Whitehouse Weekly Bulletin 

Friday 20th March 2026

A Message from Miss Siddall:  

We hope you enjoyed the opportunity to attend parents/carers evening over the last two weeks to see the wonderful work your children have completed. Thank you for your support with this and I hope you found it useful to find out how you can help your children with their learning.

Next week is the last week of school so it’s nearly time for everybody to have a rest. Please remember that the project showcases happen again next week with a chance to see all of the children’s wonderful topic related work. These are straight after school (Tuesday for reception, year 2, year 4 and year 6 and Thursday for Nursery, year 1, year 3 and year 5). Thank you for your continued support.

Attendance: Top 3 classes with the best attendance for week ending 13^th Feb 2026

                    Lions 100%         Rabbits 99%     Giraffes 98%

Well done Lions, 100% Attendance!  🦁

Whole School Attendance: 96%

          Be an Attendance Hero!  Help achieve our 96% target!

A Message from Mrs Sharkey, our Attendance Officer

What a fantastic improvement in attendance!  You are all superstars! 🌟

We are delighted to see such a positive improvement in attendance across the school.  It is wonderful to see so many children coming to school each day, ready to learn and take part in the exciting activities happening in their classrooms.  This improvement reflects the great determination of our pupils and the wonderful support from our families.  Being in school every day helps children build confidence, stay on track with their learning and enjoy valuable time with their friends.

Thank you to everyone for the effort you are making.  Let’s keep working together and continue this fantastic progress.  Every day really does count!  🎉

Book Fair Winners

Many congratulations to the winners of our Scholastic Book Fair free prize draw.  Each of our winners was able to choose a free book from our Book Fair bookcases.  A big thank you to everyone who supported the fair by coming along.

Reception: Edie (Seahorses)      Year 1: Roshan (Lions)           Year 2: Tharrun (Frogs)

Year 3: Sophia (Rabbits)         Year 4: Lucas (Hedgehogs)       Year 5: Layla (Lizards)

Year 6: Noah (Tigers)

Staffing News

At the end of the Spring Term we will be seeing some staff changes in our Nursery, as Mrs Vince will be leaving us to seek new adventures!  Mrs Vince will be greatly missed in both her Nursery and Forest School roles.  She has given our children some wonderful opportunities.  We are pleased to let you know Mrs Whittaker will be taking over in the Nursery and we are confident the children will continue to have an excellent experience there.

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. Well done to you all.

EYFS:

Key Stage 1:

Lower Key Stage 2:

Upper Key Stage 2:

Assemblies

The theme of our assemblies this week was Sign Language: Learning the Basics. (UNRC: Article 23: If I am disabled mentally or physically, I have the right to special care and education to help me develop and lead a full life).  Why not ask your child to teach you the signs they learnt?  Together you could make a goal to learn to sign your names, using this chart or by watching the video here: https://deafaction.org/bsl-courses/learn-the-bsl-alphabet/.  It is a wonderful skill to learn and can help you communicate with those who can otherwise feel a little isolated.

Key Stage 1: Fire Engine Visit

Our KS1 children had an exciting visit from the Fire Service this week.  The firefighters spoke to the children about the important work they do helping people in emergencies and how they keep our communities safe.  This linked with Year 2’s PHSE learning about people who help us and how the fire service support those in need.  For our Year 1 children, the visit also supported their history learning about The Great Fire of London, helping them to compare how fires were fought in the past with the modern equipment firefighters use today.

Celebrating our Children

This week we are excited to celebrate Kira from Year 3, who took part in her first rhythmic gymnastics competition this week, the Easter Bunny Cup which took place in London.  Kira has been doing gymnastics for several years now and has been taking part weekly in Ipswich and then Colchester.  Kira placed a wonderful 4^th place in this first competition and was specially recognised by the judges for her performance and was awarded a special crown!  Kira, that is an amazing achievement, well done!

Accelerated Reader

A big well done to all the children below who have recently received certificates for their reading.

End of the School Day

We have noticed an increasing number of children playing on the playground and field at the end of the school day.  While we understand children enjoy this time, we are not able to provide supervised play or after-school provision at this time.  At the end of the school day, staff are on duty to ensure children leave safely, answer parent/carer queries and keep the site secure.  Therefore, from now on, children will not be able to play football or use play equipment after school has finished.  This is to ensure the safety of all on site.  Thank you for your co-operation.

Attendance: Duck Race Winners

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

KS2 Inclusive Clip ‘n’ Climb Event

Last Wednesday Mrs Edwards and Mrs Arnold took twelve of our KS2 pupils to Climb ‘n’ Climb to take part in an inclusive indoor climbing session. Despite being the second year that our pupils have been given the opportunity to take part in this fantastic opportunity, for the vast majority of the pupils this was the first time they had been to the venue or taken part in any kind of indoor climbing. Once the pupils had received their safety briefing and been fitted with their harnesses, any initial nerves were quickly replaced with excitement as the pupils got to explore the vast array of fun climbing walls. Mrs Edwards and Mrs Arnold were incredibly proud of the effort and courage shown by all of the pupils throughout the session. It was amazing to see them all really push themselves outside of their comfort zone, to show lots of courage and become increasingly more confident to climb higher and higher as the session went on. Mrs Edwards also expressed her pride in our pupils as they truly showed the ‘Whitehouse Ways’ to be kind and respectful to pupils from other schools, going out of their way to help and encourage the pupils as they climbed! 

KS1 Primary Panathlon Event

Following on from the previous week’s KS2 Panathlon event, last Friday Mr Jordan and Mrs Broxton took six of our Year 1 and 2 pupils to Ipswich School Sports Centre to participate in the KS1 Panathlon event. It is a skills-based competition, in which each team rotate around a carousel of eight fun and inclusive fundamental skills-based activities. During each activity the team aimed to score as many points as possible. At the end of the event each score from the eight 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, out of ten teams, our team finished the event in second place, receiving silver medals! An amazing and well-deserved achievement, well done!

House Captains: Easter Egg Hunt

Thank you to everyone who participated in the House Captains’ egg hunt, over 200 children took part!  The results from the hunt were as follows:

In fourth place with 48 house points was Diamond

In third place with 55 house points was Ruby

In second place with 60 house points was Emerald

In first place with 65 house points was Sapphire!

Well done everyone for joining in!  These scores will be added to the total for the half term house point competition when the House Captains collect up points in week 5.

Dates for the Diary

Monday 23^rd March 2026 - Family Breakfast – 8.00am

Thursday 26^th March 2026 – Year 3 Parent/Carer Reading Session – 2.30pm

Friday 27^th March 2026 – Last day in school before Easter

Monday 30^th March 2026 to Friday 10^th April 2026 – Easter Holiday

Tuesday 21^st April 2026 – NHS Parent/Carer Workshop: Anxiety – 2.00pm to 3.00pm

Wednesday 22^nd April 2026 – Story Sack Course begins (sign up required)

Friday 24^th April 2026 – Year 1 Colchester Zoo Trip

Tuesday 28^th April 2026 – NHS Parent/Carer Workshop: Emotion Regulation – 2.00pm to 3.00pm

Monday 25^th May 2026 to Friday 29^th May 2026 – Half Term Holiday

Friday 22^nd May 2026 – PD Day (School closed to Children)

Monday 22^nd June to Tuesday 23^rd June 2026 – Year 6 Residential Trip to Mersea

Tuesday 14th July 2026 – Year 6 Production- 9.30am and 6.00pm

Friday 17th July 2026 – Year 6 Leavers Picnic and Assembly – 1.50pm