Great Waltham C of E (VC) Primary School Parent Portal - Newsletter - Friday 13th May 22

Friday 13th May 22 - Summer Term Issue 2

Headteacher Message

KS2 SATs returned after an enforced absence in the academic years 2019-20 and 2020-21. The current Y6 children completed 6 separate tests this week across English and Maths and deserve huge credit for their positive and mature attitude over the 4 days. They certainly earned their sugary treats and rounders match on Thursday! Thanks to all the school staff and families for supporting them throughout their learning from YR until now. The results will be back in early July.

KS1 have their assessments next week. As with KS2 we do not make a 'big deal' of this. For Y2 children, this helps inform our teaching staff of the end of year assessment standards for the pupils.

We had one or two parents ask about the police presence this week outside the school gates - they were just conducting a safe parking / school run check. We always get at least one per year.

3PR, on Tuesday, was a tie between 4 classes - all with 100% - so thank you for parking considerately if you drive to school.

Each week the calendar keeps us all busy with events. We have some looming fast on the horizon that take a lot of planning - Isle of Wight Trip, Sports Day, Schools Gotta Dance to name a few. All events are listed on the calendar on the school website.

The Schools Gotta Dance performance is coming up soon, the children have been busy rehearsing their routine. They had a dress rehearsal today with Mrs Squier from Project Dance. Good luck for the performance!

Thanks to FOGWS for planning events for the summer term - today we have Family Bingo - good luck to all attending.

Finally, thanks to the very kind parent who assisted me in times of need. I was on a trail run last Saturday with two friends, and we entered local Public House expecting to buy refreshments with 'contactless' payment! The cash only policy could have seen us leave until the kind gesture!

Have a super weekend all.

Mr Burden

Curriculum

Media group have written a piece about the Viking Day below.

To finish off their 'Great Fire of London' topic, KS1 enjoyed a visit from our local Firefighters. Thank you to the crew from Chelmsford for coming along to show us the fire engine. The children were lucky enough to have a go with the hose and climb in to the vehicle.

One of our governors, Mr Kiedish attended the Viking day to monitor this way of introducing a history topic to inspire good learning.

Swimming lessons are beginning for Y2 soon - please make sure you have returned your ParentMail forms.

For KS2 children, we will be sending out a form to audit children's swimming ability - please return this too.

Mandy Morris, the PE teacher who takes our tennis club for KS1 and KS2 is taking some PE lessons on Tuesdays for Class Africa - this is covering team teaching with Miss Byford.

Mrs Elmes met with the diocesan RE adviser last week. Essex has changed the RE syllabus and this will be in place for September 2022. We will make the necessary changes to our cycles maps / planning. This year, for children in Y1-Y6 all end of year reports will contain an effort grade and attainment standard for all subjects - the only exception being RE due to the change to the syllabus.

Class Australia are very much looking forward to their assembly next Friday as I am sure their parents / carers are too! This will take place in the afternoon at 14:30.

School Games

Cricket

Huge well done to the Y5/6 cricket team (see photo) who walked to Great Waltham Cricket Club on 3 May. They played three matches (8 overs per match):

Match 1 - beat Broomfield by around 50 runs.
Match 2 - lost to New Hall by around 50 runs.
Match 3 - beat The Cathedral School by around 60 runs.

Each player batted for two overs each, losing runs if out and obviously scoring runs when they could. All players had to bowl one over.

Placing 2^nd to New Hall qualifies us for the Chelmsford finals in June.

Mini Wimbledon

On Monday 9th May, 4 children from Year 4 were chosen to play in a tennis tournament.

Billy M, Stuart M-B, Bella G and Eva B went to Marconi Tennis Club in Great Baddow, where they each played 4 short games of tennis against a pool of 4 other schools.

All of the children were excited to be playing in real matches that were overseen by Great Baddow High students.

They all played really well and despite being the only school to have just one team of children, came 4th. Congratulations to Mildmay B team and New Hall A team for going through to the next round.

Great Waltham children all played brilliantly but special mention to Billy who won 3 out of his 4 games!

Next week we have Y6 Bowls at Falcon Bowls Club on Tuesday morning and Y5/6 Rounders at Baddow High on Tuesday in the afternoon. Good luck to the children attending.

All of the Y4 children have Super Stars to look forward to on 23/5/22 also.

Sports Week (20-24 June) is taking shape - we have the following booked:

Sports Week
20th June	Skipping Day District Athletics - Field Events
21st June	Circus Skills
22nd June	Cricket Final - AM Sports Day
23rd June	Teacher led sport activities
24th June	Olympic Athlete Visit - Volleyballer Nathan French

On Tuesday 28/6 we also have Dan Putnam a Commonwealth Games athlete (400m) visiting to meet the pupils.

It promises to be a super week.

Media Group

Viking day

The past week KS2 have studied the Vikings and Anglo-Saxons so a man had come in the school and planned a list of activities including:

Medicine making
Candling making
Bracelet making
Pottery (clay)
Ink making and writing with it
Using paints to write names
Fortune stone crafting
Necklace printing (with foil)

During the afternoon the children had the job of becoming archaeologists and carefully used a paint brush to uncover soil to find the hidden Viking objects.

Everyone took part and enjoyed the experience as well as willingly dressing up!

SATs

This week Y6 also had their SATs exams on maths and GPS topics. It lasted from Monday to Thursday and everyone tried their best – BONUS, Y6 got sweets throughout the tests

Notices

School Lottery - Thank you to all of our lottery supporters! We sold 73 lottery tickets last week. Can you help us reach our target of 100 tickets?

You could win a local prize or even the main £25,000 pot! Also, currently up for grabs is a B&Q Gift Card.

Tickets can be purchased here - School Lottery - Please do let family members and friends know that they too can purchase Lottery tickets and help support the school. Each ticket costs £1 and 40p of this comes directly to the school.

National Online Safety

What Parents Need to Know about YouTube Kids

YouTube Kids is a child-friendly version of YouTube, offering a colourful and easy-to-navigate environment which is suitable for young children. The app is easily accessible and can be downloaded for phones and tablets without needing the YouTube app to be on the device already. Although YouTube Kids is obviously intended to be (and mainly succeeds in being) an extremely child-friendly platform, it has still raised concerns over its advertising policy as well as inappropriate content seeping through the curation process.

In the guide, you'll find tips such as disabling the search option, restricting viewing time and monitoring the watch history.

Click here to enlarge the guide - Guide to - Your Tube Kids

Online Safety for Under 5s: 10 Top Tips for Parents and Carers

According to Ofcom’s most recent research, a significant proportion of children are already online by the time they start school, with 17% of 5-year-olds owning their own mobile phone and 50% using messaging platforms. As becoming familiar with technology is generally encouraged in younger children – and has been essential for education during the pandemic – it is essential that trusted adults recognise both the benefits and the risks of infants and toddlers going online. We’ve compiled our top tips to help the under-5s start their online safety journey.

In the guide, you'll find tips such as managing screen time, block in-app purchases and using devices together.

Click here to enlarge the guide - Guide to - Online safety for under 5's