Dear Parents and Carers

Welcome to another week at Woodside. Despite it being the “summer term” the weather has yet to commit to sunshine and I know the majority of us will look forward to the sun and light days. 

This week, teachers have been busy planning the learning that children will face next term. They have worked with colleagues across our other Croydon schools to plan some exciting learning experiences and it sounds like it will be a fun term!

We had a SEND and school improvement review this week. I am pleased to say the work the school is undertaking is having a positive impact on children and we are seeing improvements in key areas of the school. We have further reviews and external visits happening which we will use to support and develop our school further.

I wanted to remind the community that if anyone is upset or wishes to challenge something, they should follow our complaints policy which can be found on our website. We are expecting all members of the community to follow this policy to raise any concerns. 

I hope everyone has a good weekend.

Iman Atwal

Headteacher

We expect pupils to maintain a high standard of attendance here at Woodside. We want all our pupils to be able to achieve their very best and in order to do this, they need to be in school as much as possible so they don't miss out on any learning. Everyday is a new learning opportunity!

We want all children to come to school each day, but we know that there are some days children are just too ill to attend, or will spread illness to others.

The NHS website Is My Child Too Ill For School is a useful place to look for guidance.

If your child has vomiting or diarrhoea they should stay away from school until they have not been sick or had diarrhoea for at least 2 days (48 hours).

Children can attend school with cold sores, conjunctivitis, hand, foot & mouth disease, slapped cheek (fifth) disease, sore throat, thread-worms or ear infections as long as they don't have a temperature as well.

Please encourage your children to wash their hands regularly and use and throw away tissues properly.

To share with your child, Jasmine recommends the following books;

For parents/Carers, Jasmine recommends the following reads;

All of the recommended books are available to buy on Amazon.

Woodside Surplus Food Store

We hope that the Woodside Surplus Food Store is going a little way to support our school community in this cost of living crisis. We understand that demand is high and to ensure that everybody has a chance to benefit from the surplus food that we receive, we shall be introducing a new system.

From Wednesday 2nd May, we will be admitting parents/carers into the community room 5 at a time and some foods will be limited in the quantity that can be taken to ensure that everyone has an opportunity to access the surplus food offered. Members of our POWS (PTA) have kindly agreed to support with this. 

Polite reminder - We are operating a ‘pay-as-you-feel’ model whereby you pay what you can afford for the food and the money will go towards buying produce that we wouldn’t usually receive through the project such as pasta and other non-perishable goods. We recommend a donation of £1 please.

Please bring your own bags and if you are able to donate any spare bags, they would be gratefully received. 

Our Surplus Food Store is available in our Community room;

Every Wednesday between 8.45am – 9.15am and 3.10pm - 3.20pm

and every Thursday 8.45am – 9.15am

Nest

Children are continuing to enjoy the story 'Jack and the Beanstalk'. To embed the story, children have explored a variety of different beans, talking about the texture, size and colour. Whilst the children explored with the beans, they retold the story of 'Jack and the Beanstalk' in their own words. During the activity, children were counting the beans and most children were comparing the size of the beans. The children have been continuing to develop their fine motor skills through activities, but this week they really enjoyed making marks on paint pockets using cotton buds, and giving meaning to the marks they made, for example “ I made a circle”, “ I made my mummy”.

Nursery

In Nursery this week, children have been learning about what is needed for a seed to grow. They first talked about the equipment needed for the garden and drew some pictures to show understanding. They then went outside to use the equipment in the garden.

In Maths, children have been learning about numbers using counting bears. They have been matching the numbers with the number of bears.

Reception

In Literacy, this week we carried on with our topic on identity and diversity using the core-text, ‘IT’S OKAY TO BE DIFFERENT’. Children were focusing on their families, speaking about their family members, the number of family members in the house and where their parents come from.

Home Learning: Children continue practicing how to write a simple sentence about their families e.g. I live with my mum and dad or I travel far to visit my grandparents.

In Phonics, Children are on to Phase 4 phonics and have used their knowledge of sounds from Phase 3 to read words such as: magnet and shimmering.

They have also been learning new tricky words which are: so, some, like, was, we.

Home work: Children will be getting Phonics homework every week. Please support your child at home by scanning the QR code and going into the phonics program we use as a school. 

In Maths, this week children have explored numbers beyond 10. They discussed ‘teen’ numbers (11-14) and were able to recognise that a ‘teen’ number is made up of a whole ‘ten’ and some ‘ones’. Children used numicon and cubes to make numbers from 11-14 and then went on to independently explore ‘teen’ numbers in our indoor math area. 

Home Learning: As children have been learning about ‘teen’ numbers for the second week, support your children to write some missing numbers between 1-20.

REMINDERS: To support us with our Literacy topic for this term, please can children bring in a family photograph for next week’s Literacy lesson. A gentle reminder about homework sent home, we ask parents not to write it for the children, children need to practice writing themselves.

Thank you to all the parents who have made sure that Little Wandle books are returned in time so they can be changed. However, some are not being returned and no new books will be given out. This will mean children will not be bringing the Little Wandle books home.

Adding on to this, all children were given reading record books, but not all children are bringing them back.

Year 1

Year 1 have been very busy this week learning about Greenpeace and facts about gorillas. We have written questions making sure we use a question mark, researched gorillas and written letters.

In maths, we have been learning about equal and unequal groups. We have been making arrays and describing them using the words ‘row’ and ‘column’.

In Science, we have been planting seeds and learning about what plants need to grow. We are looking forward to watching our seeds grow over the next few weeks.

Year 2

This week, Year 2 have continued writing their response letter back to Floella (the main character from our core text) comparing similarities and differences between England and Trinidad. They then moved on to sequencing the pictures using chronological order, discussing the emotions felt by Floella based on different events that happened during the book. 

In Maths, we have also been continuing with our topic of measure, understanding the importance of starting from 0 when we are measuring with a ruler but also how to work out the measurement if someone hasn’t started on 0. The classes have explored using and applying the 4 operations (addition, subtraction, multiplication and division) to measurement worded problems using the conjunction ‘because’ to explain how they know this is the answer. 

To get into the Trinidad and Tobago spirit, in DT, Year 2 explored different carnival headdresses. The children explored carnivals from around the world to gain an understanding of this celebration. They examined the headdresses worn by carnival goers and created a list of criteria that would need to be met to create one of their own. They explored the vibrant colours, the materials used and how they would go about making their own carnival headdress. 

Below are some examples of headdresses the children have planned: 

Year 4

This week, the children investigated various types of catapults. They're tasked with designing and constructing their own robust catapults capable of launching lightweight objects through the air. Throughout the term, they'll explore different catapult designs, tracing their evolution from ancient times to Roman advancements. They'll have the opportunity to refine their designs as they progress. Today's lesson focused on introducing key vocabulary and principles of catapults, followed by hands-on experimentation to build a basic catapult using classroom materials. Activities included labeling a diagram of a simple catapult and examining images of ancient catapults to identify key components like the lever, fulcrum, load, and force. Finally, students made and improved their own catapults, applying the principles they learned.

Year 5

In Maths, Year 5 was mastering their skills of measuring the perimeters of rectilinear shapes. We are now moving on in Maths to calculating the areas of various shapes.

In English, the children are writing a biography of our favourite naturalist, scientist, writer, and TV presenter - David Attenborough.

Our Science lessons, are dedicated to the new topic involving human development. We learned how to present the data using various charts and graphs. We compared the heights of babies: boys and girls, and recorded our findings on a line graph - showing the change of heights over a 12-month period.

Thank you to Miss Traylor from the CSSP (Croydon School Sports Partnership) for teaching Year 5 pupils some leadership skills in sport and making our PE lessons exciting.

Please take up this opportunity to sign up to clubs. We are offering a variety of clubs during lunchtime and afterschool with high quality coaches that are the cheapest in the schools borough.

Unfortunately, we might have to cancel these if uptake remains low.

Please sign up or speak to the office if you need support with this

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.

Collaboration matters   Excellence in everything   Community first   Equity for everyone   Continuous growth