Friday April 28th

It’s been a busy return to school for the summer term and there are lots of exciting plans for the term ahead. New topics have begun and, as always, the school has been full of learning and laughter. On a sporting note, a big well done to our Year 4 footballers who represented the school at a festival last week and to our rugby team that took on Gowerton yesterday. They showed great resilience in tough conditions and should be really proud of themselves.

After school clubs will resume next week. You should have received forms to sign your child up if they wish to attend.

There have been lots of highlights since our return after Easter. Morning Nursery have had a lovely 2 weeks exploring the letter L. They have counted and ordered ladybird spots, made ladybird crackers for snack, explored lines using paint, paper and natural materials and made loud and quiet sounds with instruments. They have learnt about litter and recycling and played ‘follow the leader’ in gym. Afternoon Nursery have been enjoying playing outside in the building site and on the bikes, learning to peddle. It was lovely to make new friends when the next Nursery intake joined us for the afternoon. Reception have been finding out about Spring, talking about the changes they can see around them. Children enjoyed their walk around the school looking for signs of Spring and creating posters to show them. They have also been looking at plants and finding out what they need to grow as well as drawing and labeling the parts of a plant and creating an addition flower garden! Of course, the big hit has been today’s wonderful community farm trip!

Year 1 have been learning about living, non living and used to be living things this week. They also predicted what will happen during their cress investigation and put spring words into alphabetical order as an independent challenge. Making groups of equal amounts has been the focus in maths this week and not forgetting their fantastic trip to the community farm to end the busy week! Mrs Wallace and Mrs Howells’ class have loved their adjective hunt this week, finding words to describe dangerous creatures. They then used new words and connected sentences to describe lions, showcasing their wonderful writing skills. The biggest surprise was getting to meet their very own caterpillars and start their caterpillar diaries.

Extreme mini beasts have been the talking point in Mrs Evans and Mrs Thomas’ class where the children researched interesting facts about poisonous dart frogs, spiders and snakes. There is also lots of excitement in the air with the long awaited arrival of their caterpillars. Mr Reid’s class have thoroughly enjoyed learning about famous pirates from the Golden Age of Piracy including 2 Welsh pirates Black Bart and Henry Morgan. The children have worked hard in making a timeline and creating fact files about them. They have also loved learning the moves for a pirate jig before beginning to plan and create their own.

Highlights in Mr Jenkins’ class this week have included reading the Welsh story of Ben the Scarecrow. Children have also completed their learning challenges on writing instructions and their science investigation on electrical conductors. In Maths the children have loved learning about 2d and 3d shapes and their properties. Year 5 and 6 really enjoyed their immersion day and beginning their new topic based around the book ‘The Arrival’. A highlight has been creating their own creatures using clay and identifying their features to help them live, learning about the importance of having an identity. As always PE has been a big hit. This week children played a target game using their ball skills and jumping. Brilliant!

Coronation Party

There will be a party and disco in school on Friday, 5th May to celebrate the King’s Coronation. Children can wear party clothes or red/white/blue or dress up as a King or Queen. Please could your child bring a small extra lunchbox with party food (for themselves) and an extra drink. Please note that pupils will still need lunch as the party will be in the afternoon.

Personalised assessments

During the month of May, children in Years 2 to 6 will be completing online personalised assessments in Reading and Numeracy. These are not used as “tests” or have any form of high accountability stakes for pupils or the school. They do, however, provide us with some information about what your child can do well, and needs to do next. They will be delivered in an informal manner which minimises any potential anxiety. Please be assured that pupils will not be put under any pressure, and will see these as an activity like any other.

Dates for the diary

Monday May 1st – Bank holiday

Tuesday May 2nd – PTA meeting 15.30

Friday May 5th – Coronation party (see above)

Monday 8th May – Bank Holiday

Monday June 5th – RSE information session for parents (16.00 to 17.00) at Gowerton Comprehensive School

Week beginning 26th June – Provisional Sports days (details to follow)

Friday June 30th – INSET DAY

Week beginning 3rd July – Parent workshops (details to follow)

Friday 14th July – Whole School Beach trip

Monday July 24th – INSET DAY

(Information about events specific to classes or cohorts will be sent out separately)

Have a great Bank Holiday, see you all on Tuesday!

Mr Jamie Evans

Deputy Headteacher

Friday March 31st

Firstly, on a personal note, I am extremely honoured to have been appointed as the next Headteacher of our amazing school and I look forward to continuing to work with the wonderful children, staff and families of Waunarlwydd in the years to come! After so many special years at Waunarlwydd, Mrs Davies will be retiring in the summer and I have no doubt that we will all work together to make her last term a special one!

As always though, this week has been all about the incredible children of Waunarlwydd and what a week we’ve had to end the Spring term! It started in great style with an outstanding performance from our school choir during the North Gower Partnership Music Festival at the Brangwyn Hall. The children were outstanding! Diolch pawb!

The week has ended in Easter style! The rain held off for our Easter Bonnet parade, there’s been a surprise visitor, Easter discos, hunts and much more. There have been lots of highlights!

Morning and afternoon Nursery have had a lovely week celebrating Easter. They have done egg rolling, egg and spoon races, made bunny masks, went on a digital egg hunt and had a lovely surprise when the Easter bunny visited. They practised their numeracy skills when they sang ” 5 Hot Cross Buns in a Baker’s Shop” and paid for their own hot cross buns for snack. Wow! Reception have had lots of Easter fun this week! They used their number skills to find the missing parts of eggs in their outdoor number egg hunt, they used phonic skills to build simple words on eggs and learned all about the life cycle of a hen.  To end the week they even had a visit from the Easter Bunny, an Easter egg hunt and enjoyed an egg and spoon race and a bunny hopping race in the yard. We have also had fun rolling different types of eggs down a ramp to see which one travels the furthest. 

Miss Tyrrell’s class loved sequencing the Easter story and learning about the life cycle of a chick. Another big hit was their awesome number work, where they learnt about capacity and practical measuring as well as creating tally charts and block diagrams. Brill! Mrs Wallace and Mrs Howells’ class have enjoyed creating their own Climate Change Superhero! They all decided what their first mission would be to help our planet. The children have also had fun weighing objects around the classroom and discussing their results with their partner. They also had a surprise visit from the Easter Bunny! Mrs Evans and Mrs Thomas’ class have had a great week. They thoroughly enjoyed making electric circuits while another highlight was creating artwork from recycled materials. Of course, another big hit was their Easter activities, particularly making Easter nests and their egg hunt. Mr Reid’s class have had a fab week. They particularly enjoyed their focus on dance and Yoga, while the introduction of dodgeball in PE was a big hit! Their comic strip creations were brill and they’ve enjoyed learning about mass, using their number skills effectively. The week ended in great style with their Easter activities!

Mr Jenkins’ class have had a busy end to the term. They have been busy looking at fractions of shapes and equivalent fractions. They also loved making Welsh Myth Games from the stories they have read this year and writing instructions on how they can be played, adding lots of pitfalls to them to make them especially hard. As it is coming up to Easter, they learnt about the Easter story and even had an Easter treasure hunt…lots of fun! Highlights from Year 5 and 6 this week have been investigating and exploring whether the shape of a boat affects the force needed to move it; the (rather wet and soggy) walk around the village looking for litter and bins and making persuasive posters encouraging people to make healthier choices. Plus, of course, our easter extravaganza!

**REMINDER – INSET DAYS**

Please note that the remaining INSET days for this year will be as follows:

Friday April 21st, Friday June 30th, Monday July 24th

Summer Term

We have lots of events planned for the summer but need to confirm some details. We will get a calendar of upcoming events out to you after Easter.

As always, if you have any questions or concerns don’t hesitate in getting in touch!

Have a great Easter! Pasg Hapus!

Mr Jamie Evans

Deputy Headteacher

Friday 17th March

Another wonderful week at Waunarlwydd full of learning and laughter! A big thanks to you all for your donations to Red Nose Day, we will let you know the amount raised next week.

Locally, an emergency appeal has been launched for households impacted by the devastating explosion in Morriston on Monday. Swansea Council for Voluntary Service and its local partners are encouraging donations with the money raised being used initially to provide emergency financial support to people immediately impacted by the explosion who may need to replace urgent items that have been damaged or destroyed, and longer term to support additional costs.

You can donate to the appeal here: https://localgiving.org/morriston-appeal

Morning Nursery have been learning the sound K this week. They listened to “Let’s Go Fly a Kite” from Mary Poppins, designed their own kites and went to fly them on the field. They got a bit muddy but had lots of fun. Afternoon Nursery enjoyed playing on the bikes and cars for the first time. Reception have continued with their work on the environment, listening to the stories ‘Greta and the Giants’ and ‘I can Save the Earth’, then thinking about things we can do to help save our lovely planet – you’re never too small to make a difference! They also read the story ‘The Life of a Little Plastic Bottle’ and then decided we could re-use our plastic milk bottles by turning them into something else before they get recycled, so have been busy designing and making their creations. They have had some wonderful ideas, from rockets and monster trucks to plant pots and shakers! They also had lots of fun with addition this week – a highlight being the ‘Funky Mummy’ online game.

It’s been another busy week in Miss Tyrrell’s class with a focus on keeping healthy. Highlights have been their healthy snack designs, creating pictograms of fruit favourites and their wonderful artwork, recreating the the famous fruit artist Arcimboldo. Mrs Wallace and Mrs Howells’ class highlight has been planning and making their own incredible energy bars. Yummy! The children also showed how thoughtful and caring they are looking at why we have Red Nose Day and who is helped by the money raised. Highlights in Mrs Evans and Mrs Thomas’ class have been making digital posters to promote shopping locally, learning about Swansea Jack the famous dog and thinking about the lives of others as part of their red nose day activities! Mr Reid’s class have continued their environmental work, learning about types of pollution and who and what it affects. Their work using speech marks was great and another high point was their number battles on Times Tables rockstars.

Mr Jenkins’ class have had a busy week completing their Nick Holly Paintings and working out times on a twenty four hour clock. In literacy, the children have been learning the different techniques used in writing instructions in readiness for writing their own for the games they are going to make next week! In Science they have had a lot of fun making electric circuits! In Year 5 and 6, children have loved learning volleyball skills in PE. Watch out for the Wales volleyball team in the 2032 Olympics – you might see some of Ms Williams’ class. In maths this week, the children have learnt how to use formulae to calculate the area of rectangles, triangles and right angled triangles. In Language, Literacy and Communication, the children have learnt Sonnet 18 and have been writing their own sonnets about the Spring. 

Reminder (Family support) – Early help hub linking with school

Our school’s Early Help Hub senior lead worker will be based at our school again on the morning of Monday 27th March. If you would like to arrange an informal appointment, contact school. Alternatively, feel free to drop in during the morning. Below is a reminder of the support on offer:

• Support with children’s behaviour, emotional health & wellbeing, money, housing, ALN group work, ASD Awareness group, Under 11’s family lives group, understanding adolescents group, healthy relationship work and much more.
• One to one appointment
• Advice and Guidance
• Information about what other services can help you

Digital Advice for parents

This week’s advice for parents and carers centres around ‘Safe and Healthy Online Habits’

Dates for the diary

Week beginning 20th March – Teacher / parent meetings

Week beginning 20th March – Pupils’ Welsh Art Exhibition (please visit in hall before or after you parent meeting)

Monday March 27th – NGP Brangwyn concert

Thursday March 30th – Easter Bonnets (optional)

Friday March 31st – Break up for Easter

As always, if you have any questions or concerns don’t hesitate in getting in touch!

Have a great weekend!

Mr Jamie Evans

Deputy Headteacher

Friday March 10th

Well, we’ve certainly experienced different weather conditions this week and it was great to see the excitement on Wednesday as we all woke up to snow. We’ve ended the week in magnificent fashion, celebrating World Book Day and the variety of costumes and characters around the school has been incredible. It was a pleasure to see the enthusiasm and laughter around school as the older children read stories with the younger children.

Morning Nursery have had lots of fun on J week. They have been learning the story ‘Jack and the Beanstalk’ and enjoyed jumping on numbered leaves to get to the giant’s castle. They did lots of jumping in gym, played with the jelly in the classroom and tried jam on their toast at snack time. Afternoon Nursery have settled in well and have been making crowns with jewels on and doing lots of paintings. Reception have enjoyed learning about recycling. They listened to the story ‘The life of a little Cardboard Box’ and talked about ways that the cardboard box can be reused before recycling as well as discussing ways in which we all recycle at school and at home. Then we sorted a big bag of rubbish into different materials ready for recycling and looked at the recycling symbol on the packaging. Of course the big highlight of the week was our snow day – donning the wet weather gear and wellies and making our own fun in the snow! To end the week we had lots of fun getting dressed up for World Book Day, sharing stories, designing story hats and watching the teachers put on a play!

Building snowmen and making snow angels were the highlights in Miss Tyrrell’s class as well as visiting other classes to read stories with the older children. Mrs Wallace and Mrs Howells’ class loved dressing up as their favourite world book day characters and sharing different stories with Year 5/6. Another highlight was learning about food miles and which local shops we could shop at instead. Highlight in Mrs Thomas and Mrs Evans’ class was tasting the rainbow of fruits and playing games to find out where our food comes from as well as learning about the different food groups to make a balanced diet. Also, of course, world book day fun – writing book reviews, making new posters, story strip hats, playing name the story game, sorting the books into fiction or non fiction and reading as many stories as possible! Mr Reid’s class have loved their World Book Day activities. A snow ball fight on Wednesday (when the children all joined sides against poor Mr Reid) was another highlight. The children also enjoyed finding out about the Welsh lovespoon artist Paul Curtis with a listening activity on the Chrome Books.

There have been some fantastic creative skills on display in Mr Jenkins’ class this week with their painting in the style of Nick Holly really standing out! Years 5 and 6 started their next unit of work this week: Green, green grass of home. In Humanities, the class looked at maps of Gower and identified the key features of each location. Fractions, decimals and percentages were no match for the children this week – they completely smashed it. As always, PE is a firm favourite. There will be some sore core muscles after the warmup from our lesson this week. However, probably the biggest highlight was the snow❄️!

INSET DAYS

Please note that the remaining INSET days for this year will be as follows:

Friday April 21st

Friday June 30th

Monday July 24th

Friday 17th March – The second workshop on ‘Managing Anger’ will now be on Friday 17th March. If you would like to attend, just arrive at school for a 14.25 start.

Digital Advice for parents

This week’s advice for parents and carers centres around ‘What parents and carers need to know about ipads.’

Dates for the diary

Friday March 17th – Red Nose Day

Week beginning 20th March – Teacher / parent meetings

Friday March 31st – Break up for Easter

As always, if you have any questions or concerns don’t hesitate in getting in touch!

Have a great weekend!

Mr Jamie Evans

Deputy Headteacher

Friday March 3rd

There was no doubting the highlight across the school this week as we celebrated St David’s Day in style. The school was a sea of red and our whole school Eisteddfod provided an opportunity to, once again, show what great talent there is in Waunarlwydd. The writing, singing and artwork on show from Nursery through to year 6 was incredible and a wonderful way to start a new half term!

It has been a pleasure to welcome our newest and youngest pupils into school this week as our afternoon nursery began successfully. Lots of big smiles all around, which is always a good sign!

We will be celebrating World Book Day next Friday – March 10th. Children are welcome to dress as a favourite character and bring in their favourite book.

Parent workshops

Friday 17th March – The second workshop on ‘Managing Anger’ will now be on Friday 17th March. If you would like to attend, just arrive at school for a 14.25 start.

Dates for the diary

Friday March 3rd – Year 2 and 3 Community Farm trip

Wednesday March 8th – Reception and Year 1 Community Farm trip

Friday March 10th – World Book Day in school (children are welcome to dress as a favourite character)

Week beginning 20th March – Teacher / parent meetings

Friday March 31st – Break up for Easter

As always, if you have any questions or concerns don’t hesitate in getting in touch!

Have a great weekend!

Mr Jamie Evans

Deputy Headteacher

Friday 17th February

It’s been a marvellous week to end the half term! A massive thanks to the PTA (and DJ Dan) for organising and running such successful discos this week! The children (and parents) enjoyed showing off their dance moves and a magnificent £871 was raised! Wow! Diolch yn fawr pawb!

Our week ended with a wonderful assembly delivered by Mrs Evans and Mrs Thomas’ class reminding us of the importance of looking after our planet. Well done boys and girls!

Nursery have been enjoying serving ice cream in our role play ice cream parlour, writing their names in ice cream sprinkles, matching ice cream letter sounds and working together to play pass the ice cream game. They had a lovely morning on the field on Welly Wednesday pretending to be different sorts of insects and have loved using the magnifying glasses and microscope to look at the plastic insects in detail. Reception had a great time walking around the school discussing their likes and dislikes and have thoroughly enjoyed their art work in preparation for St David’s Day.

Miss Tyrrell’s class have been busy learning about Waunarlwydd and Swansea. They started with a walk around the village where they looked at the features of Waunarlwydd, thought about their likes, dislikes and what they could do to improve their community. Listening to the stories of Swansea Jack and voting on which one they thought was true was another favourite this week. Mrs Wallace and Mrs Howells’ class have particularly enjoyed looking at the work of artist Annabel Dann and starting to replicate it, ready for our Eisteddfod! Learning how to add and subtract, using base 10 and number lines to help us was also a high point. The big highlight in Mrs Evans and Mrs Thomas’ class has been practising their awesome class assembly, while they particulary enjoyed making environmental superheroes and thinking about reducing our carbon footprint. Mr Reid’s class have thoroughly enjoyed their ‘Love where you live’ topic. Despite the rain, they enjoyed a tour around Waunarlwydd on Wednesday with Mrs Howells telling us about how the village has changed over time. They then created their own maps of Waunarlwydd as well as colour coded maps from 100 years ago and looked at the differences between the two.

Mr Jenkins’ class have been presenting their reports this week, celebrating their amazing efforts over the last two weeks and have done a splendid job using PowerPoint to share the facts they have discovered, create quizzes for each other and even word searches to complete! Gwaith da blwyddyn pedwar!

In Year 5 and 6, the children have enjoyed PE as usual. This week, they played a new game and thought carefully about their tactics, showing huge improvements over the half term. In preparation for our Eisteddfod, the children have started to write out the national anthem for the handwriting competition; created their art pieces and learnt ‘Calon Lan’, ‘Diolch Diolch Iesu’ and ‘Siarad Cymraeg’. To create their art, they studied two different Welsh artists and, using the school as inspiration, have replicated the style of one artist. The children have also blown Ms Williams away with their learning about decimals – such a change in confidence.

**Important reminder : What do yellow zig zags road markings mean outside a school?**

‘These markings are used outside schools so that children can see and be seen clearly when crossing the road. Parking here would block people’s view of the school entrance! This could endanger the lives of children on their way to and from school!’

Family support – Early help hub linking with school

We have linked with the City and County of Swansea to enhance understanding and engagement with early Help Hubs. A senior lead worker will be based at our school fortnightly to offer support to families, children and parents in a variety of ways. For example, support with children’s behaviour, emotional health & wellbeing, money, housing, ALN group work, ASD Awareness group, Under 11’s family lives group, understanding adolescents group, healthy relationship work and much more. Contact the school if you would like more information or to arrange a meeting.

Digital Advice for parents

This week’s advice for parents and carers centres around ‘Artificial Intelligence Solutions.’

Wednesday March 1st – St David’s Day (children can wear Welsh colours, kits or costumes)

Thursday March 2nd – World Book Day (**postponed due to industrial action**)

Friday March 3rd – Year 2 and 3 Community Farm trip

Wednesday March 8th – Reception and Year 1 Community Farm trip

Week beginning 20th March – Teacher / parent meetings

As always, if you have any questions or concerns don’t hesitate in getting in touch!

Have a great weekend!

Mr Jamie Evans

Deputy Headteacher

Friday February 10th

A consistent theme this week has been remaining safe online. Safer Internet Day on Tuesday allowed the children to show all that they have learnt around the importance of this in and out of school and our digital leaders did a magnificent job of pulling it all together during today’s whole school assembly.

Some of our year 4 children represented the school brilliantly during this weeks football festival and showed the talent we have coming through the school. Another big well done to our year 5 and 6 footballers who remained unbeaten during their football festival. Unfortunately, today’s rugby match against Gowerton was postponed but will be rearranged for after half term.

The Nursery have had another busy H Week. They have been doing mono painting of their houses, rolling hoops and hopping in Gym. The children thought of ways that they could be helpful and helped their friends cross some stepping stones. To end the week they have decorated cakes like hedgehogs.

A clear highlight for all the children in Reception, Year 1, 2 and 3 was the amazing visit to St Fagans where history was brought to life for them. Once again, they made us all extremely proud with their superb behaviour and absolutely loved learning about life in Wales long ago.

Children in Year 4 have loved writing and presenting their animal reports. In numeracy they have been learning to find areas and perimeters of shapes and have also now made all their improvements to test their egg astronaut with their group parachute. Year 5 and 6 have enjoyed practising their attacking and defending skills in PE. As part of their science work, they felt the effects of air resistance and drag by running across the playground with a plastic bag above their heads. It was definitely harder than running without one! In maths, we have been impressing Ms Williams with our understanding of place value and decimals -knowing the value of each digit (even thousandths), rounding and adding and subtracting decimals. For safer internet day, children made fortune tellers to warn of the dangers online and possible solutions. 

Family support – Early help hub linking with school

We have linked with the City and County of Swansea to enhance understanding and engagement with early Help Hubs. Our school’s senior lead worker will be based at our school weekly to offer support to families, children and parents in a variety of ways. We will be holding a coffee morning on Friday 17th February (9am) where the senior lead worker will be on hand to give more details on the service and answer any questions.

Who will the Early Help Hubs work with?

Children, young people and their families where there are identified wellbeing needs that the family need assistance to achieve. It is really important that we think about what outcomes the child and family want to achieve by talking to an EHH member of staff.

How can family’s access support directly from the Early Help Hub?

Children, young people and their families can access support from requesting an appointment via the school to speak to the EHH confidentially at the school about what matters to the family. This will be the start of the referral process to identify the right service at the right time to help families live happy, healthy and safe lives.

What will Early Help Hubs do?

As part of the referral EHH will provide information about our services and other services that may be of help to the family. We provide advice in relation to how we or other services can support them and also provide assistance if the services we provide are the right ones to help the family achieve their wellbeing goals.

• One to one appointment
• Advice and Guidance
• Information about what other services can help you
• Support with children’s behaviour, emotional health & wellbeing, money, housing, ALN group work, ASD Awareness group, Under 11’s family lives group, understanding adolescents group, healthy relationship work and much more.

Parent workshops

Friday 10th February – Unfortunately, the 2nd part of the ‘Managing Anger’ workshop has had to be postponed. We will let you know the rearranged date as soon as possible!

Digital Advice for parents

This week’s advice for parents and carers centres around ‘10 ways gaming can support positive outcomes in children and young people.’

Waunarlwydd RFC (calling all Year 4 and Year 5 children)

Dates for the calendar

Wednesday February 15th – School Discos

Friday 17th February – Early Help Hub coffee morning

Friday 17th February – Mrs Evans/Mrs Thomas class assembly (parents welcome)

Friday 17th February – Break up for half term

Wednesday March 1st – St David’s Day (children can wear Welsh colours, kits or costumes)

Thursday March 2nd – World Book Day (children can dress up as their favourite book character)

Week beginning 20th March – Teacher / parent meetings

As always, if you have any questions or concerns don’t hesitate in getting in touch!

Have a great weekend!

Mr Jamie Evans

Deputy Headteacher