Gwersyllt CP

Dear Parents/Guardians,

As always it has been lovely to welcome the pupils back to school for the final half term. The weather has been fantastic and the children have been enjoying preparing for sports day and having time on the school field.

School Jumpers

The warm weather does lead to a few issues though. With school jumpers coming on and off regularly, the likelihood of them being lost or misplaced increases. Can we kindly request that all jumpers have the pupils’ names in and that if pupils do take them off they place them in their trays, bags or lockers (A conversation I have had in assembly with them). On the topic of school uniform, at the end of every term, we collect items which have been left behind, if not collected, or the items that have no name in, we take them to the garage to be reused. Please do check here on Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday to see if there are any spare items to be reused or if a lost item is there.

Class Names

Just a heads up that next year we will be altering class names with the Welsh names of trees. We will send out the finalised names in the next couple of weeks so you can practice saying those names that you need to perfect. I know the staff and particularly Jo and Linda are already trying to get used to certain pronunciations.

This is something that we have been keen to do for a while as, when the school buildings joined, there wasn’t a through line, with some classes being named after birds and others having simple numbers. As we are a school proud to be in Wales we wanted to embrace this with Welsh names.

Techno Camp

We had a fantastic visit this Friday from Mr Clewitt and Bangor university. The year 5 and 6 pupils throughly enjoyed it and it is easy to see why when I took a walk into the classrooms today.

Fantastic stuff

Snakes and Magic

Our Barn Owls and Snowy Owls pupils came into a whole new world this Friday with the first of their school trip equivalent activities. The value fr money is amazin with the equivalence of four school trips happening over the next week or so.

App guides for families

This collection of guides provides parents and carers with key information about the most popular social media and gaming apps children and young people are using today.

The guides include a detailed overview of the app, outlining the age rating and key terminology. They also highlight the risks each app poses to young people and give detailed instructions on how to enable parental controls and safety settings.

This guide can also help parents and carers have a conversation with their child about a sensitive issue.

Have a lovely weekend,

Mr J Moore

Dear Parents,

Before I write anything else, just a few summer pictures from our eco-committee of the good work they have been doing this year.

I am delighted to say that not only have they achieved the bronze award this year they have now put them selves forward for the silver award too. What a productive year they have had. Thank you to Mrs Harrison and Mrs Howe who lead them so expertly.

The Newsletter arrives a day early today as we school finishes for half term on Thursday rather than a Friday. We hope you all have a fantastic week ahead and fingers crossed the lovely weather continues.

A busy half term follows the break with sports days (see further down the newsletter- more information will be given prior to the events), leaving services and other classroom events and trips.

The classes will be covering the following topics before the summer break:

Barn Owls- Amazing Animals

Snowy Owls- Amazing Animals

Harriers- Mini beasts and habitats

Kestrels- Under the Sea (continuing)

Class 1- Viva l’Italia!

Class 2- The Great Outdoors

Class 3- Experiments

Year 5- Continuation of topic

Year 6- Transition

We are all looking followed to seeing the pupils back on Monday 5^th June after the break.

We are pleased to say that we now have a Facebook Page dedicated to our Families. You can find this on Facebook under the name of Family Learning/Family Care at Gwersyllt CP. Please do let us know if you have any ideas on what you would like to see here. 

We hope that you all have a good break over half term and look forward to seeing you all soon. 

Cofion cynnes

Dear Parents/Guardians,

What a way to finish the week! The pupils look fantastic in their blue, red and white clothing and by the smiles on their faces I can tell they had a great day (please see the website for photos).

The school set up some good old fashioned garden games (in the hall) for the morning so each year group could have a go on these. The afternoon consisted of party food with further opportunities to enjoy some games. Coronation activities were completed in the classrooms. All of this plus the prizes given out yesterday in conjuntion with the classes competitions has made it a couple of days to remember.

Don’t worry if your child wasn’t victorious as every pupil should be coming home today with a bookmark and book to commemorate the day. Thank you to our wonderful PTA and Elaine Swindley for organising these pieces of memorabilia.

Lates

Just a reminder that doors shut at 8.50am on the dot for pupils to enter to their classes. I have, on occasion, tried to sneak pupils in after this time but this has led to pupils not being marked in the register and parents receiving a text of absence which understandably causes anxiety. If your class doors are closed please sign the pupils in via the front reception.

Have a great bank holiday weekend,

Dear Parents/Guardians,

I hope you have all had a good week and are enjoying the bursts of improved weather we are having. Here is hoping we have it for the bank holiday weekends that are soon to arrive.

Today we have enjoyed celebrating Wrexham’s historic promotion to the National Football league. This stemmed from a wonderful leterr I recieved from Oscar in Class 1 and in my letter home I promised you (and him) I would place it up for it to be read.

Impossible to say no I am sure you agree.

Disclaimer: Just a quick message to the students, I won’t be able to agree to the requests of every wonderfully written letter but you are welcome to give it a try 🙂

I was pleased to see, walking around the school, that we have had many lovely examples of letter writing happening this week. Particularly across KS2. Letters written tot he community council to letters written to King Charles. the work in the English books is looking great.

On the subject of King Charles, just a reminder that we are celebrating the coronation on Friday 5th May and pupils can wear blue, red and white for the day. We will have a special lunch, games and some party food in the afternoon (morning for Early Years).

Competions requests for the pupils to enter should have come home with the children and prizes will be given out on a Thursday assembly.

Finally, Our Foundation Learning classes enjoyed learning about road safety this week. They had BEEP BEEP days on Tuesday and Wednesday and the pupils all took on board the important learnings of these sessions.

Have a lovely Bank hoiday weekend

Dear Parents/Guardians

Welcome back to everyone, It was lovely to see the pupils again on Monday morning- I hope you all had an enjoyable time off over the Easter weekend. Just a few reminders of things coming up.

Coronation

Previously, I sent you details on what would be happing for Friday 5^th in order to celebrate the coronation. It has been confirmed that we will have a special dinner on this day of Harry Ramsden fish and chips and a chocolate chip cookie. We are requesting that pupils come dressed in red, white and blue.

Sports days

Weather permitting (and all being well), We will be holding the sports days for most of the years on the week beginning 19^th June 2023. We will endeavour to get these dates to you before the half term holidays. As last year these will be split into Year 1 and 2, Year 3 and 4 and Year 5 and 6.

Healthy Eating

A quick reminder that our policy for morning snack is fresh fruit and vegetables only and water or milk in the classroom. On this topic can we also ensure that pupils are fed and ready for arrival at school at 8.40-8.50am. Breakfast club is free for all pupils from 8.20am to 8.35am to get some toast or cereal if needed. Many thanks

Alert system

Finally, We have had an email from county to make people aware that the uk government will be testing it’s new alert system on 23^rd April. Please see the link for more detail.

New Emergency Alerts system will be tested nationally on 23 April

Have a lovely weekend,

Dear Parents/Guardians,

Just a couple of heads up or reminders. And a few lovely photos to finish of the term

Coronation event – 5^th May 2023

The school will be celebrating the coronation on Friday 5^th May (Remember there is an extra bank holiday on Monday 8^th May). We will be asking staff and pupils to wear red, white and blue for this day. The staff have put their heads together and more news about class competitions (prizes to be won), party food and afternoon games will be shared shortly. The canteen will also be offering a celebration dinner especially for the event.

Universal Free School Meals

A reminder to parents of Year 1 and 2 pupils that the universal free school meals offer comes into effect from 17^th April 2023. Hopefully you should be able to book free meals for that week through parent pay soon.

It is still vitally important that you claim free school meal status if you can though. Please see the link below for how to do this.

Easter Bingo

A huge thank you to everybody who supported the bingo. From those who brought in prizes to those that joined us for the evening. We managed to earn around £600 for the school. Of course, the biggest thank you of all to our wonderful PTA who organised and ran the event.

Eco Committee

Our Eco comittee continue to do a fabulous job every Wednesday (and throughout the rest of the week of course). They have already achieved the Bronze award and are working towards the silver aswell.

Yesterday they met Shane from Keep Wales Tidy and Emma Watson Eco coordinator for Wrexham.

They talked about our ideas and how to get things moving towards our future awards, Shane is going to send information about grants etc that will help with the tasks ahead. They were really impressed with what’s already going on and they thought Jaxon”s Wood was fantastic.

 The litter pick was part of @Spring Clean Cymru

And finally, I wrote to you last week about the award the school achieved in the Wrexham/Flintshire awards winning best primary school. Today we were presented with the award which now sits pride of place in the reception area. A big thank you to all involved.

We hope you all have a wonderful break and we will see you again on Monday the 17^th April.

Many thanks for this term,

from all the staff at Gwersyllt CP

Dear Parents/Guardians,

The end of the penultimate week and the final full week as we have a training day on Friday 31^st March 2023.

Firstly, thank you from myself and the PTA all those that have given generously today for the PTA Easter Bingo. As always, your support is greatly appreciated.

The Bingo will take place in the hall and I believe that eyes down is at 6:30pm. We look forward to seeing you there.

Gwersyllt CP wins an award

You may be aware through the local paper and websites that Gwersyllt CP was nominated for an award across Flintshire and Wrexham schools this week. I am delighted and proud to say that we won school of the year across the 2 counties on Wednesday. We have an award coming to us soon and we hope to celebrate it in assembly when it is delivered. My understanding is that it does involve parental feedback, a huge thank you to everyone who put our name forward for this.

And a huge thank you from me to the staff and pupils, who, as usual, are fantastic.

Online safety

This is becoming a huge facet of school safeguarding as use of devices rises year on year. 

For your information in the past couple of weeks the school have:

• Identified an online safety lead
• Created a new policy which is to go to Governors on Wednesday
• A process to go through for inappropriate use has been created to be referred to by all staff
• Learner, staff and visitor agreements have been drawn up. These will be created on forms to sign in the Summer term 
• The school have signed up to Project Evolve – This surveys pupils and identifies knowledge weakness then putting forward lessons for the class- To commence in September alongside resigned agreements
• Booked online safety training on 26^th May for all staff
• Created a log sheet for incidents 

Our filter system, Smoothwall, also reports any inappropriate searches to the safeguarding leads. This is a new feature which we hope to use increasingly as we move forwards.

Have a lovely weekend,

Dear Parents/Guardians,

Firstly, a huge thank you for taking part in, and given generously to, Comic Relief today. Although I am not here today, I have it on good authority that they looked fantastic in red and joined in enthusiastically with all related aspects throughout the day.

Just a reminder that Tuesday 21^st March is Rock you Socks off day– A day for the pupils and staff to wear odd socks for World Down Syndrome Day. World Down Syndrome Day (WBSD), is a global awareness day which has been officially observed by the United Nations since 2012. There is no link to put forward money, as with comic relief, but we will be selling gingerbread socks for £1, at break time. We have just under 300, so plenty for all. These will be sold until we run out. So get your purchase in quickly.

Glan Llyn

The majority of our year 6 pupls have had a wonderfult time in Glan Llyn. Hopefully we will have some photos to share next week.

Have a lovely weekend,

Reading – Tips for Home Reading

Hints on helping with reading at home

As a parent/carer, you play an important role in helping your child learn to read. Research shows that children who are helped at home make better progression at school. Reading with your child can be fun and very rewarding. It also shows that you value their efforts. If children enjoy reading, it will benefit their whole education. They are also more likely to carry on reading as adults. 

Choosing what to read

Choose any books that appeal to your child, for example, stories or information books on hobbies/interests such as football or animals. Vary your reading together. It does not have to be schoolbooks. Newspapers, magazines, recipes, games instructions can be read together and still be part of the process of learning to read with enjoyment.  We can also borrow books from the local library to read together.  Your children may keep choosing the same book because it is a favourite. This is all part of learning to read. Children enjoy being read to, even when they are fluent readers. 

How can I help?

• Find a quiet, relaxing place away from distractions such as TV/devices
• Sit comfortably in good light and talk to your child about their book
• Read for about 10 minutes; a regular short time of quality is better than a long session which happens only occasionally
• Ask why they have chosen the book
• Talk about the cover and title and what the story might be about
• Ask them to tell you who wrote the book or point to the author
• Look at the pictures and ask them to tell you where the story takes place
• Ask who they can see in the pictures (especially in picture books)
• Try to be supportive and positive during the reading time
• Encourage your children to look closely at the print
• Read the first page or two together until your child is ready to continue alone
• Encourage your child to point to each word as they read aloud. Where possible wait for your child to decode words
• Encourage the use of clues such as the look/sound of the letters, what would make sense and the illustrations
• Do not sound out words which are not phonetic e.g., “because”
• When a mistake is self-corrected or a previously unknown word is recognised, praise highly
• Encourage expressive reading by drawing attention to punctuation
• Help understanding by talking about the story or text – the setting, the plot, the characters
• Discuss the kind of people the characters are and the way they behave
• Talk about the kind of story it is (adventure, fantasy, science fiction, myth…)
• Encourage your child to refer to words and passages in the text to support their opinions/thoughts
• If your child is finding a book difficult, help out by reading it together

If they get stuck on a word, you could:

Let them read on, so they can work out the word themselves from the context. Point to a picture if it will help them guess the meaning, give them the first or last sounds to help them. Read along with them then pause, prompt, praise if they get it right. Read the word for them. When they are confident with sounds, let them sound out unknown words – break longer words down in to syllables

Remember – Practice, with praise, makes perfect.

If you have any concerns about your child’s reading please contact the class teacher.

 A bank of helpful phrases to use can be found below when reading with your child;

• Who is in the story?
• Where is the story set?
• Can you use the pictures to tell part of the story?
• How do you think the story will end?
• What do you think will happen next? Why do you think that?
• Do you like the characters? Why?
• Who is your favourite character and why?
• What happens in the story?
• What did the characters say? Why?
• How did a character scare, upset or help another character?
• Has anything in the story ever happened to you? How did you feel?

• Did the story make you think of something that has happened to you or someone you know?
• Can you explain why you think a character did that in the story?
• What does this word/phrase tell you about the character or setting?
• What does the word ‘X’ tell us about ‘Y’?
• Find two ways in which the writer tells you about an event/setting/theme, character  
• Which words did you like the most? Why?
•  In the story ‘X’ is mentioned a lot. Why?
•  What other words/phrases could the writer have used?
•  What do you think the writer meant by writing ‘X’? Which words do you think are the most important in this sentence/paragraph/page? Why?
• Does the front cover give us any clues about the story?
• What is your favourite part of the story and why?

Any reading you can do with your child is helpful, even reading words in the supermarket or road signs etc!

Dear Parents/Guardians,

As the Easter break nears, we are starting to look ahead at the Universal Free school meal roll out for Year 1 and 2 (Year 3 to 6 are to follow in September). There may be some slight alterations to the pupils dinner time structure as we try to accommodate this extra update. However, we are hoping it will be a reasonably smooth transition.

It is important to remember that, despite every primary child eventually having free school meals, filling in the form for extra financial support in and out of school is still crucial. Free school meals have always been the most advertised but a small part of the grant access that can be attained.

 

If in doubt, please visit the website : Pupil Development Grant (PDG) | Wrexham County Borough Council.We have also sent out a letter with further information and added a regular reminder on the newsletter. Please do see what is available.

Have a good weekend,