Gwersyllt CP

Dear Parents/Guardians,

The Senedd

This afternoon was the first of our Senedd afternoons for KS2. On these afternoons, all Ks2 pupils will split into 5 different groups (with the exception of School Council and the Wellbeing group whom also meet) to lead the school in certain areas.

These areas will be the 4 core purposes of the National Curriculum plus a special selected group who will look at the curriculum as a whole.

The groups are:

*Healthy and confident

*Ethical and Informed

*Ambitious and capable

*Enterprising and creative

*Curriculum group

The idea behind this is to promote pupil voice in the school, draw out those leadership skills and enhance provision of the 4 core purposes and beyond at Gwersyllt CP.

This year will be a test run- in July we will re-look at it and tweak it ready for September 2024.

Hidden Sentence

This year Gwersyllt CP, and our very own Mrs O’Toole in particular have been supporting the Welsh government in looking at families, and in particular children, who are adversely affected by family members going to prison. Our staff have been trained in this and the work has been hugely purposeful and of great importance across Wales. Please see the links below for further details

https://www.prisonadvice.org.uk/news/welsh-children-with-a-parent-in-prison-benefit-from-support-at-school

https://www.prisonadvice.org.uk/for-schools

Medication

Please ensure that all medication required for pupils is handed in at reception and the necessary forms filled in. Medication must be over seen by a member of staff.

Playmakers

And finally, our playmakers have been trained up for the rest of the year and beyond. They completed the training on Friday  26^th January and received their certificates on Monday. Well done all.

Have a lovely weekend,

Dear Parents/Guardians,

Here we are at the end of a long, busy and successful term. It has been full of hard work, various events and lots of smiles and laughter. None more so then this week when we have enjoyed Year 3 and 4’s Christmas performance, Year 5’s service, Year 1 and 2’s Crafternoon and the Early Years party.

A huge thank you to the pupils for being an absolute pleasure to be around, you should be very proud of them. Thank you to all of you for your continued support and a big thank you to the staff for their hard work and effort and making Gwersyllt CP a great place to be.

All that’s left to do is to wish you all a fabulous break and we will see you on January 9^th at the normal time to start the new term.

Have a great couple of weeks,

Dear Parents/Guardians,

One final week left before school closes for the Christmas break, it promises to be a busy one.

This week was busy enough- Most of the classes enjoyed going to the cinema, Year1,2,3 and 4 watched the new Disney fare called Wish whilst at the time of writing Year 5 and 6 are off enjoying (I hope and assume) the new Wonka film.

We have been entertained by the Early Years Christmas performance and, again as I write, are preparing for the Year 3 and 4 Crafternoon. We have also tucked into Christmas dinner.

Next week offers us our Year 3 and 4 performance, the Year 5 service at the congregational church, the Year 1 and 2 Crafternoon, the Early years Christmas treat and more parties then you could shake a stick at. We will also have our end of term house winners and our pupils of the terms alongside attendance awards.

Just one reminder seeing as it is so busy. There will be no clubs with the exception of British Sign Language held next week.

Have a great weekend

Dear Parents/Guardians,

A quick thank you for your support with the Christmas fair. As always, the PTA did a fantastic job of organising it, that coupled with your attendance and enthusiasm has meant we have raised a fantastic total of just shy of £1000 for the pupils of Gwersyllt CP. A huge diolch yn fawr from us all.

And a huge thank you from me to the PTA team.

Community cupboard

Talking of raising money, I am delighted to be able to let you know that the team at Groundworks have raised a whopping £442 for the school community cupboard. This was done through a group of young people creating Christmas related goods for sale at Alyn Water. We are extremely grateful ti the group for this donation and know it will make a big difference in supporting the community.

As last week, please keep an eye on the list the newsletter below for all Christmas events coming up in the next couple of weeks.

…finally

Just a request that pupils are not bringing in toys, jewellry/cosmetics or other items with them from home. As well as being a distraction many of these will get lost, broken or cause fall out within the class. This will be a huge help to the classteachers.

Have a lovely weekend,

Dear Parents/Guardians,

Firstly, thank you for all your kind donations this morning for the PTA to enable them to collect together prizes and munch more for the Christmas Fayre. They are greatly appreciated and make such a difference.

the Christmas fair itself will be held in school (where it is warm) on Wednesday 6^th December. It will be held in the Learning Plaza, the Studio (Playmates room) and into the Hall. We are promised many different stalls, some hosted by the pupils and an appearance by Santa. there will of course be a raflle that will usually be drawn at about 4:30. Don’t worry if you cant stay though, we will make sure it gets to you if you win.

The fair will open at 3pm so those picking up younger pupils can collect and start entering through the front. I hope everyone enjoys it and a huge thank you in advance to our wonderful PTA for planning and organising it.

I look forward to seeing you there.

Have a lovely weekend

Dear Parents,

We are getting to that time of year when things ramp up for Christmas. Dates have been picked, songs are being practised and materials bought for a variety of crafts. 

This week has been a little quieter than last week, with a bit more routine returning to the days. Having said that, we have welcomed in Pat Oakes the Fun Food Chef to look at Mexican food with Onnen, Derwen and Masarnen. It was a wonderful opportunity for the children to see how healthy food can also be tasty and to see the process of making through to eating.

Year 5 and 6 visited the High school to look at Hearts dissection as part of the wider topic ‘Give a Little’. We also had the first tournament for our football team who looked fantastic in their new football kit.

Pupils are starting new topics now link to the area of Expressive arts

From Year 1 to 6 these are or will be:

Year ½ (Llwyfen and Bedwen)- Beat Band Boogie

Year ¾ (Onnen and Derwen)- Now that’s what I call Music

Year 4/5 (Masarnen)- /theatres, concert sand galleries

Year 5/6 (Afallen and Celyn)-Lights, Camera, Action

Have a lovely weekend,

Dear Parents/Guardians,

Just a couple of reminders,

School Dinners

First quick reminder to order school dinners for pupils in advance using the parent pay app. Can we also ask that discussion is had with the pupils about what they would like to eat. We are still seeing a lot of food waste as children do not want the food that has been selected for them. This makes it difficult as we don’t have enough of the food prepared for them of the alternative they would prefer. Many thanks.

Pick-Up

If your child is being picked up by an adult who is not previously well known by school please call through to school to make us aware. This makes the process a lot easier, as occasionally we have to make contact at the end of the day to check that it is ok.

Events this Week

A really busy week this week. Firstly, I am delighted to say that we raised upwards of  £126.00 for Children in Need on Thursday. Hopefully a message will appear on the BBC tonight to recognise this. The pupils also looked great for Welsh Day and I am proud to say that we have created our very own school song ‘Yn Cymraeg’. It was also Anti-Bullying week and the pupils have spent some of their time in class digging deeper into this important message. Alongside this, we have had many Music workshops, managed to fit in a good chunk of English, Maths and Topic work.

Phew.

Dear Parents/Guardians,

A huge welcome back to the children after a week away. It is lovely to have them back again. We have picked up where we have left off and it is getting busy already. Please see below for information of two events next week:

Children in Need

Due to Welsh Day (see below) we will be raising money for Children in Need on Thursday 16^th November. Pupils can wear spots or pyjamas and a link will be made available via parent pay for a donation (see Newsletter item below). There will be Children in Need related activities through-out the day.

Welsh Day

On Friday 17^th November we will have the first of our termly Welsh Days, not including Eisteddfod of course. Pupils can come to school wearing Wales related clothes or wearing red items. The whole day will be full of activities about Wales and Welsh culture. We have booked in the Welsh Whisperer who will be working with Masarnen, Afallen and Celyn to create a Welsh school song.

We need some help…

The school are looking to secure a grant to turn the lower orchard into a community gardening area. The money we are requesting is a substantial amount and in order to access it we need a short list of people we can ask to come and help create it with an outside agency over a number of days. As of yet, we do not know when this will be and it doesn’t need to be the same volunteers every day. We have a group of staff that have placed their names on the list of volunteers, as well as, some community groups. If you think you would be available to help out, even if it is just for a day, please let us know and we will add your name to the list. We don’t have the grant yet and can’t guarantee the weather will be nice, but we can firmly state there will be free tea/coffee and biscuits for those that help.  Thank you in advance.

Dates

Just a reminder for the dates in December:

Nursery and Reception Christmas performance- 15^th December 2023 at 10am

Year 3 and 4 Christmas performance- 18^th December 2023 at 1.30pm

Year 5 Christmas Service- 18^th December 2023 at 6pm

Christmas dinner- 14^th December 2023

Provisional date for Party food dinner- 22^nd December 2023

New Date – Year 1 and 2 Crafternoon – 19th December 2023 at 1.30pm – more information nearer to the time.

Remembrance Service

We hels our remembrance service at 10.45am this Friday to pay our respects. The Gwersylt service commences at approximately 10.30am on Sunday at the cenotaph.

Finally… We have started recommencing our wonderful visits with Year 6 pupils and the residents of Pendine. please see the picture below to see an example of the work that the puils have been carrying out

Have a lovely weekend,

Joel Moore

Headteacher

Dear Parents/Guardians,

The end of a long half term (School is closed to pupils on Friday) and a wonderful one it has been. 

The pupils will return back to school on Monday 6^th November ready for another 7 weeks packed full of activities (some of them seasonal of course). When they return, they will initially continue with their Health and Wellbeing topics. From approximately the end of November, the school topics will then turn their focus towards Expressive Arts and all that comes along with performance, crafts and music. We will update you on their topic titles nearer the time.

Remembrance

The week we return, we will be selling remembrance items to raise money for the poppy appeal (please see below for Poppy Merchandise). We will also have a Remembrance Service on Friday for the pupils. The yearly service will take place at Gwersyllt Cenotaph on Sunday 12^th November.

School Communication

We are aware that, on occasion, parents or guardians may get a lot of communication via the school. Though we can do little about reminder texts for permissions or payments we can limit the amount of texts that are sent out for events or other reminders. In the near future we are going to attempt to give you an option to opt out of these messages, meaning that you will not receive reminders about some aspects of the school day and running. These will be communicated once via Newsletter and text. Please watch this space.

...And finally,

A huge thank you to all the parents who came to parents evening this week- we hope you found it informative. Thank yo ufor your kind offerings for our Harvest service. Also, a huge thank you to the parents who came to support the impromptu performance about chocolate by Onnen and Derwen. We hope you enjoyed it. And of course, thank you to the staff and pupils of those classes for putting it on. What a wonderful way to finish our final half term.

Please see photos below

We hope the pupils have a lovely break and stay safe.

Cofion Cynnes

Dear Parents/Guardians,

The end of the penultimate week this week, just a reminder that Friday 27^th October is a training day and will be open to staff only (except Playmates/Holiday club)

Harvest Assembly and Community cupboard

On 25^th October the school will be having a Harvest assembly. During this we will talk about the meaning of Harvest and how crops are shared with those who may need them. Towards the end of this , each class will bring a box of food to the front of the hall as an offering to the community cupboard. If you can spare just one item of non perishable food (e.g. Pasta, a tin of fruit etc) could this be brought into your child’s class on Wednesday morning please. Thank you so much, your support is greatly appreciated.

Pendine visit

The school are continuing our invaluable links with the community and particularly Pendine. 

The link to the paper below shows what the pupils did last week https://www.leaderlive.co.uk/news/23857293.wrexham-primary-school-care-home-team-project/ . This is part of a regular meeting set up and overseen by Mrs O’ Toole which we believe provides important experiences for everyone. The pupils did us proud as always.

Parents Evening

Hopefully by now you have had your parents evening meet booked in. Please be aware that when you arrive their should be some seating for you to sit on and in Year 1 and above, your child’s books to look at. During the discussion you should have the opportunity to look at your child’s one page profile and amend there or take home to add too (if required). Those in Year 2 or above should also get their child’s reading age. We hope you will find the time worthwhile.

Have a lovely weekend,

Cofion cynnes