale 4 seconds → hold 4 → exhale 4

Repeat to help your child feel settled.

🌈Building Confidence Every Day

Focus on effort, not outcomes:

Praise trying and perseverance

Notice progress, even small steps

Remind them what they can do

🌟Confidence grows when children feel safe to try.

🛏️Wellbeing First

Healthy basics make a big difference:

9–11 hours sleep each night

Nutritious meals and water

Fresh air and movement

🚫Keep Pressure Low

At home, try to:

Stay calm and positive

Avoid comparisons with others

Reduce last-minute cramming

Children pick up on adult stress—your calmness helps them most.

🤝We’re Here to Support You

If your child is feeling worried, please speak to:

Class Teacher

Leadership Team

Family Support Worker (FSW)

We are here to help every step of the way.

🗨️Final Message

SATs are just one small part of your child’s journey.

Their happiness, confidence, and wellbeing matter most.

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Nest

It has been an absolutely fantastic week in the Nest, and the children have been fully immersed in a world of wonder and discovery!

To continue embedding our core text, the children engaged in a multisensory exploration of shapes, sizes, and colours using various beans. They displayed wonderful mathematical progress as they identified "big" and "small" beans and carefully counted out five beans to match Jack’s magic beans. It was a joy to see their imagination take flight as they used these beans to reenact scenes from our story, building both their language and social skills.

Our hands-on learning extended to the garden, where we began planting sunflower seeds. The children started by exploring the sensory nature of the soil—discussing how it felt and smelled—before carefully tucking their seeds into the planting pot. Before planting, we sat together to discuss the life cycle of a plant, learning about the care and patience required to help a tiny seed transform into a tall flower.

To further support their Literacy development, we have also been focusing on early phonics through lively singing and nursery rhymes, helping the children find the rhythm and sounds in the language they use every day.

It has truly been a week of growth, both in our garden and in our learning!

Saplings

This week in Saplings, we have been continuing our exploration on plants, learning new words such as pollen, stem and seedling. The children have enjoyed looking at different types of plants, vegetables and fruit and how they are grown, we even saw how to grow Chillis! We have also been looking at patterns, discovering what patterns we can see throughout the classroom and in the garden. We have used our bodies to make patterns, such as ‘boy, girl, boy, girl’, we have also gone by hair colour, and different colours we are wearing.

As the weather warms up, the children have enjoyed spending lots of time on our outdoor decking, building sandcastles, rummaging through soil, getting creative in the 'Florist' role play area. We have also began to introduce the "getting ready for Reception" discussions at circle time, where the children talk about what they are excited to do once they make the transition to Reception!

In Literacy, we have been focusing on the phonic sound ‘B’ through repetition and song.

Reception

It has been a buzz of activity in Reception this week! We were surprised by a special letter from the bees, who told us they are endangered and need our help. Inspired by our reading of 'The Extraordinary Gardener' by Sam Boughton, we’ve been learning how to make our local environment more "bee and butterfly friendly."

To put our learning into action, we’ve started planting flowers in the playground to prepare for the arrival of our new tiny guests: a delivery of live caterpillars! We are fascinated by their life cycle and want to ensure they have a perfect habitat when they finally emerge as butterflies.

In Maths, we’ve been using our subitising skills to explore the composition of numbers to 10, identifying the parts that make up a whole. Meanwhile, in our writing, we are working hard on our Sentence Toolkit, ensuring every sentence has a capital letter, finger spaces, and a full stop. We have also been working hard on our fine motor development by practicing our scissor cutting skills.

Year 1

It was lovely to welcome you to our reading session this week. Thank you coming.

We hope you found it supportive and it gave you some ideas on how to support your child.

This week in Maths, we have been learning all about halves. We started by recognising that a shape was split in half when there were 2 equal parts. We looked at pictures and drawings to recognise when an object was in half, then we did lots of practical work, finding half of shapes by folding and using counters to recognise and find half of an amount.

Year 2

This week in English, we created questions for Floella and strengthened our understanding of rhetorical questions. In the following lesson, the children read a model letter and then rewrote it using their own ideas and adaptations.

In Maths, we began learning about fractions. The children focused on recognising one half and one quarter. Through a range of activities, they consolidated their understanding by shading ½ and ¼ explaining why a shape showed a quarter, and discussing why some examples were not correct.

In Geography, the children learned how to locate different parts of the world. They explored the climate of Trinidad and Tobago and used their atlases to identify hot and cold countries around the world.

In R.E., the children learned about worship and how Jewish people worship God. In the second part of the lesson, they made their own Torah scrolls, helping them to reflect on what they had learned.

Year 4

This week in English, Year 4 have been practising how to draft a third-person narrative, using dialogue to move the action forward. Our writing has been inspired by the core text 'The Boy at the Back of the Classroom'. Through this, the children explored important themes of social justice and equity while learning about the story of a Syrian refugee.

In Maths, we have begun our journey into decimals. The children have been learning about tenths using number lines and bar models, as well as developing their understanding of place value through a range of representations.

The children have also been working hard to build resilience and showing great effort in memorising their times tables. Please continue to support them at home by helping them revise using the TT Rockstars platform and the MTC Check online.

In Science, we have been investigating the human digestive system, learning about the different parts and their functions.

In History, our lesson was dedicated to exploring the Roman army and different aspects of the Roman Empire.

In DT, as part of our learning about the Romans, we designed and made catapults using lolly sticks. The children enjoyed applying their creativity and problem-solving skills to bring their designs to life.

Please remember to read every day and continue revising times tables.

Have a lovely weekend!

This week in English, Year 4 have been practising how to draft a third-person narrative, using dialogue to move the action forward. Our writing has been inspired by the core text The Boy at the Back of the Classroom. Through this, the children explored important themes of social justice and equity while learning about the story of a Syrian refugee.

In Maths, we have begun our journey into decimals. The children have been learning about tenths using number lines and bar models, as well as developing their understanding of place value through a range of representations.

The children have also been working hard to build resilience and showing great effort in memorising their times tables. Please continue to support them at home by helping them revise using the TT Rockstars platform and the MTC Check online.

In Science, we have been investigating the human digestive system, learning about the different parts and their functions.

Our History lesson was dedicated to exploring the Roman army and different aspects of the Roman Empire.

In DT, as part of our learning about the Romans, we designed and made catapults using lolly sticks. The children enjoyed applying their creativity and problem-solving skills to bring their designs to life.

Please remember to read every day and continue revising times tables.

Have a lovely weekend!

Year 5

In our Maths sessions, Year 5 focused on the logic of conversion by mastering how to translate fractions into percentages and then into decimals. By exploring how a denominator of 10 and 100 correlates to a percentage, the children learned to shift place values to express these amounts as decimals, building a vital foundation for proportional reasoning. The children then progressed to investigating perimeter, by exploring how to calculate the total distance around the sides of 2D shapes.

This week in English, the children focused on the art of biographical writing by investigating the essential components of a powerful introduction. After analysing how to hook a reader, the children selected a naturalist to profile, choosing between David Attenborough, Steve Irwin, or Steve Backshall. They then moved on to completing their planning sheets, carefully collating key life events and facts to ensure they have all the necessary information to share the remarkable life of their chosen naturalist in their upcoming biographies.

In our RE session, Year 5 has been exploring Humanism, learning what it means to lead a happy and moral life without a belief in a god or religion. The children investigated how Humanists rely on science and reason to understand the world, which differs from many religious views that look to sacred texts or divine guidance.

Year 6

As we move further into the term, the energy in Year 6 remains high. The children are showing incredible resilience as they continue their SATs preparation, and it is wonderful to see their hard work starting to pay off in their confidence levels.

In Maths, we have been navigating the coordinate plane and mastering the properties of shapes. Key areas of focus included:

• Lines of Symmetry: Identifying reflective symmetry in both regular and irregular polygons.

•  Plotting and reading coordinates with increasing accuracy.

•  Learning how to flip shapes across a mirror line without losing their properties.

We are seeing a huge improvement here! The children are becoming much more adept at measuring and drawing angles precisely.

In our writing and SPAG sessions, we are "solidifying the foundations." We have been running intensive bursts on:

• Identifying complex grammatical structures like the passive voice and subjunctive form.

• Ensuring colons, semi-colons, and dashes are used to enhance the flow of our writing.

• Tackling the Year 5/6 statutory word list and practicing common exception words.

Please continue to encourage your child to read for at least 15–20 minutes each evening. Whether it’s a novel, a graphic novel, or a non-fiction article, it all helps build the stamina and vocabulary needed for the upcoming assessments.

Summer Term Clubs

Bookings will be open from Friday 20th March at 6pm and will be allocated on a first-come, first-served basis.

The dates exclude the half term week, 25th May 2026 - 29th May 2026 and Bank holiday, Monday 4th May 2026. Also, Inset day, Friday 19th June 2026.

Please book directly using the links provided or via Arbor where it is indicated to do so.

Kindly ensure your child commits to the duration of the club, as we cannot guarantee refunds.

Sign-up starts at the beginning of the club, not once the club has started.

Please follow this link for futher information and booking links:

Summer Term Clubs 

We are using in-app messages to communicate with parents through the app - please could parents ensure they are able to log-in and Arbor is set up to accept these messages - they should be visible in the Communications section of the portal.

Parents who have the app should enable Push Notifications - this will alert you through the app that a message has arrived.

Over 90% of our parents have logged into Arbor - if you are having difficulty, please talk to the office who can help.

Check your Child's Data

Please log in to Arbor and check your child's/children's details are correct - and let us know if not. You can also request changes directly through the app which will take place once we have seen them - if we have questions, we will get in touch. Or you can let the office know directly.

It is important we have the correct data for all our families.

Please remember to check Arbor - either the Parent Portal (at https://login.arbor.sc/) or the parent app (available from the App Store or Google Play).

Parents who log in can:

* see their child's attendance

* log consent for local trips and those further afield

* pay for trips and book and pay for clubs

* receive In-App messages - and message the school

* book parent consultations

* see their child's details and request changes to ensure they are completely up to date

If you have more than one child at the school, they should be visible via a drop-down so you only need to login once.

To set up your account, you need the email you use for school communications and the date of birth of one of your children. Follow the Forgotten Password link on either the app or the website.

If you need support with logging in, please talk to the office team who will be glad to help.