Dear Parents and Carers

I am going to make this week’s blog very short indeed and we have sent you emails already today and there is a letter about re-opening attached.
I must celebrate the winners of the Toilet Roll Competition though – we had some truly wonderful entries and it was extremely difficult pick our winners but they are: Dolcie, Zofia and Olivia. Their designs are below and I have to say that I thought they were extremely creative (as were all of them to be fair!) and I thought that all of them were fab-u-lous – very well done to all who entered.

A massive well done too to ALL who took part in the 100 of something over the Half Term. We had lots of responses but to name a few; Evan found 100 plants and flowers; Molly Mae performed 100 acts of kindness; Sienna did 100 burpees and Evie did 100 Mountain Climbers (and we even have proof of these)!
Today was ‘Feelgood Friday’ and we most definitely felt good in school with lots of extremely smiley faces all day – in EVERY Year Group. We hope that you had fun at home too and that you took advantage of the good weather – which looks like it is going to stay over the weekend too – hurrah!&

On that note, please read the re-opening letter thoroughly, stay safe, enjoy the daylight and the sunshine and have a lovely weekend.
Kindest regards
Ms Whitlock

Dear Parents and Carers

We made it! No-one could have possibly predicted how challenging the last six weeks would be, and I cannot tell you how proud I am of every member of the WPA community. All of the wonderful WPA staff responded instantly to the challenge of getting remote learning up and running within 24 hours of the lockdown being announced. Parents and carers have been brilliant. Your support, your adapting of the new situation and your response to the current way of things has meant so very much to us. And some of the work that has been produced this half term, both in and out of school, has been exceptional. It has, however, been quite a journey. Everyone has had their days when they have felt blue; everyone has had times when that first step of day has felt really, really hard, but we have made it. If I didn’t have grey hairs six weeks ago, I certainly do now! We are definitely over the top of the hill though, and I love how the days are getting longer and the mornings lighter. I predict that before we know it, we will be basking in the spring sunshine and frolicking on the school field.

Mrs Keat has shown me the truly wonderful response to our toilet roll challenge – THANK YOU to all who have decorated and embellished and reshaped their toilet roll tubes. As you had until today to send in your designs, and I would hate for anyone to miss out (I am literally always the last person to enter a competition and so never want anyone to miss out) we have not yet picked the winners, but we will announce them early in the week after Half Term. However, never fear! We have a challenge for you to do over the Half Term Break. Your challenge – should you choose to accept it – is this:

In memory of the inspirational Captain Sir Tom Moore, who walked 100 lengths of his garden at the age of 100, WPA would like to challenge you to do 100 of something over the Half Term.

You could: do 100 star jumps (you could even do 100 each day!); do 100 skips; run 100 lengths of YOUR garden or read 100 pages of a book. Your challenge can be 100 of ANYTHING (within reason). Please let us know what you are doing or have done by taking a picture of what you are doing 100 of and upload it either to the Facebook Page or send it to us via the secretary@wadebridgeprimary.co.uk email address.  I am planning on napping for 100 minutes. Every single day.

We have got LOTS coming up. On Friday 26 February we are running a FEELGOOD FRIDAY! More details will be posted and sent to you on Monday 22 February (an INSET day so please do not try and come to school or do any remote learning) ready for the Friday. Our plan is for us all to enjoy a tech free day with tons of possible activities for all year groups. This means that if you have siblings in different year groups, they can do the same thing if they want to - all free of a screen! Pupils in school will be tech free too (though there will be no mixing of bubbles of course). Please make sure that you wear your PE kits on this Friday as we are definitely hoping to get outside.

It is World Book Day on Thursday 4 March. We have not quite finalised our plans for it yet, but we wanted you to put the date in your diary. You may remember that last year, World Book Day clashed with St Piran’s Day, so I have not yet had the opportunity to wear my best Miss Trunchbull outfit, but my fingers are crossed for this year.

St Piran’s Day falls on a Friday this year, on Friday 5 March. Get those black, gold and white patriotic clothes ready! We are going to organise some Cornish language activities and maybe make and eat some Cornish food and, of course, we will be singing The Song of the Western Men (The Trelawney Shout).

Please do feel free to have a practice of the words before the day; they are set out below.

A good sword and a trusty hand, A merry heart and true!
King James's men shall understand What Cornish lads can do.
And have they fixed the where and when? And shall Trelawny die?
Here's twenty thousand Cornish men Will know the reason why!

And shall Trelawny live? Or shall Trelawny die?
Here's twenty thousand Cornish men Will know the reason why!

Out spake their Captain brave and bold: A merry wight was he:
"If London Tower were Michael's hold, We'll set Trelawny free!
We'll cross the Tamar, land to land, The Severn is no stay: 
With 'one and all', and hand in hand, And who shall bid us nay?"

And shall Trelawny live? Or shall Trelawny die?
Here's twenty thousand Cornish men Will know the reason why!
"And when we come to London Wall, A pleasant sight to view,
Come forth! Come forth ye cowards all, Here's men as good as you!
Trelawny he's in keep and hold: Trelawny he may die:&
But twenty thousand Cornish bold Will know the reason why!"

And shall Trelawny live? Or shall Trelawny die?
Here's twenty thousand Cornish men Will know the reason why!

This week, I have seen more wonderful things than I can possibly write about so I will just mention the Year 6 WWII ‘make do and mend’ activity that they did today. They used pre-loved T-Shirts to make shoulder bags and they were wonderful. They were SO proud of their new, homemade bags and were delighted to show them to anyone who went within 10 metres of their classroom (no one got close, don’t worry). Quite frankly, they rocked them and I was quite envious of their skills.

I will put up an assembly on Monday 22 February for the week. There may even be another new challenge. Watch this space…
The only thing left for me to say is; enjoy the half term break as much as you can. We can do this. It won’t be long until we are back together and I, for one, cannot wait.

Stay safe, be careful of this wind (which may never end) and take good care of yourselves. We miss you and will see you soon.
Kindest regards

Ms Whitlock

Dear Parents and Carers

Thank you so very much for embracing Children’s Mental Health Week. I have seen some fantastic things – including the Oak Academy assembly on Monday – which have made me smile and be glad that it is Children’s Mental Health week this week.

Today, all in school were expressing themselves, which was fabulous! Thank you to all who have sent pictures in or complimented each other on the Teams sessions today – it was so lovely to see you all! I saw a lot of fantastic style today, including a Year 1 Rockstar (literally the whole shebang) and the most amazing Ana wig from Frozen – it was so realistic (and I was quite envious of it to be honest, as it was very lustrous)!

We have a lovely thing to share this week too – it will be on your teams from Monday; it is on the Assembly PowerPoint, and it will be an attachment on this Blog too. Mr O’Rourke, who has worked with probably every child in the school, has written and recorded an amazing song for you all. Please have a listen – it is very catchy, hugely enjoyable, and gave me goosebumps! A HUGE thank you to Mr O’Rourke for recording it and for writing it!

This week’s assembly does continue on the theme of wellbeing and looks at Children’s Mental Heath Week. It also mentions some of the wise words from Captain Sir Tom Moore and a quote from The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse.  Mrs Lee Elkins was delighted to be able to take the lead on this week’s assembly, and she does a worryingly good job!  I pop up at the end, but otherwise Mrs Lee Elkins has done all of the hard work. I hope that you enjoy it.

This week, I have seen some amazing team work from the Nursery children in the outside play area; some super PE from the Reception Teams session (who knew that there were so many shapes that you could make from beans?!?!); Year 1 have been reading the ‘Words and your Heart’ Story Book and have been practising their SPAG skills to write sentences to help make someone’s world a better place (literally heart-warming); Year 2 have been learning about weather and rain and have been collecting rain samples (at least they have had plenty of opportunity….); Year 3 have been set another exciting and challenging orienteering course and have done some amazing wellbeing Dancing; Year 4 have been writing Newspaper reports with great style and panache; Year 5 have been looking at explanation texts using some very interesting animals and Year 6 have done some really exciting work on coding like they used in WWII. Phew! 

We have all been sporting hard and hope that we have done well in the Cornwall Virtual Games – COME ON WPA!!!

One other thing!

I was contacted by a parent yesterday who asked if we could also promote a competition that they are running for the week. It is a lovely idea and if you like designing things (and wearing nail polish and looking after your nails), then this is for you! Please go to https://www.facebook.com/210557468988993/posts/3882223035155733/?d=n for details. 

Once again, if you are struggling to get online, or are finding it tricky with more than one child in the house and not enough devices, PLEASE let us know as if we can help, we will.

Enjoy the weekend as much as you can and stay safe.

Kindest regards

Ms Whitlock

Dear Parents and Carers

It has been a busy week! We have been busy finalising our plans for all staff to be able to take advantage of the LFD (Lateral Flow Device) tests that arrived this week and from Sunday, we are delighted that we will have this additional resource to help keep track of any virus in school. Whilst we are pleased to have this opportunity though, we are continuing with our very stringent cleaning measures and the ‘Hands, Face, Space’ mantra. All staff continue to wear masks outside of their bubbles and in any shared space and any parents and carers with children in school are really helping with this too. Thank you.

The work this week has been fantastic too! In and out of school, we have seen some wonderful things.  Nursery and Reception have continued their Wintery topic whilst also looking at the week’s weather (which thankfully has been diverse and, at times, extreme). Year 1 have produced some fantastic Emperor Penguin Booklets; Year 2 has seen some super Rainforest art work; Year 3 have been looking at rocks and volcanoes (including a fabulous looking volcano cake!); Year 4 have created and run some frosty ice experiments; Year 5 continue to create their fabulous Greek Myth based stories (not ALL are Greek myth based now, I will not lie) and Year 6 are carrying on with their ‘Do Spitfires really spit fire?’ WWII topic. I was lucky enough to catch a few minutes of a lesson where one of our pupils was telling the class about their Great-Great Grandfather’s time as a Prisoner of War. It was really moving in fact.

A huge thank you to all who have filled in the Parent Questionnaire set by the Bridge Mat – it is not too late if you have yet to fill it in and we would really appreciate any response. The responses that I have read today have been really useful for us moving forward and honestly appreciate you telling us anything that might help us to help you. As soon as we can, we will set timings for each year group’s live sessions, so that we are not all trying to be online and live at the same time and each week you should see, in whatever year group your child is in, an overview of the week for you to use to best plan what you might be able to manage. Please note that the message is still: whatever you can do is enough. We know just how hard this week has been; it seems a lot harder this week I think, and I know that a lot of parents, and teachers, are really feeling it. PLEASE remember that we are here to help; do get in touch if you need to.

The link for the parent questionnaire is here: https://www.bridgeschools.co.uk/Parent-Questionnaire-January-2021 

Now, this week’s assembly is about Mental Health. Next week sees Children’s Mental Health week 2021 and we are opening the week with a whole school (country!) assembly. All those in school will be logging onto listen to the Oak Academy’s assembly on Monday morning at 9am and we would love it if you were able to too. The link for the assembly is below:

https://www.thenational.academy/blog/join-our-assembly-for-childrens-mental-health-week-2021 

We also have loads of wellbeing and Mental Health Activities planned for the week – do look on Teams (Years 1-6) or Tapestry to see what you can do.

Cornwall County Council, via SUSTRANS (Sustainable Transport, the people who run walk to school week and so on), have also sent through a lot of activities that they have devised that do not require the use of a screen (hurrah!). Please see below for a link to these too (they come up in You Tube):

Video links: Primary School Playlist: http://tiny.cc/6xi8tz

Once again, if you are struggling to get online, or are finding it tricky with more than one child in the house and not enough devices, PLEASE let us know as if we can help, we will.

Thank you so much for your continued support. We miss you all. Please don’t forget to be kind to yourselves and we hope to see you soon. Even if it is not straight after Half Term (latest guidance is back to school at the earliest 8 March).;

Enjoy the weekend as much as you can and stay safe.

Kindest regards

Ms Whitlock

The RSPB (Royal Society for the Protection of Birds) are holding a National event called the Big Garden Birdwatch.

It is completely free to sign up for at the following web address https://www.rspb.org.uk/ 

They are asking people of ALL ages to count the number of birds that they see in their gardens, for one hour, over the weekend 29th Jan - 31st Jan.

All you have to do is register at the website and you can request resources either electronically or by post.

Best wishes and happy bird watching!

Dear Parents and Carers

Thank you so much for all that you have done this week in terms of making sure that pupils are accessing work, attending Live Team meetings, checking back and watching meetings if you miss the live ones, sending in work, emailing us and picking up the ‘phone if we call. We know just how challenging it all is and we have been amazed by the impressive quality of so much of the work that has been sent and uploaded. The pupils in class, whether they are here for one day or all week have been amazing too and I have seen some truly magnificent work. Year 6 today were drawing Spiderman and the ones that I have seen uploaded are SO much better than anything I could ever do. I was lucky enough to listen to some of Year 5’s story openings this morning and there was some seriously good work in there. I feel some book deals coming on…. Nursery children have been working very hard on their winter topic; Reception children have been working really hard on their winter topic and have been exploring how best to melt ice in very inventive ways. Year 2 have been writing their own version of the Slowly, Slowly, Slowly story and are doing very well indeed (my story would have been quietly, quietly, quietly, crept the mouse I think…). Year 4 made Viking Shields and this was a VERY popular activity – we saw some stupendous ones! Year 3 and Year 1 have made some super edible things this week (Year 1 did not find the penguin sadly, as he has decided to stay in Antarctica) and I have also had some really positive feedback on the orienteering that Year 3 have been doing too. One parent said that the whole family got out of the house to complete the orienteering course that was plotted around the town and that they ALL loved it. Good work all!

Once again, if you are struggling to get online, or are finding it tricky with more than one child in the house and not enough devices, PLEASE let us know as if we can help, we will.

My assembly for this week is varied (!). I talk about some news that has happened this week and I start to teach the beginning of a very catchy Cornish Song ‘Harry’s Song For Cornwall’ and I am predicting that you will LOVE it. And, you can then sing it for the rest of the week after Monday. I also decided to read a lovely book that I heard in a Nursery session this week (It’s amazing what you can hear in a school corridor). Do give it a listen next week for some (hopeful) light relief.

I wonder if I could also please ask you a favour. We would like to know how we are doing with our remote learning provision.  If you get a minute, please could you complete the questionnaire linked below. It will really help us to know if we need to tweak anything but also helps us breathe a sigh of relief if you are happy with what we are doing.  Thank you.

https://www.bridgeschools.co.uk/Parent-Questionnaire-January-2021

We miss seeing everyone in school. We cannot wait to be all together again, but for now, please take care and keep doing what you can, when you can. Don’t forget to be kind to yourself.  This is the most important thing.

>Enjoy the weekend as much as you can and stay safe

Kindest regards

Ms Whitlock

Dear Parents and Carers

They say a week can be a long time in politics. The person who coined that saying had clearly never been in lockdown or waiting for a Government announcement…

That said, it has been so lovely to see the huge amount of learning that has been flooding Tapestry and Teams this week.  I have seen SO many fabulous pieces of work and I have been lucky enough to take part in some of the many live lessons and sessions – Year 4 today all looked like they were at the Cinema which was lovely to see, and Year 6 were fantastic in their answering their quiz questions (surely ONE of the questions could have actually had the answer Gary Barlow??), and I LOVED the PE session with Year 1 yesterday. I was very impressed by the different shapes that Year 1 can get themselves into. No need for pilates there, I can tell you.

The live sessions are very much worth joining if you can (though they are all recorded too), as the connections made in these sessions are fantastic. The positive feelings that we get when we connect with others shows how much we need contact and I have to tell you – I miss it!  Last term I missed our whole school in the hall assemblies (the beginning of MARCH LAST YEAR was the last time we were all together) whereas this term I am really missing our Teams Assemblies where at least we all knew that we were watching at the same time and we all saw the Shining Stars Winners every week. These days, it is nigh on impossible to get everyone together (I still have not ruled it out though and possible live events, here we come!), so I have recorded an assembly, which will be ready to watch from Monday onwards in every Year Group’s Teams Files Page (Years 1 -6). It is in the file called Assemblies and it is in the form of a powerpoint. Do please watch it as a slide show if you get a few minutes. I am planning a more exciting one next week - don’t worry! – but the message is very definitely clear I hope: Be kind. Kindness matters. Always. Kindness makes everything so much more bearable.

My last message to you for today is just that: be kind to others, but also, please, be kind to yourselves. It Is absolutely fine not to do all of the work set. Please do what you can.  When you can. We will always make up any lost learning. Tell us if you are needing help.  We want to help, and we are here to support you.

My other last message to you today is that if you see any lost looking penguins around Wadebridge, please could you let Year 1 know. They are looking for them.

Enjoy the weekend as much as you can and stay safe.

Kindest regards

Ms Whitlock

PS Year 1 are reading the book ‘Lost and Found’ and have created some AMAZING ‘Have you seen this Penguin?’ posters. They are heart-cheering in the extreme.

Dear Parents and Carers

Thank you SO much for your support and patience this week. I feel that whilst it has been a challenging week in many ways, all of our wonderful community has pulled together so well. The quality and quantity of remote learning has been exceptional in so many cases; the live learning and story times have been wonderful; the pupils in school have been amazing and the understanding of parents to our ‘in school’ limits (given that you were thrown into this situation just as much as we were), has been so appreciated.

I know that you have received many an email this week, so I will try and keep this blog post relatively short too!

Do let us know if you are struggling to access remote learning and not in school. There are things that we can either help with or advise you to do.  Some of these options are detailed below, but we can also help in other ways.

Please also make sure that you are monitoring your child’s use of Teams. It must only be used for school and work purposes. If in doubt, do contact us.

Advice on how to use gaming console to access Teams:

If you do not have a spare device or laptop for Home Learning but have an Xbox and/or PlayStation you can use them to access Microsoft Teams.

Teams can be opened on Xbox and PlayStation. There isn’t an app that the students can add to their consoles. Instead, they are going to have to use the built-in browsers that come on the two devices.

On Xbox, it is Microsoft Edge.

On PlayStation, it is the “www” browser.

Your children will probably know how to find the browsers on their consoles, but if not, each one has a search function they can access on the home screen.

Once the browser has been opened:

•.      Type in 'microsoft teams the url bar. A prompts for teams account will appear. Your login details from school. Home screen open up.

• If you have a keyboard then you can plug it in, you will have a much easier time navigating. Otherwise, use the controller to click on the icons and buttons to navigate.

Please keep an eye on your child whilst they are using their device, (for some, it will be very tempting to access their favourite games).

Please do not hesitate to contact us at school, should you have any questions about this.

Digital Support- additional mobile data<

The DfE have announced an opportunity for schools to apply for temporary additional mobile data for certain pupils. If you know of families who would benefit from this, please liaise with them directly and follow the guidance as per the link below- it varies depending on which network they use. Please keep records of this.

The hyperlink below sets out the full details and how to apply but in summary, there is the possibility of applying for additional mobile phone data for pupils who:

• do not have fixed broadband at home

• cannot afford additional data for their devices

• are experiencing disruption to their face-to-face education

In addition, there is also the possibility of requesting mobile data increases for children who cannot attend school face to face due to being clinically extremely vulnerable or if there are restrictions preventing them attending.

If increasing mobile data isn’t a suitable option there is also the opportunity to apply for 4G wireless routers and again, full details can be found within the hyperlink below:

Increasing data allowances on mobile devices to support disadvantaged children - Get help with technology - GOV.UK (education.gov.uk)

If you need help with any of the above, please do get in touch.

Enjoy the weekend as much as you can and stay safe.

Kindest regards

Ms Whitlock

Due to tonight’s Government announcement, WPA will be closed from Tuesday 5th January to all pupils except vulnerable children and children of key workers. We will be in touch tomorrow regarding online learning.