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

Message from the Headteacher

The festivities are in full swing at Woodhill with the first of our Christmas performances happening this week. On Wednesday, our Reception children delighted the audience with their beautiful singing during their performance of  'Toby's Christmas Drum'. Then on Thursday our Nursery children performed their songs in their classrooms and were incredibly cute. Our Year 1 children have had a busy week too. They started the week with a visit to the Clockhouse community centre in the Woolwich dockyard as they learned about the local area and then brought joy to the residents of the local care home, Time Court, for their annual Christmas visit and linked to their learning about changes over time. They then finished the week performing in their nativity along with our Year 2 children in what was another beautiful performance. 


Our older children have been busy continuing with their learning as well as practicing for their upcoming performances next week and our Y5/6 girls football team playing another three fixtures at the Meridian sports league. They remain unbeaten following their win and draw on their first visit (where they won 1-0 and drew 0-0) as yesterday they battled out two 0-0 draws and a 1-1 draw- Layla with the goal. They sure are tough to beat! A group of boys having the opportunity to play at Sparrows Lane, Charlton Athletic's training ground. They all demonstrated respect and collaboration and their efforts were fantastic.


Have a good weekend and we look forward to seeing you at the performances and fair next week.


Mr Phillips and the whole team

Christmas Fair - Wednesday 20th December 

Please come along to our Christmas Fair on Wednesday 20th December at 3.30pm 

There will be: Santa ’s Grotto, Food and Drinks, Tombola, Christmas Cards - to buy and make, Christmas Decorations, Face Painting, Biscuit decorations, A Hot chocolate Stand, and much more…. Please come along and join in the fun! 


Following on from the success of our World Cafe event, we would love to ask if you are able to donate some cakes or food that we can share with our families on the day. We are particularly interested in your cultural cakes to add lots of diversity to our food offerings.


If you would like to donate a dish/cake please can you bring to the school office on the morning of the 20th December.


Please also write your name on any containers, trays or tins, which you send in and we will do our best to return them to you at the end of the day.


Due to allergies, we ask that you create dishes that do not contain nuts of any.

Messages from the office

Parent Governor Position

There is a vacancy for a parent governor to serve on our governing body. We are very keen to encourage parents to be a part of our governing body, we are therefore writing to invite parents and carers of registered pupils to consider standing for the role. 

Parent governors are elected by parents and are vital to our governing body. No special qualifications are required but to be successful in the role, you will be committed to the success of the school and willing to play an active role in the work of our governing body contributing with integrity, honesty and objectivity. If you join our governing body, you will serve for a four-year term though governors are free to resign at any time. 

The school has high expectations of the time and commitment required from its governors in order to effectively fulfil their role so before nominating yourself please consider you have the time and flexibility to commit to the role as parent governor. You will be expected to: 

● Attend six LGB meetings each academic year. Meetings last around two hours and are usually held in one of the hub schools. 

● Commit to visiting the school for half a day once a term as part of your duties in order to monitor and evaluate the school

 ● Commit to our training programme to assist in your role. Complete statutory safeguarding training when you start and new governor training when available. Training will be in the evening and as a new governor there will be about 12-hour training spread over the first year reducing to about six hours the following years. 

● Undergo an enhanced DBS check to confirm your suitability to work with children 

● Declare any business or pecuniary interests and accept that these interests together with your name, term of office as a governor, and attendance will be published on the school website.

In return, you can look forward to: being part of a team, working collectively to ensure all children at the Greenwich Hub receive the best quality of education and personal development we can give them; use and enhance existing skills and develop new one; and gain personal satisfaction from knowing you are making a difference for the community. 

f you are interested in this role then please complete the nomination form from the school office. If you have any questions about this role please contact Ed Britton, our Chair of Governors, at ebritton@inspirepartnership.co.uk. 

Nominations should be submitted by Friday 15th December 2023. If there are more nominations than vacancies the election will be by secret ballot. If that is necessary, the ballot and voting process will be communicated to parents 

FareShare Market

 Recently, our Friends of Woodhill and staff have been collecting parent and pupil voice on ways they can help improve at Woodhill. Lots of feedback gained was around our FareShare Market on a Friday. 

While we understand that it is a staple of our community, we want to ensure that as many people as possible are able to access it fairly. 

While we always seek to support our community in any way we can, we would like to remind everyone of the principles of the Fareshare market. The school pays a set fee each year to the Fareshare charity and as a result, we then receive the variety of consumable goods and items which you see on a Friday. 

The rationale is then that members of the community pay a fare to receive some of the items and that we hold in mind that we would like everyone to have the option to access the Fareshare market. Please be considerate of others on Fridays and be balanced in what you take and please do continue to support the charity; any funds made that exceed what Woodhill pay for the service go into the school fund and support us to provide prizes and food at other events such as World cafe, the summer and winter fairs. 

Please continue to access the Fareshare market and give what you can and take fairly so that as many members of the community as possible can continue to access this provision. Thank you for your continued support. 

Lost Property / Valuables

We will have a lost property stall in the playground at 3.15 on Friday 21st December, any unclaimed item will be disposed off during the half term. 

Can we also remind parents not to send children into school with expensive clothing as children often misplace their belongs and the school accepts no responsibility for any lost belongs, this is the responsibility of your child to ensure they look after their property. To support with this please can you ensure all children's clothing is labelled with their names.

Absence from School procedure

If your child is absent from school, please ensure you follow this guidance: -



End of term celebrations

We are full of joy to announce an exciting calendar of festive events coming up over the last week of term. 

Performances 

Christmas Cards 

Children are invited to write and bring in Christmas cards for their friends. Please ensure that these are brought in between Monday 18th December and Wednesday 20th December, and these will then be distributed at the end of the day. 

Class parties 

Wednesday 20th December will be our class party afternoon! Each class will host their own party in their classrooms. Children can come to school dressed in their party clothes and we would really appreciate it if they could bring a party food donation for their class (This needs to be wrapped snacks e.g. mini rolls, crisps, chocolate biscuits, a bottle of drink). *no nuts There will be party games, board games and music to celebrate the end of term in the afternoon. 

Christmas fair 

As communicated previously, our Christmas Fair this year will be held on Wednesday 20th December at 3:30pm. This will be a wonderful opportunity for bringing our families together and building our community spirit, creating a wonderful experience for our children and families and making memories together. All money raised by the events held by the Friends of Woodhill is used to enhance the children’s learning experience at school. Thank you to those who have donated items for this event. 

Year 5 - Residential Trip

If you have booked your child onto the  YEAR 5 school Journey from Monday 11th March until Friday 15th March. 

The total cost for the week is £300 per child, including accommodation, travel, all meals plus all of the fantastic activities and experiences. 

Please can you make a payment. We have noticed some parents  have not made the October and/or November payment. This payment needs to be made ASAP and each month from the instalment plan below.

Primary Applications

If your child's date of birth is between 01st September 2019 to 31st August 2020 they will be due to start primary school in September 2024.

You need to apply for a primary school place online, the deadline for applications is 15th January 2024.

Please see link below to submit your application

https://www.eadmissions.org.uk/

Save the Date for Autumn Term 

Missed Flu Vaccination

                             What we have learned this week

Year 2 - this week has been very busy with rehearsing for our nativity which we are performing on Friday. The children are singing their hearts out and enjoyed dressing up and have worked really hard to learn all their lines to make it a great show.

Hawthorn has been learning about different religions and their practices. 

In English we have been exploring children's rights by identifying similar needs and wants and sharing ideas about what we need to survive.

In History we have been studying about primary and secondary sources in relation to the thorough work done on the suffragette movement.

The children enjoyed a great PE session with Mr O'Regan, he makes PE such fun.

Year 5 -  In English Y5 have been debating and writing a balanced argument about whether the main character, Rory, should accompany her mum to the Arctic, where she has to conduct some important research. Kaiden said, "I think it's good that she is getting time away from electronic devices and spending time with her mum." Currently the children are planning their next piece of writing - a persuasive brochure advertising Svalbard as a destination. In maths, children have been learning to convert improper fractions to mixed numbers, and vice-versa. In science Y5 are learning more about materials and states of matter. They have been doing experiments to see whether the temperature of water affects the solubility of salt and coffee. Ava predicted, "I think things dissolve quicker in hot water because they melt." Cheyanne said "It's because the particles move around more in hot water." In geography Y5 are currently learning about the human and physical features of Ethiopia, and finding out about the Awra Amba community.  Willow Tree are coming to the end of their swimming lessons. This week they had water safety training and had time to play on the slide at the end. Elijah said "That was so much fun, I hope we can do it again next week!" 

Community Support, Events & Activities

Holiday Food and Fun is back for Christmas! Free activities for young people in Royal Greenwich.


Using money from the Department of Education, there are free, funded holiday club spaces available for eligible children and young people.


If your child is aged between 4 and 16, and receives or is eligible for benefit-related free school meals, they'll be able to claim a spot at one of our participating clubs.


If your child is eligible for benefits related free school meals and attends a special school in the borough and/or has a package of care from social services, they can access the specialist SEND provision and programmes.


Find a list of participating holiday clubs on our website and book a place directly with them.

Royalgreenwich.gov.uk/holidayfoodandfun 


Clubs will run between 22 December 2023 and 5 January 2024


Birthday & Merits

Pine - Faith

Hawnthorn - Marcelo & Jaybel

Rowan - Bella

Chestnut - Abhik

Silver Birch - Humeyra

Willow - Mason

Aspen - Taye & Aaliyah

Cedar - Oscar


Catkins - Khalid & Naomi

Saplings - Sameera & Ocean

Acorns - David & Isaac

Hazel Tree - Hiyab & Noah N

Pine Tree - Ibrahim & Marwa

Hawthorn - Hussain & Grigore

Rowan - Harley & Taliyah

Aspen  - Shaniyah & Sienna

Chestnut - Bella & Abhik

Cherry  - Amanda & Ellie F

Juniper  - Shavontai & Asha

Silver Birch - Mckeeian & Frankie

Willow - Kaiden & Cheyanne

Beech - Mason & Asiyah

Oak  - Karlen & Emily

Cedar - Deborah & Jenriel

                Dates for your diary

Nursery & Reception Chistimas Productions