A message from Miss quarmBY
I hope you’ve all had a fantastic week! As always, life at Whitkirk has been wonderfully busy – our after-school clubs are up and running, trips for the year are being booked, and there’s been lots of fabulous learning happening in between.
Our Year 2 pupils have been amazing in Maths this week. They’ve been exploring greater than and less than, challenging themselves to show their understanding in a variety of ways – and wow, did they rise to the challenge! Their curiosity and love of learning truly shine. In Year 6, we welcomed our annual visit from Dr Hart. Dr Hart is Mrs Hart’s son and a former Whitkirk pupil. He spent time with Year 6 completing a heart dissection, after which the children shared their information reports with him. We are so grateful for his generosity and the incredible learning experience he provides for our students.
We’re also really pleased with our attendance so far this year. Every day counts, and regular attendance makes a huge difference to learning. In fact, Whitkirk currently has the second highest attendance of all primary schools in our Trust – let’s keep that momentum going! Together, we can make every day count!
Below, you’ll find lots of exciting information: our Open Evening (please help spread the word!) and our American Diner Day (yum!). Have a wonderful weekend, and we look forward to seeing everyone on Monday!
Attendance
This week, finishing in first place with 98.79% are 5AS. In second place are 4AB, with 98.44% and in third place are 1LR, with 98.28%. A shout out also goes to RLE, RJS, 2CH, 2KD, 3JC, 5AK, 6NT, who have also finished the week above our school target of 96.5%. The whole school attendance this week is 96.95%: can we beat this next week? The only way to do that is if we all come to school as often as we can.
Please remember look at the NHS guide Is my child too ill for school? - NHS (www.nhs.uk) This is used to determine which reasons for absence will be authorised or unauthorised.
let's take a look at what each year group has been up to this week!
EYFS
This week in Pre- School the children visited Whitkirk Woodlands to explore the changes of the season. They enjoyed collecting autumn leaves, noticing the different colours and textures and listening to the sounds the leaves made when you stand on them! When the children returned to class, they then used the crunchy leaves to create their own autumn hedgehogs! We are looking forward to many more super Welly Wednesdays throughout the year!
In Reception this week during their our autumn walk in Whitkirk Woodlands, the children not only collected autumn leaves but also began comparing their different lengths and sizes. They enjoyed lining them up, talking about which were longer or shorter, and noticing the variety of shapes! The children then explored Whitkirk Woodlands and learned about the rules that we will follow when in the woodland area and how we can work as a team to make sure the area is a space that everyone can learn in and enjoy!
LOWER school
In Year 1 this week, children have been learning about Shabbat during our Religion and World Views lesson. They have loved role-playing the celebration in our home corner. We also started forest school, where we explored nature and made autumn crowns with leaves and twigs. A big highlight was welcoming our first secret reader - the children were so excited to enjoy a story with our first mystery guest!
This week in Year 2, we have been busy comparing 2-digit numbers in Maths and retelling Hindu stories in RE. In Science, the children have loved exploring different plants and seeds, making exciting discoveries about the natural world.
We've had another busy but exciting week in Year 3! In English, we have been using imperative verbs and adverbs and in Maths we have been consolidating our understanding of place value. In Science, we learned how muscles help us to move and made our own moving models with elastic bands and pins!
UPPER school
This week, Year 4 continued to deepen their understanding of place value in Maths, focusing on rounding numbers to the nearest 10, 100, and 1,000. In English, we began preparing to write spooky setting descriptions, taking inspiration from The Lighthouse Keeper to fuel our ideas. Science brought an exciting, hands-on lesson exploring the digestion process, helping everyone visualise and understand each stage more clearly. In Computing, we started designing characters and backgrounds for our line-drawn animations, showing great imagination and attention to detail. Well done Year 4!
This week in Year 5 we have completed our recounts in the role of an alien visiting Earth. We then learnt how to proof-read them for mistakes and then how to improve them by adding better vocabulary. As a result, the children have produced some fantastic writing, which they are very proud of. In Maths, we learned how to place numbers up to 1,000,000 on a number line and how to solve place value problems. In Science, the children created short presentations explaining how night and day are caused and then used time zone maps to work out different times around the world.
Year 6 started the year by writing a letter to their new Reception buddies, introducing themselves and the school. Since then, they have been asking daily, if not hourly, to meet their buddies, and this week they got the chance! They had their first shared playtime and, as you can see from the smiles on their faces, they all had a brilliant time!