Woodhill

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Message from the Headteacher

It has been a great week at Woodhill despite the change in the weather. Children from across the school have been sharing their learning and discussing their new topics with myself and other leaders and a real positive environment has been formed. We have had a visit from Chartwells, our catering provider, who have delivered healthy eating workshops for Y1 and Y6 and our Year 5 Willow children have finished their intensive swimming sessions and from next week will start going on Mondays only. Year 4 have been really focussed on their new science topic of 'Properties of materials' and have been performing experiments on melting. Thank you to everyone who has attended 'Meet the teacher' sessions this week as well as those Y6 parents who have attended our 'How to apply for Secondary schools sessions.' If you need further support with this, please speak to Sarah White in the school office.

Wishing you a good weekend from all of the staff.

Messages from the office

Is my child too unwell for school?

It can be tricky deciding whether or not to keep your child off school, nursery or playgroup when they're unwell.

There are government guidelines for schools and nurseries about managing specific infectious diseases at GOV.UK. These say when children should be kept off school and when they shouldn't.

If you do keep your child at home, it's important to phone the school or nursery on the first day. Let them know that your child won't be in and give them the reason.

If your child is well enough to go to school but has an infection that could be passed on, such as a cold sore or head lice, let their teacher know.

Please click on the link below for information and advice

www.nhs.uk/live-well/is-my-child-too-ill-for-school

Punctuality

Punctuality As with attendance, it is very important that children arrive at school on time each day, every minute missed adds up to a vast amount of learning time lost over the school year. School starts at 8.55 a.m. every day. Your child will be classified as being late if they are not on the school premises by this time. Children who arrive late are greatly disadvantaged because they miss starting the day with their peers and the beginning of lessons. This can be disrupting for the rest of the class and teacher.

Term Dates 2023/2024

Parking around the school site

Please remember to park considerately around the school site. Please avoid parking on corners, on speed bumps and in front of residents drives.

Afterschool Activity Clubs

Afterschool clubs have now started for this team and run until Friday 18th December, we only have a limited amount of spaces left so if you would like your child to attend a after school activity club please can you log onto Arbor to sign up. There is a fee of £12 for the clubs and musy be paid to secure your space.

School Dinners

Please can you ensure your school dinner debt is paid for the last academic year.

School meals are now free for all year groups so please can you let the office know if your child is pack lunch or school dinners.

What we have learned this week

Year 1 - This week, Year 1 have been exploring the emotions of a character from our core text, Beegu. We have acted in role as Beegu to help us to consider her feelings at different points in the story. This has helped us to write in role, creating speech bubbles for her.

This week, we were lucky enough to have a healthy eating workshop, where enjoyed learning more about healthy eating, by creating art with a wide variety of fruit and vegetables. Then, we got to try these and we really did eat the rainbow! It was such a fun way to consider making healthier food choices. “I liked trying the watermelon, it was delicious”, said Tegan.

In RE, we have also been tasting things this week. We have been learning about lots of different celebrations. As part of this we tried foods associated with different celebrations. “Eating together made me feel happy, because everyone was smiling”, Afiyah said.

In Geography, we have been learning about our local area. We mind-mapped around our school, identifying all the geographical features that we knew were nearby. Then, we went on a local walk to see which geographical features we could spot, as well as exploring some more. “These houses and buildings are near where I live. That means they are in my local area”, explained Sophie. This really helped us to contextualise our learning and prepare us as we apply this to our next lesson, where we will be mapping these features onto a map if the local area. The whole Year 1 team and extremely proud of the responsibility and respect that the children showed throughout this trip, they truest represented Woodhill beautifully.

Year 4 - Since the start of the school year, year 4 have been busy learning all about Ancient Greece. They have enjoyed exploring our core text ‘Odysseus’ where they have been generating descriptive vocabulary to describe the characters and identifying character traits. Renae said, “I have loved learning all about Odysseus’ adventures with the Cyclops!” In history, the children have been exploring hierarchy in Ancient Greece and applying their knowledge to school life. Georgie said, “I really enjoyed thinking about who has the most power at school!”

In maths, year 4 have been learning more about the value of numbers by using number lines up to 1,000 and changing numbers by adding or subtracting 1, 10, 100 and 1,000. Damian said, “I have enjoyed the challenge of maths this week!”