Another week has flown by at Birkwood – where does the time go? School photographs seemed two minutes ago and here we are ready for another weekend. Thank you to everyone for the understanding around photograph day! Our admin staff did a magnificent job organising photos for a full school, its families and the sibling arrangements all around Phonics, morning and afternoon Nursery and other timetable essentials! Should anyone have missed photo day, Mrs. Cocking is arranging a ‘reserve day’ opportunity. Date tbc very soon.
I held our first School Council Meeting of the new year following democratic elections in Key Stage 2. It was lovely to assemble the team and I am already pondering over several requests!
Tuesday was an incredibly important day at Birkwood. We held the Department of Education Phonics Review as well as a full safeguarding audit. The teaching of Early Reading is constantly reviewed as its importance is never underestimated. An enormous well done to everyone involved as Birkwood received some high praise for our work in reading development. Miss Sabin has taken the baton from Miss Ward in leading Early Reading and has made a wonderful start.
The Safeguarding Review was also extremely successful. This includes detailed observations of everything at Birkwood and in-depth scrutiny of practice. Thank you to the Safeguarding Team for their hard work in keeping Birkwood a safe and happy place to be.
In amongst all that was the concrete delivery! Thank you to everyone for your thoughtfulness in understanding the arrangements at drop off time had to be different. Of course, the weather played its part – British Summer style, but all went extremely well.
We held a Building Progress meeting yesterday and things are on track for an Easter finish in terms of new classrooms and then sometime in the summer for an exciting sports facility development on our field. Watch this space!
Our Dogs Trust Workshop is sadly cancelled next week. However, we have a new date in January 2024!
Next week is busy – Thursday EYFS and Years 1 and 2 host a Sponsored Read with refreshments for adults afterwards. Friday brings our Key Stage 2 Sponsored Walk! Macmillan and School Funds (Trip contributions) shall benefit. These should be two lovely events and I look forward to seeing you at either/both of them.
For Friday I would love the Years 3, 4 ,5 and 6 children to wear something green if possible. The Macmillan colour of course. 💚💚
I hope everyone has a terrific weekend.
- Headteachers Superstars KS1 - IB Y2 Parks
- Headteachers Superstar KS2 - AJ & XM Y5/6 Wollstonecraft
- Class Times Table Rockstars - Y4 Pankhurst
- Music Maestro - EG Y4 Pankhurst
House Winners
- This weeks winners - Fire
- Current Half Term Leaders - Water
- Overall Leaders - Water
- School Attendance Target for the Year - 96.50%
- School attendance this year so far - 94.1%
- School attendance this week - 92.2%
- EYFS2 Anning - 96.3%
- EYFS2 Sharman - 93.3%
- Year 1 Einstein -97.4%
- Year 1 Nightingale -93.3%
- Year 2 Parks - 96.8%
- Year 2 Seacole - 90.9%
- Year 3 Earhart - 94.2%
- Year 3/4 Holmes - 93.0%
- Year 4 Pankhurst - 91.8%
- Year 5 Attenborough - 90.1%
- Year 5/6 Wollstonecraft - 82.2%
- Year 6 Kings - 93.8%
Last week's whole school attendance was 92.2%. This would have been 95.3% if not for children being taken out of school for holidays. This is a massive 3.1% difference. We kindly ask that parents try to book holidays during school breaks.
Well done to Class Einstein who are this week's winners with 97.4%. Congratulations.
Our suite of X (formerly Twitter) Handles is here for you. Below is a link for 'all things Birkwood.'
PE & Sport
Please ensure children in KS2 - Years 3-6 come to school IN PE KIT on their allocated PE Days. Appropriate trainers must be worn. No crop tops – Sports t-shirts please and shorts. A tracksuit may be worn – please make a judgment on temperature. This will be until building work is complete as we have no access to discrete changing areas.
For current Year 6 children, their tests shall be Monday 13th May to Thursday 16th May 2024.
For current Year 5 children, their tests will be Monday 12th to Thursday 15th May 2025.
Our new menus begin from Monday. They look amazing!