Newsletters

Spring 2 Week 1

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Dear parents and carers,

Welcome back after what I hope was an enjoyable and refreshing half-term break.  It has been wonderful to see the pupils all back in school and engaging with their learning.

This is an important week in the Christian calendar as we celebrated lent. Pupils at William Ford commemorated the beginning of the build up to Easter, by having a special Lent service. Pupils learnt about the story of Lent and the example that Jesus set during the 40 days in the desert. Some pupils chose to give up or take on something for the period of Lent. As a collective, William Ford are also going to take part in the '40 acts of kindness' initiative, where pupils will carry out an act of kindness for each day of the Lent period. In true William Ford style, we celebrated by having a pancake flipping and eating contest, which was narrowly won by Mrs Legg and Miss Ibukun!

Thank you to all of the parents who took time to respond to our survey regarding the newsletter and parent workshops.  I will summerise the findings below:

  • The vast majority of parents and carers read the newsletter and find it useful.
  • The most popular sections are the Headteacher's introduction (page 1), what the year groups have been and will be learning and stars of the week.
  • Email and app are the most popular methods to read.  Apologies we cannot yet get notifications to work for the newsletter.
  • Parents are overall very happy with the amount and methods of information sharing from the school but we need to do better at sharing information about SATS and the Y4 multiplication check.
  • Parent workshops are very much requested.
  • The most popular subjects are SATS, maths, writing, reading, online safety and Y4 multiplication check.
  • Parents preferred format is a presentation followed by questions although Zoom and working alongside your child were also popular options. We will look into both of these ideas.
  • There was no consensus on times although straight after school was ever so slightly more popular than before school.  We will consider this.
  • Some parents would like the opportunity to meet other parents within the school.

Thank you again for your responses and ideas.  We will consider our response and design a workshop programme for parents that fully meets your needs.

I pray you all have a wonderful weekend.

 

Mr. David Huntingford

Headteacher

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Colossians 3:12-14

God has chosen you and made you his holy people. He loves you. So always do these things: Show mercy to others; be kind, humble, gentle, and patient. Do not be angry with each other, but forgive each other. If someone does wrong to you, then forgive him. Forgive each other because the Lord forgave you. Do all these things; but most important, love each other. Love is what holds you all together in perfect unity. 

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Pupils who have been attending morning reading boosters have made great progress in their lessons. It has helped them build confidence when reading aloud and given them a greater understanding of the vocabulary in a text. 

Please ensure that your child arrives at 8.30 daily via the school office to get the most get the most out of these sessions. 

If your child does not attend for more than 10 consecutive sessions, they will be removed from the list and the place offered to other pupil.

Due to next weeks strike action we will be holding World Book Day celebrations on Friday 3rd March.

We would love to see all pupils (and staff) come to school as their favourite book character or wearing Pyjamas (or what you would wear to relax and read)

Don't forget you can always reuse your curriculum day (India Day, Egyptian day or Victorian day) costumes and dress as a Victorian character from a Charles Dickens book. 

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Year Three

Joseph 3P

Year Four

Jeremiah 4D

Year Five

Isaiah 5N

Year Six

Tasnima 6I

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I am currently enjoying reading Tales from India by Bali Rai. This is a great book to read as you learn lots about India and its traditions. In the story a Prince goes on a journey, you get to see what happens to him along the way.

By Amelia 4W

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Parent Consultations all classes - Unfortunately class 3P will be rescheduled due to illness
5:00pm – 7:00pm
27
February
Parent Consultations - Classes 4B, 4D, 5H, 5A, 6I and 6P
3:30pm – 5:30pm
28
February
Parent Workshop - Drop in - MATH SATS Support
9:00am – 9:30am
01
March
Parent Consultations Classes 4W and 6T only
3:30pm – 5:30pm
01
March
Parent Workshop - Drop in - MATH SATS Support
3:30pm – 4:00pm
01
March
Strike Action - Limited Classes Open 3P, 4W, 5A, 5H,6I,6P and 6t Expected to attend
9:00am – 3:00pm
02
March
Parent Consultation - Postponed due to Strike action
3:30pm – 5:30pm
02
March
World Book Day
All Day
03
March
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24 Feb 2023
William Ford 4 - 2 Richard Alibon
Gabriel in 6P writes about our team's football match
Read more
24 Feb 2023
Year 4 Archery
On the 23.2.2023, Year 4 pupils had an exciting opportunity to take part in an Archery workshop experience!
Read more
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Year Three

This week has been another enjoyable week in Year Three. The children have been practising their measuring skills in maths. They have practised measuring in both centimetres and millimetres. They have been improving their accuracy both in measuring and drawing lines. In English, the pupils have been looking at the poem 'The Sound Collector' by Roger McGough. They have been thinking about the sound words used and have learnt that these words are called onomatopoeia. They have also thought about the rhyming pattern in the poem and have practised rhyming words with each other. History this week has seen the children moving on to our new topic of Ancient Greece. They have thought carefully about the topography of Greece and how this impacted where the Ancient Greek people lived. They have also thought about the impact that it would have on their lifestyle, such as causing them to become seafarers. RE has seen the pupils continuing with their studies of Judaism, this week thinking about Shabbat, the Sabbath observed by Jewish people. We have also started our new unit in music thinking about ballads. Maybe you could share your favourite ballad with your children.  

Year Four 

During the first week back, our children have adapted well and got stuck in to our new topics for the term. In Year Four, we are studying the book: Journey to Jo'burg, in English and Reading. This book addresses Apartheid in South Africa and the struggles and challenges that children face growing up in such a hostile environment. This has generated much rich discussion and children have really enjoyed this introduction. We have also been learning to write our own poems, inspired by Allan Ahlberg's 'Please Mrs Butler!' In Maths, pupils have been learning how to divide using the bus stop method. We really encourage you to allow your children to spend at least 20 minutes on TT Rockstars each day, as this well really help with their times table knowledge. Lastly, to finish off a week full of excitement, Year Four Pupils took part in an archery workshop, learning how to shoot archery bows, as well as learning about the 'long bow', and how people in the Bronze Age would have survived using bow and arrows, during the Bronze Age era. 

Year Five

Well done Year 5 for your continued hard work this week. In English, we began our non-fiction study on leaflets, for the charity ‘Stand By Me’, through whom we sponsor three children in Colombia. The children enjoyed exploring the purpose of leaflets by identifying the features used in some real-life examples. They showed confidence in explaining the importance of some features including the logo, contact information, sections divided by subheadings and meaningful images to fulfil the purpose of a leaflet.  Next week, our pupils will be researchers: using valuable sources to obtain key information about the charity for their own leaflets.  In Maths, we continued developing our skills and understanding in multiplying and dividing in the topic of fractions. We have had practice of applying our multiplication tables to find fractions of amounts and to finding the amount of a whole unit. Next week, pupils will be using their knowledge to make links and to find equivalences between fractions, decimals and percentages. In RE, the children learned about the different ways people worship and the importance of prayer to faith in God. Our pupils made good links to learning from our daily worship assemblies including the act of singing, poetry about God that we find in the Bible and strong links with our school values and school vision.

Year SixIMG_5220.jpg

This week in English, the children read 'The Highwayman' and worked in groups to order summarised sentences using the narrative poem to aid them. In Geography the children created their own travel agency brand names and logos to assist them with the foundations to creating a travel website in the next coming weeks. They also learnt how to read a 4 digit grid reference and located South America on a map. In maths, the children started the Statistics unit - recapping line graphs and were introduced to dual bar graphs and pie charts. The children loved starting French this term and enjoyed planning a holiday to France, they learnt the names of other countries and created sentences on where they're going on their holiday. All in preparation for the annual French trip this year,  très bien! In science, the children had a fantastic time discovering how exercise affects their heart beat. Next week, in Maths, the children will look at pie charts with percentages, draw their own pie charts and learn how to find the mean of data. In English the children will look at the range of poetic device used in 'The Highwayman and will look at how to identify grammatical terms. In Religious Studies, they will start looking at the religion Islam. In science the children will write up their results from this week's experiment and make their conclusions from what they have learnt.

 

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Each week, staff select three children from each class who have shown effort and commitment to upholding an aspect of our school vision, shown at the bottom of the page. Congratulations to this week’s ‘stars of the week’ for their tremendous endeavours!

 

Working diligently

 

Acting generously

 

Promoting peace

Year Three

3M

Name: Will

For: an enthusiastic approach to all lessons.

 

Name: Gabia

For: always being helpful around the classroom.

 

Name: Daimon

For: coming into class peacefully and working quietly and peacefully in lessons.

3N

Name: Adriana

For: working hard and contributing to all lessons.

Name: Parker

For: being helpful and polite to his peers and to staff.

Name: Ayaana

For: being calm and ready to work at all times.

3P

Name: Shalom

For: showing consistent diligence throughout all of her lessons this week.

Name: Nafisa

For: showing generosity towards her peers.

Name: Delia

For: promoting peace in class; encouraging a calm settled approach to lessons and those around her.
 

Working diligently

 

Acting generously

 

Promoting peace

Year Four

4B

Name: Annabel

For: Working especially hard with her partner to write a poem.

 

Name: Tausif

For: Working well with others in a range of lessons.

 

Name: Joanna

For: Having a calm approach to all classroom activities.

4D

Name: Jerry

For: Working well with others in our archery lesson

Name: jaqueline

For: Working well and helping others in her reading group

 

Name: Lacie

For: always having a  calm and peaceful influence on others around her

4W

Name: Aneisha

For: Making great progress in Literacy, when writing a poem.

Name: Chizaram

For: acting generously, always offering to help others and the teacher. 

Name: Bobby

For: persevering all week in all lessons, making good contributions and spreading peace. 
 

Working diligently

 

Acting generously

 

Promoting peace

Year Five

5A

Name: Anne

For: always producing diligent work across the curriculum.

 

Name: Izzy

For: always offering to help with classroom jobs.

 

Name: Aiden

For: their calm attitude in class.

5H

Name: Kaiona

For: super effort with her work and presentation this week.

Name: Tanatswa

For: helping to return something lost to its rightful owner.

Name: Frankie 

For: superb behaviour when lining up and setting such a great example.

5N

Name: Jackson

For: consistent efforts across the curriculum.

Name: Robert

For: genuine concern for others and willingness to help.

Name: Zaiya

For: being a major contributor to our peaceful classroom environment.
 

Working diligently

 

Acting generously

 

Promoting peace

Year Six

6I

Name: Kayden

For: Being more focused in class, keep it up

 

Name: Arian

For: His ongoing willingness to help others around him.

 

Name: Zainab

For: Always being kind to others.

6P

Name: Maddie

For: working diligently in her P.E. lessons. Great focus and great effort!

Name: Khadijah

For: readiness to help around the class.

Name: Dionis

For: an improved focus in class, showing a calm example to the class.

6T

Name: Kenneolisa

For: being focused and contributing his answers during class and group discussions. 

Name: Tyler

For: helping others to work out their results in science.

Name: Ruby

For:  having a calm and dedicated approach to her learning this week. 
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