Whitehouse Weekly Bulletin 290

Friday 29th November 2024

A Message from Miss Siddall

This week, I have been visiting lessons to find out what the children have been learning.   It has been wonderful to see all of the children in their lessons, following the Golden Rules by listening carefully and working hard, and following the Whitehouse Way by showing reflection and perseverance. Well done to all the children and adults for their hard work.

Don’t forget, we have lots of parent/carer events planned over the next few weeks with many year groups offering a special event in the run up to Christmas. The dates and times are below, so please check carefully to avoid disappointment. Thank you for your continued support.

Attendance for the week before half term:

Class with the best attendance: Starfish (100%)

Year 3: Prehistoric Experience

This week, the children in Year 3 enjoyed a visit from the Prehistoric Experience Company where they were transported back in time to the Stone Age!  The children were able to share their knowledge with the visitors and learnt more about the timeline of the Palaeolithic, Mesolithic and Neolithic times.  They also experienced a real fire being created the Stone-Age way!  The children all asked lots of good questions and particularly enjoyed having the opportunity to look at some real-life Stone Age artefacts. 

The children’s behaviour and enthusiasm were excellent and the Prehistoric Experience Company were very impressed with the children’s knowledge and attitude towards this new experience.  Well done Year 3.

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:

Free School Meal Vouchers

We are pleased to confirm that Suffolk County Council will again be providing vouchers to parents/carers of any child who is eligible for free school meals, to help with food costs over the Christmas holiday.  The voucher will be £30.00 per eligible child.

As usual the voucher will be sent by email from noresponse@vouchers.sodexoengage.com and will be with you by Wednesday 11^th December 2024. If you do not receive the voucher, please email freeschoolmeals@suffolk.gov.uk and they will be able to assist.  Please do not contact the school office as we will be unable to help.

Christmas Dinner

A reminder that if your child would like a Christmas Dinner at school this year, this does need to be pre-ordered.  If you have not done so, this will need to be ordered by MONDAY at the latest. The schedule for dinners is as follows:

Reception – Wednesday 18^th December 2024

Year 1 – Monday 16^th December 2024

Year 2 – Tuesday 17^th December 2024

Year 3 – Wednesday 18^th December 2024

Year 4 – Thursday 19^th December 2024

Year 5 – Friday 20^th December 2024

Year 6 – Friday 20^th December 2024

Please note on the days your child is not having their Christmas dinner, they will need to either have a Pick and Mix dinner or bring a lunch from home.  There will not be an option for any hot meals.

Thank you for your continued support.

Parent/Carer Sessions

Please note we are excited to be able to invite parent/carers into school before the end of the term for the following:

Attendance: Duck Race Winners

Well done to the winners of our Duck Races last week:

Suffolk County Library Event

Are you looking for an exciting way to get into the Christmas mood?  If so, why not pop along to the Ipswich County Library on Sunday 8^th December 2024, where they are holding a Cocoa, Crafts and Christmas Classics Movie Marathon from 10.15am.  Bring a blanket and settle in for The Polar Express at 10.15am, Arthur Christmas at 12.15pm and The Muppets Christmas Carol at 2.15pm.  In between the films there will be lots of crafts to get involved in.  This is a drop-in event so no need to book. 

Accelerated Reader

We are very pleased to be able to celebrate with the following children who have all earned certificates for their reading.  A big well done to you all, we are very proud of you!

Year 5 and 6 Pupil Library Assistants

Job descriptions and application forms are now in the KS2 library for the voluntary role of Pupil Library Assistant.  Any child currently in Year 5 or 6 can apply if they meet the ‘Essential Criteria’ set out in the job description. Please note the closing date for applications has been extended until Monday 2^nd December 2024. 

Children are encouraged to use this extra time wisely to ensure their application form is completed neatly and to the best of their ability.  The form also needs to be signed by a parent and class teacher before being handed in.  A shortlist of candidates will be drawn up and invited to a short, informal interview.  The appointed Pupil Library Assistants (PLAs) will hold the position for the Spring Term and will then be invited to mentor the new PLAs for the Summer Term.

***Job Vacancy: Midday Supervisor***

Fixed term till 31^st August 2025

We are pleased to let you know we currently have vacancies for Lunchtime Supervisors as detailed below. Full details of the vacancies along with application forms are available on our website: https://www.whcps.org/vacancies/.  In addition, application forms can be collected from the school office. The closing date for applications is 10.00am on Friday 13^th December 2024.

Lunchtime Assistant:

• Working under the direction of the Lunchtime Leader
• Engage with and support the children while eating and engaging in safe and positive play outside
• Contribute to the management of behaviour
• Undertake first aid responsibilities
• Scale Point 2.2: (Currently £12.26 an hour)
• Working Hours: 1.25 hours a day working term time only

   

Assemblies

The theme of our assemblies for next week will be: Modern Slavery:  International Day for Abolition of Slavery.  (UNRC: Article 36 – I have the right to protection from any kind of exploitation).  We will be talking to the children about whether slavery still exists today in England.  Why not ask your child to see what they have learnt?

Helping Hands

Thank you to those families who came along to our recent Helping Hands Hub last Thursday.  These are now going to be a regular event and we hope to see lots more of you come along.  Not only can we offer a friendly face and lots of advice from Mrs Gotts, but also available is the chance to receive some very practical help.  Are you struggling to feed your family?  Are you struggling to buy uniform for your children?  We can help with both of these things, with food parcels and uniform available.  We are also pleased to be able to have our Toy Library bags available, where you can borrow bags of toys (suitable for Nursery and Reception aged children) for a week, then bring them back and swap for something new to try the following week.  Our next Helping Hands Hub will be on Thursday 5^th December 2024 from 2.00pm to 3.00pm.  Just come along to the Meeting Room next to the main office.

Online Safety: Roblox Major Safety Updates

Last week Roblox, the game used by 90 million people daily, announced some major updates which are available to users and parents/carers.  The rollout has already started and will be fully implemented by March 2025.  These safety updates include:

• Limits to how children under 13 can communicate
• Parental controls accessible from the parents/carers phone rather than the child’s device (remote management)

There are lots of helpful hints and useful information in the full guide which can be found by clicking the link:  https://corp.roblox.com/newsroom/2024/11/major-updates-to-our-safety-systems-and-parental-controls.  In addition you can see the full guide to Roblox parental controls on the Internet Matters website by clicking on this link:  https://www.internetmatters.org/parental-controls/gaming-consoles/roblox-parental-controls.

Sports Leaders: Playground Leader Training

At the beginning of last week, our Year 5/6 Sports Leaders worked with Mr Jordan and staff from

Ipswich and South Suffolk School Games to complete their Playground Leaders training. During the training the Sports Leaders first completed a theory-based session where they learnt about the qualities required to make a good leader. The Year 5/6 Sports Leaders then put their leadership skills into practice as they took it in turns to organise and deliver a number of playground activities to each other, before delivering the activities to one of our Year 2 classes.

As part of this year’s School Games membership, as a school we have also invested in the Playground Leaders programme. This programme aims to provide our Sports Leaders with the training and resources to be able to provide and deliver playground activities to our KS1 pupils during lunchtimes. As well as providing our Year 5/6 Sports Leaders with leadership opportunities, the programme will also provide our KS1 pupils the opportunities to take part in structured skill-based activities at lunchtime, which in turn also provides links to the governments recommended 60 minutes of physical activity for children per day.  Mr Jordan was immensely proud of the incredible leadership skills shown by all of our Sports Leaders. They really were a credit to themselves and our school. Mr Jordan is very much looking forward to working alongside the Sports Leaders as they deliver their playground activities within their Playground Leaders role throughout the year!

KS1 Primary Panathlon Event

Following on from the previous week’s KS2 Panathlon event, last Friday saw the turn of seven of our year 2 pupils take part in the KS1 Panathlon event. Just like the KS2 event, the KS1 Panathlon also consisted of a skills-based competition, in which each team rotate around a carousel of fun and inclusive fundamental skills which also included sending and receiving activities and striking skills. Each activity lasted seven minutes in duration, and during this time each team aimed to score as many points as possible for their team. Each score from the six different activities were added together to give each team an overall score. The pupils had a fantastic time at the event and really enjoyed taking part in each of the activities. The pupils work amazingly as a team and really encouraged each other during the activities. As a result of their fantastic team work, the team finished the event in second place, receiving both silver medals and a runners up trophy! An amazing and well-deserved achievement, well done!

Opening of Lidl

As many of you will be aware a new Lidl store opened in the area this week, and we were thrilled that the company kindly donated £999 to the school to help support our children and their learning.  We were very grateful for this wonderful donation and the money will be spent on resources to help support our SEND children in our new Inclusion Hub.   We were very excited that they also invited some of our children to officially open the store. Accompanied by Mrs Edwards and Mrs Murphy from our SEND team, the children had a wonderful time being the first to look around the new store, having a treat from the bakery, meeting the staff and even cutting the ribbon!  A big thank you to the staff at Lidl who not only for the donation but for giving our staff and children such a kind and warm welcome. 

Photos / Videos

Can we please remind parents/carers that when on the school site, you do not take any photos or video footage.  Due to safeguarding, it is important that images which may include a child are only done with the correct permissions sought in advance.

Dates for the Diary

Monday 2^nd December 2024 – Family Breakfast – 8.00am

Monday 2^nd December 2024 - Open Morning for Reception 2025 children

Tuesday 3^rd December 2024 – Year 4 Parent/Carer Art Session - 2.00pm

Wednesday 4^th December 2024 – Year 2 – Visit to St Thomas the Apostle Church

Wednesday 4^th December 2024 - Reports home to parents/carers

Thursday 5^th December 2024 – Helping Hands 2.00pm-3.00pm

Thursday 5^th December 2024 – Online Parents/Carers Evening

Friday 6^th December 2024 – Non-Uniform Day – Bring chocolate / sweets as a donation

Monday 9^th December 2024 – Family Breakfast – 8.00am

Tuesday 10^th December 2024 – Online Parents/Carers Evening

Wednesday 11^th December 2024 – Year 5 Parent/Carer Sewing Session – 1.45pm

Thursday 12^th December 2024 – CET Christmas Concert – 6.30pm (ticketed event)

Friday 13^th December 2024 – Nursery Christmas Songs

Friday 13^th December 2024 – Christmas Jumper Day

Friday 13^th December 2024 – Christmas Fair

Monday 16^th December 2024 – Family Breakfast – 8.00am

Monday 16^th December 2024 – Reception Nativity

Monday 16^th December 2024 – Christmas Dinner – Year 1

Monday 16^th December 2024 – Year 4 Christingle Service – St Thomas the Apostle Church

Tuesday 17^th December 2024 – Christmas Dinner – Year 2

Tuesday 17^th December 2024 – Year 3 Parent/Carer Christmas Crafts Session – 1.30pm

Tuesday 17^th December 2024 – Year 2 Parent/Carer Christmas Crafts Session – 2.00pm

Tuesday 17^th December 2024 – Autumn 2 Project Showcase (Reception, Years 2, 4 and 6)

Wednesday 18^th December 2024 – Christmas Dinner – Year R and Year 3

Wednesday 18^th December 2024 – Year 1 Parent/Carer Christmas Craft Session – 2.00pm

Wednesday 18^th December 2024 – Year 6 Parent/Carer DT Anderson Shelter – 9.15am

Thursday 19^th December 2024 – Christmas Dinner – Year 4

Thursday 19^th December 2024 – Helping Hands 2.00pm-3.00pm

Thursday 19^th December 2024 – Reception – Parent/Carer Christmas Crafts/Games Session – 2.00pm

Thursday 19^th December 2024 – Autumn 2 Project Showcase (Nursery, Years 1, 3 and 5)

Friday 20^th December 2024 – Christmas Dinner – Year 5 and 6

Friday 13^th December 2024 – Flu Vaccinations Catch-up Session (more details will follow)

Friday 20^th December 2024 – Last day of the Autumn Term

Monday 23^rd December 2024 – Friday 3^rd January 2025 – Christmas Holiday

Monday 6^th January 2025 – PD Day (Children are not in school)

Tuesday 7^th January 2025 – First day of the Spring Term

Thursday 9^th January 2025 - Open Morning for Reception 2025 children