What a productive and busy Spring term we had at Birdwell Primary School. Our support from HCAT along with Mrs. Paddock's leadership has had an immediate impact on school improvement. The opportunity for support from colleagues and the resources that are available in the Trust has meant a wealth of training opportunities for our staff and a much richer experience for our pupils.
Dates for the diary
Freddie Fit: Thursday 28th April
Bank Holiday: Monday 2nd May
Year 6 SATS: Monday 9th May to Thursday 12th May
Young Voices: Friday 13th May
Year 2 SATS: Monday 16th May to Friday 27th May
TT Rockstars- Battle of the Bands: Friday 20th May
Half Term Break: Monday 30th May to Friday 3rd June
Year 4 Times Table Test: Monday 6th June to Friday 10th June
Year 1 Phonics Screening Check: Monday 6th June to Friday 10th June
Easter Coffee Morning
Our Easter Coffee morning marked the first time that we have been able to invite parents into school for an event in almost 3 years! It was a pleasure to see you all and the children loved being able to perform to an audience rather than a video camera!
The event was a huge fund-raising success as well. We raised a total of £280 from the event! Thanks to your generosity, our school council will be able to invest this money in equipment for all of the pupils to use on the playground and the field, at break times. Thank you all very much!
There are also several prizes still unclaimed from the Easter Raffle. If the tickets in the photo belong to you then come and claim your prize at the school office!
Responding to your feedback
All of our recent newsletters have invited parents to tell us what we are doing well and what we can improve. Feedback form all of you has led to the following changes:
• School entrances. Following lockdown, many parents told us that they preferred the separate entrances that the bubbles created as it gave them chance to see staff face to face at pick up or drop off time. There is a member of staff available to speak to at each entrance and individual staff will always be available on request. Please bear in mind that we are a small school and if you don’t see a member of staff, they are likely taking a register and starting lessons inside.
• The school has a new website. We were asked to simplify our online presence and not have too many locations to keep track of. We have a much simpler, easier to navigate site with more content relevant to our community. The latest school meals menus, latest newsletters and up to date information about school. Our old, Edublogs sites are now discontinued and the new home of the class blogs can all now be found here. Please visit birdwellprimary.co.uk to see the new site.
• We have a Twitter account. One of the most frequently raised subjects from parents involved our lack of social media presence. We will be using Twitter to showcase events, news and to encourage visits to our website. We are also keen to use the platform to establish links with local businesses and events to allow us to broaden the range of opportunities we offer to our pupils. Please follow us at @primarybirdwell to see the latest goings-off!
All these changes in platform have inevitably led to hiccups in communication while the staff and community get used to using them. A few messages have gone out on one platform but not another meaning they were missed by some of you. Our current goal is to ensure consistency of communication, making sure that important messages go out across the different platforms together.
Film Club
Birdwell Chapel have begun to host a series of Film Club evenings. There are events for adults as well as children. The first children’s movie is Peter Rabbit, showing at 6:00pm on Friday 13th May. The chapel has been kind enough to donate 10 free tickets to school. We can offer these on a first-come, first-served basis for any pupils wishing to attend.
Support Barnsley Youth Choir
BYC are touring to perform at the Edinburgh fringe. Sadly, they know that many of their members cannot afford to go and they need help.
They hope to take over 170 children to Edinburgh, 12 of those attend HCAT primary schools. The cost covers travel, accommodation, food, venue and insurance. As a trust we are committed to supporting BYC in ensuring they do go and that there isn’t a barrier for them.
By raising £250 we will be able to support a young person with the costs. BYC have sourced a crowd funder project which means for every £250 we raise it will be match funded- meaning that 2 children would be able to go! This means that if we raise £1500 across all of our primary schools, all our BYC HCAT pupils can go! Anything additional to this supports other children to go. What an achievement!
Little Wandle Phonics
Our new phonics scheme, Little Wandle, lauched this week. Our Reception pupils have started their Little Wandle lessons and new books are going home to all Reception pupils on Wednesday. Year 1 will move across to the scheme once they have completed their Phonics Screening Test, this term.
TT Rockstars: Battle of the Bands!
Our TT rockstars day was a huge success and really raised the profile of timestables and maths across the school. More importantly, we got to see Mr Crouch dressed as Axel Rose!
What else could we do but go bigger and better this time around? Put your bandana through the wash and dust off your air guitar, its…, TT Rock Stars, Battle Of The Bands!!!
Children can dress up as a Rockstar and earn points throughout the day by playing on any TTRS game. Each class will also record their own Times Table based rock song. All of the activities on the day are worth points and these will be scored against all of the other schools in the HCAT trust! Come on Birdwell…let’s (timestable) ROCK!!!
Friday 20th May starting at 8am and finishing at 4pm.
Credits:
Created with images by Zamurovic Brothers - "Creative layout made with snowdrop flowers on bright blue background. Flat lay. Spring minimal concept." • Bits and Splits - "Woman drinking coffee and writing a diary note" • Anna - "Happy Easter. Congratulatory easter background. Easter eggs and flowers. Background with copy space. Selective focus." • Jérôme Rommé - "Post-it speech bubbles : feedback" • 22091967 - "Burlap with dollar banknotes on gray background. Bribe or bonus concept." • globalmoments - "Alphabet blocks spelling the words read and phonics in front of a bookshelf" • Krasimira Nevenova - "I Love Rock And Roll Concept"