Happy New Year!

It's been a short week, but it’s certainly been a great week!

In our assembly this week, we reflected on what a New Year means to us and how others celebrate the New Year across the world. Did you know that in Spain, people often eat 12 grapes on New Years Eve? Apparently, it is supposed to bring a year of good luck. We discussed how people often use the start of the New Year to set themselves goals and challenges. We thought carefully about how we can make sure these goals are achievable and something that we can stick to.

The children have been set a challenge to make a resolution linked to our Bridge Values of being creative, curious, responsible, enthusiastic, excellent and determined. These resolutions are going to be displayed on our school ‘resolution tree’ and we are going to catch up with the children throughout the year, to see how they are getting on. Here are some of the children’s very thoughtful aims for the next year….

Determined: To take my morning work home on a Friday and work on the bits I find hard.

Excellent: I want to be an excellent reader. I am going to read 2 pages of my book, 3 times a week until my birthday in August.

Determined: I am going to learn 3 new notes on my guitar this year.

Responsible: I will help my Mummy to do the dishes once a week.

This afternoon we celebrated the ten year anniversary of Bridge Schools Trust. It was a chance for the whole Trust to come together (virtually) and celebrate all that we have achieved as a collection of schools. Each school had put together a short animation to demonstrate a trust value and we also heard from children across the trust about what makes their school special and how it feels to be a part of the Bridge Schools Trust team. Lily and Oscar (from our Pupil Leadership Team) represented the school marvellously.

Have a great weekend. Who knows, it may even stop raining!

Best wishes,

Mrs Lee- Elkins

Acting Headteacher

What a fantastically festive few weeks we have had at Wadebridge Primary!

Our festive season started with the most delicious Christmas dinner, cooked by our brilliant Caterlink Team. Thank you so much to our cooks and our parent helpers who came to decorate the school hall and make the occasion feel very special for the children. Thanks to the most wonderful donations from a local company, the children were also able to take home a toy. Our Rainbow Room was decorated as ‘Santa’s Grotto’ and the children were able to choose from a great selection of toys. It was so great to hear the children talking about how they are looking forward to enjoying the board games with their families over Christmas.

Our Reception and Nursery classes put together the most magical little performances and it was so brilliant to see so many families in school, enjoying the celebrations with their children. The EYFS team were able to raise a great amount of money to help improve their outdoor classrooms. Thank you for all of your support.

Our Year 1 and Year 2 children put together a great Christmas show called ‘Christmas with the Aliens’. It would be an understatement to say this was OUT OF THIS WORLD! The costumes, dances, songs and acting skills were simply marvellous. Well done Key Stage One!

The Year 3,4,5 and 6 children sang their hearts out at Egloshayle Church last week too. It is such a special tradition and we are so grateful to Miss Day (Marguerite), who came to play for us. The Church was packed full and we were able to raise a great amount of money for The Grace Project. Thank you so much to everyone at Egloshayle Church for hosting the event.

Amongst us we certainly have some great performers! The Drama and Choir Club, with lots of support from Mrs Reeve and Miss Johnston, put together the most amazing show, ‘Cinderella and Rockerfella’. Despite only having around 45 minutes per week to rehearse, it was a fantastic show! The children should feel incredibly proud of themselves. Whether they were singing, dancing, acting, making props or in control of the lighting, they all played an important role in putting together such an entertaining performance. Mrs Reeve and Miss Johnston have certainly started a new tradition. I can’t wait to see what they have up their sleeves for next Christmas!

In addition to the classroom parties, card making and crafts, all children have enjoyed a trip to the cinema too, to enjoy a festive movie called ‘Arthur Christmas’. Thank you to everyone who was able to make a payment via ParentPay and thank you to all of our lovely Parent Helpers who walked with us.

There is one final treat to look forward to…. The WPA Staff Panto! Every year, the staff get together to perform a Christmas Panto for the children. It could certainly be described as a little ‘ad hoc’ (given the 20 minutes that teachers have to prepare!), but the children have an absolute blast. After all of the children’s hard work this term, it’s only fair that they get to sit back and enjoy a performance from their teachers!
Please remember that the children will be finishing slightly earlier tomorrow, 1pm for EYFS/KS1 and 1.15pm for KS2. 

As we start to come to the end of the Autumn Term, I wanted to take this opportunity to thank you all for your support. Primary school should be about having wonderful experiences and making memories with our friends (amongst great learning too!), and thanks to the hard work of everyone, that is exactly what has happened this term. There have been many ‘magical moments’ over the last few weeks.

Wadebridge Primary is made up with a fantastic community of children, staff and families who all work together to ensure that the children ‘Learn, Thrive and Excel’. We have achieved so much this year already and there is lots to look forward to in the new year, when we all return on Thursday 4th January.

I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas break and find some time to rest and relax, amongst this busy time of year.

Warm wishes,

Mrs Lee- Elkins

PS This afternoon we had a wonderful group of singers from The Wadebridge Choral Society who performed Christmas Carols for us. They were songs that the children could sing a long to. What a way to end our final assembly of the year together!
The Choral Society meet at WPA every Tuesday evening. Please do come along and join them! 

http://www.wadebridgechoral.org.uk/ 

This term, as part of our Global Neighbours accreditation, Y6 have been learning all about Fairtrade. They have been working hard to become 'change makers' who make a difference in our school community. 
They have empowered themselves and others with some powerful knowledge about the importance of Fairtrade and the impact that Fairtrade can make on many lives across the world. Last week I even received an incredibly thought provoking letter from both Y6 classes to ensure that Fairtrade products are used in the staff room as much as possible. Some pupils have also written to the local Tesco Supermarket to encourage them to stock a greater selection of Fairtrade goods.
After school this week the Fairtrade team have baked and sold Fairtrade treats to raise money and also awareness. With each sale, the children gave out informative leaflets about small changes that we can all make. 
These pupils are a credit to our school and certainly bring our Trust value of being responsible, to life. 

Next week sees the start of the many Christmas events, so dust off those Christmas jumpers and let the festivities begin! Here is a quick summary of the events and the Christmas Newsletter is below with more detailed information. 

Tuesday 5th- Christmas Fun Run. Everyone in PE kits please! 
Wednesday 6th- Christmas Jumper (with school uniform) and Christmas dinner day. 
Friday 8th- Y1 and Y2 Performance to parents 
Monday 11th- Y1 and Y2 Performance to parents
Monday 11th- Rockerfella Performance (Drama Club) 
Tuesday 12th- Y3 and Y4 Carol Concert at Egloshayle Church
Wednesday 13th- Y5 and Y6 Carol Concert at Egloshayle Church
Wednesday 13th- EYFS Christmas Event
Thursday 14th- Christmas Party Day. Children are welcome to come to school in party clothes. 
Friday 15th- KS2 Cinema 
Monday 18th- Rec and KS1 Cinema
Tuesday 19th- Staff Christmas Panto!
Tuesday 19th- Early finish. 

Thank you to everyone who has purchased FOWPA raffle tickets. There are lots of spares in the office, should you need them. 

Finally, please do have a watch our Christmas video. This year, every school in the Bridge Schools Trust were asked to make an advent video that could be shared across the other schools. Mr O'Dwyer used his iPad skills to put together this masterpiece. The children LOVED watching the video in the assembly on Friday and I promise you that Christmas is my favourite time of the year! I feel some Oscar Awards coming up for some of our staff!

I hope you all have a great weekend. I am sure there will be lots of Christmas tree decorating taking place! 

Best wishes, 

Mrs Lee- Elkins 
Acting Head Teacher 

I am going to keep this blog quite short, as this week we have sent home a HUGE Christmas newsletter full of dates and information. This is also attached below too. I am quite aware that keeping up with emails and newsletters, at this time of the year, must be quite tricky but we always like to give as much notice as possible of the exciting events taking place. 

It has been great seeing so many of you at the Parent Consultations this week! I hope that you enjoyed hearing about and celebrating your child's progress. For those of you who came on the Wednesday evening, I do hope you enjoyed sampling some of the food provided by Caterlink. There were lots of parents who were quite pleased that they no longer had to cook dinner! Thank you to everyone who took a few minutes to complete the questionnaire. I am really looking forward to reading about the positive aspects of school life at WPA, along with any suggestions for improvement.

I would like to direct you to a website which supports families to ensure that devices at home are safely set up to protect your child. The internet is an incredible tool, but we must also ensure our children can access it safely. Online Safety features prominently  in our PSHE curriculum and your support with this at home is so important too. Please visit this website which gives really clear instructions about how to set up restrictions on devices. You can choose which device you are using (iPhone, Android etc), so that the instructions are personalised. Thank you for your support with this.

 https://www.internetmatters.org/parental-controls/

Have a wonderful weekend!

Mrs Lee- Elkins 

It seems rather early, but this week the School Hall was filled with the sound of Christmas songs, as KS1 and KS2 start to prepare for their Christmas Performances. Even though it's still November, the singing sounded wonderful and certainly put a smile on my face! Last week you will have received a letter about the many events happening in December. Please do add those dates to your calendars as we love to see as many families as possible at the Christmas events. Over the next week you will receive another letter about the Christmas Lunches, Cinema Trip etc. 

Sometimes it amazes me how much we squeeze into a week. This week alone we have had a visit from Barnardo's, Y1 have been baking bread, Y6 have taken part in a Football Competition, Bikeability and a Global Neighbours assembly from the School Council, amongst many other great learning opportunities. It's no wonder we are all exhausted by Friday! 

This week I was really excited to have a visit from Stanley in Y5 to show me his Geography learning. The presentation was impressive and so was Stanley's knowledge. Well done Stan! Our Governors spent Wednesday afternoon visiting classrooms and talking to children about their learning. They were really impressed with how articulate the children were and how positively they were able to reflect on their learning. 

Shining Stars will take place in classrooms today, rather than in assembly. In assembly we will be thinking about Remembrance Day together, as a school. We will hold a 2 minute silence and some of Y6 Pupil Leadership Team are going to read their poetry to mark the event. 

Next week we are looking forward to Parents' Evening on Wednesday and Thursday. If you have not yet made an appointment, please do. If you are having any difficulties, please do contact the school office. Please remember that there will be no teacher led after school clubs next week. 

Next Week is 'Anti Bullying Week'. On Monday, the children invited into school wearing odd socks to help us celebrate what makes us all unique. Mrs Orme will talk about this in Monday's assembly and teachers will continue this discussion throughout the week. There is a poster below with more information.

Finally, our current whole school attendance is 95% which is better than this time last year. This is great news! Attendance will continue to be a focus for us at Wadebridge Primary and where attendance is lower than expected, we will work with everyone on a very personal basis to support you. At the Parents' Evening this week you will be given a copy of your child's current attendance certificate. 

See you all next week! 

Mrs Lee-Elkins 

Well, what a start to the term! I wanted to start the blog this week with a big thank you for your understanding and patience on Thursday morning, when we delayed the opening of school, due to the storm. Staff who travel from outside of Wadebridge, were finding it difficult to get in due to closed roads and we also had a large tree on the road in to school that was very unsafe. With every gust of wind, the tree swayed a little further in the wrong direction and the roots made the ground raise! Our fantastic Caretaker (Mr Holt), with help from the Trust, were able to arrange for Lanhydrock Gardening services to get to us really quickly and cut the tree, meaning that we could safely open the road again. The Lanhydrock Team removed some other dangerous trees from across our site too. Closing the school is never an easy decision to make, but the safety of children, families and staff must always be a priority. Once the school reopened at 10:30am, it was business as usual and the great learning across the school was able to recommence.

It has been great being back in school this week. I have had many visitors to my office (3 today already!) to share their learning and it's great to see the children so proud of their achievements. Shining Stars this week are all about kindness- I can't wait to hear all about the kind children in our school, in the assembly later today!

This week we also held our second Coffee Morning for parents of children with additional needs. We hope that parents enjoyed this opportunity to meet with our new SENDCo (Mr Smith) and chat to other parents. We will keep you posted with the next date, which will be after Christmas.

Global Citizenship
This year, as a school, we are developing 'Global Citizenship'. Mrs Orme is leading the way with this and here is some further information.

This term at WPA we have been exploring what it means to be a responsible Global Citizen. This comes as part of the Global Neighbours scheme which is an exciting school accreditation scheme. In partnership with the Church of England's Education Office, we want to encourage a deeper understanding of global injustice and equip our pupils to tackle this and become courageous advocates for change. Here are some of the things we have achieved in our first 6 weeks of this year:

• Newly appointed Eco-councilors who have completed a detailed audit of how environmentally friendly our school is and have written an action plan to move forward.
  
• Organised a huge community donation to the Wadebridge Food Bank, linked to our learning about Harvest Festival
• Embarked on a Year 6 project to raise awareness about Fairtrade and Cocoa Life, within our community. We are looking forward to inviting our families in for several events to educate people about the importance of Fairtrade.
  
• Celebrated Black History Month (October) where we learnt about the contribution Black communities and individuals have made over the centuries, in shaping the dynamic and diverse country we have today.
  
• Newly appointed School councillors and pupil leaders have planned and delivered a whole school assembly about Global Citizenship and what it means to be a responsible Global Citizen

We have a lot more planned over the course of the year! We aim to increase our children’s understanding of the root causes of poverty and injustice, as well as engage and empower pupils as agents of change in the transformation of our world. We are excited to help our pupils to become active global citizens and courageous advocates for change in the world, from a local to global level.

Remembrance Day
Next week, with the help of our Y6 Pupil Leadership Team, we will be selling a range of Poppy products to mark Remembrance Day. The prices of products range from 50p to £2 and children will be able to purchase these items from the school hall at playtime. We also have a small box of paper Poppies with pins (for adults) that can be purchased from the school office. This can either be with cash or using the QR code. Next week, in our assembly, we will mark Remembrance day together as a school.

Year One Phonics Workshop
We are really looking forward to seeing Year One Parents and Families in school on Monday 13th November at 9am for a Parent Workshop. This will be a chance to find out about Phonics in Year One, along with some information about how you can support your child to be ready for the Phonics Screening Check that takes place in the Summer Term.

This week, you will have a received a letter via Arbor about the many events happening this term. We know that talking about Christmas in November seems a little too keen, but we wanted to give you as much notice as possible about the exciting things to look forward to this term. I have attached the letter below.

Finally, please can I remind you not to park in the KS2 drop off zone. The cones, the tape and the signs help to identify this area very clearly. Parking in this zone blocks traffic and causes quite a few problems for other people. Please ensure that this message is passed on to any family or friends that may collect your child.

I hope you have a great weekend,
Many thanks,
Mrs Lee- Elkins.

The clubs this term have been fantastic too, particularly our drama and choir club who are putting together an exciting performance. We will let you know more about this soon. Our gardening club has been in full swing too! They have been growing edible violas, planting daffodils donated from Trelawney and harvested red and green peppers and sweet tomatoes. As you can see from the picture, the children have also been harvesting the sunflower seeds ready for next year.

At the start of next term I will be in touch with dates for upcoming events- including Christmas! Eeek! 

In the meantime, I hope you all have the most wonderful Half Term! 

See you all on Monday 30th October.

Mrs Lee- Elkins

I've got to start this week's blog with a very special mention to some of our littlest learners in Reception. This week I was excited to spend some time watching some of their Maths lessons and my goodness, it was hard to believe that they are only in week 6 of their school journey. The way they have settled into school life is simply fantastic. They were so excited to tell me all about different patterns and how to be a careful counter when counting objects. Apparently if you keep your objects in a line then you will be just fine. But if you keep them in a huddle, you'll get in a muddle!

Maths seems to be thriving across the school as this week some of our budding mathematicians at the other end of the school (Year 6) visited Wadebridge Comp for a Maths competition. Mrs Young said that they represented the school remarkably.

This week I was also very excited to have a visit from three writers from Miss Warren's class. These three writers have been working incredibly hard to keep their letters on the line and use sound mats. Well done boys! It's always a pleasure having visitors to my office, even if I am starting to run out of Head Teacher Awards!

On Wednesday we hosted a girls football festival at our school. It was great to see so many players involved with 10 teams participating. The girls played matches and had a skills session. Both our teams performed excellently; demonstrating great skills, determination and enthusiasm throughout. They all represented our school admirably.

This week my Head Teacher's award goes to Flo and Sylvia in Y6. They are two of the most polite and kind children I have ever met. They always have a smile to share and show genuine care to everyone and anyone. They work hard with their learning and their teachers tell me how lucky they are to have them in their class. Girls, you are superstars!

Next week we have a VERY exciting event to look forward to. On Monday FOWPA’s Bake Off will finally arrive! Please do read the email sent out this week about how to enter. We can't wait to see your creations- let the baking commence!

Here are a few other reminders for next week:

-2 more weeks of swimming. Next week and the week after half term 
-Y4 Multiplication Check meeting for parents on Tuesday morning at 9am
-Final day of term on Thursday. Normal finish time.

Have a great weekend and see you all for our final week on Monday!

Mrs Lee Elkins

This week I have had the absolute pleasure of spending a good amount of time in Year 5 and Year 6. On Tuesday, Mrs Orme and I completed a learning walk around Upper Key Stage 2, with our Area Executive Head Teacher, Mrs Sanson. I was incredibly proud of the team, who have worked hard to create a calm and purposeful learning environment. The children really impressed us with not only their determination to improve their own outcomes, but also to support and cheer their friends on too. There were some great examples of children helping out learners across their classroom and really bringing our Trust value of being ‘responsible’ to life. I can’t wait to see the great things they will achieve this year! As you can see from the pictures, the writing in Y5 is already impressive!

On Monday and Tuesday our Year 3 children represented the school well on their school trip to Pentire where they explored the local coastline. A group of KS2 children also attended a great event where they were able to demonstrate their incredible bowling skills!

Last week the local Food Bank collected a fantastic amount of donations from us, as part of our Harvest Festival. Thank you to everyone who was able to contribute to the worthwhile cause. To celebrate our Harvest Festival, we had a great assembly with Pastor Drew and sang the primary school classic, ‘Cauliflowers Fluffy’. It wouldn’t be Harvest without singing that song!

This week our ‘Shining Stars’ theme was all about children who demonstrate our Learning Characters. I chose Bailey in Y4 and Milo in Y1. Bailey has really impressed his teacher this week by showing true determination with his reading and spelling. Well done Bailey! This week I was very excited to teach a Phonics lesson in Y1 (I have really missed it!) and Milo caught my attention by being so incredibly helpful and thoughtful. We really do have many great children at our school. As you know, improving attendance is a key focus for the school this year.

Last week you will have received a letter from the Trust detailing our approach to this. Please do have a look on our school website under ‘policies’ for more information. As part of our Trust policy, next week I am going to spending sometime looking at attendance so far this term. I know that there have been many illnesses lurking around so I will, of course, look at each case of lower attendance on a very personal basis. Outside of the school office, our weekly whole school attendance and the class with the best attendance will be displayed to help us celebrate the positive steps we are making with this.

I can’t believe that we only have two weeks of the term left already! The children have already achieved so much. We still have lots to look forward to, such as the FOWPA Bake Off on Monday 16th October and the Y4 Maths event for parents on Tuesday 17th October. This is just a reminder that school (and Bridge Kids) is closed for an INSET day on Friday 20th October. If you would like to make a booking for Bridge Kids for the October half term, please do contact the school office.

Finally, please remember not to park in the KS2 drop off zone (the cones and signs help to identify this area) and to not park or block the disabled bays in front of school. The bays are reserved for blue badge holders, along with the families with children who have significant additional needs. Thank you for your support with this to help the collection/drop off times run as smoothly as possible.

See you all next week. Enjoy the Autumn sunshine across the weekend!

Mrs Lee- Elkins