Newsletters

27 November 2020

Dear Parents and Carers,

In my last letter I mentioned our sponsored read which was taking place over the half term holiday.  We have been utterly blown away with the support and generosity of the school community.  The sponsored read made a whopping £3694.80.  Lots of children raised lots of money in the sponsored read, but a few children made over £100 and they deserve a special mention and thanks.  Leading this, is Finn in Beaver class who raised an enormous £500.  This is a fantastic achievement by Finn and below is a collage of pictures of Finn enjoying reading lots of books to his family.   Thank you Finn!  Special thanks also go to:

Olivia in Deer class - £220

Samuel in Rabbit class - £170

Cyndey-Rae in Rabbit class - £120

Kyra in Beaver class - £105

Oliver in Nursery’s Squirrel class - £105

Daniel in Kite class - £100

Ella in Vole class - £100

Joshua in Linnet class - £100

Shaan in Crossbill - £100

Of course, thank you to all the children who took part.  During the INSET day in January, the teachers in Foundation Stage and Key Stage One will be sorting through the reading book and aligning them to the Read, Write Inc phonics scheme that we use.  The money raised will be used to purchase new books to support early reading and if there is any money left, we will look to enhance the books in KS2 and in the library. 

On the subject of fundraising, you may well have noticed the mountain of bags that we collected for our recent Bags2School collection.  Thank you to everyone who supported us with this, this raised a much needed £266.  Easy money for your old clothes!  Don’t forget another easy way to support the school is by making Amazon purchases through Amazon Smile. Simply go to https://smile.amazon.co.uk/ and select ‘Wooden Hill Home School Association’ and a small percentage of every purchase through amazon smile is given to the school.  Don’t forget that next Friday, 4^th December is the deadline for donations for the class coloured hampers.  Details of the auction will be given out the following week so that you can get bidding! It is not a silent auction as I said in my letter, instead the auction site that we use will notify you when you have been outbid.  

Thank you to all of the parents and carers who started wearing masks while on the school site for the duration of the second lockdown.  Your support and co-operation is much appreciated in these unprecedented times. Even though Bracknell has not been placed in the highest tier, which is a great thing for many people and businesses, after much consideration, as a school we are going to maintain the higher levels of protection for the remaining weeks until the Christmas holidays as we do not want to take any risks as tier two is ‘high’ risk.  By doing this, we hope that we can make a difference, however small, in keeping the infection rates low in our area.  I am therefore asking that you continue to wear masks while on the school site and as before, continue to maintain a 2m distance from others who you do not live with.  In school, we will remain cautious and staff will continue to wear face covering when outside of their classrooms or offices or interacting with other staff. 

Apart from a few little bits and pieces which will be completed over the Christmas holidays, the building works are now completed.  Our school looks wonderful with bright and airy classrooms, lovely corridors and nice new toilets.  We are just finishing off putting away resources and furniture into their new homes.  The final stage of the building work was the refurbishment of the toilets that were the Key Stage Two toilets, as these were awful.  all classes now have assigned toilets that they use and these final ones were opened on Monday morning.  I was deeply upset to learn however, that on Monday, in one of the brand new toilet cubicles, an intentional act of vandalism had taken place.  A large scribble, about 15cm2 has been drawn on one of the walls with a pen.  Mr Munden will attempt to remove it tonight (the cleaners did try on Monday but it wouldn’t come off) and if it can’t be removed, the entire panel will need to be replaced, costing the school several hundreds of pounds.   I would be really grateful if you could reiterate to your children the importance of respecting the school environment and that it is everyone’s responsibility to ensure that our school is well looked after. 

This term we have welcomed a new member of staff to the teaching team.  Miss Rees has joined the team and will be joining Miss McGowan in Chaffinch class from January.  They will be sharing the class and this will allow Miss McGowan to return to teaching PE to other classes. Also joining the teaching team from January is Mr Clarke.  Mr Clarke will be joining the year 6 team as well as providing creative learning opportunities in other year groups.  This half term we said goodbye to Mrs Hill who has moved on to new ventures and at the end of term Mrs Wood will be leaving us to work in a school closer to home.  We would like to thank them both for their contribution to the school and wish them well in their new roles. This has created a couple of vacancies in our school.  Further details below.

Best wishes,

Mrs Lagares

Vacancies

We are looking for a few hard working, committed people to join our strong staff team.  Further details and applications can be found https://ats-bracknell.jgp.co.uk/vacancies/list?ga_client_id=d8c53476-3ad0-6f42-4779-f1ce4fe7d4d2

We are looking for:

• Reading Support Assistant 8.30am – 1.30pm Monday – Friday term time only
• Teachers’ Personal Assistant 8.30am – 1.30pm Monday – Friday term time only

Respecting Staff

This term, there have been a number of upsetting incidents where staff have been on the receiving end of verbal abuse / aggressive behaviour / refusal to adhere to the school’s rules or expectations by care givers.  May we remind you that our staff have the right to be respected as they are simply doing their jobs.  We all recognise that the last few months have been challenging for everyone and emotions for some are high.  However it is important that staff are treated with respect at all times. 

Anti-bullying Week 2020

Across the school the children have been thinking about the very important issue of anti-bullying. We started the week with a whole school assembly (Please take a look at the presentation Miss Leigh-Hunt used as part of the assembly) and then the children did some fantastic learning in their classes.

For example; in Reception, the children chatted about Anti-Bullying week and completed some role play. They talked about the importance of kindness and that it was good to look after each other, and always talk to an adult if they have any concerns. 

In Year One the children discussed the question “What makes me ME?” 

Year Three spent time learning about how they could play a part to become united against bullying. The children created their own wristbands to show what they choose to do which included helping others, being kind and respecting other people.

Year Four watched a video called ‘The Birds’ and discussed which bird was the meanest. Then made up speech bubbles for the birds to show what they might be saying to each other.

In Year 6, the focus was on what bullying is and what it isn’t. The children spoke about the things they can do if they suspect something bad is happening – whether it is happening to them personally or they see it happening to someone else. From this, the children created posters about anti-bullying.

Anti-Bullying Week 2020 - Assembly

Nursery Roundup

The theme for this half term is The Jolly Postman and the children have read the story The Jolly Postman by Janet and Allan Ahlberg. They have enjoyed talking about the characters in the book and the other stories that they know them from.

The children have also enjoyed reading Goldilocks and the Three Bears, Room on the Broom by Julia Donaldson and the traditional tale of Jack and the Beanstalk.

One of their focuses for this term is speaking and listening and the children have been developing these skills in group times.

Click here to see all the Nursery news.

Reception Roundup

The children have been busy this term learning about Bonfire night and Guy Fawkes, the importance of Remembrance by thinking about special people, what they do for us and why we remember them. This month also saw the children learn about Diwali, the Hindu and Sikh celebration of the Festival of light. 

Click here to keep up with all the Reception news.

Year 1 Roundup

The children have continued with their learning about ‘Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Can You See? They went on a nature walk to see what what they could find! They found acorns, pinecones, trees, sticks, plenty of leaves and a squirrel!

Last week ended with a non-uniform day for Children in Need. It was fantastic to see everyone wearing clothes that make them feel good in order to raise money for this worthy cause – from super hero costumes to party clothes and pyjamas, it was great fun! We spent time on this day reflecting on how fortunate we are and how much we have to be grateful for. The children thoroughly enjoyed making their own Pudsey Bear masks.

The children have been thinking about the question ‘Can you see colour in the dark?’. The children have entered a ‘dark cave’ to find this out and thought about what they could see in the dark and then how this changed when they added a light source (a torch).

Their art topic this term is ‘colour’ and they have been using the story of Elmer to base their learning on and have learnt about primary and secondary colours and how the tone of a colour can be changed by mixing. They have really enjoyed exploring colour change with paint!

Click here to keep up with all the Year 1 news.

Year 2 Roundup

During anti-bullying week,  the children created jigsaw pieces, and learnt that everyone has a part to play in the fight against bullying. The children felt very lucky to have had no experience of bullying and commented how lovely the children are at Wooden Hill.

On their jigsaw piece they wrote an ‘I choose’ statement to describe how they are going to individually ensure bullying doesn’t happen at Wooden Hill.

Some statements included ‘I choose to be kind’, ‘I choose to stand up for other children’ and even ‘I choose love. I want to celebrate everyone’s differences’.

The Year 2 children have loved learning about two inspirational nurses - Mary Seacole and Florence Nightingale and this has really inspired the children, who show a huge appreciation towards the NHS. They have been shocked to discover that over 200 years ago hospitals were not as clean and modern as they are today!

Click here to keep up with all the Year 2 news.

Year 3 Roundup

For Anti-Bullying week the children spent some time learning about how they could play a part to become united against bullying and spoke about what they would do to help if someone was being bullied and how it is really important to tell an adult if they see something happening that they think is wrong. The children created their own wristbands to show what they choose to do which included helping others, being kind and respecting other people.

At the beginning of the term the children spent time learning about Remembrance day, why we wear poppies, why we hold a minutes silence and they got to write their own poems using some of the things they had learnt about Remembrance day.

Click here to keep up with all the Year 3 news.

Year 4 Roundup

Year 4 have been thinking about Anti-Bullying Week. In Linnet Class, the children watched a video called ‘The Birds’ and then discussed which birds were being mean before writing speech bubbles to go with what the birds might be saying to each other.

The children have been busy completing their Art topic based upon the ‘Starry Night’ by Vincent van Gogh and have created chalk pictures in the style of the famous artist

Click here to keep up with all the Year 4 news.

Year 5 Roundup

Year Five have begun a new writing unit and are learning to write a biography. They started off by reading an example and learning about the ' shapes' of a biography before researching Hatshpsut who they are going to be writing about.

For English, the children have been planning and writing their own adventure story and based their ideas on the book Gorilla by Anthony Browne and researched four destinations they would like to travel to. The children spent a long time during the writing and editing process to make sure that their stories were brilliant! 

In maths, the children have been doing lots and lots of revision and have been focusing on multiplying and dividing by 10, 100 and 1,000. This is a vital skill to be confident in, and they have really worked hard to understand the 'steps to success' with this.

Lastly take a look (below) at the amazing Pop Art. The children finished both the poppies and their Andy Warhol inspired art this week.

Click here to keep up with all the Year 5 news.

Year 6 Roundup

In Year 6 this week, the children have been excited to start their new English unit focussing on persuasive speeches. They are using Greta Thunberg as their role model and have been learning about global warming, fossil fuels and the effect these have on our planet. 

In maths, the children have continued their work on fractions and are now feeling more confident when adding, subtracting and multiplying fractions. They have also been using their maths skills in geography, when they compared the average temperature and rainfall between the city of Manaus, Brazil and Bracknell. We used tables to record the data and a bar and line graph to help us interpret this data.

During Anti-Bullying week the children got to think about the differences between bullying and unkind behaviour and had some long discussions about it. Some children created posters to help share their thoughts. (See below).

The children got to say 'see you soon' to Miss Wright this week as she starts her maternity leave; we look forward to her returning towards the end of this academic year.

Click here to keep up with all the Year 6 news.

~ Notices and Reminders ~

Parking 

Please ensure that you park safely and considerately around the school.  We have had a number of complaints from local neighbours about dangerous and inconsiderate parking. 

School Gate

The gate is opened at 8.30am each morning.  Please do not arrive before this time.

Uniform

Please ensure that children wear the full and correct school uniform including footwear.  Trainers and boots are not permitted.  

Water Bottles

Water bottles must only contain water and must not contain juice or squash.

Christmas Dates