Friday 21st October
It’s been another busy and fruitful week at Waunarlwydd. On Tuesday our Rights Ambassadors visited Penclawdd Primary school to meet and work with the ‘Children’s Commissioner for Wales’ Rocio Cifuentes. The children represented the school wonderfully and brought back lots of ideas to support the school’s continuing belief in the importance of children’s rights. Well done Aneurin and Lola!
On Thursday, it was the turn of our boys’ football team to take part in a tournament, finishing with an admirable won 2, lost 2 record but, most importantly, showing great teamwork and sportsmanship throughout! Da iawn bechgyn!
Thanks to those parents that were able to make the PTA meeting this week to begin discussions over fundraising events (more info to follow). If you would like to be involved, please let us know!
Elsewhere around the school, there’s been the usual mix of learning and laughter. The Nursery have enjoyed ‘The Hungry Caterpillar’ story this week and have made edible caterpillars with strawberry laces and Cheerios. They looked for colours in the environment on Welly Wednesday and helped their chameleons to change colour. Their new busy boards, with lots of latches and catches, were a big hit. Reception have continued with their story ‘The 3 Little Pigs’ this week and have enjoyed more retelling of the story, making repeating patterns using pictures from the story, creating wonderful shape pigs, creating pig pictures on JiT using their tablets and having lots of fun trying to make their own houses using bricks, straw and sticks, then trying to blow them all down!
After reading the story of ‘Room on the Broom’, Miss Tyrrell’s class decided to have a witches kitchen role play area. They have been busy writing their own magic spell recipes and making them in their cauldrons. The maths problem of the week was thinking of ways to make a spell recipe that had 10 legs. How many different combinations of creatures could they use? Mrs Wallace and Mrs Horseman’s class have also enjoyed telling the story of the Room on the Broom, using characters and objects from their story sack and finding out which material was the strongest to build a Gruffalo’s house in their Science experiment. Another hit was playing ‘Is there room on the broom for a word like me’, to help learn how to spell tricky words and writing sentences to match pictures. The children sounded out the words they weren’t sure of and wrote sentences to be really proud of. Mrs Evans and Mrs Thomas’ class have been getting really creative this week with their highlights being magnificent Autumn leaf rubbings and their awesome Gruffalo art collages. Another favourite has been making toast to provide stimulus for their instruction writing. Developing digital skills have been the highlight in Mr Reid’s class this week particularly making a pic collage on ipads using freeze frame in drama to recreate scenes from George’s Marvellous Medicine. Another favourite was designing labels for George’s Marvellous Medicine on the chrome books.
Mr Jenkins’ class have had a busy week full of highlights! Children have learnt about how schools were set up in Victorian times and how teachers used to discipline naughty children. They have been busy making Christmas Card designs and drawing, painting and making clay models of the Giant from Preseli. They have completed their sentence improvements on their Giant descriptions and have started to look at how they can break up stories into different parts using a story mountain. In Gym they have enjoyed sequencing body shapes, balances and jumps, even learning how to do forward rolls, while in tennis, Oliver continues to win at cassette player! There has been a lot of great learning happening in Year 5 and 6 this week. Children have loved exploring the process of mummification – researching, writing instructions and explaining why the Ancient Egyptians used mummification. They have enjoyed working on their time skills in maths, trying out different clay techniques and learning an explanation text using Talk for Writing. PE remains a favourite part of the week, while this week’s music genre has been Brit Pop with a mix of Oasis, Blur and Stone Roses.
Teacher/Parent meetings
We have decided to hold this term’s parents’ evenings later than previously due to the ‘Meet the Teacher’ events at the end of September and to give the children a full half term in their classes. Parents’ evening will take place during the week of 14th November. We will send out details on how to make an appointment in the first week after half term.
Next week will be Mrs Horseman’s last week in school for a while as she begins her maternity leave. We wish Mrs Horseman and her family all the very best as they look forward to welcoming a new addition! Mrs Howells has been appointed to work alongside Mrs Wallace and will be in school next week to meet the children.
Dates for the calendar
Thursday 27th October – PC Anthony assembly (Halloween/Bonfire safety)
Friday 28th October – Ms Williams’ class assembly
W/C Monday 31st October – Half Term
W/C Monday 7th November – Science Week
W/C Monday 14th November – National Anti-Bullying Week
W/C Monday 14th November – Teacher / Parent Meetings
Friday 18th November – Children in Need Day
W/C Monday 21st November – Book Fair in school
After a tough 3 years, we are excited to be able to confirm the return of our Christmas concerts. Dates will be sent out to you so that you can put them in your diaries! You’re in for a treat!
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
