Whitehouse Weekly Bulletin 239

Friday 14th July 2023

Message from Mrs Hall

We hope that you will enjoy reading your child’s annual report. We are extremely proud of all the children and how hard they have worked to achieve their very best this year, thank you for your support. Please return any report reply slips to the school office as soon as possible so we know the reports have been received. If you would like to speak to a member of staff about your child’s progress please don’t hesitate to contact the school. All clubs have now finished for this year and I would to thank all the staff for giving up their time to offer these super opportunities for the children. We are already looking forward to next term and what new clubs may be organised!

Attendance for the previous week:

Class with the best attendance: Jaguars (98.33%)

Crossing the Road

The safety of our children is paramount. Please can we remind all parents/carers to carefully supervise their children when crossing the roads and remind children walking to school on their own to follow the road safety guidance. Road safety will be revisited next week in our assemblies when we discuss staying safe in the holidays.

Assemblies

The theme of our assemblies for next week will be: How do I make sure I stay safe during the holidays? Resources related to this assembly will soon be available on our website.  To access them, simply go to Learning and click on our Enquiry Based Assemblies.

Year 6 Dictionaries

Each year we are very lucky that The Rotary Club kindly come into school to see our Year 6 children before they leave us and present each of the children with a beautiful book.  This year the children all received a dictionary, which we are sure will help them as they continue their studies at High School.  A big thank you to Mr David Podd and The Rotary Club for the kindness and support they show to our children each year.   

Parent/Carer Survey

Please find below the link to a short parent/carer survey where you are able to give some feedback on the school and your childs experience at Whitehouse.  The survey will only take a couple of minutes and will be open until Thursday 20^th July 2023.  Thank you for your assistance.

https://forms.office.com/e/y7P9Qsvc56

Reports

As you will be aware reports are being sent home with the children today.  This year we have changed the format of our reports, including providing a shorter version at the end of each term.  We would love to have your feedback about these, so please do take a moment to share some thoughts at the following link:  https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/TD52HGV

Awards

Key Stage 1:

Lower Key Stage 2:

Upper Key Stage 2:

Recommended Reads

We are pleased to announce that 24 of our Key Stage 2 children have made a great effort this year in their reading and have managed to read and quiz on all 18 of the recommended reads.  This is a fabulous achievement and we are very proud of them!   As a reward they will be going on a picnic next week and will also have the chance to visit a local bookshop to choose a book to keep.  Well done to the following children:

Dinner Debt

Can we please remind parents/carers that all dinner debt needs to be cleared by the end of next week.  If you are unsure of the amount owed please contact the school office.

Purple Man Reading Competition

Well done to the winners of the Purple Man competition for last week (a competition that rewards classes with the highest average reading minutes across KS2).

Parents/Carers Daily Mile Inspired WHCPS ‘Wake up and Walk’ event

As a registered Daily Mile school, we value the benefits our pupils gain from taking part in the Daily Mile.  Not only does it provide pupils with the opportunity to get out of their seats to become more active during their normal school day. It also provides a much-needed break during lessons to help refocus levels of concentration. 

We would like to extend these benefits to our parents/carers by inviting you all to a Daily Mile inspired ‘Wake Up & Walk’ event. The event is being held before school (during drop off time) at the beginning of the final week of term. The event will be an informal and optional event, which will invite parents/carers the opportunity to take part in a 2 lap walk around the KS2 field before school with their child. Yr5/6 pupils that walk to school by themselves may also take part in the event.  As an incentive for those that take part in the event, there will be certificates for both parents/carers and pupils and also a non-school uniform voucher for pupils to use during the final week of term.

Event details:

 Dates: Monday 17th July 2023 (EYFS & KS1 Pupils & Parents/Carers)

Tuesday 18th July 2023 (KS2 Pupils & Parents/Carers) 

Time:   8:30am – 8:40am 

Additional Information: No sign up is required. Simply meet Mr Jordan on the KS2 field, entering school via the Marlow Rd or Waterford Rd gate.  We very much look forward to seeing many of our parents/carers and pupils enjoying the event.

Celebrating our Children

This week we have another wonderful achievement to share with you.  Alysha (Year 6) has been dancing for several years and recently took part in a competition in Blackpool.  She danced beautifully and came away with her highest placing at a final so far including two 1^st places, one 2^nd place, and two 4^th places.  Each event had several rounds before reaching the final.  Well done Alysha, what an amazing talent you have!

Word Millionaire

Huge congratulations to our sixteen Classic Readers who have progressed to become ‘Word Millionaires’.  Each of them has been presented with a certificate and a badge to recognise this outstanding achievement.  Wear your badges with pride Word Millionaires – you have earnt that right!

Year 2: History of Flight

This half term, Year 2 have been learning about the history of flight in order to answer their enquiry question ‘How did people try to fly?’  They have explored lots of historical attempts to fly including hot air balloons, helicopters and aeroplanes.  Year 2 were then challenged to design and create their own hot air balloons with a suspended basket.  The children really enjoyed designing the pattern for the balloon envelope and creating the papier mâché mould.  After it had dried they were able to paint their design onto the balloon.  They also had to consider how to suspend the balloon and basket. After it had dried they were able to paint their design onto the balloon.  They also had to consider how to suspend the balloon and basket.  Everyone enjoyed it as you can see on the photo!  

U9’s Quadkids Event

On Thursday, Ms Salmon and Mrs Welham had the pleasure of taking 10 pupils from Year 3 and 4 to take part in the U9’s Quadkids event which again was held at the amazing grounds of Northgate Sports Centre.  The children were all very excited but also nervous as for some of the children this was their first-time representing Whitehouse at an event.  Competing in the U9’s Quadkids this year were 30 schools, each of whom was given a country to represent, ours being China.  The event started with the traditional opening ceremony where each school walked around the 400m track waving their flags and chanting their country name.  Our children were definitely the loudest!  The team were placed in a rotation of four events; Vortex Howler throwing, standing long jump, 400m race and 50m sprint.  Each and every one of our children in attendance made us proud!  Ms Salmon and Mrs Welham were extremely pleased with all the effort and the way the children behaved throughout the event, it was outstanding.

Ms Salmon would like thank the parents/carers for providing transport and supporting the team throughout the event.  Your support is always very much appreciated.  The team came 12^th in the event, so well done to Noah, Jason, Lucas, Remi, Arthur, Mia, Scarlett, Lacey, Sakura and Amelia S.

Reminders from our School Librarian: Mrs Balaam

• Don’t forget all school library books need to be returned by Monday to allow time to complete the end of term procedures and to ensure our libraries are ready for September.
• It is not too late to nominate our school into the National Book Tokens Prize Draw.  Entering is very quick and simple.  Simply follow this link and complete the online form:  https://www.nationalbooktokens.com/schools#nominate-your-school-title 
• This year’s Summer Reading Challenge ‘Ready, Set, Read!’ got underway last weekend.  We would love to see many of our children completing the challenge and there are two ways you can register.  Either pop along to your local library, where each child will be given a collector folder, stickers and other special rewards and help to find suitable books to read.  Or, if you are not able to go along in person, you can join online at the link below.  Children are able to set a reading goal and log the books they have read.  They will also receive a virtual badge and certificate.  https://summerreadingchallenge.org.uk/join-in

If your child chooses to participate, we would invite them to bring their certificates into school in September so that we can recognise this great achievement in our Celebration Assemblies.

Summer Fair

Ms Salmon would like to thank every single one of you for your continuous generosity and support at our PFA events, including at the Summer Fair last Friday.  We are sure you will agree it was another great success.  It was really lovely to see so many of you enjoying the fair with your families. We are pleased to announce that we raised an incredible £1,205.15.  A lot of work goes into organising these events so a big thank you to Ms Salmon and her committee.  We would love to have some more volunteers to join the committee, so please look out for more details in September on how you can help. Once again thank you for your help and support.

Dates for the Diary

Monday 17^th July 2023 – Wake Up and Walk Event (EYFS & KS1 children and parents/carers)

Monday 17^th July 2023 – Year 6 Production – 9.30am and 6.00pm

Tuesday 18^th July 2023 – Wake Up and Walk Event (KS2 children and parents/carers)

Tuesday 18^th July 2023 – Year 6 Production – 9.30am and 6.00pm

Wednesday 19^th July 2023 – ‘Recommended Read’ Trip

Wednesday 19^th July 2023 – Leavers BBQ

Friday 21^st July 2023 – Leavers Assembly

Friday 21^st July 2023 – Last day of the Summer Term

Monday 24^th July 2023 to Thursday 31^st August 2023 – Summer Holiday

Friday 1^st September 2023 – PD Day – School Closed for Children

Monday 4^th September 2023 – PD Day – School Closed for Children

Tuesday 5^th September 2023 – First day of Autumn Term for Children