A message from Miss quarmby
Hello everyone, I hope you’ve all had a fantastic week! We’ve been smiling from ear to ear here at school as our Pre-School children have completed their very first full week. We couldn’t be prouder of how well they’ve settled in — and we know that so much of this is thanks to our incredible team. This week, Mrs Downes and I visited each class, and it was an absolute joy to see so much learning in action. Miss Hickman and Miss Dougall brought their R.E. lessons to life through song, Miss Bellwood challenged even the adults with the impressive vocabulary her class had mastered, and our Year 1 children wowed us with how confidently they moved from carpet time to independent maths challenges. These are just a few snapshots of the wonderful things happening across school every day. Next week, our after-school clubs begin. Mr Stout has been busy expanding our range of sporting clubs by working with SW Sports, and we have lots of competitions planned throughout the year — we can’t wait to get as many children involved as possible.
Polite reminders:
- Class Dojo – Teachers aim to reply to messages within 24 hours during working hours. Please note that they will not be checking messages late at night or on weekends.
- Drop-off – School starts promptly at 8:45am. Teachers need to bring their classes in on time, so if you need to discuss something, please arrange a quick meeting or phone call after school.
- Fidgets and toys – We’ve noticed more of these coming into school recently. Please help us by keeping them at home. These are used in school if a child has an identified need — in which case, the school will provide appropriate resources.
Thank you for your support. Have a wonderful weekend!
Attendance
This week, finishing in first place with 100% are YNAT, 1LR and 2CH. In second place are 6NT, with 98.86% and in third place are 4AB, with 98.83%. A shout out also goes to 1VM, 3JC, RLE and RJS, who have also finished the week above our school target of 96.5%
The whole school attendance this week is 97.39% 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
On Monday, we welcomed our Pre-schoolers to Whitkirk for the very first time! It has been such a pleasure to support the children as they explored their brand new classroom, got to know their teachers, and discovered all the exciting parts of Whitkirk life, from the Forest School grounds and their indoor and outdoor classrooms to the lunch hall and everything in between! We are so excited to see where their learning adventures will take them this year at Whitkirk!
This week in Reception, the children have continued to explore their new classroom and get to know the Whitkirk Curriculum. As part of our learning, each half term the children will study a different artist. This term, we are focusing on the work of Damien Hirst. To begin, the children read the inspiring story 'The Dot' - a story about a little girl who discovers that even the tiniest mark can grow into something amazing! Following this, Reception got creative and made their very own super dot masterpieces. We are so excited to continue exploring different mark-making materials over the coming weeks and to compare our wonderful creations with the work of Damien Hirst.
LOWER school
We’ve had a brilliant week in Year 1, full of creativity and energy! In Computing, the children loved using Chatterpix to create talking animations - they came up with some very imaginative characters. In PE, we continued exploring dances from around the world, trying out steps from France, Spain, Africa, and India. In Music, we listened to different songs and talked about how the music made us feel, with some lovely expressive movement. We also enjoyed some wonderful storytelling and saw great progress in our maths work. Well done, Year 1!
In Year 2, as part of our learning in Religion and Worldviews, we have been exploring Hinduism through the story of ‘Ganesha Goes to a Party’, helping us to understand more about Hinduism. In English, the children have created brilliant and imaginative stories inspired by ‘Edward the Emu’. In Maths, we have completed our unit on place value by exploring number lines and developing our understanding of numbers.
We have had yet another fantastic week in Year 3. In Maths, we have been working extremely hard looking at number lines all the way to 1000! In Computing, we have begun using the app Keynote and exploring its features so that we can start making our self - portraits! In PE, we are enjoying our Cheer dance unit! Well done Year 3!
UPPER school
Year 4 have had another busy week of learning. In English, we have been building our descriptive writing skills as we work on character descriptions of Stitch Head. In Maths, we explored flexible partitioning and practised finding 1 less, 100 less, and 1000 less. In Geography, we used bar scales to calculate distances between different European cities, and in DT we measured and weighed ingredients in preparation for baking our own muffins.
This week, Year 5 learned about Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. We discussed how it is a time for celebration, reflection, and atonement. The children also enjoyed learning about traditions such as hearing the shofar and eating apples dipped in honey to wish for a sweet new year. Well done Year 5!
This week, Year 6 have amazed us with their creativity in our 'spooky narrative' writing. Using 'Show Don't Tell' sentences and a range of sentence structures, their stories have made us feel like we're actually in the spooky setting! In gymnastics, we have continued to develop our balance and shape skills. The children really impressed us with their teamwork when giving feedback to each other on their sequences. Finally, an enormous well done to the first children who have been awarded certificates on Reading Plus! Great work!