Gwersyllt CP

As mentioned in the Newsletter, we have entered and are entering into a busy time for all schools. December is practically upon us and there are many events which will be held.

Next week sees the Christmas Fair and Christmas dinners. the following week holds school trips and concert performances.

The practices for these performances are truly in swing now. We are all getting use to the hall and the logistics of it all. Staff and pupils are getting their heads around the AV equipment and lines are being read clearly and with expression.

Music can be heard often around the school.

And it isn’t just at concert practice. Quite often I have found myself wandering past playmates and breakfast club to hear pupils (and occasionally staff) warming up for another school day. It seems they have found just dance on the internet and are making full use of the great sound and large screen. Here is a typical scene currently.

There were some decent dance moves present on this occasion – and a few questionable ones of course.

The school has been inundated with a variety of visitors this week. As always they have commented on how polite, engaged and enthusiastic the pupils are.

In particular this week the focus was on welsh. The school hosts a weekly Welsh assembly, led by Mrs C Jones, Mrs J Walker and the Criw Cymraeg. Within this session the pupils watch welsh related videos (often starring the pupils speaking welsh), learn their phrase of the week and sing welsh songs and the national anthem. A welsh advisor for the county came to visit this and was very pleased with what she saw.

We also had a visit on Wednesday afternoon to look at elements of welsh around the school. From displays to the welsh that pupils speak to each other in class. Again the team were impressed by how on task the children were and of the quality of their welsh language skills. Well done to the pupils and the staff for their effort.

This week also saw non-uniform day with a collection of items requested from the PTA. These items will go towards the Christmas Fair which will take place on 4th December. As always we greatly appreciate the hard work of the PTA and to all the families that have donated something so generously. My office is full of this stuff at the moment.

Finally, as always, it was a pleasure to walk into Years 1 and 2 this week and see the creative work going on. Below are some scenes I stumbled on this week.

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It is hard to believe that the time has come again to start warming up the vocal chords and being rehearsing for the Christmas services. But arrive it has. It doesn’t seem so long ago that we were in the previous buildings preparing ourselves for the final ever performances in the old building. Now we have a lovely new hall in which to put on these festive treats and staff are getting use to the sound systems, displays and light controls. As I walk around the school now – I can just begin to hear the odd song being song and line being delivered…and very good they sound too.

We also had our first visit by PC Reeves this Friday. PC Reeves comes in three times a year to deliver sessions to Years 2,4,6 on a variety of important topics such as staying safe online or drugs. This week Years 2 and 6 focused on the topic of drugs, whilst Year learnt about staying SMART online.

The pupils get a lot from these sessions and always enjoy them.

 

Though a short week back after half term- it felt that there was a lot to pack in this wee.

The football team saw there second round of matches on Friday as they visited the Rock again to play against a collection of other Wrexham schools.As always the team did themselves and the school proud. After a slow start they drew and won the last few games 1-1, 4-0 and 2-0. Well done team.

The main priority this week, of course, was Remembrance service and commemorating those that gave their lives in the wars.

It was a pleasure to invite many of the luncheon club to the school. They came for a cup of day, a wonderful service held by some of the Year 5 and 6’s, and a delicious meal cooked by Jane and Nicky.

All the visited commented on how nice the new build look, how tasty the food was and how well behaved, sensible and respectful the pupils were.

Alongside this was much writing and art work based around this topic. Of course it all ended this week on Sunday with a fabulous service led by the pastor. It was nice to see so many staff, parents, governors and children there.

Well we have made it to the end of the first half term and all still appear to be standing upright.

This week saw the PTA discos take place and the volume cranked up to 11. Each set of years groups had there time dancing away in the hall and there were some fantastic costumes on show. The pupils, I am sure, also enjoyed the brief respite offered with a cold drink and a packet of crisps. All in all, it was another successful event set up by the PTA and has helped raise some funds for the school. Roughly £285 at last count I believe. Thank you from Gwersyllt CP to all the PTA members involved.

We also had a visit from Techniquest using laptops and crumble to allow pupils in Year 5 and 6 to develop their coding. The pupils were fully engaged in this and, again with the help of the PTA, we hope to continue this through the new ICT equipment purchased.

I hope everyone has an enjoyable week away from school and that the weather behaves itself. We will see you all back on 5th November.

Another soggy week this week but it didn’t stop the school competing in a football tournament in which they represented themselves fabulously.

11 pupils from Year 5 and 6 drove down to Cefn Mawr to participate in a Wrexham county football league. The league is setup in such a way as to ensure the teams play each other over the course of a 3 or 4 day program. On this occasion the team played 4 teams in the league (we also played a friendly. The results were as followed:

v St Mary’s Wrexham loss 1-0

v St Peter’s won 2-1

v Tanyfron drew 0-0

v Rroft drew 1-1

The team participated very sportingly and look forward to the next day in Novemebr

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Speaking of participating thank you to all pupils, parents and others who visited the Parents evenings during the week and the open day on Saturday. The parents evening was well attended and a lot of favorable comments were mentioned.

It was lovely to see current pupils past, present and future attending the open day, as well as groups of friends who shared very happy memories and some great photos of the old building as it was. Hopefully everyone left suitably impressed with the new buid and what it can offer the community moving forward.

We started the week off with a cacophony of noise this week. First thing on Monday morning saw a visit from ‘Make Some Noise’ who spent 30 minutes waking us up with a great collection of live music. The pupils thoroughly enjoyed it.

We have also seen the introduction of the Sports Leaders this week. Last years did a fantastic job bringing equipment onto the yard and engaging all the pupils in activities. If this week is anything to go by the current Year 6’s will be equally as good.

It has been lovely spending time in Early Years this week- Mrs McHugh hosted, alongside the other staff in Nursery and Reception, a evening for Parents on Phonics. It also gave those that came a great opportunity to look around the new facilities. For those that couldn’t make it there is a sneak preview below.

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And below the same activities but with the pupils using them. It is great to see them so engaged.

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We have also posted a few more pictures of the Pentrellyncwmer trip at the bottom of the page- Week Ending 20-9-19. Enjoy!

Miserable weather this week but a great opportunity to use the spaces in our school to the maximum.

The new learning plaza (or old hall) has a multitude of ways in which it can be used. It has been interesting to see the use of this evolve even over the brief 4/5 weeks that we have been in school. At the very start groups and individuals were using the space for written work now classes are using it to work on STEM activities and various discussion and computer based work.

Below the Year 5/6 pupils have used some new crumble sets to code lights around their own creations.

A few members of staff also attended training on the new AV system in place. This included the new hifi and speaker system, the large projector and the stage lighting. As mentioned last week, groups and committees have commenced and it was wonderful to see a member of the Digital Dynamos take to it all like a duck to water.

Finally, we had our first sporting event of the year with the netballers playing at Clwedog – they came in a fantastic 2nd place. Well done to all involved.

As I mentioned in the newsletter, it has been a great pleasure walking around the school over the past week and seeing the pupil groups and committees really taking shape.

On Wednesday the Pupils in Years 2-6 voted for their class representatives to join the school council. These were voted for officially through a ballot and pupils arrived per class to cast their vote.

The votes were announced in Fridays assembly…..Our new school Councillors are:

Year 2- Jacob and Ryan

Class 1-Jayden and Max

Class 2- Harry and Rhys

Class 3- Cody and Brooke

Class 4-Nina, Daniel and Grace

Class 5- Evie and Liam

Class 6- Thomas and Ethan C

The Digital Dynamos have been hard at work. They can often be found working in classes are with groups of other pupils, imparting their knowledge and helping out where help is needed. Seesaw has been a particular area they have focused on recently.

As well as all this the sports leader have started to get together and figure out how they can best apply what they learnt last term into practice and improve lunch time sports on the yards.

This week the pupils of Year 4/5 headed off into the North Wales countryside to have an adventure at Pentrellyncwmer. The site, based by Corwen, has been open for many years and has transformed itself into a popular outdoor adventure base for pupils of all ages.

Suffice to say the pupils were fantastic. They all had a go at everything, ranging from mountain biking to climbing and canoeing. They seemingly took every opportunity to get wet but always had huge smiles on their faces. They did themselves, their parents and the school proud.

The staff are fantastic on site and all they ask is that the pupils approach each activity with an open mind. All the pupils did this with gusto. Because of this everyone had a fantastic time. Da iawn Gwersyllt!

We will endeavor to put more photos up this week

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