Friday 13th November
Highlights of the week
It’s the end of our 10th week back in school and both children and staff continue to give their all to ensure our school is a positive and happy learning environment. More pupil highlights from this week include some wonderful onomatopoeia poetry in Year 2 who also enjoyed working on their fitness with Joe Wicks. Year 1 have loved learning about Diwali with the story of Rama and Sita, while learning about nocturnal animals and exploring shapes outdoors was also a big hit. Light & dark and night & day has been a focus in Reception this week and they have also written some brilliant Autumn poems and completed hedgehog number problems. Our Nursery children were very excited to discover dinosaur footprints that led to finding 3 frozen dinosaur eggs. They used their science skills to hatch the eggs and find the baby dinosaurs!
Class highlights in Mrs Leyshon-Breeze’s class have been using different strategies to become masters of multiplication, while Mr Jenkins’ class have enjoyed applying checking strategies to their work on division. There have also been some wonderful Winston Churchill fact files and really creative and skillful painting in Year 3 and 4. The quality of poetry writing in year 5 and 6 has been a stand out feature of this week. Haiku, Cinquain, Tanka and Kenning poetry has been completed on the theme of Blackout and Remembrance with the high standard of writing shining through. A highlight across the school was the respect shown towards Remembrance Day with our poppy stones a fitting way to pay tribute.
Children in Need
A big thank you for your generous donations towards ‘Children in Need.’ The school has been a sea of colour and happy faces with some wonderful costumes and Pudsey clothing. The children have enjoyed the day with their teachers and class and there was tension in the air as we all watched the annual duck race. Congratulations to ‘Quackman and Robin.’ We’ll count up all donations and let you know how much we have raised next week.
Fence panel project
The children thoroughly enjoyed designing our new fence panels, which provide a colourful outline of the learning journey at our school. Thanks to Mr Trowbridge for attaching the designs. 
Drop off and pick up
We’ve had 10 great weeks back at school and one of the reasons for our successful return has been the ongoing support of parents and family members in ensuring health and safety guidelines are followed in the best possible way. Please take individual responsibility for social distancing. As the wearing of face masks becomes normalised in society, the Swansea Education Directorate supports all schools in asking parents to consider wearing masks when in closer proximity to others such as drop off and pick up time. This provides clear benefits, with regards to reducing virus spread and risk of school closure. Many thanks for your consideration of this matter as we strive to ensure the health and safety of our whole school community.
Influenza Immunisations
These will take place on November 25th. You should all have received a letter of consent for your child(ren). If you 
haven’t already done so, please can you return your letter, indicating ‘yes’ or ‘no’ NEXT WEEK. Please remember that if you have any queries, you should contact the school nurse (contact details on form).
Digital Exclusion
During the first lockdown, schools looked to identify those pupils that were digitally excluded and with the support of Swansea Council and Welsh Government, provided connectivity and devices to learners. City and County of Swansea are currently trying to ascertain any further barriers to home/blended learning, especially those caused by digital exclusion. We have been asked to share this survey (digitally or hard copy) with parents to enable City and County of Swansea to find what these barriers are and so that they can continue to provide appropriate strategies that support the continuation of learning. If you feel that digital exclusion is an issue for your child please complete: Digital exclusion Survey
Can my child come to school?
Does your child or anyone in your home have one of the following symptoms?
- a high temperature – this means you feel hot to touch on your chest or back (you do not need to measure your temperature)
- a new, continuous cough – this means coughing a lot for more than an hour, or 3 or more coughing episodes in 24 hours (if you usually have a cough, it may be worse than usual)
- a loss or change to your sense of smell or taste – this means you’ve noticed you cannot smell or taste anything, or things smell or taste different to normal.
If the answer is YES to ANY ONE of the above symptoms, for anyone in your household, your child CANNOT be in school, no matter how mild the symptoms are.
to arrange for a test contact https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/coronavirus-covid-19/testing-and-tracing/
As always, if you have any concerns, queries or feedback please don’t hesitate in contacting the school or Mr Evans directly evansj737@hwbcymru.net
Thanks for your continued support! Have a great weekend!
Mr Jamie Evans (Acting Headteacher)
As today (Friday 11th December) is now the last day in school for pupils before the new year, I would like to thank the whole school community for the support they have shown during a term we will never forget. The situation we have found ourselves in has affected everyone in different ways but, as a school, we are extremely proud to be able to say that the children’s wellbeing has always remained central to any decisions made. Keeping the pupils safe, happy and learning has been the priority throughout. This has been achieved through the unquestionable dedication shown by a wonderful team of staff and the support of parents, families and governors. We look forward to welcoming the children back to school on Tuesday 5th January.
There may be some muddy shoes leaving the school today. Apologies for this, but staff have worked really hard to adapt plans so that the children could enjoy some Christmas surprises. We were fortunate that a very special guest was able to visit us at short notice today. We have managed to complete the recording of ‘Waunarlwydd’s Christmas Album’ and we will let you know how you can access it as soon as possible.
A huge thanks for your support of ‘Save the children’ for Christmas Jumper Day. We will let you know the amount raised next week.
