Friday 20th January

It’s been another great week. The ice and cold haven’t stopped the children from wrapping up and enjoying a super week of learning. A big well done to the girls’ football team who represented the school with their usual positive attitude, great skills and big smiles!

Strike Action – The local authority has been notified that strike action is to be taken by Trade Unions on 1st February, 14th February, 15th March and 16th March.  We will keep you updated but have currently been told to wait for further guidance. 

We will be commencing after school clubs next week! You should have received consent forms today.

Parent workshops

The North Gower Partnership has linked with the NHS and CAMHS to provide support and strategies for parents in approaching the emotional wellbeing of children at home. This will take the form of a series of workshops at school. A reminder that the first workshop ‘When to worry about your worrier’, is today (14.25 in the school hall):

Friday 3rd February – The second workshop will focus on ‘Managing Anger’ (more details to follow). If you would like to attend, just arrive at school for a 14.25 start on the given dates.

The Nursery have had another fun week learning about Winter. The water beads in the water tray were a big success and gym was great fun using a tissue as a snowflake. They explored the ice and frost during outdoor learning, making footprints on the field, breaking up the ice with hammers and painting on sheets of ice. What a wonderful week to learn about winter in Reception! Children had lots of fun exploring the ice that formed in our yard overnight and found different ways to break it. The children had some lovely ideas to write a winter poem and created some beautiful wintry paintings. They have also made snowmen with different coloured hats and scarves and sorted them in different ways

Miss Tyrrell’s class absolutely loved their winter walk this week. They touched pointy icicles, made footprints in the frosty grass and noticed that our rainfall gauges had frozen. Back in class they used wow words to make their sentences more interesting when writing their winter poems. Other favourites were making bird feeders during forest school, following instructions on how to draw a snowman, which look amazing, and solving winter addition and subtraction problems. Other highlights in Mrs Wallace and Mrs Howells’ class included making a snowball animation on JIT and learning all about the animals in the different polar regions. Mrs Evans and Mrs Thomas’ class also enjoyed their wintry welly walk this week and have loved learning about temperature and measuring rainfall. They have also been learning about polar animals and how they are adapted to live in such cold temperatures. Highlights in Mr Reid’s class include beginning their information booklets about countries of the world and practising their skills on the apparatus in gym.

It’s been a busy week in year 4 with learning about writing reports and the features reports have to make them successful. Children have also enjoyed learning about maths arrays and factors of numbers to help with dividing facts. In science we have looked at forces and made paper planes to understand push forces, gravity and air resistance. They loved their competition to see who could make their plane fly furthest, recording their work in charts and graphs on J2e. In art, children linked their report writing of Golden Eagles with the story ‘King of the birds’ and learnt how to draw these amazing creatures. Wow! This week has been year 5 and 6’s last on ‘Out of this world!’ What a week they have had – learning about gravity and air resistance with their autogyro investigation; painting planets and galaxies in art and completing homework projects. All teachers have been impressed with the creativity, knowledge and variety of home learning tasks. PE remains a firm favourite – using Real PE to explore tactical game play. White Rose maths has helped children understand ratio, proportion and scaling this week. Great work!

Digital Advice for parents

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

Dates for the calendar

Thursday 25th January – Miss Shaw’s class assembly 14.40 (parents welcome)

Friday 3rd February – Parent workshop – ‘Managing Anger‘ (14.25 in school hall)

Tuesday February 7th – Safer Internet Day

Wednesday February 8th – NGP – RSE information evening – Gowerton Comprehensive School 17.30

Friday 17th February – Break up for half term

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 January 13th

Happy New Year to everyone! Let’s look forward to a happy and healthy 2023 at Waunarlwydd School! It has been great to welcome all our amazing children back to school and we haven’t let the rain stop us beginning the year with a week full of learning and laughter. New topics have begun and the children and staff have lots to look forward to during the term ahead! A big thanks for your support of ‘My child’s Christmas’ last term! We made a profit of £189 which will be used to buy resources. As always, we thank you for your continued support and remind you that if you have any concerns or queries, don’t hesitate in getting in touch!

We will be commencing after school clubs during the week beginning Monday 23rd January. Details and consent forms will be sent out next week!

Parent workshops

The North Gower Partnership has linked with the NHS and CAMHS to provide support and strategies for parents in approaching the emotional wellbeing of children at home. This will take the form of a series of workshops at school (14.25 in the school hall):

Friday 20th January – The first workshop is called ‘When to Worry About Your Worrier’. The lead will briefly go through the psychology of worries and anxiety, aim to reassure parents of typical worrying behaviours and offer practical strategies.  

Friday 3rd February – The second workshop will focus on ‘Managing Anger’ (more details to follow). If you would like to attend, just arrive at school for a 14.25 start on the given dates.

We’ve started the term with lots of highlights. The Nursery have been learning all about Winter this week. They have had great fun playing in the igloo in their role play area, following QR codes to draw a snowman and dancing like snowflakes and Jack Frost in gym. Everyone made a melting snowman biscuit to take home. It was also lovely to welcome the children starting Nursery in February to our stay and play session on Tuesday. They all seemed to enjoy themselves and are keen to come again next week. Reception have enjoyed making snowmen using playdough, creating snowy pictures using chalk and using the paint tool on JiT to make lovely snowy scenes. They have used their number skills to play games such as ‘roll and cover’ and ‘beanbag targets’ and have written all about our Christmas holidays. To end the week we learnt the different words for winter clothes in Welsh. 

Miss Tyrrell’s class have demonstrated superb creative skills when cutting paper snowflakes for the Winter display. They have also been exploring cold colours by adding white to blue to see how many different shades they could make. Making amounts to 10p and 20p when paying for winter items has been the focus in maths and they have also practised naming winter colours in Welsh. Mrs Wallace and Mrs Howells’ class thoroughly enjoyed making their own bird feeders to help the birds survive the winter and writing a wonderful poem all about winter, using fantastic adjectives. Mrs Evans and Mrs Thomas’ class loved their ice investigations this week looking at where the ice melts the fastest. They also enjoyed making snowball animations in digital work and learning about groups of and times tables in maths. Mr Reid’s class have enjoyed starting their new topic, working together to make the world map jigsaw and finding out about the 7 wonders of the world and where they are.

Year 4 have been writing recounts about Christmas. They all had a wonderful time. They have also enjoyed making super posters for their new years resolutions. The number focus has been been learning how to find factors of numbers using times table facts, while in Science they have been learning about the planets and how they orbit around the Sun. Year 5 and 6 have enjoyed taking part in a daily mile instead of afternoon play this week. They had a very active PE lesson learning attacking and defending tactics. In maths they have been exploring ratio and the teachers are terribly proud of their understanding. Their new topic ‘What a wonderful world’ has started out in space with the gravity experiment linked to the Northern Lights being a highlight. The art lesson was fun and the homework project on space has even been mentioned as a highlight – amazing!

Digital Advice for parents

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

Dates for the calendar

Monday 16th January – PC Anthony lessons Year 1 and 2

Friday 20th January – Parent workshop – ‘When to Worry About Your Worrier’ (14.25 in school hall)

Friday 26th January – Miss Shaw’s class assembly 14.40 (parents welcome)

Tuesday 31st January – PC Anthony lessons Year 3 and 4

Friday 3rd February – Parent workshop – ‘Managing Anger‘ (14.25 in school hall)

Tuesday February 7th – Safer Internet Day

Wednesday February 8th – NGP – RSE information evening – Gowerton Comprehensive School 17.30

Friday 17th February – Break up for half term

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

Well, we’ve reached the end of the term and what a great term it’s been! A huge thanks to our incredible staff and, most importantly, our wonderful pupils for filling the school with learning and laughter! Of course, we’d also like to give a huge thanks to all our families for your ongoing support this term and we look forward to working together during the terms ahead! It has been great to end with our Christmas festivities! I’m sure that you’ll agree that last week’s concerts were superb and ticket sales raised a magnificent £1320 which will be used directly to benefit the children. This week the children have thoroughly enjoyed their parties, and of course their visit from a very special VIP dressed in red! Finally, a reminder that school returns for children on Monday 9th January!

We’d like to wish all our children and families good health, a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Nadolig Llawen pawb!

Friday December 9th

We have to start this week with some huge thank yous! Due to the efforts of our amazing PTA, staff and children this week’s Christmas Fair was an undoubted success. Of course, this would not have been possible without the incredible support of our families! It was great to have the school full of Christmas joy and, during a tough economic time, together we managed to raise an astounding £1,009. This money will be used to benefit the children directly! Massive thanks to you all!

Thursday saw the school celebrate Christmas Jumper Day, raising money for Save the Children. There was an impressive variety of jumpers on show and we were able to raise £118 towards the cause. Thanks again for your support!

Highlights this week have been easy to choose for all our classes, with our concert rehearsals in full swing. The corridors have been full of music, drama and, most importantly, laughter as all the children (and staff) from Nursery to Year 6 have been giving their all to their performances! I’ll be surprised if we haven’t got a few future Oscar or Brit award winners in our midst! You are in for a real treat next week! There are still tickets available for all the concerts if you need more! Don’t forget your concert ticket is also your raffle ticket! We won’t be able to film the concerts but you are welcome to take your own photos. WE JUST NEED TO REMIND YOU – PLEASE DO NOT SHARE ANY IMAGES OF OTHER CHILDREN ON ANY SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORMS. Diolch!

Digital Advice for parents

Dates for the calendar

Tuesday 13th December – Nursery / Reception concert (9.45), Year 1, 2 and 3 concert (14.00)

Wednesday 14th December – Year 4, 5 and 6 concert (14.00), Year 1, 2 and 3 concert (18.00)

Thursday 15th December – Year 4, 5 and 6 concert (18.00)

Tuesday 20th December – Special visitor

Wednesday 21st December – Christmas Party Day

Thursday 22nd December – Christmas Lunch

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 December 2nd

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas at Waunarlwydd with the start of our concert rehearsals (you’re in for a treat) and decorations all round. A big thanks to the team at ALDI Gorseinon for donating 3 Christmas trees to the school. We are all excited for the long awaited return of our Christmas Fair next week, we hope you can make it!

Elsewhere, there has been lots to get excited about with the week ending with 2 days of rugby coaching sessions delivered by Joe and Tom from Waunarlwydd rugby club. A huge thanks to both for the time and effort they put in to ensure all the children enjoyed the experience!

There have been lots of other highlights across the school this week! I had the pleasure of joining Nursery on their trip to the farm this week. A massive thanks to Ella’s mum Danielle and farmer Paul for ensuring that the children (and staff) enjoyed a wonderful time learning about life on the farm! Reception have been having fun practising writing simple words in our phonics sessions. Using Numicon, we have been making up lots of number stories about some of the children in class, adding together 2 numbers up to 10. They had gym outside this week with a fun mini obstacle course, jumping, hopping and running as well as giant skittles! They ended the week with excitement as Archie the Elf arrived with a box full of decorations for class which they put up together whilst listening to Christmas music!

Mrs Wallace and Mrs Howells’ class have been using their imagination to think of different uses for a stick (just like how stick man was used). They were very inventive and thought of a toilet plunger, hair curlers and a candle! They enjoyed acting it out and taking pictures of it. Of course, the high point was decorating our class Christmas tree and opening our Julia Donaldson advent calendar! Miss Tyrrell’s class have been developing their skills when using the JIT program to create pictures. They selected a colour, used the fill tool, changed the brush size and chose from a selection of pictures. They have also been very creative when using clay to make Diva lamps for the Christmas Fair. What an exciting week in Mrs Evans and Mrs Thomas’ class with the highlights being their rugby skills session, telling the time games, their Stickman challenges and, of course, concert practice! Mr Reid’s class thoroughly enjoyed their fantastic George’s Marvellous Medicine retelling using super writing skills while their amazing step by step BFG drawings were another big hit!

Mr Jenkins class have loved learning about ‘The Trapper’ this week and hearing all about the lives of children during Victorian times, while they also loved finishing their incredible craft ready for the Christmas fair. In Year 5 and 6, the children loved exploring the water cycle in many different science experiments. They watched clouds form in a jar and saw how it rained using shaving foam!  Dance music this week has been pumping through our classrooms and the children have started rehearsing Cinderella Rockerfella this week. They are working so hard and doing themselves proud!

Digital Advice for parents

Dates for the calendar

Wednesday 7th December – Christmas Fair

Thursday 8th December – Christmas Jumper Day

Tuesday 13th December – Nursery / Reception concert (morning), Year 1, 2 and 3 concert (afternoon)

Wednesday 14th December – Year 4, 5 and 6 concert (afternoon), Year 1, 2 and 3 concert (evening)

Thursday 15th December – Year 4, 5 and 6 concert (evening)

Tuesday 20th December – Special visitor

Wednesday 21st December – Christmas Party Day

Thursday 22nd December – Christmas Lunch

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 November 25th

Well, it’s been a sea of red at school today as we’ve celebrated Wales’ participation in the football World Cup after a long wait of 64 years! The result didn’t quite go to plan but no-one can say that Waunarlwydd didn’t give their all to supporting the team! We wish Wales and all the teams the best for the rest of the World Cup!

Parent/carer voice

Unfortunately, we cannot work together to address any concerns raised in parent social media groups. We feel strongly about our open door policy and if you have any concerns regarding the school, please make contact in person or via email/telephone. In addition, just a reminder that you have been sent a short form allowing you to identify areas that you feel are a strength to build on within our school and also any areas you feel that we can improve! Thanks to those that have already completed! It helps us plan, moving forward! This form will remain open for one more week. Please follow the link below!

 Parent/Carer voice

It’s been another fabulous week full of highlights! The Nursery were very excited on Tuesday, when they found huge footprints in their playground. They followed them to discover 3 frozen eggs with baby dinosaurs inside. They investigated different ways to melt the ice and helped the babies escape. The Mummy dinosaur sent a letter thanking the children for helping her babies. Reception have loved learning about the story of Swansea Jack and thinking of words that describe him. They have been measuring dogs, building simple 3 letter words to match the dog kennels and sorting pictures of Swansea from now and a long time ago.

Miss Tyrrell’s class have been busy writing a recount of the story of Rama and Sita and demonstrating their super creative skills when making diva lamps out of play doh. During their waterproof investigation they made sensible predictions and explanations about which materials they thought would be waterproof or not. Mrs Wallace and Mrs Howells’ class have thoroughly enjoyed creating their own versions of Stick man using their wonderful writing skills while beginning to learn songs for their concert has been very exciting.

Mrs Evans and Mrs Thomas’ class have loved their story writing tasks this week, applying all their learning to their own epic tales. No surprises for guessing the highlight for our Year 3 children this week! The children had an awesome time on their trip to Techniquest and returned full of excitement! Other high points in Mr. Reid’s class have been designing a giant for their BFG focus and using J2e to design posters to support teams at the World Cup.

Of course, a highlight for the whole school has been the wonderful assembly delivered so professionally by Mr. Jenkins’ class. However, it was another easy choice for their class highlight with their outstanding day at Big Pit. The weather didn’t stop the children having a great time both over and underground. Year 5 and 6 have enjoyed their ‘Big Maths beat that’ challenges this week but, after looking at a quest story a few weeks ago, the highlight has been planning and writing their own quest stories independently. The Y5/6 teachers are beyond proud of the improvement in their writing, especially vocabulary choices and sentence structures. 

Digital Advice for parents

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

Criw Cymraeg

As mentioned a few weeks ago our amazing Criw Cymraeg been working with some past pupils from Gowerton Comprehensive School to research and film a short video all about Waunarlwydd Rugby club, which you can now view using the link below! Another big thanks to the club for being so welcoming! 

The History of Waunarlwydd Rugby Club

Book Fair – Diolch!

A big thanks for supporting the book fair this week. We have been able to raise £94 to buy books for children at school!

Dates for the calendar

Wednesday 7th December – Christmas Fair

Thursday 8th December – Christmas Jumper Day

Tuesday 13th December – Nursery / Reception concert (morning), Year 1, 2 and 3 concert (afternoon)

Wednesday 14th December – Year 4, 5 and 6 concert (afternoon), Year 1, 2 and 3 concert (evening)

Thursday 15th December – Year 4, 5 and 6 concert (evening)

Tuesday 20th December – Special visitor

Wednesday 21st December – Christmas Party Day

Thursday 22nd December – Christmas Lunch

(Any dates for events involving specific classes/year groups will be sent out separately)

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 November 18th

This week has been anti-bullying week! Thanks to Ms Tyrrell and our Healthy Heroes Senedd group for organising a great week of activities. The key messages have been around kindness, being a good friend and reaching out!

The Nursery had a very exciting morning on Tuesday when all the parents and carers came to spend the morning in the classroom. They helped the children play in the Farm Shop, paint, make a 5 Speckled Frogs picture, make castles with flags and lots of other activities. The children were so proud to show off their classroom and had a great time. We hope the adults enjoyed too! Reception have written some fabulous Autumn poems, dancing around like Autumn leaves and have also enjoyed counting and adding with conkers and numicon. Miss Tyrrell’s class have been discussing the importance of being kind. They thought of lots of different ways they could be kind to their friends and made a kindness promise. Learning about light and dark has been lots of fun, exploring with torches and making shadows in their dark tent, as well as learning about light sources. Mrs Wallace and Mrs Howells’ class enjoyed writing an act of kindness on each of their painted hand prints to make a class flower. They also enjoyed listening to Night Monkey, Day Monkey and writing adjectives to describe what they look like on the outside and how they feel on the inside. 

Mrs Evans and Mrs Thomas’ class are really getting to grips with their pbuzz instruments and have even managed to learn jingle bells this week! Other highlights have been thinking about being a good friend and showing how far they’ve come with their time telling skills. Mr Reid’s class have loved their discussions about their favourite music and beginning to play their pbuzz instruments. Their creative tasks have linked to anti-bullying week, designing a hand with ideas about how to reach out and help others.

Mr Jenkins’ class have had a great week developing ideas for their adventure stories and learning about Victorian inventors. They have also been busy working on their assembly ready for next week and also enjoyed investigating area in their numeracy work. Highlights in Year 5 and 6 have included learning more about multiplication, successfully identifying primes, factors, square and cube numbers. They used two different written methods (grid and compact) and decided which they preferred. Learning about the different Gods and Goddesses of Ancient Egypt and making a booklet was another high point, while hockey and dance lessons have produced many smiles and a few sweaty faces! Rock music has gone down very well as the genre of the week!

Digital advice

Last week we introduced digital advice to our weekly newsletters. Up until Christmas, we will be focusing on online-safety. Each weekly newsletter will include a poster to support children and families in remaining safe online. This week’s advice centres on ‘Loneliness Online.’ See below:

Parent/carer voice

This form will close next week! Thanks to those that have already responded! We would appreciate you taking the time to complete this short form to identify areas that you feel are a strength to build on and any areas you feel that we can improve! Diolch! Please follow the link! Parent/Carer voice

Dates for the calendar

W/C Monday 21st November – Book Fair in school

Wednesday 7th December – Christmas Fair

Thursday 8th December – Christmas Jumper Day

Tuesday 13th December – Nursery / Reception concert (morning), Year 1, 2 and 3 concert (afternoon)

Wednesday 14th December – Year 4, 5 and 6 concert (afternoon), Year 1, 2 and 3 concert (evening)

Thursday 15th December – Year 4, 5 and 6 concert (evening)

Tuesday 20th December – Special visitor

Wednesday 21st December – Christmas Party Day

Thursday 22nd December – Christmas Lunch

(Any dates for events involving specific classes/year groups will be sent out separately)

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 November 11th

We have ended another great week in thoughtful mood as all the children showed huge respect in honouring Remembrance Day. Some pupils joined me at Gowerton Comprehensive for a service and we held a whole school assembly to commemorate the day! Well done all!

This week has been all about learning the wonders of Science during our whole school Science week. Thanks to Mr Reid and our Super Science Senedd group for organising a great week of activities. Nursery really enjoyed the balloon experiments and learning about solids and liquids when melting chocolate for their edible sparklers. Reception children had lots of fun experimenting with balloons, making them pop, inflating them with fizz and using a balloon to make a mini water fountain! Rainbow skittles, exploding balloons, lava lamps and magic milk were the highlights in Miss Tyrrell’s class with the children making some super predictions and giving some very sensible explanations. Fireworks in a jar and ‘grow your own rainbow’ were big hits in Mrs Wallace and Mrs Howells’ class. Investigating reversible and irreversible change was the highlight for Mrs Evans and Mrs Thomas’ class while Mr Reid’s class loved their slinky sound experiment. Mr Jenkins’ class really enjoyed investigating rumours e.g. Are children faster the longer their legs? Do people who have longer arms throw further? They’ve had great fun learning! Favourites in Year 5 and 6 were investigating surface tension with straws and bubbles as well as learning about force using eggs. It’s been a super Science week for everyone!

Other highlights for the week have been going out in the pouring rain on Welly Wednesday, to investigate muddy puddles, in Nursery. The only way to do a true investigation was to jump and splash in them as many times as they could! Reception loved creating fireworks pictures and writing their names in the sparks. Thinking of wow words to make their sentences more interesting when writing their bonfire senses poems independently was a hit in Miss Tyrrell’s and Mrs Wallace and Mrs Howells’ classes. It was the long awaited introduction to pbuzz in Mrs Evans and Mrs Thomas’ class and the class band have made a great start to their learning. Creating i-movies was another favourite in Mr Reid’s class, while Mr Jenkins’ class have enjoyed planning their creative stories and drawing super pictures in charcoal of miners in the past. Dance lessons and listening to music from the punk genre have been other standout moments in year 5 and 6! Wow, a very busy and exciting week to start the new half term!

Criw Cymraeg have had a productive week working with some past pupils from Gowerton Comprehensive School to research and film a short video all about Waunarlwydd Rugby club. They’ll be posting the video for you to see once it is complete! A big thanks to the club for being so welcoming! 

Digital advice

We are adding digital advice to our weekly newsletters. Up until Christmas, we will be focusing on online-safety. Each weekly newsletter will include a poster to support children and families in remaining safe online. This week’s advice centres on ‘How to combat online bullying.’ See below:

Parent/carer voice

We welcome the reformed curriculum for Wales and are fully committed to providing the best possible education and learning environment for our wonderful children! Your opinions matter to us! Thanks to those that have already responded! We would appreciate you taking the time to complete this short form to identify areas that you feel are a strength to build on and any areas you feel that we can improve! Diolch! Please follow the link! Parent/Carer voice

Teacher/Parent meetings

Parents’ evenings will take place next week. SQUID appointments have now closed but, if you have missed the deadline, please email or phone the school to arrange. If you would prefer to speak with the teacher over the phone, please let us know!

Dates for the calendar

W/C Monday 14th November – National Anti-Bullying Week

W/C Monday 14th November – Teacher / Parent Meetings

Friday 18th November – Children in Need Day (Non uniform day)

W/C Monday 21st November – Book Fair in school

Wednesday 7th December – Christmas Fair

Thursday 8th December – Christmas Jumper Day

Tuesday 13th December – Nursery / Reception concert (morning), Year 1, 2 and 3 concert (afternoon)

Wednesday 14th December – Year 4, 5 and 6 concert (afternoon), Year 1, 2 and 3 concert (evening)

Thursday 15th December – Year 4, 5 and 6 concert (evening)

Tuesday 20th December – Special visitor

Wednesday 21st December – Christmas Party Day

Thursday 22nd December – Christmas Lunch

(Any dates for events involving specific classes/year groups will be sent out separately)

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