Dear Woodslee Families,

Spring has truly sprung at Woodslee and we have enjoyed a fantastic half-term in our new year, 2023. 

We are so proud of our children and the efforts we have observed in their writing, their maths, and their spelling. There have been many successes in their learning and if you scroll through this newsletter, you will see all of the fantastic knowledge and skills our children are acquiring through learning our Woodslee curriculum. The behaviour of our learners has been exceptional.

It is always such a pleasure to pop into learning time in classrooms and listen to your children read; we expect our children to read just a little every day, even during the half term so that we don’t lose that momentum of learning.

Your child’s termly report will be shared with you in Spring Term 2 from w/c Monday 6th March and Pupil Progress Conferences are on the afternoon of the 31st of March (details below). The termly reports are our way of sharing how your child is progressing through the academic year, and the high expectations we have for your child and they let you know how your child is getting. Thank you so much for your support and feedback!

Our class assemblies are the children’s chance to share with you the different subjects that they learn, but if you ever wish to have a check in and chat with your child’s class teacher, please do contact our school office so you can look at your child’s books and visit their classroom.

Thank you so much for your attendance at our Love Learning Event – we had the highest number of parents we‘ve had since running our Parent afternoons here at Woodslee. We look forward to welcoming you in the future.

Your child will come home today with a plain white t-shirt and a sponsorship form ready for World Book Day when the children will ‘bounce with their book.’ The children are to decorate their t-shirts to celebrate their favourite book, fictional character, or something to match the theme of this year’s World Book Day: You are a Reader. The children in last year’s Pupil Parliament came up with this idea as they wanted it to be fair for all children so that everyone could get involved in celebrating their favourite book. Thank you to our incredibly dedicated PTA who have purchased these T-Shirts for every child so that we can make this happen.

Squirrel Club is available during all half term holidays including the Christmas break, so if you wish for your child to attend, please give Mr Carrington a call to book a place: 07808248555.

Important Dates for your diaries

We look forward to welcoming our children back to school on Monday 27th February 2023 at 8:50 am.  

Our A-Corner Shop will be available during the half-term break as Squirrel Club is running every day 7:30-6:00 pm so please grab a bag and pop in to stock up on those essentials! 

As always, a big thank you to all of you. The way in which you speak so positively about our children and how we do things at Woodslee has been reflected in the increased numbers of our Nursery provision which is now full and we have welcomed eight new pupils to our Woodslee family this half-term. Thank you, everyone! Woodslee sure is the place to be! 

A big thank you to all of our parent volunteers and staff who made our discos an absolute triumph this week! We are so blessed to have you as part of our community and your input helps every child at Woodslee to thrive. 

Miss Kelly has welcomed a very healthy, beautiful baby boy. We are still awaiting the name but I am happy to report that mother and baby are doing well. Congratulations to Miss Kelly, her partner and her family on this wonderful news.

Thank you to Mr Marshall and Miss Kirkby, our teaching students. They have made positive relationships with so many of our pupils and have learnt so much from being a part of the community at Woodslee. We wish you luck in your next placement at Co-op Academy Portland. We welcome two new student teachers after half term, fresh from Co-op Academy Portland, Mr Harrison who will be supporting the learning within Year 4 and Miss Burns who will be with Reception class. 

Thank you to you, our families and Woodslee community, your feedback from our parental survey was overwhelmingly supportive. I am really encouraged to meet with you to talk about our approach to home learning, our approach to anti-bullying and behaviour, the ways in which we report your child’s progress with you and how we share valuable information from the school about your child’s progress.

I wish you all a wonderful Spring Half Term. Please look after yourselves and each other.

Susannah McShane

Headteacher

Apple Class

This half-term Apple Class has loved welcoming new friends into our class. 

We have all enjoyed learning about the world and polar regions and when it snowed we got to experience what it would be like to live in the cold weather all the time like Rory in our story. We decided we were happy in England! Apple class has been reading ‘Rory: Quest for the Northern Lights’ by Carmen Ellis and Sarah Cullen. 

We have loved retelling the story using puppets, making bridges and ladders in the construction area to save the arctic fox, who fell through the ice and making cards and letters to send to Rory to tell him all about ourselves.   We have been developing our fine motor skills, painting pictures of the earth and penguins, whilst looking at the colours we need and mixing them ourselves.

We have two new members in our class, Miss Count and King Count, both are not very good at maths and so we have had to teach them a lot about counting. We have been showing them that the last number that you say when you count is the amount you have and that it is easier to line up smaller items so you can point to each one as you count.

We met Smartie the penguin this half term who told us about how to be safe when we are online.  His Mum taught us a song to keep us safe and remind us not to click on things without an adult.

Blossom Class 

In Blossom Class this half term we have been reading the story ‘The Snail and the Whale’ by Julia Donaldson.  We have enjoyed writing postcards from different places around the world and learning about the countries that the snail and the whale visited.  

As part of our topic on Polar Regions, we have been looking at different habitats and ways in which animals can keep warm. We discovered that the Arctic fox has the warmest fur and lives in burrows. 

Seals and whales have blubber to help them keep warm in the icy ocean. We learned how to keep ourselves warm when it is cold and we have been practising fastening our own coats.

We have also learned how water can change to ice when it is really cold and when it gets warmer, the ice melts and turns back to a liquid.

In PE, we have been learning gymnastics through our topics High, Low, Over, and Under. We have learned to hold a pike, tuck, star or straight balance for at least 4 seconds and how to move like champion gymnasts. We have practised our skills going over or under some equipment.

On Number Day, Blossom class used numicon to count and make dotty patterns on butterflies.

Willow Class

In Year 1 this term we have been reading ‘The Lion Inside’ by Rachel Bright and working hard on building our sentences; beginning to include suffixes in our writing. 

In Maths we have learned all about fractions and numbers up to 20. 

We are getting really good at recognising our ‘fact families’ and have started using the Base 10 apparatus to help us work out tens and ones. 

We had a lot of fun on Numbers Day, working in teams on a Maths scavenger hunt around the classroom and improving our number fluency on Numbots!                           

Our Science lessons this term have been all about the properties of everyday materials. We have investigated how different materials look and feel, and we really enjoyed exploring how stretchy different materials are! 

Our visits from Bruno were the highlights of our term; we loved brushing him and playing ball outside with him. 

We have also been learning about Hanukkah during RE and created some incredible pieces of digital artwork in our Computing topic. 

What a fun and exciting term we have had. We are looking forward to our new topics next term!

Cherry Class

Cherry class has had a fantastic half-term full of learning and fun!

Our half-term started off with a very exciting, if a bit nerve-wracking, invasion of dragons in our classroom! Children have delved into the world of ‘The Dragon Machine’ by Wayne Anderson and have focused on making their writing more interesting by using a mixture of statements, questions, commands, and exclamations.

In Science, we have been exploring habitats, microhabitats, and the dependency between plants and animals. We loved exploring the different habitats within our school grounds and couldn’t believe how many minibeasts we found hiding underneath a rotten log!

We have been very busy in Maths learning all about measuring. We discussed the average temperatures in each season, measured the mass of our classroom objects, and perfected our skills in measuring length with rulers and metre sticks. Children have loved our ‘money’ topic and remembered so much from Year 1 to help them. Year 2 have continued to develop their fluency in counting in 2s, 5s, and 10s. Well done to all children who are accessing Numbots and TTRS to help!

Cherry class have particularly enjoyed our topic on activists in History and have been inspired by the work of both Rosa Parks and Malala Yousafzai to stand up for what is right.

Year 2 have become computer experts, tackling logging into Chromebooks and creating both art and music with technology! Children have shown fantastic digital skills using ‘Chrome Music Lab’.

In RE, children have learned all about Muslim prayer and the commitment it takes to pray five times a day. Year 2 considered their own personal commitments, the challenges that they face, and how to overcome these.

Rowan Class – Spring 1

When they returned from their Christmas break, the children were delighted to discover that snow had fallen in January! They had a wonderful time wrapping up warmly and playing in the snow.

Our Science topic was  ‘Humans and Other Animals’ and during their learning, children found out about a balanced meal using the NHS Eatwell Plate. Children were surprised to discover how much sugar is in some of their favourite foods! They then went on to learn scientific names for many of the bones in the human body and to investigate how muscles help us to move. 

In maths, our focus has been on multiplication and division, using practical and formal methods to solve calculations.  Well done for practising your times tables every day! By the end of Year 3, children need to have instant recall of the 2x, 3x, 4x, 5x, 8x, and 10x tables. Please use some of the half-term break to brush up on your tables knowledge on TTRockstars.

Our history theme this half term was ‘The Stone Age’ and we learned a lot about this period of history in a thematic, cross-curricular way. Children studied the book “The Stone Age Boy,” by Satoshi Kitamuraand wrote their own stories based upon what they had read. In art, they imitated cave art with charcoal and made their own clay pots, just like their ancient ancestors used to! In history, children interrogated primary and secondary sources to find out more about life in the Stone Age, and in P.E. they created their own Stone Age-inspired dances.

In music, children have been studying pieces of classical music that they will see being performed when they visit the Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra on 13th March. They created their own soundscapes in response to the pieces they listened to, using tuned and untuned percussion instruments.  

It was an absolute pleasure to welcome so many parents, grandparents, aunties, and uncles into our class assembly so children could share their RE learning all about Islam. Although the children were feeling nervous, they spoke confidently and performed with gusto!  To wrap up the half term, Rowan class was rewarded for their hard work with a movie night. Children snuggled up and enjoyed their popcorn and sweet treats whilst they watched the Stone Age movie ‘The Croods”. 

I hope you all have a good rest over half term- you certainly deserve it! I can not wait to welcome you back all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed ready for the rest of our Spring term. 

Birch Class

We have had a spectacular start to a New Year in Birch Class and the children have shown huge progress and resilience. In English, some of our children have been reading all about Greek Mythology and wrote their very own myths. Others have been reading ‘Stone Age Boy’ and enjoyed learning about how people lived during the Stone Age period. 

In maths, the children have been working super hard and have shown huge progress. They have been investigating water temperatures using thermometers, practising their number recognition, and adding improper fractions! They have enjoyed using concrete manipulatives to solve problems and even started looking at the value of money. 

They have been learning all about how crime and punishment have evolved in History and have shown a real interest in this topic. In PSHE, they have been focusing on the meaning of ‘respect’ and what it looks like for themselves and in our wider society. They have also enjoyed learning new games which require listening skills, such as Uno! 

Birch Class loved their Music session with RA Music, they loved learning how to play the different instruments and made the most talented band. They have also been busy cooking this half-term, from flapjack to homemade chicken nuggets and chips. Birch Class are becoming more and more confident in the kitchen each week!  Have a lovely half-term break and I look forward to seeing you all when we return for another half-term of growing, learning, and laughing!

Hazel Class

We have had another incredible half-term in Hazel Class and the children have started the New Year off superbly! After the Christmas break, they returned eager to learn and determined to try their best and they have done a brilliant job in promoting positive behaviours around our academy. I am so proud of you year 4, keep spreading kindness wherever you go! 

We have continued with our topic on multiplication and division this term and the children are able to use the column method to multiply three-digit numbers and the bus stop method to divide. We even managed to solve some really tricky problems using brackets, giving the children a taste of how to solve multi-step problems and they did it so well that they demanded even harder questions!! It has been great to see some of our year 4 children attending the TTRS club and booster club every week and these will continue after the half-term break. If your child would like to come to booster club every Wednesday 3.30 pm-4.15 pm then please let me know at the door, this is for year 4 only and it is a great way to boost skills in maths, reading, and writing. 

With our multiplication check fast approaching in the summer term, please continue to encourage your child to regularly play on TTRS.

Here are some other websites that the children are familiar with that will help them with their times tables and number bonds to 100:

Home – new design – updates v1

https://www.topmarks.co.uk/maths-games/hit-the-button

https://urbrainy.com/mtc

In English, we have been reading Escape to Pompeii, a tale of two characters fleeing for their lives to escape the deadly eruption of Mount Vesuvius. The children have engaged in a range of drama activities that have allowed them to put themselves into the role of the main characters and this has inspired some fabulous pieces of writing. Furthermore, in our reading sessions we have been learning lots of interesting facts about volcanoes around the world and one of our students even brought in a souvenir from Mount Etna in Italy!

It has been wonderful to see so many children bringing in items linked with our topic, extra work they have completed at home, and awards they have been given for their extracurricular activities, so keep them coming! 

In science, year 4 had lots of fun using disclosing tablets to see how much plaque had built up on their teeth throughout the morning and they learned how to keep their teeth healthy, as well as the names and functions of the different teeth they have. Hazel class have also been learning all about their digestive system and how the different parts work together to break down the food that they eat. We even took part in an experiment to see exactly how our food travels through our bodies. The children had lots of giggles as they compared different types of animal poo at our love learning event to sort into their classification charts and I hope the parents did too! 

We have been very lucky to continue our work with LFC, developing our basketball skills in PE and we have joined forces with them to work on the #iwill project, a youth social action project that will allow our pupils to give back and inspire the local community. More information to come. 

Finally, just when you thought that the children couldn’t possibly be squeezing any more fun into their week, we enjoyed acorn time every Friday. This term, we have been learning all about hedgehogs and the ways we can help protect them from dangers in the wild. The children have been designing their very own hedgehog shelters and it has been impossible to select our favourite so we have decided to merge together different ideas to make an epic shelter that will keep our spikey friends warm and safe from harm. Updates to follow next term. The children have loved spending time in the outdoor area, foraging for different materials, learning all about different trees, and hanging the natural bird feeders that they made. Aren’t they great!

For more information on how you can help protect hedgehogs please visit:

https://www.wildlifetrusts.org/what-do-if-you-find-wild-animal/help-hedgehog

Year 4 have also been learning to play the violin in music each week and the children can now name the strings, pluck them and use the bow to change between them to mimic the melodies of the songs they have learned. We can’t wait to showcase this to you all very soon! 

Have a lovely half-term break and I look forward to seeing you all when we return!

Holly Class 

This term, Holly class have adapted really well to their new teacher, showing Mr. Prescott how wonderful they can work and how lovely they are as a year group.

In English, we have explored the mythology of Norse gods! From this, the children have developed their writing skills and imagination by creating their own mythological story, creating heroes, villains, magical objects, and settings. Some children used the knowledge of Norse gods in their stories, such as Loki, Thor, and Odin.

In maths, Year 5 have had some tricky fraction questions, which over time, everyone has shown some real improvement in. We have also explored bus, train, and other forms of timetables, trying to gather whatever information we can from them. This is a really important life skill.

In PE, the children have learned about different forms of dancing, such as robotic dancing and ballet. Whilst learning these new and unique skills, they have managed to develop their own dances and perform to each other in their chosen style. They also picked their own songs to match the tone of their dance. Well done, Year 5!

In our History lessons, going all the way back to the Romans, Year 5 has discovered the horrifying forms of punishment given to those that committed even the smallest of crimes. We have moved through history and explored several eras of crime and punishment techniques. Let’s hope none of these punishments return!

Finally, in Art, Holly Class has delved deep into the work of Nick Park (the creator of Wallace and Gromit) and filmed their very own stop-motion animation video! This topic was not an easy one and we encountered several problems with our creative process. In the end, all of Year 5 created a really impressive stop-motion video.

Well done on a great half term Year 5, you have proven to be an intelligent and thoughtful class. The year ahead should be a great one!

Oak Class 

As always, Year 6 has had an extremely busy half-term! As well as our hard work in our day-to-day lessons, we have had a range of extra-curricular opportunities to enhance our knowledge!

This week, we have been fortunate to have a fun-filled week with the Merseyside Police ‘Mini Pathfinders’ project where we have learned all about staying safe in our community, how to keep ourselves protected online, and even how to rap our feelings and thoughts! The children were so brave with the reptile session, they stepped out of their comfort zone to face their fears, becoming more resilient and confident in the process. They even gained a level 1 in First Aid – how amazing! 

Through our English work, we have studied two texts from Oscar Wilde, ‘The Selfish Giant’ and ‘The Happy Prince’ both texts allowed the pupils to reflect on the morals some stories provide us with and how they can impact our everyday lives and how everything isn’t always as it seems. Through these texts, we were able to create descriptive story writing and some brilliant newspaper reports using a range of cohesive devices; we are so proud of their writing this half term! 

In our mathematics work, we have worked extremely hard on finding out how to convert between different measurements from kilograms to grams, litres to millilitres, and many more. I have been impressed by the children’s knowledge of percentages and how to increase/decrease a given amount by a certain percentage. Keep going Year 6! 

In history, we have looked at the influence of the ancient civilization of Islam and its centre of Baghdad. We discovered the House of Wisdom and how it still influences items we use every day! Through RE, we delved deeper into the Christian religion and enjoyed a visit from Darren from the Bromborough Evangelical Church who answered all of our questions on our topic ‘is anything eternal?’

In science, Y6 explored our topic of light and built upon our knowledge of circuits. It was fantastic to see so many parents at our Science Love Learning event this term. We loved learning about refraction and how lenses can change the way we see things. 

In PE we have had a range of different activities to keep us active. As part of our transition to secondary school, Co-op Academy Bebington joined us for 6 weeks to give us an insight into different inclusive sports. The children were fantastic and got stuck in with the competitions we took part in at their Academy as well as ours. 

Overall, we have had a fantastic half term; we can’t wait to see what the next term has in store for us!