Woodberry Down NEWS

Friday 19th January 2024

A Message From Mr Hewie

Regardless of the cold weather, the term has begun with great excitement and warmth.  It has been so uplifting to see everyone return with such energy and enthusiasm for the new school year.  Thank you for making sure that the children are attending well and for communicating with us when your children are absent from school.  Your support with this is always appreciated.

Although this term is short and with halfterm break only three weeks away, we are making sure that we work harder than ever to learn everything that we need to learn in spring term.  In this newsletter you will find news from different areas, year groups and subjects.  This has been provided by the teachers and leaders at the school with the intention of ensuring you know all that goes on in our amazing school.  We have also provided a reminder of some of the important dates coming in the next two weeks.

In the meantime, please be reminded that we strive to ensure that all of our pupils are at school as often as they possibly can be and that they attend punctually.  The school gates open to families at 8.45am each day and all pupils are expected to be ready to start the day by 8.55am.  We reoprn the school gates at 3.25pm for collection at the end of the day.

Thank you to everyone who has attended the events we have hosted in the first weeks back at school including the Year 6 secondary transition meeting with London MET, our wellbeing coffee morning, reading Come Learn with Me, Family Fridays and Come Dine with Me.  We always appreciate the support we receive from our families and the wider community and look forward to seeing you in our classrooms over the weeks ahead.

Upcoming diary dates at Woodberry down

Monday 22nd January

Year 3 Walk Around the Local Area


Wednesday 24th January

Year 2 Families Come Dine with Me (10 tickets available)


Friday 26th January

EYFS Family Friday


Friday 26th January

Year 3 Year Group Assembly


Tuesday 30th January

Year 1 Trip to Central London and Boat Trip on Uber Clipper


Wednesday 31st January

3W Natural History Museum


Wednesday 31st January

Years 5 & 6 Families Come Dine with Me (10 tickets available)


Thursday 1st February

Year 3B Natural History Museum


Thursday 1st February 

Year 1 Trip to Central London and Boat Trip on Uber Clipper


Friday 2nd February

Year 1 Trip to Central London and Boat Trip on Uber Clipper


Friday 2nd February

Year 2 Year Group Assembly


Friday 2nd February

3D Natural History Museum


Friday 9th February

School Closes for Half Term Break at 3.30pm


Monday 19th February

School Closed for INSET Day


Tuesday 20th February

School Gates Reopen to Pupils at 8.45am


School Attendance

As you are aware, it is our ambition to ensure all of our pupils are at school as often as is possible.  We know that those children who attend school regularly achieve better results at the end of Year 6 and therefore enter secondary school at a better advantage.  Children with lower attendance are less likely to leave our school prepared for secondary school because they have missed so much learning.  This is also true of children in Year 1 who take their phonics screening check and have low attendance.  These children are less likely to be able to read or to have an understanding of basic maths and phonics skills.

In the autumn term, our overall attendance figure for Reception to Year 6 was 94.1%.  This percentage is below our target of 97% for the year.  We ask that you are reminded that we do not authorise leave for travel during the school term.  Therefore, if you submit an application for holidays during the term time, you will be notified that this has not been approved unless circumstances are extraordinary.  We also ask that you support us with absence and provide us with evidence when your child has a medical appointment on a school day.

If your child is unwell, you must contact the school as soon as possible to inform us that they will not attend school on that day.  We appreciate you support and with this matter.  Otherwise, contact us on 0208 800 5758.

Nursery News

What a wonderful week we had in Nursery!  Although, what a cold week it's been!  Last week we introduced our new topic, Winter.  It was great to see everybody remembering to wear their extra warm clothing.  All of the Nursery children are trying extra hard to put on their own coats, do up their own zips and attempt that tricky task of putting their own gloves on.  Thank you for encouraging this at home. This week we’ve continued to explore our topic and the persistent frost was perfect for teaching our children all about arctic animals, igloos and Inuit people.  Our curious question, 'What is cold?' has led to some lovely conversations and use of key vocab. We’ve crafted our own winter hats and scarfs, drawn a snowman in shaving foam and have even drawn igloos.  We ended the week with an experiment: What will melt the ice first - salt, sugar or sand? We used cubes to place our votes as to which we thought would melt first.  This activity is easy to replicate at home and lots of fun too!

Spring Term Geography from Ms Clarke

At Woodberry Down, we present our pupils with a rich and robust geography curriculum that allow our children to gain a greater understanding of the world around us. 

In Year 1, our pupils study the topic ‘England’ and will explore Central London aboard the Uber Clipper along the River Thames.   Year 2 will make comparisons between our local area, Hackney and Alexandria, a Mediterranean port city in Egypt. The pupils will also visit the Walthamstow marshes giving further opportunities to compare the local area to other parts of London. 

Year 3 focus on types and features of settlements and will use digimaps and Google Earth technology to explore Epping Forest and make comparisons to the local area. 

In Year 4, the children engage in the study and tectonic plates and explore the reasons why some countries are more susceptible to volcanic eruptions and earthquakes. 

Year 5 delves into the topic of ‘Our Planet’ where they consider the features of biomes and climate zones around the world. 

Year 6 focusses on the contentious issues of global warming and deforestation and our pupils are given opportunities to consider the role they play in securing the work for future generations. 

return to Mathematics 

It has been a great start to the spring term regarding mathematics; the children have returned from the festive break and have begun their new maths topics with great enthusiasm and gusto.  Continuing to use the ‘I do, we do and you do’ approach in lessons provides many opportunities for the children to practice the new skill they are learning, whilst also deepening their use and understanding of mathematical vocabulary.

In key stage 1, the children are continuing to build their fluency and number knowledge, celebrating their hard work in our fortnightly maths assemblies, during which, children receive certificates for exemplary maths work in the classroom and also through home learning in the form of Numbots; an app to develop fluency, number recognition, addition and subtraction.

In key stage 2, the children are showcasing their mathematical thinking within maths lessons; using real world life experiences and prior knowledge to help them gain a better understanding of their current unit of learning. Last term, the ‘Solve It’ competition winners celebrated with a special lunch with Mr Hewie. The competition begins again this term, so please remind your children to look out for the special ‘Solve It’ maths boxes at break times. The buzz of times tables also continues as our whole school TTRS battles and competition restarts this Friday. The league table is so close, so do ensure your child is practising their times tables on ‘Times Tables Rock Stars’ every evening.

Come Read with Me

This week’s Come Read With Me has been a huge success! 

Parents from Y1 - 6 were invited to attend a Reading For Pleasure session with Mr Waldon, who spoke about the importance of fostering a child’s love for reading. Parents then spent time in classes, completing reading activities with their children and class teachers! It was amazing to see so many parents attend these sessions and how excited pupils were to read with their parents.

In order to help our pupils with reading at home, please follow the guidance on the document below. If you have any further questions regarding how to support your child’s reading, please do not hesitate to speak to a member of the Senior Leadership Team or Mr Waldon (2B class teacher).

KS2 parents, please remember that on Friday 19th of January, Reading Diaries will be sent home. Children are asked to bring in their Reading Diaries every Monday so that they can be checked by class teachers. 

We would like to thank you in advance for your hard work around Reading For Pleasure and very much look forward to hearing about all of the reading going on at home. 

Year 4 News from Miss Cocker

This week's start of year four music classes has had the students giddy with anticipation. This term, they will be learning how to play the guitar after mastering the art of playing the African drums last term. Children enjoyed learning the names of the strings in the first session, and they also learned some helpful hints for remembering the names and string arrangement. They also learned how to play the various guitar sections. Our children have now familiarised themselves with the instrument and even took pleasure in picking chords on the guitar. We were able to see some first opportunity solo performances!  

Year 5 News from Miss Onyeanusi

Year 5 had a wonderful, 'Come Learn With Me,' session on Monday where parents were invited to come in and see how reading is taught in school.  We started off with some very enthusiastic partner reading where our parents got to listen to the children read with amazing expression and porosity. The children showed their ability to summarise, ask questions and retrieve information from the text. Next we had some very enthusiastic discussions around reading showing how to develop ideas and demonstrate reading for understanding.  The children really engaged with the activities and our parents were able to see clearly the wonderful reading community we are developing here at Woodberry Down.  The session ended with a creative activity which involved designing new front covers for books, drawing a character as well as creating reading recommendations. Thank you to all our parents who attended we had a great afternoon.  A reminder that diaries will go home today and will be checked on Monday. 

WAMHS at woodberry down

The ‘Wellbeing and mental health in schools’ project is a joint initiative between the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service (CAMHS) and Hackney Education. The goal with this is to enable mental health staff and teaching staff to work together in improving the wellbeing of children in the borough. See below for what is on offer at Woodberry Down. 

Dr Joe Vacher

Hello! I am Dr Joe Vacher and I am a Clinical Psychologist.  I am very excited to be working with Woodberry Down every other Tuesday, in which I will be the ‘CAMHS Worker in School’ (“CWIS”) supporting the WAMHS project.  Whilst I will not be providing direct interventions, my role will include:

With this whole-school approach, we really hope that the wellbeing of every member of the Mossbourne community will be nurtured in every aspect of school life.

Mr Rameen Afiq

Hello! My name is Ameen Rafiq. I am the Education Mental Health Practitioner (EMHP) at your school and I am here to help support you with your Mental Health and Wellbeing. I work at Woodberry Down Primary School every Monday morning and I provide the following support:

I look forward to working with you all, and I hope to make a positive impact on the wellbeing of every member of Woodberry Down Primary School.

News from Year 6 & Ms Nazu

Year 6 had a great assembly with PC Gemma Jackson about making the right choices and the consequences of crime. Our children engaged in an interactive session to understand reasons why teenagers may get involved in crime and how this can be avoided. Our children enjoyed learning about their responsibilities and considering how their choices can have long lasting impact on their lives. 


In our Science lesson, we carried out an investigation to prove that light travels in a straight line from a light source. Everyone worked collaboratively to provide evidence for this and present their findings in a scientific diagram.

YEar 1 News

This week all three Year 1 classes have been on an exciting visit to the Natural History Museum in connection with our current Science topic Animals!  We were amazed to see their huge collection of natural specimens of mammals, reptiles, insects, birds and sea creatures!  We looked at the characteristics that these groups of animals share.  We also learned that dinosaurs actually share some characteristics with animals that walk the earth today!  Our children were all very brave when we had a close encounter with a ginormous T.Rex!  We would like to say a massive thank you to all of our parent volunteers who accompanied us and helped make our visit a success.


We have also had many parents join us this week in class for Come Read With Me!  The children enjoyed listening to stories from our teachers and were incredibly excited to share some of our favourite stories we have read in school with their adults from home.  We responded to our chosen stories creatively, by designing new front covers, or drawing our favourite characters and settings.  It was fantastic to see the children so engaged in book talk with their friends and parents.  We hope that the parents who joined us for the afternoon enjoyed the session as much as we did!