As we have only had two days with the pupils this week, there is little to report on. However, there are just a few things during the new term to draw your attention to.
Start and Finish Times
Welsh government have made it mandatory for schools to return to their original start and finish times. This means that doors will open for pupils between 8.40-8.50. They will close after this point and pupils will be signed in as late and asked to go through reception. It is vital pupils are on time in order to start the day in the best way.
Can I also request that reception staff are spoken to politely when signing in late (please see new code of conduct policy below). It is necessary for the above process to take place in order to ensure that all pupils are accounted for and safe.
Finish times are now:
Foundation Phase (Snowy Owls, Harriers, Kestrels) – 3pm
Key Stage 2 (Classes 1-5) 3.10pm
Code of Conduct Policy
The school has a new code of conduct policy. this can be found on the website at https://gwersylltcp.home.blog/ under the forms, policies and letters section.
Attendance Policy
Just to make you aware that a new attendance policy from county is imminent. This will be taken on by the school. One of the main changes in this county policy will be that holidays are no longer to be authorised by schools. This means that, while holidays can be taken, they will be classed as unauthorised on the attendance record. This policy will be on the website when it comes into action.
Nasal Flu
If there are any outstanding forms for Nasal Flu please can we request they are sent to us by Friday 10th September 2021.
I hope everyone has a good weekend and see you for the first full week next week.
I hope you all had a lovely summer. With a lot changing over the summer holidays I thought I would just put up a few sections of the guidance to clarify expectations over positive cases and identified contacts.
Symptomatic:
Any staff member or learner who has any of the three cardinal symptoms of COVID-19 – new persistent cough, fever and/or loss of taste or smell – should not attend the school setting but should self-isolate, arrange a COVID-19 test and notify the school of this.
Where a learner becomes unwell at the school or setting with possible symptoms of COVID-19 they should be sent home immediately to self-isolate and arrange a COVID-19 test.
Positive Case:
If a PCR test is positive, the person must continue to self-isolate and complete the full self-isolation period of at least 10 days. Day 1 is the day immediately following the day they first had symptoms.
If they do not have any symptoms but have tested positive, they must self-isolate for at least 10 days, starting from the day after they took the test.
They may have to self-isolate for longer (up to 14 days), if they have certain variants of the virus. TTP will let them know if this is the case.
Contacts
Children under 18 (or anyone over 18 with both vaccinations) will not be required to self-isolate if identified as a contact but contact tracers will still call to provide advice and information. This will usually involve increased testing over the 10 days.
I hope this change in information provides a bit of clarity. This could change under certain circumstances but is the guidance currently.
As promised on the newsletter last week, I wish to update you on the processes that are changing for the Academic year 21/22.
My apologies for all the information below.
It has just been confirmed to us this morning that start and finish times of schools are to return to normal from September.
Start times
This means that all the classes start times will revert to 8.50 as they were in March 2020. As was the case then, the doors will open at 8.40 to allow 10 minutes for pupils to arrive at school and enter the classrooms.
Unlike this year, the pupils will be using the school lockers again and not always entering directly into their classrooms.
Barn Owls and Snowy owls will remain the same and enter by their cloakrooms. There will be a member of staff to direct them at the door.
Year 1 and 2 (Kestrels and Harriers) will enter at the same point as they have this year opposite the home bargains gate.
Classes 1,2 and 4 (Mrs Moore, Mr Edwards and Mr McAteer) will enter at the old school entrance.
Classes 3 and 5 (Miss Roberts and Mrs Jones) will enter at the front most entrance on the front yard.
Don’t worry though a member of staff and signage will be on these entrances to help for the first week.
Finish times
Barn Owls and Snowy Owls will exit by the same class doors (Barn Owls at 11.20am and Snowy Owls at 3pm)
Year 1 and 2 will exit via the doors they entered at 3pm
All KS2 classes will exit via their class doors at 3.10pm.
Again, someone will be on the yard to help if needed.
Playmates
As they have this year, Playmates will enter and exit through the front Reception
Little Chicks
Little Chicks are to be picked up at 2.50pm at Barn Owls entrance.
Breakfast Club
The use of breakfast club will remain unchanged next year
School uniform
Again, this will be unchanged. We will continue to ask pupils to come to school in their PE kit on the days chosen for PE.
Other changes
It is understood that school bubbles will not be maintained in school, however we are looking at fewer pupils mixing at the moment so will keep them in broader Year groups at Playtimes and lunchtimes e.g. Year 1 and 2, Year 3 and 4, Year 5 and 6 will have their lunchtime in those groups. This will be trialled upon return on 2nd September 2021.
Have a lovely summer, I hope to get some photos up of the events that have taken place at the end of this week.
Just a quick update to show some of the fabulous artwork going on through out school. My apologies this should have been sent out on Friday but time has caught up on me.
Firstly, we have a stunning picture by Luke W in Class 5. A piece of work that he should be immensely proud of inspired by Van Gogh’s the Yellow House. Da iawn Luke and I’ll let the picture speak for itself.
Secondly,we have a collection of stunning work from Class 2-
Take a look below
Return to school
Finally, just to assure all parents that I will sent out information about the procedures for September by the end of the week. We are just waiting on a final word from County on the situation.
School was a hive of activity this week but the vast majority of pictures below come from one day- Thursday.
It was wonderful to take a walk around school on Thursday morning (as it is all mornings). I have no doubt that every classroom I popped my head around the door of will have something of interest going on.
On Thursday, if you were fortunate enough to have seen the following:
Harriers pupils taking part in family learning:
Class 4 digging foundations for their planters
Class 5 creating podcasts on a variety of subjects
Class 3 creating foods from the nations in the Euros (just follow the smell)
As well as that we had Class 1 trialling new ‘mission’ activities within the classroom.
A wonderful week. And next week is gearing up to be just as busy.
It has been a busy start of the week at a busy time of year. I will try to get the information across as clearly as possible.
Transition
Last night we received a message from County informing us that all inschool and cross school transition was to be cancelled. In the first instance, this means that tomorrow’s (24.6.21) Year 6 transition to Bryn Alyn will not go ahead. This will also be the case for any other High school transitions. This is due to growing concern of Covid cases and a rise being seen across County and neighbouring counties. Year 6 pupils are to come to school as usual.
Sadly, it means that transition within school will also not go ahead. We are currently looking at alternatives to ease the move to different classes come September.
Next Year’s Classes
Over the past couple of weeks we have been finalising the groupings for next years classes. We will be sending these out next week.
Reports
Your child’s reports will be coming out to you on Friday 2nd July, they will be coming out in the normal format. However, due to the year being as it was, some of the information may be slightly reduced. I am sure you will understand why this is the case.
Testing
It has been a request by Welsh Government that schools make best endeavours to assess the pupils using the online National Reading and Numeracy Procedural tests. Over May and June, almost all pupils from Year 2 upwards have now completed these tests. As the reading reports will not be available to print and give out until September we will be sending out the feedback next term. If your child is Year 6 we will send these reports out via post.
Leavers
Mrs Jones and Mr McAteer are currently putting together something to celebrate the Year 6 pupils and their time here at Gwersyllt CP. More information will follow next week, however I would ask Year 6 pupils to save the date – 8th July2021 roughly 6pm-8pm. More will be revealed shortly.
I think that is us up to speed at the moment. Hopefully, there won’t be too many more surprises over the next few weeks.
Dear Parents/Guardians, The weekend is here and it sees the end of a busy week at Gwersyllt CP. Thursday saw the last of our Nursery induction sessions take place for those pupils who will be joining us in Barn Owls next year. Over the last four weeks Mrs Hughes and Mrs Wright have overseen 4 separate small group sessions with the pupils and the parents. These sessions have allowed the pupils to come into school and meet their teachers as well as giving the staff the first opportunity to work alongside them. As always, it was a pleasure to have them with us and we look forward to welcoming them next September into Early years.
On Thursday we also saw the first of our family learning sessions arranged through our Wellbeing team of Mrs O’Toole and Miss Edge and led by Miss Edge. This week the pupils and the parents spent a sunny morning on the field making insects and bugs with paints, plates and pipe cleaners. More of these events are scheduled to take place over the remaining few weeks of term.
Finally, the school had pencilled in sports day events to take place next week within classes. Predictably, the weather looks like it is taking a turn for the worse next week. Your child’s class teacher will keep you informed should the proposed day alter and the need to wear kit is changed to a different day. Have a great weekend.
As I’m sure you are aware this Friday signifies the end of this half term and therefore school will be closed next week and reopen on Monday 7th June 2021. The pupils and staff have a well-deserved break and hopefully come back refreshed for the final 6 weeks of the academic year. The pupils have done themselves, you and the school proud and it has been a pleasure to have them all in for the entirety of this half term.
Over the past couple of week we have tried to demonstrate the varied work going on in the classroom.
Firstly I would like to show you some of the letters I had from Class 2 last Friday. It had been a busy day but I felt I was getting attacked from all angles when this landed on my desk late on Friday afternoon.
Class 1 and 2 have been focussing on the environment, climate change and, in this case, recycling. Below are the letters sent through to me:
One of the aspects we are working on is adding more meaning to the pupils work. Creating a genuine reason for what they are doing.
Below is the reply sent by myself on Sunday.
Dear Class 2, Thank you so much for your letters on Friday, they really got me thinking over the weekend. They were full of great ideas and well though out arguments. How could I say no to any of them? It was great to hear Gwersyllt CP pupils taking such an invested part in their school and in the environment. The world needs you to improve- I hope other classes in the school follow your lead. Just to let you know- I am willing to proceed with the vast majority, if not all. your suggestions. However, I will address them one letter at a time. I will also ask a few favours in return.
To Tulisha, Ellie Mai, Owen, Kaiden, Lucas, Fearne, Osian, Nathan and Jackson.
I am glad you like the paper recycling bins- hopefully this means we will be wasting a lot less. At the moment they get emptied every Friday- I hope this is sufficient. Could you do me one favour though? Could you check that every class has a scrap paper tray. Recycling can come in many forms and it would be good to know that we are using both sides of the paper before we throw it. Also, perhaps we could look at how we limit the use of worksheets in school? Every child has an exercise book, and we should be encouraging independence. It seems wasteful to be sticking paper on to blank paper. As for the crisp packets, absolutely, I love this idea! Can you sort this out for me?Plenty for you to do 🙂
To Tyler, Zac and Imogen
That was a fantastic email and I absolutely loved the data and stats you put together. Brilliant! You will be glad to know that we have started recycling the bottles in Rec and Nursery plus in Year 1 and 2. We have a further problem though. The recycling complany dont seem to pick them up. Perhaps you could communicate this to them in some form? The bin is nearly full and we will quickly run out of space. I do have another task linked to snack. I am a bit worried at the moment about the unhealthy snack that KS2 have at break times. How can we sort this out? HELP!😊
To Elizah, Brooke, Theo, Jamie, Jack and Caden
Trust you lot to pick the tricky one. We do have a lot of spare uniform and I don’t know what to do with it. Believe it or not we use to recycle it a few years ago. The problem is, we very collect it much quicker then we pass it on, so it takes up a lot of space. Is there a way around this. Perhaps we could write to parents to gauge interest. Maybe we take pre orders and pass them on as and when we have the supply and the right size. I think we would have to be careful with any pricing though- perhaps the money could go towards something that aids the environment. Could you have a think for me?
To Harry, Cole, Ben, Ava, Will, Damian and Imy
What a lovely idea! I hope you like our new Jaxon’s Wood and have had an opportunity to visit the orchard at the bottom. I believe that there are plans to plan more trees in Jaxon’s wood if it hasn’t happened already. In the orchid we have planted apple and pear trees. When these fruit we will have a lot of apples and pears. What could we do with them. I like the compost idea alot. If you could price it up and think about how we can work it for me. Who would be responsible? Where would it go so that it was out of the way but could be accessed? How long does it take? I will leave all these Q’s to you 🙂
One last favour from all of you please….. Could you write a piece for the school website? At the moment it is me droning on. It would be lovely for the parents to hear from you. What we do, What we have done, what we plan to do and some ideas and updates through out the term. For instance did you know that we recycle batteries in school- Maybe these things are messages we could put across to parents. So there you go- lots to get on with it. Maybe you will think twice about writing me letters again 😉 Keep up the great work
Aside from making the pupils think twice before they write letters to me again, hopefully this makes the work more meaningful. All the above are genuine aspects of school life that we wish to work on- It will be lovely if this change comes from the children by the children.
On a separate note, here are some photos from Early Years this week. Little Chicks treated them to a morning with exotic animals and Dozy Dave the magician. Having popped in there over the morning I can certainly say the pupils enjoyed it. Thank you to Little Chicks from me and all of Early Years.
Sorry all- I found this message in drafts and loved the photographs so much I wished to post it up, albeit late.
It is a pleasure to walk around school and see the pupils enjoying their time between 9 and 3 either inside or outside the classroom. Last Friday I posted a couple of videos of the outside areas we have and since we had such a fantastic Friday afternoon weather wise it was lovely to see the vast majority of the classes outside enjoying the grounds. Be it the school field, the yards or Jaxon’s wood, it was difficult to find a space in which there wasn’t the satisfied hum of a class having a great time.
One request from myself, Mrs Jones and Mrs Colley. On a couple of occasions recently parents have been making their child’s class teacher aware of appointments during school hours. Could we please request that this communication comes into the school office either in person, on the phone or via email. This means the correct absence code can be inputted in advance on the register and minimises the chance of you recieving a text reporting your child’s absence.Many thanks,
Another week of mixed weather, with glorious sunshine one minute and dark clods looming the next. Let’s hope that the next few weeks bring some more consistent warm weather. A much shorter piece from me today, after last week’s page and a half about the new curriculum.
Just a couple of things I would like to mention.
Masks
We sent out a text this week regarding mask wearing on the yard and will do so again next week. There are still a few without masks whilst dropping off and picking up. Please understand that this is a request from both school and County. Wales as a nation are still under strict rules and many people, understandably, still have very high anxiety levels. As a sign of courtesy, as well as an added level of protection to stop further spread of the virus, can I ask all those picking up pupils to ensure they wear a facemask on site. Thank you for your co-operation. Smart watches
Can we please ask that pupils do not wear smart watches in school. As they can be used as a form of communication (as well as a distraction in class) we would kindly request that pupils leave them safely at home. If emergency communication between child and home is needed, in a very few instances, pupils can hand their phone into the office for safe storage.
Recently, we have tried to get a few images out of the great, creative work going on in the classrooms. Here are a few snaps taken this morning in our Year 5/6 classes. We have brought in a lot of DT equipment and our older Juniors have throughly enjoyed getting to grips with them.
And finally, I’ll leave you with a picture of young man who has worked his socks off this week, I promised him his big smile could be seen by all : )
Gwersyllt CP 