A message from Miss Quarmby
Hello everyone! I hope you’ve had a wonderful week. This week has been full of moments that made me incredibly proud! On Wednesday, we held our Reception Open Evening for the September 2025 intake, and I want to give a huge shout-out to the children who came back to support us. They were absolutely amazing—polite, helpful, and brimming with knowledge about everything Whitkirk.
In other exciting news, we’ve welcomed a new member to our teaching team! With Miss Odor starting her maternity leave next Friday, we are thrilled to introduce Miss Kaur, who will join us after half-term as the Year 5 teacher (soon to be Year 5AK). Miss Kaur’s warmth, creativity, and passion for teaching really shone through, and we are confident she will be a fantastic addition to the Whitkirk family.
Next week is set to be a busy one! We have Parents’ Evenings on Tuesday and Wednesday, where we’ll be celebrating your child’s learning and discussing how they’ve settled into their new class. Please use the main office entrance, where staff will be ready to welcome you and remember that due to Parents’ Evenings, there will be no 15:15 - 16:15 clubs running next week.
We’re also excited for our Harvest Festivals on Thursday (EYFS and KS1 at 9:45am, KS2 at 10:45am). Please don’t arrive before 9:30am to allow us time to get the children into place. Then finally, we’ll be announcing the house winner for this half-term on Monday, with celebrations to follow on Thursday afternoon. What a week ahead! Have a great weekend, and I'll see you next week!
Whitkirk Tennis/ Cricket Club
PTA updateS
Please book via the Eventbrite link: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/1033490035517?aff=oddtdtcreator
Attendance
This week, finishing in first place with 98.51% are 1JL. In second place are 5/6AR, with 98.06% and in third place are, 5KD with 97.92%. A shout out also goes to 2CH, 3RD, RLE, 4AS, 4JF and RJS, who have also finished the week above our school target of 96.5%. The whole school attendance this week is 95.7%: can we beat this next week? The only way to do that is if we all come to school as often as we can.
An unauthorised absence is when there has been no contact from home and school have not been able to contact a parent/carer; or no specific reason has been given for an illness, for example “they aren’t well today”; or the reason given for absence has not been authorised. This could be due to it not meeting the NHS guidelines on ‘When is my child too ill for school?’ - for example they are kept at home due to a runny nose, tummy ache or being tired. This will appear as an O on your child’s attendance certificate for both the morning and the afternoon if they remain absent for the whole day..
If your child arrives at school, after the register has closed (this being 9.15am), they will receive an unauthorised late mark. This will appear as a U on your child’s attendance certificate for the morning.
Let's take a look AT WHAT'S BEEN GOING ON THIS WEEK
EYFS
This week in Reception, the children went on their first visit at Whitkirk! They walked from school all the way to Temple Newsam on an autumn adventure! While on the walk, the children found large leaves, small leaves, thin and spiky leaves and leaves that were a mixture of red, green and brown! They then found their own magic wand that measured the same length as their arm. To finish the autumn walk, the children worked as a team to create their own pile of leaves and jumped into them! What a wonderful first visit!
Key Stage 1
Our wonderful budding Artists in Year 1 have truly blown us away this week with their amazing masterpieces. We have used elements such as tone, texture and line to create an observational drawing of flowers in a vase. Our classrooms looked like marvellous art galleries this week when we shared our final outcomes. Our magnificent Mathematicians keep impressing us with their incredible knowledge and skills, especially when comparing numbers this week!
This week, Year 2 have shown brilliant resilience learning column addition and subtraction. We couldn't be prouder of our amazing mathematicians. In Science, we have been comparing the best conditions to grow cress. We have also started to create junk models of our local area in Geography!
Lower Key Stage 2
What a super week we have had in Year 3! In Maths, we have been solving subtraction problems with exchanging. We have shown super determination and perseverance. In Art, we drew Temple Newsam House in the style of Stephen Wiltshire. We were able to showcase this half term’s learning of line, light and tone!
This week Year 4 went to Halton Library! We had a fantastic time looking at all of the books and created presentations. We loved sharing what we were reading and learning more about how libraries work.
Upper Key Stage 2
Year 5 have really impressed us this week with their descriptive writing. We are building up to writing Remembrance Day poems next week. Using a video as a stimulus, we have built up contrasting vocabulary to describe a serene poppy field and a turbulent battlefield. The way the children have used this vocabulary in their descriptive paragraphs has blown us away! Not only does their writing create a clear picture in the reader's mind, it also uses emotive language to have a powerful impact on the reader. Amazing work Year 5!
What a brilliant week we have had in Year 6! We can't quite believe we have only been back at school for 7 weeks with the incredible amount of progress the children have made! This week, we have begun some of our assessments and to say we are proud of the children's achievement is a huge understatement. Their dedication to furthering their own learning is truly inspiring! We also really enjoyed visiting our school library this week and it was lovely to find a quite space and share some of the wonderful texts we have in school.