Dear Parents and Carers,

We are sure that, like us, you have lots of questions following the Prime Minister's announcement last night.
At the moment, for us in school, there is no change to the guidance, so we will be continuing to operate as we have over the last few weeks. We will continue to provide essential child care for key worker families as well as vulnerable children.
The message remains that it is safer to stay at home. We appreciate this is a confusing time. Once we have received further information and reviewed the guidance on how to manage a safe, phased return we will of course keep you informed.
 
Please stay safe and take care.
Kindest regards
Ms R Whitlock

The children in school today have had a brilliant day coming in to school in red, white and blue to celebrate and learn all about VE day. The children made aeroplanes, designed bunting and baked cakes for a ‘street party’ in the afternoon. Our day was made even better by the delivery of delicious scones, cream, jam and sandwiches from  Morrisons, Bodmin.

With the delivery of Easter eggs a few weeks ago and the delivery of goodies today, we have been overwhelmed by their generosity. Mrs Dingle (a lovely neighbour to the school) has also been treating us to lots of treats. Today, she kindly dropped in some iced biscuits and the children thoroughly enjoyed them as part of our celebration day. Thank you!

We hope that you have a great bank holiday weekend at home. If you are celebrating VE Day, then have a peek on the Facebook page where you can find some useful resources and links.

Take care and fingers crossed for sunshine!

Dear Parents/Carers,

It’s May already! Whilst April seemed to take a while to settle down, it then seemed to fly by and it is hard to think that we are already in our fourth week back after Easter. I was in school last week with a fantastic bunch of teachers and pupils and much fun was had in both working and also being creative. I saw some super Fairy doors and habitats and lots of handmade cards towards the end of the week and it was lovely to see how proud pupils were of their considerable efforts.

I know too that there is LOTS going on at home – do please feel free to share things with us – not only do you get to show us what you have done, it can also give ideas to other families ?. You can send pictures, drawings, videos or written things via email to your teachers or the secretary@wadebridgeprimary.co.uk inbox at any time. We are keen to see as much as we can.

One of the most odd things for me is thinking – often with a jolt – that, for example, this week Year 5s were supposed to be going to the River Dart for their residential trip. Next week, Year 6s were due to take the SATs Tests… They worked SO hard right up until the minute that they were not able to come to school any more and part of me is sad that they will not get to ‘show their stuff’ but part of me also (always) thinks that these tests are in no way a true reflection of the wonderful characters and people that they are anyway.  As we keep saying, do feel free to share what you are doing with us – I have read some amazing stories from Year 6s recently, which make me so proud to be a part of you all. Thank you.
 
We have some more exciting things to share with you this week too. Do go online to watch our teachers reading stories and poetry if you can – we have some new ones in this week. I have loved watching them all.

We also saw a lovely link online looking at actions to make us happy over the weekend https://www.actionforhappiness.org/meaningful-may. It gives some lovely ideas to be mindful and appreciate what we have and know.
We also have a fun competition from Dandelion Learning (based in St Ives) to share with you:
Mrs Foley’s Book Cover Challenge #mrsfbookcoverchallenge
Inspired by the Getty Museum Challenge, where the public has been invited to recreate masterpieces in their own home…
 
…we have devised our own challenge.
Can you recreate a front cover from one of your favourite books?

If you have Instagram, you can tag your pic with #mrsfbookcoverchallenge feel free to get family and friends involved too.
Send them in to us at Wadebridge too – we would love to see them!

Have a good week and do get in touch if you want or need to; whatever the reason we would love to hear from you.
Stay safe and hopefully, maybe, see you soon.
Ms Whitlock

Dear parents/carers,

I hope that you and your families are safe and well. I cannot believe how much wetter it was this morning (much as we need it for the gardens and farm land), but I hope that you are managing to get outside when there is a break in the clouds.

Lots of positive things this week!
Story Telling! Please do, if you get a chance, go onto the website and click on the Heads Blog Story Time entries – there are at least half a dozen now, of teachers reading parts or all of their favourite stories and books. They are brilliant.

The very wonderful pupil full ‘Happy’ video is both on the website and on the Facebook page – it was SO brilliant to see so many of our fabulous Wadebridge Pupils taking part and thank you to all who sent in videos. Please give it a watch (most of us have seen it at least 5 times…!). We are really sorry not to have been able to include any that came in after the Tuesday deadline, but it takes so very long to edit and put together that it was impossible to include any late entries in the final video this time.   

We are also delighted to share something that we hope that you will enjoy. Bridge Schools have teamed up with the National Trust at Lanhydrock to develop an exciting writing competition. The children are invited to design their own ‘Nature in my Neighbourhood Guide’ with a chance to win an exciting experience with the rangers at Lanhydrock. Have a look at the attached PDF for more information. There is no closing date for this competition; simply bring in your fantastic designs when we return to school. In the meantime though, please feel free to send us pictures of your designs so that we can put them on the website for others to enjoy.

Our most exciting news for this week, however, is that we will soon be having a baby Wadebridge Pupil to add to our midst! Many of you will know Mrs Bodinnar, who is currently teaching in Year 5, and we are delighted to announce that little Aroha Bodinnar will be joined by a baby brother or sister in September 2020. Mrs Bodinnar is working very hard behind the scenes preparing online work for our Year 5s and leading on our wider curriculum but is growing bigger by the minute!

Last but not at all least, we are wanting to make sure that you are feeling supported during this tricky time. To this end, you will be contacted individually by teachers (and by more than one if you have more than one child with us) either this week or next, just to find out how you are getting on and if there is anything that we can do to help you. Many teachers want to contact you all by their own ‘phone as only a few of us are in school. As per government advice (and common sense), we have asked them to withhold their caller ID, but please do not be surprised if you receive a call from them. And do please be honest when you respond.

I read a really interesting quote the other day: ‘we are all in the same storm, but we are absolutely not all in the same boat’. This rang very true as there are so many in our community who are having to juggle different things now, and we want to help where we can.  If we can lessen the load, we will.

Keep in touch and stay safe and well. Teachers are still loving your communications and your pictures and photographs – do please keep them coming!

Ms Whitlock

Congratulations to Mrs Bodinnar and her expanding family!!