Newsletters

23/24 - Autumn 2 - Week 7

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Dear parents and carers,

Welcome to the final newsletter of this term.  And what a term it has been!  There has been so much to celebrate and thank God for, from our year six residential, to South Wales, to various theme days, including India day and Victorian Day.  We have had pupils working outside, planting a new forest.  Some children have learnt to become radio DJs working on our new radio station, whilst others have had experience of learning to cook, representing their peers in our various councils and taking part in our interactive Institute of Imagination sessions.  This has all culminated with our fantastic Christmas Bazaar, Christmas dinner and our wonderful iSingPop concert that took place yesterday.  But it doesn't stop there as next week we have our Snow Ball taking place. 

As you can see, lots has happened but one thing that has not taken place yet is our overdue OFSTED inspection.  Our latest research shows that whilst we are expecting this imminently, and certainly before the 2024 summer holiday, this could be be as late as July 2025.  We just do not know.  That said, the governors and leadership of the school always want to know what we are doing well and where we could improve - and we do not need to wait for OFSTED for this.

Earlier this term, I collected responses from the staff to gauge their views on how well the school is performing.  100% of staff shared they are proud to be a member of the team at William Ford, with 96% stating that the school is well led and managed.  

We now want to seek the views of parents. We would be grateful if you could complete the below survey, once for each child you have at William Ford.  

Your responses help us to understand what we are doing well and how we can further improve.  The majority of the questions have been taken from the OFSTED parent survey.  We will aim to provide a summary of the responses by the end of January. All responses are anonymous.

Please do not use this survey to raise urgent issues, safeguarding concerns or complaints.  This survey will close at 12 noon on Wednesday 20th December 2023.  Please click here to complete: https://forms.office.com/e/ZxxRHDd6fi or scan the QR code.

Homework

A few parents have queried our approach to homework recently, hence I would like to provide some clarification.  Our overall stance is that, as a school, we do not set homework with the exception of reading and revision for SATs exams.  This is because there is no research at all that shows the benefits of homework at primary school age.  We also want to protect the wellbeing of our children, ensuring they are well rested and take away the pressure from working families or those facing challenging housing situations to have to supervise and support homework.

That said, we do know that a small number of families are not happy with this approach.  I would like to remind all families that our newsletter includes what the children have been learning each week along with what the future learning will be.  I have asked all curriculum leaders to provide me with online learning links that we will place on our website, so parents can use these to provide additional learning if they so wish.  What research does prove is that the best way to support your child is to fully engage with their schooling, asking them about their day, what they have learnt, reading with them and to them, undertaking practical educational activities together, like following a recipe or bringing learning into the everyday, such as adding amounts mentally when shopping.  We hope this clarifies the situation and provides some support to those who want to provide home learning.

And finally....

Although there are still 2.5 days remaining of school (a reminder that school closes at 1.30pm on Wednesday 20th December), can I take this opportunity to thank you all for your support this year and wish you all a wonderful Christmas and a Happy New Year.

 

Mr. David Huntingford

Headteacher

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Luke 2 8-14

And in the same region there were shepherds out in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were filled with great fear. And the angel said to them, "Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be a sign for you: you will find a Baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger." And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying,

"Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom He is pleased!"

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We are excited to report that we were able to raise a massive £550 from our Christmas Bazaar last week. This will be used to top up our Hardship Fund to enable us to support our pupils who are struggling to fund school trips. 

Individual school photographs will be held on site on Wednesday 10th January 2024. We are able to facilitate sibling photographs from 8am - 8.30am. So if you would like a group photo of your children who attend William Ford, Village Infants and Nursery, I will be sending an email out on Monday with a link to fill in to secure a place. (Please note if all of your children are at William Ford, we will not require a form)

Exciting News

On Friday 12th January we will be holding our first Columbia day. It will be a chance for us to explore Columbia, the home of the four children we sponsor through the charity STAND BY me.

We ask that pupils come to school dressed in RED, YELLOW or BLUE, the colours of the Columbian Flag. We will be trying some Columbian Cuisine and learning about the music, language and culture.

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Year Three

Dwayne 3M

Year Four

Shiven 4D

Year Five

Mya 5P

Year Six

Joy 6I

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This week the library has been updated with a range of brand-new books! Make sure to head to the library before the end of term to update your book for the holidays!

 

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School Disco - Years 3&4
2:00pm – 3:15pm
19
December
School Disco - Years 5&6
3:30pm – 5:00pm
19
December
Last Day of Term - Finish at 1.30pm
8:00am – 1:30pm
20
December
Christmas Holidays
All Day
From 21 Dec until 04 Jan
21
December
Inset - Non pupil Day
All Day
05
January
Children return to school
8:30am – 9:00am
08
January
Individual photographs+ sibling and staff
8:00am – 12:00pm
10
January
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15 Dec 2023
Christingle Time!
Abigail and Kaiden in 3M write about a special RE lesson the  whole of year three had this week.
Read more
15 Dec 2023
iSingPop Christmas Concert
William Ford students share the good news of Christmas
Read more
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Year Three

This week has been yet another busy, fun-packed week in Year Three. Despite all the festivities getting into full swing, the children have continued to work hard in their curriculum subjects too. We have been using bar models in maths to help solve word problems. As predicted, the children have found these challenging but we will continue to practise these further in the new year. We have also carried out our end of unit assessment to see how much of our learning the children have retained before moving on to our next topic, multiplication. Please encourage your child to practise their tables at least two or three times per week. A secure knowledge of these will really help them in their upcoming work.

We continue to read James and the Giant Peach and the children are enjoying the adventure.

In geography, the children could choose any country in the world to research and then present in their own style. We have had some very varied choices and discovered some incredibly interesting facts.

The children have also made Christingles this week, thinking about the symbolism of the various parts and what they represent to Christians.

The Year Three team have been very proud of the children's efforts in singing this week to prepare for their performance. They put in great amounts of passion and gusto, and we hope you enjoyed watching it as much as they had performing it. 

We hope you have a lovely weekend and a very Merry Christmas. We look forward to seeing you in the new year.

 

 

Year Four 

This week has been our last full week of term and the pupils have been as busy and productive as ever, working hard and having fun, whilst working! 

In English and reading, pupils have been coming to an end of our wonderful book: Journey to Jo'burg, and this week they have been learning how to ask and answer questions, as they became journalists and carried out an interview with an actual witness (Mrs Damonse), who was there at the time of the riots that took place at the end of the Apartheid era. This was a really influential and beneficial interview and really opened the eyes of the children.

In Maths, pupils have been learning how to do division, looking at 2-digit and 3-digit by 1 digit division. Whilst there was a lot of progress, it is clear that pupils need to be practising division and their times table knowledge at home, every day. Please can you enable your children to access TT Rockstars on a device to aid with this.

As well as this, pupils have been busy preparing for the iSingPop Christmas concert and it has been noticed and commented on how fantastic their singing has been. This all culminated in a spectacular performance on Thursday, which we hope you enjoyed!

We look forward to our final few days of term and hope that you enjoy the build up to Christmas!

Year Five

There has been a decidedly 'Christmassy' feel to this week, with the Year Five children all working hard with their singing to prepare their songs for the iSingPop concert. We also enjoyed Christmas jumper day and our Christmas dinner lunch at school.

In class, our multiplication of increasingly large numbers has continued in Maths. This week we have been multiplying numbers up to 4-digits by 2-digits and using this knowledge to solve a variety of questions.

We have concluded our humanities topics for this term, and after some research on coastal areas of the U.K. and erosion, we wrote letters to describe what we would see on a coastal tour of the U.K.

Our music topic about the 'Blues' concluded with the children learning all about the Blues Scale and performing their own music. Everyone performed well, and we even recorded some of it!

Incarnation, our R.E. topic for the term, also concluded this week with an opportunity to review what we have learnt regarding different people's beliefs in Jesus and Christmas.

As we conclude our preparations for Christmas at school, the Year Five staff members would like to say "Well done" to all the children for their hard work this term and wish you all a wonderful time over the Christmas holidays.

Year Six

Despite being so close to the end of term, the Year Six pupils are continuing to work hard across the curriculum.  In maths, we have now completed our unit of work on fractions and have begun working on converting units of measurement.  In English, the children have continued working on their balanced arguments as well having as a focus lesson on causal conjunctions.  

We have completed our science unit of work based on light.  This was completed within the context of a police investigation and the children were eager to finally learn the identity of the criminal from a list of six potential suspects.  

In geography, we have completed our unit of work examining mountains.  The children have worked very hard and as part of their final lesson they worked in small groups and got to use the school radio station to record a podcast about the work they had completed over the half-term.

Our R.E. lesson this week has examined humanism.  All of the Year Six teachers were impressed with the depth of thinking so many of the children displayed in this lesson.

We are so close to the end of term and the Year Six teachers wish you all a peaceful Christmas break during which you are able to spend quality time with friends and family.

 

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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

3F

Name: Zion

For: working diligently on his RE assessment.

 

Name: Chidera

For: acting generously with her peers.

 

Name: Alexander G

For: his continued kindness to others. 

3M

Name: Danyal

For: making a big effort in our recent writing assessment and for greatly improved handwriting.

Name: Theo

For: Showing kindness and manners to those around him and for generously demonstrating how to behave to others.

Name: Hunter

For: always being settled, calm and ready to learn and setting a good example to his classmates.

3N

Name: Maxwell

For: enthusiastic participation in I Sing Pop

Name: Sofia 

For:  being kind and caring to other children in class

Name:  Kingston

For:  for being peaceful and calm during our I Sing Pop performance
 

Working diligently

 

Acting generously

 

Promoting peace

Year Four

4D

Name: David

For: working diligently in Maths this week.

 

Name: Viola 

For: always being kind and helpful.

 

Name: Shiven 

For: always having a peaceful attitude and working hard in all subjects.

4IW

Name: Zayn

For: putting in a fantastic effort in all lessons, this week especially shared reading and Maths.

Name: Abdullah 

For: being kind and  helpful in  completing tasks around the class. 

Name: Joseph

For:  having a calm and peaceful attitude in the classroom. 

4W

Name: Andrew

For: working diligently and working hard on his journalistic skills, when carrying out an interview. 

Name: Liyanah

For: acting generously and showing the fruits of the spirit. 

Name: Ophelia

For: Showing great enthusiasm and helping to motivate others. 
 

Working diligently

 

Acting generously

 

Promoting peace

Year Five

5A

Name: Handel

For: his super effort in learning long multiplication this week.

 

Name: Daniella O

For: always supporting others positively in the classroom and being a great model to others. 

 

Name: Daniella I

For: her peaceful and calm approach to all activities. 

5H

Name: Onirban

For: consistently high quality work.

Name: Zain

For: acting generously when sharing with others.

Name: Shekinah

For: living at peace with her quiet, calm attitude.

5P

Name: David

For: working really hard with long multiplication, never giving up.

Name: Charlie

For: showing kindness to his classmates.

Name: Andrea

For: always being a calm presence in the class.
 

Working diligently

 

Acting generously

 

Promoting peace

Year Six

6B

Name: Favor

For: working diligently in all lessons.

 

Name: Alexandra

For: helping others within the classroom.

 

Name: Layla

For: having a calm presence within the classroom.

6F

Name: Robert

For: great presentation delivery in computing. 

Name: Godgift

For: helping others in class and across the year group with their DT work. 

Name: Amelia

For: being focused and living at peace during independent work.

6I

Name: Deborah

For: Reading everyday this week and having more confidence when reading aloud.

Name: Abdul

For: His generosity this week, he has been ery helpful. Thank you so much!

Name: Ryan

For: His kindness and funny jokes, he is always in a good mood.
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