Haltwhistle Academy Newsletter

It's beginning to feel a lot like Christmas! We've had a jam packed week, starting with our after school club decorating the Christmas Tree on Tuesday ready for the start of December.  We welcomed our families to parents evenings over Monday to Wednesday evenings.  Our Christmas Fair after school on Thursday was a fantastic event, raising exactly £1000 for our PTA, thank you so much to everyone who supported this event, and to our team of volunteers who helped to make this a great success.  We topped the week off with Carol Singing at Haltwhistle Late Night Shopping on Friday.  

A huge thank you to Mrs Phillips and Mrs Marchbank who worked hard behind the scenes to plan and co-ordinate the Christmas Fair, and to Miss Thompson and Mr Falkingham who ran the choir practices and supported the Carol singing event.  

All our end of term dates for the diary can be found in the live calendar below.  You can also find our new school calendar for 23-24 at the bottom of todays newsletter.  It can also be found on the school dates page of our website for future reference.  

Exploring habitiats in the changing seasons

Year 2 headed out to Haltwhistle burn this week to explore microhabitats in a local area. Equipped with magnifying glasses and a sheet to record their findings they searched for mini beasts. We looked under rocks, on the trees, under the leaves and in the soil. Luckily we were able to find some creatures and we saw worms, wood lice and a few slugs! We linked this back to previous learning about seasons to think about why there weren’t many minibeasts out and about. Thank you to all of our helpers who joined us on our walk.  

LKS2 investigate the water cycle

In Science this week, LKS2 have been learning all about the water cycle and its 4 main stages: evaporation, condensation, precipitation, collection. 

We recreated the water cycle in a clear sandwich bag using sharpies, water and blue food colouring. We can't wait to observe what happens in our water cycles over the next few days!

KS1 are exploring abstract art and have been learning about Wassily Kandinsky. They have used 2D shapes to create interesting abstract compositions inspired by his work.

Inspired by cave art

LKS2 have completed the first stage of their prehistoric art project. They have worked with charcoal and pastels on sugar paper to create a textured background and then worked onto these to add pictures of animals inspired by real prehistoric cave art. We can’t wait to start the piece using mixed media to create some 3D effects! You can find more examples on our social media pages.

Skills builder at home

Attendance Matters

As we continue to recover from the disruption to children’s education caused by the pandemic, it is now more important than ever that children’s attendance is good or better.  Every second in school counts, as missing school, whether by being late or taking unnecessary days off, creates more new learning gaps which need to be addressed.  The best way you can support your child to recover from the lost school time of recent years is to ensure they are in school and ready to learn every day. 

We want every child's attendance to be good or better.  This means 96%+

Please check your child's attendance (see our app) against the class and national data.  School staff are able to offer support if your child's attendance is of concern.    

Please do not take your child out of school during term time as it disrupts your child’s learning and you risk financial penalties.   Any term time leave of absence must be applied for more than 2 weeks before the date of leave and can only be authorised by the Headteacher in the case of EXCEPTIONAL circumstances.  Please could we urge parents to book holidays during the 13 weeks of annual school holidays which are available each year.   

If leave has not been authorised and your child is out of school then you may receive a minimum fine of £60 per child, per parent.  If the time out of school makes your child’s attendance drop below 90% then they are known as persistently absent under the governments attendance definitions.  This means that you may face prosecution through the courts.  

Please help us to help your child catch up by ensuring they are in school and ready to learn every day.

Holiday Dates for 23-24

Before and After School club bookings

Our school designated safeguarding leads are Susie Drake, Tony Irvine, Michelle Brewster and Bethan Alsopp