Newsletter: 25th March 2022
Posted on March 25, 2022 | By Mr Cole
Welcome to the Village Schools Partnership!
It’s really exciting to be able to welcome you to our new, joint Newsletter for the three schools. As I explained to parents with children at Buckland Brewer and Parkham the Newsletter will continue to be based on the Woolsery School website until the new Village Schools Partnership website launches later in the Summer Term.
The Newsletter is published each Friday and you should get a link to it, either via ScoPay (for Woolsery) or via School Jotter (Buckland and Parkham) or you can browse for it by going to this page: https://woolseryprimaryschool.edublogs.org/category/newsletters/. It can be read on mobiles phones, tablets or computers.
Every week, we have a section of the website called “Community Corner” – if anything is happening in the local area that need publicising, please send an image or pdf of the poster to my email address and I will include it for you – this can be any community event which parents and children across Buckland Brewer, Clovelly, Parkham and Woolsery parishes may find of interest.
You can also comment on, or ask questions about, anything in the Newsletter by using the “Comment On This Post” facility at the bottom of the page.
Awesome Singing at Exeter!
Last Friday, Hawks, Eagles and Ashmansworthy Classes all travelled to Exeter for the culmination of the term-long project to prepare high quality vocal performances in the iconic Cathedral. Miss Peter, Mr Marks and Mrs Kersey, along with Mrs Barnes, Mrs Appleton and I were so impressed by both the quality of the children’s performance and the confidence with which everyone joined in. For some of our children, this has been a really significant change and we were all so proud of them!
The performance was professionally recorded and is currently in editing. Troy, Maddison and Imogen were also interviewed by the crew and will hopefully feature in the completed piece. The link to the video will be shared with the families of participating children once it’s released and they can then make the decision wether to share the link onwards with family and friends – please remember that the link must not be shared on open social media channels where anyone unknown to our schools community could use it. Thanks.
In the meantime, here are some photos of our happy day…
Morning Drop-offs at Parkham
From Monday we will only be using the green entrance gate by the bus stop in the mornings. You are welcome to drop your children off as you currently do, or come on site with them. At the moment, in all schools, we’re still asking parents to not go into the buildings but you are very welcome on the school grounds. The end of school routine for all schools will stay the same as it is now.
Sunflowers Preschool Update
As you’ll know if you have children at Woolsery Preschool, we had to take the regrettable step to close the setting this week due to Mrs Phillips, Joanne and Ally all being away from school with Covid. We have managed to secure supply cover for next week, and alongside Laura who is the Last Leader Standing will be able to staff sessions appropriately. This means we will be able to open Sunflowers as normal for all except two year olds from Monday. We will have to remain closed for two year olds as this age group requires a higher adult:child ratio which we just don’t have personnel for at the moment, I’m afraid.
Please remember you need to book Sunflowers sessions for next term’s allocations by using this Google Form: https://forms.gle/MvN7fk3CxDPSogGm9 Bookings close next Wednesday so it’s important that you complete the form before then if you want your child to have sessions from April. Thanks
Covid Cases
As you’ll all know, Covid is once again rampaging through our communities. Please could I remind everyone that although the legal requirement to test has been removed, it is still a requirement for returning to school after contracting the illness. Your child should test on day 5 and, if negative again on day 6. If both results are clear, your child can return to school straight away. If not, you need to keep your child at home until you have 2 clear tests 24 hours apart even if they appear well. We no longer ask for proof of test results and you no longer have to report them on the NHS app but in the interest of stopping the current wave, I thank you in advance for your cooperation in this.
That said… rules change again at the end of next week so watch this space for yet more updates!
It’s also worth reminding everyone that if your child is away from school for any illness, including Covid, you should contact us each day of the absence to confirm your child is still unwell. This is a safeguarding requirement which we cannot avoid, I’m afraid.
Dance Festival
Well done to our amazing Reception and Y1 children who came together at Parkham this week for a Partnership dinosaur-themed Dance Festival – the weather was so great, we were able to hold it outside on the playground instead of in the Allardice Hall as planned. Everyone had a super time and really enjoyed wearing their dinosaur masks home!
Surf’s Up!
Northam Federation (St Margaret’s and St George’s) have arranged after school surf lessons immediately following the Easter holidays and there are a few spare places. Sessions will be run by North Devon Surf School from Westward Ho! beach on Mondays after school (3:45 – 5:45pm) beginning on 25th April. The cost for the five week course is £75. This is a very good deal for 5 x 2-hour sessions! Please contact the Surf School directly if you’d like to book your child in for the block of lessons – 01237 474663. Children taking part must be 8 years or over. Thanks. Update: Sessions will now run from 4 to 6pm
Well done to School Voice at Woolsery (Woolsery’s School Council) who have raised the following amounts over the last few weeks:
- Rock Your Socks for MenCap/Down Syndrome: £14.65
- Red Nose Day: £63.82
- Scooby Doo Raffle for School Voice Funds: £42.30
These events have been organised entirely by the children in their breaktimes, including all posters and classroom reminders – well done, everyone, particularly the Charity Voice and Enterprise Voice teams who have led on these projects.
Parent-Teacher Associations
All three schools have thriving PTAs and we will of course keep you all updated with their events as they come up.
In Buckland Brewer Primary, the PTA is called FOBBS, in Parkham Primary it’s called FOPS and in Woolsery it’s called both FOWS and Team Woolley interchangably.
The first event to make you aware of is FOWS’ Fete of Saint George which will be held on Saturday 23rd April (St George’s Day) at Woolsery Community Hall from midday to 4pm. Team Woolley will be on the playground next week to sign people up to help on various stalls in one or two hour slots so please help out if you can. There will be games, entertainment, local craft stalls and a barbecue so it should be a fantastic day.
Holiday Clubs
Primary Sports & Education are running a Holiday Club based at our ACCT Partner School, St Margaret’s in Northam over the Easter holidays. For children in receipt of Means Tested Free School Meals (not Universal Infant Free School Meals) can access this club free of charge but it is also open to all other children at a cost of £16 per day. Please see the relevant flyer below for booking details…
We’d love to see you at Woolsery Chapel on March 27th, 9.30am for our Family celebration. Please bring a photo of your mum! (Or if possible bring the real thing!)
Revd Shirley xx Update: This service has been CANCELLED
Well done to everyone who received a Headteacher’s Award (or Learning Power shell at Parkham) in assembly this week – there are some really impressive achievements here! Please also remember that if your child has an achievement (swimming, gymnastics, martial arts, beavers, cubs, scouts, etc) that they would like to share in our weekly Celebration Assemblies, they are very welcome to bring in certificates, trophies and so on and have them presented in front of the school. Particularly for younger chidlren, if you could write a couple of lines to explain what the award is for, that will really help us give some meaning to the presentation! Thanks.
Celebration Assemblies are on the following days:
- Buckland Brewer: Mondays
- Parkham: Tuesdays
- Woolsery: Fridays
Buckland Brewer:
Owls Class: Grace (tortoise) – being resilient and carrying on trying with her Maths even when it was tricky, and keeping a positive attitude; Jensen (spider) making brilliant links, giving explanations for his answers when evaluating different dips.
Falcons Class: Hannah (tortoise) – showing resilience in her writing and creating a neatly presented introduction to her ‘How to care for a Yeti’ page; Sydney (tortoise) – showing huge resilience this morning after hurting herself at breaktime, but then remaining focussed on her writing and working supportively with her partner.
Eagles Class: Troy (dolphin) – showing responsibility at Exeter Cathedral trip when he had to speak to the camera about the part of the experience. He represented the school amazingly. Eagles Class (bee) – all being resilient and taking a chance and doing something new in front of people.
Parkham:
Kestrels Class: Magnus – showing great responsibility for his reading. Magnus reads most nights and tries hard to read the words he can by sight. Well done; Rafferty – showing resilience with his spellings. At first Rafferty found the tricky part of tricky words difficult. Now he is practising and they are not tricking him anymore!
Buzzards Class: Raife – showing resilience and perseverance in Art – he concentrated hard, perfecting and improving his dragon picture; Violet – demonstrating responsibility and resilience in maths, working hard on our fraction work and then requesting the next challenge.
Hawks Class: Xander – always considering and reflecting on what he has worked on and being able to evaluate and edit his learning to improve the next time he has a go; Maddison – taking time to think about responding carefully to a question posed. She had greatly improved her reasoning skills especially in mathematics.
Woolsery:
Cranford Class: Freddie Ca (dolphin) – writing independently about his trip to Bideford; Freddie Ch (spider) – making links between addition and subtraction number facts.
Burscott Class: Maggie (dolphin) – working very hard on her Dinosaur Dance at Parkham School; Ariah (bee) – working brilliantly with her friends at the Partnership Dance Festival this week
Stroxworthy Class: Tommy (dolphin) – diving into his learning when writing his biography about Amelia Earhart; Alfie G (tortoise) – being resilient when writing his biography about Amelie Earhart.
Alminstone Class: Aubri (dolphin) – diving into her learning with her superb story about overcoming the monster; Alfred (spider) – making links with his own knowledge and what he has learnt in lessons to write an amazing overcoming the monster story.
Ashmansworthy Class: Imogen (tortoise) – being resilient and not giving up with maths, despite finding algebra very challenging; Santino (bee) – working together with new people during Forest School to make his frame for his art work.
Headteacher Awards are awarded to children for displaying a particular learning behaviour throughout the week. Over the next few weeks, all three schools will adopt the ACCT Learning Animals shown below which represent those learning qualities in ways children can understand and remember. They are:
| Monday |
Woolsery: Cricket Engagement Day – all classes Burscott & Cranford Classes: Forest School Buckland: Celebration Assembly |
| Tuesday |
Buzzards Class: Appledore Art (am) Parkham: Celebration Assembly |
| Wednesday |
Burscott & Cranford Classes: ARC Tennis (am) Ashmansworthy Class: Forest School Partnership Staff Meeting at Buckland Brewer |
| Thursday |
Buckland: Class Photos (Tempest)
|
| Friday |
Ashmansworthy Class: Swimming (am) Stroxworthy Class: Forest School |
Mr Cole’s Work Pattern:
| Buckland | Parkham | Woolsery | |
| Monday | all day | ||
| Tuesday | all day | ||
| Wednesday | afternoon | morning | |
| Thursday | morning | afternoon | |
| Friday | all day |
Enjoy the beautiful spring weather this weekend. Don’t forget that along with Mothers’ Day on Sunday the clocks also spring forward.
With best wishes,
Matt Cole, Headteacher