Wooden Hill Primary and Nursery School Parent Portal - The Wooden Post

31 January 2020

Dear Parents and Carers,

Ask you know, the Friends of Wooden Hill School have been working tirelessly to raise funds to replace our ageing IT equipment in the school. The Christmas Fundraiser raised over £2000 for the one event alone! Since September, the Friends have raised a whopping total of £5336.14. With the money that the PTA already had in the bank, the school have been able to order SIX new interactive boards which will be installed during the half term holiday! Once these are installed, all of the classrooms from Reception through to Year 6 will benefit from the latest technology to support their learning. We still have a long way to go and still need to raise significant funds. On our wish list we still need another 3 boards; for the intervention area and 2 for Nursery; a replacement projector / board for the hall as well as replacing the children’s ipads and trolley and the children’s laptops and trolley.

The next event run by the Friends is a Valentine’s Disco on Friday 14^th February. We have set the date for our summer fundraiser – Saturday 13^th June. As this is the Queen’s official birthday, the event will be royal themed and is sure to be ‘A Right Royal afFAIR’! Details to follow shortly.

In the meantime, please continue to support the school’s fundraising. The easiest way is to remember to use Amazon Smile when purchasing through Amazon. Simply go to smile.amazon.co.uk and enter ‘Wooden Hill Home School Association’ as your chosen charity and a percentage of every purchase you make goes directly to the school with no charge to you! If you know of any other schemes, grants or ways of fundraising please do sign up the school! If you require any details, such as the Friends’ charity number, please do ask at the office.

Yours sincerely,

Mrs Lagares

Please Remember to Park Considerately Around Our School

Despite several reminders, we still have some parents / carers that are not parking considerately. Where possible we encourage that children walk to school. However, should you need to drive to school, please ensure that you park considerately and safely. This will help make sure that we keep congestion to a minimum, maintain good relationships with the school’s neighbours and most importantly help keep children safe around the school.

Thank you for your co-operation.

No Dogs Allowed on School Premises

Please can you refrain from bringing your dogs on to the school premises at any time, this includes carrying them in the school grounds.

If your dog is waiting at the school gate, please ensure they are kept under control at all times.

Thank you for your co-operation.

Reception Roundup

Since the last newsletter Reception have been learning about the solar system, are making information films to show Year One, they know where the largest volcano is, which planet is the smallest, which planet is the hottest, which planet has thin rings and have transformed their classroom into a galaxy odyssey with their planet pictures and paper mache solar system.

This week has been all Chinese. The children have been learning about the Chinese New Year, Chinese celebrations (that links to their Knowledge and Understanding of the World), they have tasted Chinese food, tried using chop sticks, made dragons, had a go at Chinese writing and watched Chinese celebrations on cbeebies!

By the way, did you know that 2020 was the Year of the Rat?

It was great to lots of Mummy’s, Daddy’s and grandparents visit us on Wednesday to learn about Read Write Inc and make busy bags with their children. We hope you found it helpful for when you're working and supporting your child at home.

Year 1 Roundup

The children have really enjoyed art these last couple of weeks, they have made their own dinosaur footprint stencil. They then went on to use their stencils to make a print, changing the orientation and rotation to make paw-tastic pieces of art. This week they have been pressing a print into a polystyrene tile and they then used a roller and rolled paint onto the tiles and pressed them onto paper. It was great fun and quite messy!

This week the children have now started their Science learning and have looked at herbivore, carnivore and omnivore and are able to say which animal is which. We enjoyed sorting animals into groups and discussing what we like to eat.

Year 2 Round Up

Year 2 would like to say a big thank you to those who came to the 'Reading at Home' session this afternoon. The children loved the opportunity to show off how we learn to read in school, and what you can do at home to support them.
Some parents have said:
"It was helpful seeing the children in their working environment."
""It was good to hear about different ways to get children reading."
"It was very informative with tips we can do at home - especially asking questions during reading!"
Please use the link below to access the information from the talk.

Reading at Home Session - PDF File

Over the last four weeks, the children have been learning how to multiply and divide successfully. To understand how to multiply, we have been calling it the 'lots of' sign. This way, when children read a multiplication number sentence (2 x 3 =) they would say "two lots of three is the same as..."

This week, the children have moved onto division. To begin with, they looked into sharing and grouping an amount using a range of resources to first understand the concept and have now moved on to using jottings in our workbooks to support us.

Year 3/4 Roundup

Every Friday the children in Beech team get to use a picture to spark their imaginations and write in a style of their choice about that picture, and they are loving their Free Write Fridays!

The children in Year 3 have been looking at division and exploring sharing tens and ones into equal groups with an exchange and sometimes their sharing into equal groups also meant there was a remainder left and we have been using different resources to show this.

Year 5 Roundup

Year Five have been busy rewriting the extract of The Secret Garden they have been reading. To make the writing their own, the children have changed the animal Mary makes friends with from a robin to an animal of their choice. As you can see from the examples (below & right), the children did an excellent job.

In Science the children have continued to learn about different materials. They have investigated three different properties: hardness, electrical conductivity and magnetism and as part of the investigation, the children were taught how to write a successful conclusion using their results to support.

The Berkshire Maestros have been teaching the children how to play guitar this half term, they are only on their second lesson but are already learning their second song!

Year 6 Update

Last week saw the children busy with it being their test week! In art the children were using viewfinders to focus on the detail within William Morris designs. In science, they studied Charles Darwin and his findings from the Galapagos Islands and In history, the children have been looking back into Bracknell's history,

This week saw a lot of the children taking part in Bikeability. Throughout the week, children were taken out to complete approximately seven and a half hours worth of cycling training.

To begin, children cycled around the playground, practising key skills such as turning, stopping and signalling.

Once the children had mastered these skills, they were taken out onto some roads to put their learning into practice.

The children had a great week doing Bikeability and learnt a lot. After the final session (Thursday 30th January), the instructors praised the children on their behaviour, confidence and willingness to learn.

We are incredibly proud of each and every child who took part and hope they all learnt lots about being safe when cycling on the roads.

~ Notices and Reminders ~

School Lunches - Reminder

If your child's lunch account is greater than £10.00, you will need to provide a packed lunch each day until the arrears have been cleared.

School Calendar

Please check the calendar on the school website for future dates and events. You can subscribe to our calendar by clicking the “Subscribe” button. By doing so, this will display all events on your phone or tablet.