Whitkirk News! 24th January 2025

A message from Miss Quarmby

Hello everyone! I can’t believe we’re already halfway through the half-term—where does the time go? There’s so much happening across the school... Miss Tomlinson has been busy developing a new Reading Programme, which we’re excited to be introducing initially to Year 6 and a small group of children from Years 4 to 6. Meanwhile, Miss Richardson has been working hard to secure our booking for this year’s Parliament trip for Year 5. Last year’s trip was such an incredible experience, and we can’t wait to take another group of children this year as part of our Whitkirk Way passport, which is packed with amazing opportunities we want every child to experience before they leave Whitkirk. We also want to celebrate a fantastic effort from Year 4 in the Datacable Cup today against Allerton C of E Primary School. Sadly, we lost 2-1, but there was very little between the teams. It was also the first outing for our brand-new kit—Mr. Stout is not very happy with the colours, but the children looked fantastic out there on the field! As always, thank you to Mr Stout who makes these experiences possible.

I also wanted to share some important news about our partnership with John Jamieson. After many valued years of collaboration, this partnership will come to an end in July. This decision hasn’t been made lightly, and both schools are committed to making sure the transition is smooth and supportive for all pupils and families. While this marks the end of an era, it also opens an exciting new chapter for Whitkirk. If our bid is successful, we plan to use the space currently occupied by John Jamieson to establish a new nursery and expand our wraparound care. The area would be redesigned to include a fantastic new outdoor space. Thank you so much for the support and interest from families so far—we’ll be keeping you updated as things progress.

Finally, in assembly, we’ve been exploring Lunar New Year and learning all about the Zodiac calendar. The children had so much fun discovering which Zodiac year they were born in and what it might mean! To all our families celebrating, we’d like to wish you a wonderful and special time. Take care, and I’ll see you all on Monday—let’s really aim to make our school attendance soar next week!

Attendance

This week, finishing in first place with 98.89% are RLE. In second place are 1JL, with 98.85% and in third place are, 3RD with 97.31%. The whole school attendance this week is 94.93%: can we beat this year week? The only way to do that is if we all come to school as often as we can.

Let's take a look AT WHAT'S BEEN GOING ON THIS WEEK

EYFS

This Welly Wednesday at Forest School, the children got creative making eco-friendly bird feeders to invite more feathered friends into our forest school area! They carefully counted out Cheerios and had great fun deciding the perfect spots to hang their feeders. We can’t wait to see which birds come to visit, thanks to their hard work and kindness towards nature!

Key Stage 1

We've had another wonderful, yet busy, week in Year 1! This week in Computing, we starting practising our 'pinch' and 'drag' skills to create photo collages. In Science, we explored our sense of hearing by going on a sound walk. We discussed the loud and quiet noises we could hear around school. Miss Lynch and Miss Richardson are extremely proud of Year 1's independent character descriptions this week - what remarkable writers we have!

This week in Year 2, we have been learning about division in maths by sharing equally and using arrays. In Geography, we compared rural and urban Kenya, focusing on the capital city, Nairobi. During PE, we have been practising ball control and developing our kicking skills.

Lower Key Stage 2

We've had another week of exceptional learning in Year 3! In English, we wrote persuasive letters from the perspective of Harry Potter. In Maths, we have been learning to multiply using a formal written method and we have applied it to problem solving and reasoning questions! In Science, we tested and identified different types of soils.

In Year 4, we've been busting some moves in P.E with our Disco dancing and re-enacting the course of a river using drama in Geography. In writing, we completed our recounts of the disastrous day of Secret Agent Walter Beckett based on the film Pigeon Impossible. In Maths, we've been mastering written methods of multiplication and are looking forward to moving onto division next week. Outside school, the U9s team have played four football matches and given the new school kit an outing too.

Upper Key Stage 2

We have had a lovely week this week in Year 5. As we predicted, the letters written this week in English have been phenomenal! The children's use of prepositional phrases, similes and metaphors used to describe Miss Minton have blown our socks off! In Maths, we have continued to practise our multiplying by two-digit numbers and have moved onto practising our division! We are super impressed with the children's positive, resilient attitudes to learning! Well done Year 5.