Please see the link above - Easy Fundraising can work for Birkwood!
Special Note - Any children who missed their school photo (Individual) A 'mop-up/ retake' is to be held on MONDAY next week.
Welcome to this week’s newsletter. It has been a cold but busy week of course! As ever, the children have produced lots of things of which to be proud. We are on the build-up to the Christmas Fayre. The main raffle tickets for the fayre are now on sale at £1 per book. Please send in money to school with your child(ren) & give to the class teacher. Thank you also to everyone who has supported our non-uniform day today to support our Christmas Fayre. This support really helps us to deliver a brilliant event. Next Friday, the non-uniform theme is 'Smellies.'
The cold weather doesn’t disrupt outdoor PE at Birkwood. Our staff have asked me to politely request that families encourage all children to remember suitably warm PE kit please. Year 6 were out and about this week attending Crucial Crew – a series of workshops delivered by emergency and essential local services promoting safety and reinforcing the need to be good citizens. They had a fabulous day, receiving a raft of key safety messages in a fun and engaging way.
I had to mention Miss Greenwood’s latest harvest from our School Garden. Well done to the gardeners, the photos were too good to resist sharing!
This week we hosted a Local Authority officer who reviewed our school improvement work in EYFS, both Nursery & Reception classes. A huge thank you to everyone who works with our youngest children and to Miss Sabin for her leadership of their work. Some huge positives and also suggestions of how we may improve. As always, our children proved to be fabulous ambassadors for our lovely school.
I had the pleasure of showing prospective new parents around our school too this week. Sharing our work with visitors is a thrill and underlines just why I am so proud of school and everyone within it. Any parents who are yet to see the school in its entirety, I am happy to show you around
On the sporting front our Year 5/6 Girls Football Team enjoyed a brilliant victory over our friends at Churchfield. Mr. Walton was delighted. Well done to the players, a wonderful effort. Good luck to our athletes today at the EIS in Sheffield – I hope the girls involved as athletes today who starred as footballers last night have rested up well!
This week’s Movie Nights have been brilliant – many thanks to Mrs. Whitfield & Miss Taylor for organising the treats. Thank you to everyone who attended. A great success! Money raised will go towards subsidising school visits so brilliant positives all round. This next week brings the final lunches provided by Barnsley School Meals Service. The service is to disband shortly and our new providers have Christmas Lunch in their first week! We have kept our lovely meals team led by Sarah at Birkwood so hopefully the disruption will be minimal. Another familiar plea, please take the greatest of care when parking around school. Parking fully on the pavement & on verges is a hazard. We are attempting to work with Barnsley Council to install bollards to prevent this. In the meantime, please remember to park safely.
We are planning to begin Breakfast Club at 7:30 each morning. The cost will be unchanged in the build up to Christmas. This is a trial run but I hope this helps many families. It will begin at the earlier time from December 1st.
Next Friday, we shall be attending the Christmas Light Switch on with choir at Cudworth Methodist Church – this is from 4:30pm. Please join us for what is always a lovely event.
Our Eco Council are still collecting of all kinds empty bread bags. Please put them in the bins in the shelter at the front of school. Bags can be from ANY supermarket and ANY brand of bread including: White bread Brown bread Wholemeal bread Teacakes Rolls Bagels Wraps Crumpets Croissants Naan Bread The bread bags will be sent to a company called Terracycle who in return give the school vouchers to help different good causes. Terracycle also recycle the bread bags and turn them into useable plastics.
Reminders
Unfortunately, our ESafety Workshop has been rearranged due to illness, it will now be 2:15pm on Wednesday 25 February.
Please note the SEND parent/carer group that usually meets on the 1st school Tuesday of every month will be changing to Mondays. The next date is 1st December. The meetings are still at the same time of 1:30pm.
Look out for our Coffee Mornings – come & enjoy a brew NEXT THURSDAY
Have a lovely weekend. I will be nocturnal attempting to enjoy the cricket as well as a Sheffield Derby! Enjoy some family time and stay warm.
Community sessions delivered by Grass Roots are available. They take place on Darfield Road; the darts has caught my attention! Give it a go.
- School attendance Target for the Year - 97.0%
- School attendance this week - 96.3%
- School attendance this year so far - 94.9%
- FS2 Berry - 90.2%
- FS2 Costa -91.7%
- Y1 Earps - 98.2%
- Y1 Piper - 92.3%
- Y2 Cox - 91.4%
- Y2 Nightingale - 97.2%
- Y3 Jemison - 97%
- Y3 Obama - 98.1%
- Y4 Lovelace - 95.4%
- Y4 Wonder - 95.2%
- Y5 Biles - 98.5%
- Y 5/6 Angelou - 97%
- Y6 Simpson - 98.5%
Well done to class Y6 Simpson & Y5 Biles who have an awesome 98.5% attendance.
Our suite of X (formerly Twitter) Handles is here for you. Below is a link for 'all things Birkwood.'
PE & Sport
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. NO JEWELLERY.
Term Dates Below
For current Year 6 children, SATs tests will be Monday 11th to Thursday 14th May 2026.
For current Year 5 children, SATs tests will be Monday 10th to Thursday 13th May 2027.
For current Year 4 children, SATs tests will be Monday 8th to Thursday 11th May 2028.