With two weeks of the summer term already behind us, so much has happened at Woodberry Down.  I am sure that the children have been coming home to tell you about their new Science and Geography topics and about the books they are sharing with their teachers in class.  I would like to remind our families that we have listed the books your child will read in their class this year on our website.  It is always helpful for the children to read or share these stories with you before they read them in class.  The names of these books can be found in the classes pages on the school website.  Just choose your child's year group and click on curriculum.

We have recently written to our Year 5 families to inform them of our upcoming residential trip to Ashford in October.  The children will start Year 6 with a four-night residential trip to Kingswood House in Ashford Kent on 21st October.  We are always keen to ensure that our children are able to experience a residential visit and that they can continue to take part in this.

In the meantime, I wanted to thank you for continuing to support the school, for attending parent workshops and recommending the school to friends and family.  We are incredibly fortunate to have such an incredible and supportive community.  Please continue to avoid driving and parking on our street to ensure the safety of all of our children at the beginning and end of the school day.

Best regards, Mr Hewie

Year 2 has had a very busy start to Summer 1.  We have continued our exploration of plant growth, and have been particularly impressed with how tall our runner beans have grown.  For Writing Week, we wrote stories based on the novel 'After The Fall', written by Dan Santat. Children were excited to join their new Read Write Inc groups and have started the term reading fluently and with expression.  In mathematics, the focus shifted to shape and symmetry, where students looked at the properties of both 2D and 3D shapes. They also had the opportunity to explore whether real life shapes have lines of symmetry.

The children in year five have been using their knowledge about the Earth’s rotation to explore time zones.  They were fascinated to learn that when it is daytime in countries like the UK and Spain it is night time in Australia.  They also applied their geographical knowledge about lines of latitude to calculate the times in different countries.  They were able to apply real life examples of countries that were ahead of the UK in time, like China and Nigeria, and countries that are behind the UK in time, like Brazil and the USA.

The children have also had the opportunity in their DT lessons to learn about seasonal ingredients.  They were able to explore familiar ingredients like sweetcorn and cucumber, and new ingredients like oregano and spring onion.  Through hands-on cooking activities and discussions about the importance of balanced nutrition, students develop a deeper understanding of healthy eating habits and the role of seasonal ingredients in supporting overall well-being.

Finally the children have been working hard to explore characters in their new writing week book, ‘When Stars are Scattered, ‘ through dialogue, images and descriptions.  There has been lots of book talk and sharing ideas to inspire the children in their own writing.

School meals at Woodberry Down continue to be very popular.  We currently serve over 510 hot meals to our children every day. We are always very proud of the food we make and bake in the school kitchen where the staff work incredibly hard to ensure that the food we serve is nutritious, healthy and tasty.  

This week, we introduced our new 'tasty morning' when we offered our children a small sample of an upcoming new and exciting dish during their morning break time.  On Tuesday, we gave our children a sample of spanakopita (Greek spinach pie) in their playtime.  The idea went down a treat and was very well received by the children.  Now that they have tasted the dish, we hope that more of the children will be encouraged to take this as their main meal when it appears on the menu next week.