Whitehouse Weekly Bulletin 245

Friday 6th October 2023

 A message from Miss Siddall

This week I've been visiting the children at lunchtime.  They tell me that they are enjoying the school lunches which the school council representatives helped to choose.  There will be an opportunity for parents to try this too as we are holding a taster session soon (see below for details).

I’ve also worked with a small group of children to try to find the owners of lots of missing jumpers on the playground!    Occasionally, jumpers and other items (such as coats, water bottles and lunch boxes) do go missing.  Please help us to return items to their owners quickly by clearly labelling them with your child’s name and class. 

Please can I also remind you that for safety reasons, children should only wear stud earrings to school (no dangly earrings or hoops) and that these need to be taken out for PE.  Thank you for your support.

Attendance for the previous week: 

Class with the best attendance: Puffins (100%)

Parent/Carer Taster Session

As you will be aware, since September we have had a new catering company in school providing school dinners for your children.

We would love to invite all parents/carers to come into school on Monday 16^th October at 2.30pm and join us in the dining room, where you will get a chance to see some of the dinner options your children are offered and to try out some of the food.

We hope you will come along and join us.  Lunchtime Co will be there and will be happy to answer any questions you may have regarding the menus, ingredients or anything else!

Assemblies

The theme of our assemblies for next week will be: Who are our House Captains?  What exciting plans do they have for us this year?  (UNRC Link: Article 2: I have the right to an opinion and for it to be listened to and taken seriously).  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.

Awards

As you may be aware the children are encouraged to follow ‘The Whitehouse Way’ in school to help them in their learning and in becoming good citizens. Our ‘Wonderful Week’ awards this year will be given as a recognition that the children have worked very hard in one of these areas:  Courage, Perseverance, Reflection or Responsibility.  This will be shown in the colour coded lists below.  We are so proud of our children at Whitehouse and their wonderful achievements.  Well done to you all.

Key Stage 1:

Lower Key Stage 2:

Upper Key Stage 2:

Sibling Photos

We are pleased to inform you that we have arranged for Kittle, our School Photographer, to come into school on Thursday 12^th October to take sibling photos for any family that would like this done.  It will take place BEFORE school and parents will need to go to either the Waterford Hall (via the car park) or Marlow Hall (via the KS1 playground) between 8.00am to 8.45am.  Photos will be taken on a first come, first served basis and you may have to queue for a short time.  Unfortunately, we can only include children who are currently enrolled at Whitehouse CP School, so older and younger siblings will not be able to be included.

Reception September 2024: Opening Mornings

We are pleased to let you know that we will be holding Open Mornings for any parents/carers whose children are due to start school in September 2024.  Please feel free to attend if this includes you at the following times:

Monday 6^th November 2023 – 9.15am and 11.15am

Tuesday 7^th November 2023 – 9.15am and 11.15am

A message from the Attendance Officer

Hello!  My name is Mrs Zantboer and I am the new Attendance Officer at Whitehouse.  You may recognise my name or face as I have been working as a Teaching Assistant at the school for the last 9 years. I am lucky to now have the opportunity to work more closely with our families to improve attendance and help wherever I can in getting your children in to school every day and on time.  I shall also be working with the School Parliament to hear what our children have to say about attendance and what it means to them.  I would like to introduce some new incentives and acknowledge good attendance so watch this space for further announcements.  If you find that attendance is an area that you or your child struggles with, please don’t hesitate to contact the office and I can arrange to have a chat via the phone or in-person.

Celebrating our Children

This week we are thrilled to celebrate the success of another one of our children.  Sakura, in Year 5, took part in a Karate competition.  She did wonderfully and achieved three different medals in Kumite, Kick Misester and Paired Kata and Kata.  What a great achievement!  Well done Sakura, we are very proud of you!

Readers’ Cup

Well done to the following classes who won the Readers’ Cup last week:

Year 4 Local Walk

On Friday Year 4 went on a field trip as part of their geography unit in which they have been learning about UK landscapes.  The children have been looking at all different types of land use and the trip enabled them to put some of their knowledge into practice by using their observation skills.  Walking around the Whitehouse area, the children were able to recognise and observe residential, commercial, industrial, transportational and institutional land uses.  The children thoroughly enjoyed their time out of the classroom and represented the school extremely well.  Well done Year 4!

Flu Immunisations – 2^nd Visit

We have now had confirmation that the Schools Immunisation Team will be returning to the school on Tuesday 31^st October.  On this visit they will be giving the immunisation to Owls Class, Year 5 and Year 6 and any other children who have consent but have not been given it yet.  Please refer to your emails which give details of the Portal where you can give consent if you still wish to do so.

Parking/Cycling

 We continue to have issues with parking outside the school at the start and end of the day.  Please can we ask all parents/carers to be considerate when bringing their cars close to the school site and a reminder that all normal parking laws are still to be followed.  As you will be aware the area gets very busy with children and families and our first priority must be to ensure everyone is kept safe. 

In addition, can we please remind parents/carers that if your child is cycling or using their scooter to get to school, please ensure that they are wearing a helmet.

Eco-Committee

We are very pleased to announce that we have carefully recruited new Eco-Members to be part of our Eco-school committee.  It was a very difficult decision, with over 50 applications from across the school.  Being part of the committee means that you have a chance to support with litter picks, recycling schemes and helping others to make small changes to their daily routine, like turning off lights.   We have some exciting projects to start planning so look forward to sharing more of what we achieve.  Thank you to everyone who applied and well done to the following:

Don’t forget we can all get involved by supporting our Eco-Code:

Recycle, reuse and reduce for an-

Excellent eco-environment

Caring communities

You can get involved

Conserving and cleaning

Looking after the living world

Eco-code for everyone.

Year 4 Science

Our Year 4 have been learning all about the digestive system and the functions of the organs this week.  The children created an experiment to follow the journey through the digestive system of food with bananas, biscuits, stomach acid and lots of saliva.  They discovered how the digestive system is made up of organs that help the body break down and absorb food.  Everyone really enjoyed working scientifically to enrich their learning!

Can you help?

Sometimes our younger children have small accidents whilst at school and we are in need of spare underwear and grey trousers for both girls and boys (age 4-8).  If you have any spare items which are still in good condition we would be very happy to receive these.  They can be passed to the class teachers or to the school office.  Thank you!

Y3/4 Kickabout Festival

On Tuesday Ms Salmon had the pleasure of taking pupils from Year 3 and Year 4 to take part in a Kickabout Festival at St Joseph’s College.  The children were very excited, although a little nervous as the majority of them play in teams outside of school, but have never played as a team together.

Whitehouse were placed in Group 1 along with Bucklesham, Dale Hall 1, Gusford 1, Kyson 1, St Josephs 1 and 3 and St Johns 1. Each game was made up of a ‘4v4’ team who played for 8 minutes, using roll on, roll off substitutions.  Watching each of our children play, Ms Salmon was extremely proud of Whitehouse.  Each of them followed and demonstrated the Whitehouse Way right to the very end.  Well played Callum, Millie-Mae, Josh, Jason and Logan.  Also, a big thank you to parents and carers for providing transportation and supporting the team throughout the Festival.  Your support is always very much appreciated.

PFA – What is it?

I am a member of the PFA which stands for the Parent and Friends Association and most of you will not be sure what we do or what that means.  We help organise events such as our popular fayres in the summer and at Christmas and without the help of parents and carers like us, these events would be unable to go ahead.  We meet two or three times before each fundraiser to chat through ideas and look at what needs to be done.  Some of us bring our children along with us, which is not a problem, as they usually sit together and do some reading or colouring.   There is no pressure to do a lot, we all just give as much as we feel able to do.  

We now really do need some new volunteers to help otherwise the Christmas Fayre will not be able to go ahead.  Could you give just a small amount of your time?  If so, please pop along to the school office on Wednesday where we can all meet, have a cup of tea or coffee and some biscuits and have a chat about the fayre.  Even if you want to come along and just listen, we would love to see you! 

For any parent/carer who is able to come along, as a thank you, you will receive a free non-uniform voucher for your child(ren) to use.  Unfortunately, if we do not get enough people to come along to this meeting, sadly future events will not be able to take place.   We hope to see you there – Wednesday 11^th October straight after school. 

Dates for the Diary

Tuesday 10^th October 2023 – Year 4 Parent/Carer Session - 2.00pm

Wednesday 11^th October 2023 – PFA Meeting – Straight after school

Thursday 12^th October 2023 – Sibling Photo Sessions – 8.00am to 8.45am

Thursday 12^th October 2023 – Parent/Carer Tasting Session – 2.30pm

Tuesday 17^th October 2023 – Year 5 Greek Day

Wednesday 18^th October 2023 – Year 3 Mosque visit (afternoon)

Monday 23^rd October 2023 to Friday 27^th October 2023 – Half Term Holiday

Tuesday 31^st October 2023 – Year 4 West Stow Anglo Saxon visit

Tuesday 31^st October 2023 – Flu Immunisation Team in School

Tuesday 31^st October 2023 – Year 2 Framlingham Castle visit

Friday 3^rd November 2023 – Whole School SMSC Day: Healthy Eating

Monday 6^th November 2023 – Reception 2024 Open Morning – 9.15am and 11.15am

Tuesday 7^th November 2023 - Reception 2024 Open Morning – 9.15am and 11.15am

Tuesday 7^th November – Year 6 Martlesham RAF Tower Museum visit

Wednesday 29^th November 2023 – Autumn Term Reports home to parents/carers

Thursday 30^th November 2023 – Online Parents/Carers Evening

Friday 1^st December 2023 – Travelling Book Fair

Wednesday 6^th December 2023 – Online Parents/Carers Evening

Friday 8^th December 2023 – Nursery Nativity Play

Monday 11^th December 2023 – Reception Nativity Play

Thursday 21^st December 2023 to Wednesday 3^rd January 2024 – Christmas Holiday

Thursday 4^th January 2024 – PD Day (Children not in school)

Monday 19^th February 2024 to Friday 23^rd February 2024 – Half Term Holiday

Friday 29^th March 2024 to Thursday 11^th April 2024 – Easter Holiday

Friday 12^th April 2024 – PD Day (Children not in school)

Monday 24^th June 2024 to Tuesday 25^th June 2024 – Year 6 Residential Trip at Mersea