On behalf of all the staff at Waunarlwydd Primary School, we want to express our sadness on hearing the news of the death of Her Majesty The Queen. The children should be commended for the respect they showed as we marked the occasion today!
The funeral is expected to be held at Westminster Abbey in about ten or 11 days time, with the date to be confirmed by Buckingham Palace. It may be declared a bank holiday, but this will be confirmed by the palace and government. If a bank holiday is declared, schools will be closed and we will keep you updated.
Croeso n’ol
It has been wonderful to welcome our pupils back this week. The smiles and laughter around the school, as staff and children got to know their new classes, has been a pleasure to see! We are sure that we can look forward to a great year together as a whole school community!
Meet the teachers
During the week beginning the 19th September you will have the opportunity to hear more about Curriculum reform in Wales and what that means in Waunarlwydd, meet you child’s teacher and find out about topics, routines and plans for the year. These meetings will take place at 14.50 in the school hall and will end in time for pick up. If you cannot make a meeting we will post information on the website or send it home. We will send out plans for a Nursery event later in the term!
Monday 19th September – Year 5 and Year 6
Tuesday 20th September – Year 1
Wednesday 21st September – Reception
Thursday 22nd September – Year 4
Friday 23rd September – Year 2 and Year 3
School photographer
The school photographer will be in school on 30th September.
INSET DAYS
Friday December 23rd
Monday January 9th
(We will confirm further INSET days as soon as possible)
As always, if you have any questions or concerns don’t hesitate in getting in touch!
Well, we’ve reached the end of another fantastic year at Waunarlwydd! It has not been without it’s challenges but as a whole school community we have worked together and, as always, our children have been incredible, ensuring the school year has been full of learning and laughter! As a school, we’d like to thank all staff for their unquestionable commitment to the children and all families for your ongoing support!
We say goodbye to our wonderful Year 6 pupils today knowing that they will prove to be a huge asset to their Comprehensive Schools. They certainly showed us what a super group they are with an awesome Leavers’ concert this week! They leave us full of happy memories and we are sure they will be back to visit and share their success. Good luck!
Our ice-cream and lolly sales on a Friday have proved to be a success with just under £500 raised already. These funds will be shared across the classes. Thanks for your support!
Finally, a reminder that children return to school for the new year on Wednesday 7th September (Monday 5th and Tuesday 6th are INSET Days)
It just leaves us to wish all our pupils and families a wonderful Summer and we look forward to seeing you all again in September!
Firstly, a reminder that the last day in school for pupils is Friday 22nd July.
Unfortunately, due to an extreme heat warning, and in line with local authority and Public Health Wales advice, we have had to cancel our Sports Day for Years 4, 5 and 6 on Monday!
As we head towards the end of the school year, we’ve enjoyed a wonderful week full of sunshine, fun and laughter. We began with our Sports Day for Reception and Years 1, 2 and 3 on Monday and it was amazing to welcome so many of our families onto the sun-soaked field to enjoy the fun activities. The week has ended with trips to the beach for some classes, a pirate picnic and a visit to Waunarlwydd Park. Year 5 have loved having the yard to themselves as our awesome Year 6 pupils have enjoyed a successful 4 days of transition at Gowerton Comprehensive School. It’s hard to believe that next week will be their last at Waunarlwydd. We are looking forward to enjoying their Leavers concert next week. Teachers are planning a fun week to end our term and details for each class will be sent out on Monday.
End of year Reports
End of year reports will be coming home with the children on Monday 18th July along with details of their next class (pupils will also be meeting their new teachers during Monday 18th July).
You can now access results from your child’s personalised assessments by logging onto their Hwb account. Please remember that these were 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.
INSET DAYS
Monday September 5th 2022 and Tuesday September 6th 2022
Children will return to school after the summer break on Wednesday September 7th.
As always, if you have any questions or concerns, don’t hesitate in getting in touch!
It has been wonderful to welcome our families back into school for parent workshops this week. After such a long time it is great to be able to host whole school community events and we look forward to planning many more in the future. Thanks to all those that were able to make it. Staff and children thoroughly enjoyed hosting and we hope that you could sense the warm, caring and safe environment that the children and staff have created at our school. The forecast looks good for next week and our Sports Day for Reception and Years 1, 2 and 3 (Monday 11th July). Let’s hope the sun stays around for Years 4, 5 and 6 Sports Day the following week (Monday 18th July).
Our awesome Year 6 children will be heading off to Gowerton Comprehensive next week for their transition week and we have no doubt they will show the teachers at Gowerton what a wonderful group of children they will be welcoming in September!
INSET DAYS
Monday September 5th 2022 and Tuesday September 6th 2022
Children will return to school after the summer break on Wednesday September 7th.
As always, if you have any questions or concerns, don’t hesitate in getting in touch!
It’s hard to believe that we are entering July as our final term of the year continues. It was wonderful to welcome all our nursery families to school this week for sports day. We were all disappointed to have to postpone 2 of our sports days this week as we looked forward to our first whole school community events in a long while. We have now managed to rearrange Sports Day dates (Rec, Y1, Y2 and Y3 on Monday 11th July and Y4, Y5, Y6 on Monday 18th July). We are also looking forward to welcoming those parents that can make it to our workshops next Thursday and Friday.
This term has seen the long awaited return of sporting fixtures. Last week was the turn of our beach rugby team and the children involved enjoyed a great time (and even a Joe’s ice cream from Mr Jenkins). This week has seen our athletics team compete at Swansea University where all the children were outstanding. As always, we were extremely proud of the way our pupils represented our school. Before the end of term both Year 3 and Year 4 will be taking part in Basketball festivals.
As we enter our last 3 weeks of term there is a lot to look forward to and I’m sure there will be plenty of highlights for the children. This week, morning and afternoon Nursery had a great time taking part in their sports day on Tuesday. The rain held off for them in the morning, but didn’t spoil the afternoon as everything was re-located to the hall. It was lovely to see so many adults in the school again after the last 2 years. The children loved all the activities, but the water race was a definite favourite in the morning and the hurdles in the afternoon. Approaching the end of their minibeasts topic, Reception have been drawing their own butterfly life cycles, looking at symmetry in butterflies, sorting pictures of different minibeasts according to their own chosen criteria and creating their own ‘guess who?’ – writing clues based on their chosen minibeast. As a special treat on Wednesday after Sports Day was postponed, the children were very lucky to have a fitness disco from DJ Dan which was lots of fun!
The highlight of the week in Year 1 has got to be the new ‘Siop Hufen ia’ role play area. The children have been asking for different flavoured ice creams in Welsh and practising paying for them using the correct coins. They have also loved programming a bee bot robotic toy to travel in different directions and have been learning lots of interesting facts about bees this week and how important they are to us. We learned how they make honey and had honey on toast as a treat! Yummy!
The big news in Year 1/2 has been the emergence of the first butterfly from it’s chrysalis. Very exciting! The children have also been learning about why we need money and have written a super recount of ‘The very hungry caterpillar.’ Year 2 shared the butterfly excitement as some of their caterpillars have also emerged from their chrysalis. The children have also thoroughly enjoyed giving directions to beebot and tasting the peas and strawberries that they have grown themselves in their garden from seeds. The highlight in Year 3 has been developing and building on their ICT skills using Minecraft education. The children also enjoyed using trial and error to try the correct amount to make a can balance at an angle applying both numeracy and scientific skills.
Children in Year 4 have been learning about the water cycle and how weather affects our planet. They have also been drafting their air quality emails and letters to Mr Drakeford and Mr Johnson to tell them how concerned we are with the pollution caused by fossil fuels and how we can reduce our dependence on them. We have all now completed our Air Quality Posters to be sent off to TASK to be judged. Finally they have been practising our Basketball skills for the tournament next week!
All Year 5 and 6 have been exploring different shapes, making nets and 3D shapes. Year 5 enjoyed a great day of activities at Gowerton Comprehensive School while they also loved their afternoon learning First Aid skills with Mrs Cornish. Practice for the Year 6 Leavers production of ‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’ is in full swing and the children are thoroughly enjoying. Parents and families are in for a treat in a few weeks!
Dates for the diary
There is alot planned between now and the end of term. We will notify you by text of any activities and dates that involve your children’s class.
As always, if you have any questions or concerns, don’t hesitate in getting in touch!
It is great to have the sun shining so brightly as we end another week. There have certainly been lots of highlights!
Morning Nursery had a creative day on Wednesday all about rainbows. They made natural rainbows from things they found in the woodland, used chalk to draw their own, and finger painted rainbows to make a picture. Afternoon Nursery have had great fun playing outside in the sunshine and have welcomed 3 new friends to their class. Friday was an exciting day for both classes when some children helped to cook and everyone had a rock cake to take home. Continuing their work on ladybirds, Derbyn (Reception) have created a fact file on ladybirds, sorted facts about ladybirds and spiders and written simple sentences about the animals in the story ‘What the Ladybird Heard’. Their Welsh focus has been ‘bwyd a diod’ and the children have loved learning and singing the song ‘Beth sy yn y fasged?’ Making the most of the weather, the week ended with planting and decorating their outdoor area using your fantastic contributions so far – diolch!
Year 1 have enjoyed listening to the story of The Very Hungry Caterpillar, discussing what happens in the beginning, middle and end of the story. They used super recount vocabulary when writing about the life cycle of a butterfly and explored different musical instruments and the sounds they make, matching them to different mini beasts. They enjoyed completing caterpillar number problems and using a ruler to measure caterpillars – not real ones! Other highlights in Year 1 and Year 2 have included writing wonderful caterpillar diaries. Children also loved having the opportunity to taste honey from Ireland. Another big hit this week was building caterpillars and butterflies out of knex. Year 3 have had a busy week with lots of highlights. The children loved practising their oracy skills in maths by putting their pens away and explaining their thinking process for solving problems! They also enjoyed refining their sketching and shading skills with their pollution pictures.
It’s been all about air quality in Year 4 and the children have loved learning about air quality and using the TASK digital device to find which areas of the school have the best air quality. They have also written a persuasive piece of writing to explain why we should walk more and leave the car at home to improve the air quality where we live. On Thursday they had a visit from Catherine from Think Air who showed us how we can use the Task device to measure our air quality over time in our science experiments. To cap off a great week the children entered a poster competition to create a poster to promote Clean Air for Clean Air Day 2022!
It’s been another fantastic week in Year 5 and 6 with one highlight being their research into making the perfect smoothie. Word problems were the focus in number work and the children have also been looking into currency exchange. The children enjoyed developing their skills in literacy, using a dictionary to find words for a glossary. On Thursday some Year 5 pupils did a wonderful job representing the school at Penclawdd Primary School’s Diversity Day. A big well done to our 3 football teams this week who played with great skill and a positive attitude, coming away with a full set of victories at Gowerton Primary School.
Dates for the diary
Friday June 24th – INSET DAY
Monday June 27th – INSET DAY
Tuesday 28th June – Nursery sports day
Wednesday 29th June – Reception, Y1,Y2, Y3 Sports Day (pm)
Thursday 30thJune – Y4, Y5, Y6 Sports Day (pm)
Thursday July 7thand Friday July 8th – Pupil/parent workshops (Details to follow)
As always, if you have any questions or concerns, don’t hesitate in getting in touch!
It has been great to welcome everyone back to a very busy final half term of the year! We hope you all enjoyed some Jubilee celebrations!
Morning and Afternoon Nursery had great fun on Tuesday celebrating the Jubilee. They made crowns and flags, had lots of party food and played games. Their story for the week was “The Queen’s Knickers” and they enjoyed designing a pair of knickers for the Queen.
Reception have enjoyed learning about ladybirds – starting with the story of ‘The Bad Tempered Ladybird’ discussing what sort of things make us feel cross or angry and the strategies we can use to feel better again. They used clocks to match the times the ladybird met different animals in the story. They had lots of fun finding ‘doubles’ up to 10 using marbles, Numicon and ladybird templates and have created some super shape bad tempered ladybirds! To end the week they read the story ‘What the Ladybird Heard’ and created their own maps of the farm.
Miss Tyrrell’s class have loved learning lots of interesting facts about spiders and snails and using the JIT program to enter mini-beast data onto a pictogram. Other highlights have been solving mini-beast money problems and using natural materials to create spiral environmental art during forest school. Year 1/2 have enjoyed being scientists this week, completing their science investigation into how plants grow best. Another highlight has been learning about money, how to add amounts and give change. There could only be one highlight in Year 2 with the long awaited arrival of their class caterpillars. The children can’t wait to observe the life cycle first-hand and have enjoyed writing caterpillar fact files. The highlight in Year 3 has been their use of i-pad apps to support their learning. They loved using Shadow Puppet to make informational videos about continents and using Stop Frame Animation to explore how the continents have changed over time.
Year 4 have been learning about mathematical terms (Mean, Mode, Median and Range) and applying these to data they have collected. They have enjoyed learning a little about the human body (skeleton and teeth functions). Another highlight has been using the TASK device to measure air quality, temperature, humidity, sound and light around the school and recording their work on HWB. Year 5 and 6 have had a very healthy week, tasting different fruits from around the world while the publishing of their wonderful legends has been another big hit.
Dates for the diary
Friday June 24th – INSET DAY
Monday June 27th – INSET DAY
Tuesday 28th June – Nursery sports day
Wednesday 29th June – Reception, Y1,Y2, Y3 Sports Day (pm)
Thursday 30thJune – Y4, Y5, Y6 Sports Day (pm)
Thursday July 7thand Friday July 8th – Pupil/parent workshops (Details to follow)
As always, if you have any questions or concerns, don’t hesitate in getting in touch!
We’ve come to the end of another half-term and we’ve ended it in great style with our Queen’s Jubilee celebrations! The sun has shone and we’ve all had a great day! Let’s hope for more sunshine over the half-term break! Thank you for your continued support over the latest half-term! The Queen’s Jubilee wasn’t the only reason for excitement this week as the children have enjoyed a fun-filled week full of learning and laughter!
It was the turn of years 3,4,5 and 6 to enjoy a fabulous visit from the mid and west wales fire brigade on Wednesday. A massive thanks to John Bates and his team for giving the children such a wonderful experience – although a couple of teachers didn’t enjoy the soaking they got from the hose quite as much as the children! We were reminded of the importance of smoke alarms at home!If you would like a Home Fire Safety Check (including free smoke alarms if needed) call 03706060699.
The morning Nursery had a lovely treat on Tuesday when they went for a surprise visit to Waunarlwydd Park for P week. They had great fun playing on the equipment and with the balls and frisbees, and enjoyed a biscuit before coming back to school. Afternoon Nursery loved listening to Nursery songs and rhymes with the highlight being a fun carpet session on Wednesday, singing and dancing to lots of traditional songs. ‘See the Bunnies Sleeping’ is definitely our favourite!
Continuing their Spiders topic this week, Reception have become authors, writing their own versions of ‘The Very Busy Spider’ and recording them using the iMovie app. They have also been busy planting sunflower seeds and plants for their outdoor area.
Miss Tyrrell’s class have thoroughly enjoyed planning the jubilee party by making bunting, flags and crowns. There have been some wonderful observational drawings of the Queen and they designed some wonderful crowns using 2D shapes as jewels. Mrs Horseman and Mrs Wallace’s class have welcomed Mrs Wallace back with open arms and thoroughly enjoyed making their jubilee crowns, flags and bunting.
Highlights in year 2 include making their own minibeast fact books with a front cover, glossary and blurb. Finding out fun facts about spiders was also a big hit! Year 3 have continued their ‘What a wonderful world’ topic and have thoroughly enjoyed creating posters including facts about different continents. Another big hit has been the start of their papier mache globe project.
It’s been another busy week in Year 4 with the children completing their dioramas for their animation work. They have also looked at patterns in number and their times tables facts. We have read welsh stories and also learnt about the names of clothes, colours and the weather.
A clear favourite for Year 5 and 6 this week was the fire engine visit and squirting the hose (mostly at their teachers). The children have also enjoyed their slot drillio using blooket and quizlet!
A huge congratulations to Milly Harris, Jamie Lloyd, Brooke Whalley and Rian Williams on their selection for the Swansea Schoolgirls rugby team! Well done girls, great effort!
We have been overwhelmed with more donations of plants and seeds to develop our outdoor areas. A big thanks to Lara Sturgess, Ameen and Emma (Victoria Rd shop), Pontarddulais garden centre, Aled and Tina (Big Day Productions) and Country stores. Much appreciated!
Dates for the diary
Friday June 24th – INSET DAY
Monday June 27th – INSET DAY
**Wednesday 29th and Thursday 30thJune – Provisional dates for sports days
Thursday July 7th – Provisional date for pupil/parent workshops.
As always, if you have any questions or concerns, don’t hesitate in getting in touch!
Have a wonderful half-term break! Let’s hope the sunshine stays!
This week began with a superb visit from Menter Iaith Abertawe, who worked with all children from Nursery to Y6 teaching and playing fun playground games through the medium of Welsh. All the children had a great time! Diolch!
Morning Nursery enjoyed lots of fun activities for P week but the highlight was the surprise pizza party to say goodbye to Mrs Eaton. Afternoon Nursery have loved learning and joining in with the 3 Little Pigs story and had a great time playing with paper planes on the field.
Derbyn (Reception) have been learning all about spiders this week! The children enjoyed making their own fact files about spiders and using spider legs to work out number bonds to 8. They created spiders in the woods using natural materials and made marvellous monoprint spiderwebs. Another highlight was their gym session where they moved in different ways like a spider, responding to the classical piece ‘Pizzicato’ by Leo Delibes. Miss Tyrrell’s class have had a great week learning about frogs and have discovered some very interesting facts, as well as learning about the life cycle of a frog. They loved listening to the story ‘Oi Frog’ and made up their own silly rhyming sentences before writing them independently. Other hits this week included their mini-beast hunt during forest school and practising their addition and subtraction skills whilst solving mini-beast problems.
Mrs Horseman and Mrs Tucker’s class thoroughly enjoyed writing some fantastic mini beast fact files this week, researching facts about a minibeast of their choice. The children loved going on their minibeast hunt in outdoor learning and collecting natural materials to make a bug hotel. Mrs Evans and Mrs Thomas’ class have continued to develop their outdoor area and their planting garden is looking fantastic. Other highlights include creating their ladybird factfiles and making branch minibeast games using JiT on Hwb. The week ended with a wonderful visit from Harley the lizard!
Year 3 have been getting stuck into their new topic, using their awesome creative skills to produce some amazing art work – sketching one of the 7 wonders of the world. They have also been resourceful when using atlases to find and learn about different countries of the world.
Lots of highlights in Mr Jenkins’ class this week. Children have been sharing their concerns over air pollution in science. They have also been creating dioramas in readiness for their animation work. In numeracy the children have been solving problems using areas and perimeters and looking for patterns in number. Creatively, children have continued to draw and paint in the style of Nick Holly. Their gymnastics lessons are progressing well, with the creation of some wonderful sequences using balances.
Year 5 and 6 have had a great week, engaging superbly in their independent projects, applying skills across the curriculum to create factfiles about countries of their choice. A highlight for Year 5 has been the shelter building with Miss Shaw, while the biggest hit for year 6 was their Circus eruption workshop at Gowerton Comprehensive School where they were joined by all the other schools within our cluster.
We are developing several outdoor areas across the school. A huge thanks to the parents/families that have donated seeds and plants. Any more donations will be gratefully received!
Dates for the diary
Wednesday May 25th – Year 3 to 6 Fire Engine Visit
Friday May 27th – JUBILEE PARTY – we will be celebrating the Queen’s Jubilee! Non-school uniform – red, white and blue clothes would be great.
Friday June 24th – INSET DAY
Monday June 27th – INSET DAY
**Wednesday 29th and Thursday 30thJune – Provisional dates for sports days (Please note that these dates have been altered)**
Thursday July 7th – Provisional date for pupil/parent workshops.
We have other trips, visits and events planned for the summer term. We will let you know details as soon as we can!
As always, if you have any questions or concerns, don’t hesitate in getting in touch!
Another week of learning and laughter in Waunarlwydd, full of highlights! Morning Nursery showed off their gymnastic skills in the hall this week, negotiating an obstacle course for O week. They also loved working in groups to make nests for a baby owl on Welly Wednesday. Afternoon Nursery have been colouring and sticking to make an amazing ocean picture to take home.
This week Derbyn (Reception) have been busy finding out about frogs! Children loved exploring rhyming words through the story ‘Oi Frog!’ They made lily-pad number lines and used them to take away by jumping backwards. They have also made a fact file about frogs, created some wonderfully dark and cool homes for frogs on Welly Wednesday and responded to ‘The Frog Song’ in our dance session.
Miss Tyrrell’s class have thoroughly enjoyed learning lots of interesting facts about ladybirds and writing a fact file. They also loved following instructions on how to draw a cartoon ladybird and asking and answering questions with a partner to guess the mini-beast.
Mrs Horseman and Mrs Tucker’s class have started their new mini topic of minibeasts this week and enjoyed completing a KWL grid with lots of things they would like to find out. The children enjoyed making some fantastic minibeast ‘grassheads’ in outdoor learning and have even planted their own sunflowers too.
It’s been a very exciting time in Year 2 with their outdoor garden centre officially up and running. It is going to be an extremely colourful part of our school very soon! Another highlight for the children has been the creation of animations to show how their sunflower seeds are growing.
Year 3 have made a great start to their ‘What a wonderful world’ topic, having fun using a variety of methods to learn about the different continents. Another highlight has been developing their skills when playing rounders!
Year 4 have enjoyed creating story boards to tell the story of how air quality is affected by natural and human influences. They have also loved looking at the work of Nick Holly and how he used the landscapes of Swansea in his art work, while in numeracy they have been revisiting how to calculate simple areas using centimetre squares.
Year 5 have been learning about Antarctica, building an igloo out of bottles and using their origami skills to make penguin characters, which they used in their puppet shows. Of course, the main highlight was having the yard to themselves for 3 days without Year 6.
Year 6 had a wonderful time on their residential at Margam Park. Shelter building, bonfires and the cooked breakfast were some of the highlights but top of the list for the teachers were the numerous compliments received about the behaviour, manners, kindness and sense of humour shown by the children. They were a pleasure to spend time with! A big thanks to their teachers for giving up their time! Enjoy catching up on some sleep!
Staffing updates
Next week we say goodbye to Mrs Eaton after 17 years at Waunarlwydd. Mrs Eaton has worked in various roles over the years and made a huge difference to so many children of all ages. We’d like to say a massive thanks to her for the dedication, flexibility and positive attitude she has shown! She will be missed but I’m sure you will join us in wishing Mrs Eaton all the very best in her new role! Good luck and make sure you keep in touch!
The 23rd May will see us welcome back Mrs Wallace following maternity leave. Mrs Wallace is returning part-time and will be job sharing with Mrs Horseman in Year 1 and 2. Mrs Tucker will remain as a member of staff.
Dates for the diary
Wednesday May 25th – Year 3 to 6 Fire Engine Visit
Friday June 24th – INSET DAY
Monday June 27th – INSET DAY
Tuesday 28th and Wednesday 29thJune – Provisional dates for sports days.
Thursday July 7th – Provisional date for pupil/parent workshops.
We have other trips, visits and events planned for the summer term. We will let you know details as soon as we can!
As always, if you have any questions or concerns, don’t hesitate in getting in touch!
