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
