Latest News
Keep up to date with all the news happening in school
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Parent Teacher Meetings
Fri 26 Mar 2021Dear Parents and Carers
Our Parent Teacher meetings will take place via zoom in the first week and second week back after the Easter break. The office will set up your consultation times to sign up for, like the first meeting. You will need to log in at the time you have signed up to.
The days and times are as follows;
April
Mon 19 Tues 20 Wed 21 Thurs 22 Fri 23 Weekend Mon 26 Tue 27 Wed 28 1-6 1-6 1-6 1-6 1-6 1-6 1-6 Hedgehog
Squirrel
Otter
Fox
Robin
Frog
Owl Bat
Rabbit
3.15-5 3.15-5 3.15-5 3.15-5 3.15-5 3.15-5 3.15-5 Fox
Squirrel
Hedgehog
Frog
Robin
Otter
Bat
Rabbit
Owl
If you cannot make the time/day, please get in touch with your child's teacher to try to arrange an alternate time.
The PTA have organised and are selling an Easter Trail. If you need to get in touch with them about buying any after this week, please send us a message and we will pass it on to Cathy Wilkinson the chair.
The will also be selling sweets next week. Year R and 2 will be in the turning circle again and Year 1 will be at the start of the car park. Both events are run by the PTA for parents/carers to purchase after school. Please do not hand money into the teachers for these events as they do not have the trails or sweets in their rooms.
We have some inquisitive birds coming into our birdbox again. Last year we were lucky enough to watch the chicks hatching and growing. Fingers crossed we will be lucky to watch this again. Our birdbox live feed is under the children tab on our website.
We are waiting for information from our sport clubs for after the Easter Holiday. As soon as we receive the booking forms, we will be sending it out to you. Please look out for this in your inboxes (sometimes they go to clutter). Some parents are letting us know they have not received an email. When we press 'send all', our emails are sent to everybody's email address on our files (those are the addresses you supplied when you applied for your child's place in school.) If you aren't receiving emails, please contact the school office to make sure the information we hold is your most up to date information, so that you aren't missing out.
We hope you have a lovely weekend. I will still be watching rugby this weekend, wearing a kilt this time...
Best wishes
Mrs Riches
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2021 Schools' Bird Box Project
Tue 23 Mar 2021Dear Parents/Carers,
Have you managed to have a look at our bird box yet? The Blue Tit is busy bringing in nesting materials: http://www.seenature.org.uk/schools/bishops-waltham-infant-school/
New articles have been published today by the team at See Nature. To view any/all of these articles just click on the links below:
Identifying and grouping birds by observable features
Garden Birds - The Blackbird
http://www.seenature.org.uk/see-nature-news/the-blackbird-2-3/
Bird Food Recipes - Apple Suet Cookies
http://www.seenature.org.uk/see-nature-news/may-week-3-apple-suet-cookies-2-3/
Pupil Zone 2021 Week 2
http://www.seenature.org.uk/see-nature-news/pupil-zone-week-2-2-2-2/
School Office
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Comic Relief Day 2021
Fri 19 Mar 2021Dear Parents and Carers
Thank you to everyone who donated to Comic Relief this year. We raised £292.82. The children have had a brilliant day and they have enjoyed being heroes for the day!
We have received an email from a football club that is happening from the 12th-16th April at Priory Park in the Easter Break. The flyer for the club is on our Information page and will also be emailed out to you. The link to book at Bishops Waltham can be found here
Bishops Waltham Priory Park Booking Form
We had some super learning shared in assembly today and lots of learning stars! Well done to all the children for being brilliant BWIS learners!
We hope you have a lovely weekend, with some sunshine. I will be watching a little bit of rugby...
Best wishes
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Bug Club
Thu 18 Mar 2021We are experiencing a few technical issues with Bug Club at the moment. We are aware of the issue and this will be fixed as soon as possible.
Don't forget you can use Oxford Owl and the SLS library too.
Happy reading!
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2021 Schools' Bird Box Project
Tue 16 Mar 2021Dear Parents/Carers,
Check out our bird box live stream http://www.seenature.org.uk/school-zone/school-streams/
Click on any school with a green dot and you can watch as the birds start building their nests, laying eggs, eggs hatching, baby birds feeding and fledging.
Sometimes our live feed may be interrupted by technical issues overnight, we will get it up and running again in the morning.
To support the project See Nature will be publishing articles on their website for our pupils to listen to and view. Click on the links below to read the following articles:
Identifying Birds by the sounds they make
Garden Birds - All about The Robin
http://www.seenature.org.uk/see-nature-news/the-robin-2-2-2/
Nuts about Nuts (To be published 17/3/2021)
Play Zone 1 (To be published 17/3/2021)
We have already had an inquisitive visitor who has taken a peak inside our bird box, fingers crossed she/he will start building a nest soon, last year we had six Blue Tit chicks.
School Office
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First Week Back
Sat 13 Mar 2021Dear Parents and Carers
It has been a lovely first week back for our children- so many happy, smiley faces. They have all been full of enthusiasm in class, and we have enjoyed teaching them!
The children have all been excited to see their friends and be in school again. As mentioned, we have started using the Trickbox activities. One of the first ones of these is ‘Mirror Mirror’ to develop self belief and confidence. Children stand in front of a mirror and, out loud, compliment themselves. It isn’t something that has been used once- it is used, and will be used, as part of our day, whenever children have a little doubt about themselves, or their abilities. It is also a great way to start your day at home too- ask your children to demonstrate it for you. One teacher reported that she couldn’t believe the difference in her art lesson after the children had used their ‘mirror mirror’ trick.
We have been looking, as a school, at ways to develop better long term retrieval and memory in our learning. One of the ways that really help with this is asking your child to ‘teach you’. Even if you already know how to do something, pretending you don’t, or aren’t quite sure, enables young children to feel like they are the expert- they love this. How many of you have been at a pantomime, where the actors are getting things wrong on purpose on the stage? You will usually be blocking your ears from the sounds of children shouting the right answer to them! It is that kind of approach with children. We use it a lot in teaching as the teacher, ‘oh silly Mrs Riches has forgotten how to.. can you help/ remind/teach me?’
Have a go at home. When they tell you how to do it, repeat it back to show you understood and were listening ‘oh, so I do this first- am I doing it right’ The more you engage, the more confident your child will feel recalling their knowledge/skill and using it to teach you.
It was lovely to have parents of children who was ‘star of the week’ join us for assembly on Friday. Thank you all for keeping it a secret- your children had a great surprise seeing you! This is something we wanted to continue with, when we opened to all again. There is a little message on Tapestry for everyone with a star award.
We hope you all have a lovely weekend with your families. Hopefully a little more sunshine for us, after the last few stormy days.
Best wishes
Mrs Riches
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School time amendment
Tue 09 Mar 2021After reviewing the new drop off and collection times and also listening to feedback from parents there is a small change to timings.
Year R times will remain unchanged.
Year 1 and 2:
Drop off between 9.00 and 9.10am
Collection between 3.00 and 3.10pm
This is effective from today.
The swimming pool gate from the Junior school will continue to be open for entry into school only. Parents who do multiple drop offs can wait in the area between swimming pool gate and Year R playground.
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Thank you to the family who very kindly sent the staff some biscuits, they are very much appreciated.
Tue 09 Mar 2021
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Welcome Back
Mon 08 Mar 2021Dear Parents and Carers
It was so lovely to welcome all the children back today. Lots of smiles and giggles around the school. The children were so excited to see each other and their teachers. Thank you for helping to make drop off as smooth as possible. Remember, for those entering from 'Free Street', our entrance near the pool is open too for coming in (not going out).
Lots of parents have been commenting on the beautiful crocus wheels that were planted by Bishops Waltham Rotary club for the 'End Polio Now' campaign. The purple represents the ink used to mark people who have been immunised. The Rotary Club have long been involved with the worldwide effort to eradicate polio. We have wheels at both schools and one on the entrance to the estate too.
On Friday 19th March, we will be supporting the 'Comic Relief' day again. The theme this year is 'Heroes'. It will be a fancy dress themed day and children can come dressed as a hero-it can be a superhero, a made up hero or as somebody who is a hero to them. Mrs Charles will be sending out some more information this week.
Thank you to everyone who responded to our remote learning questionnaire before half term. Please find the results on our 'Parent Info' page. On the whole, it was a very positive survey about the school but did reflect how hard lockdown was for everybody, especially when juggling work and family. Hopefully, that is the last we will see of lockdown!
Parents also received an email about obtaining 'Lateral Flow' tests for their children, if they wished to do them. We will not be testing children at infant schools, but please see the information regarding this on our 'Parent Info' page/in the office email.
Some parents have asked us about finding out about 'Trickbox'. We have not introduced it yet and will be introducing it slowly over the next few weeks, as advised by the trainer. Our main priority at the moment is getting all the children settled back into school routines. We will give more information on how it can be used at home in the summer term.
I hope you all managed to find some time to sit down with a cup of tea today and enjoy the peace and quiet again! We are enjoying the noise of happy children around the school.
Best wishes
Mrs Riches
Headteacher
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Happy World Book Day
Thu 04 Mar 2021Dear Parents and Carers
We hope you are enjoying the stories you have heard so far. Remember there are lots of activities on our 'World Book Day' page.
A parent also let us know of a lovely opportunity to receive personalised Julia Donaldson books at Steyning Book Store online, until 12th March. They are available through this link
Personalised Julia Donaldson books
If you are in Year 1, please remember that it is your Winter Warmer evening tonight. Your special Winter Warmer goodie bags are available to pick up at school, so please come and get yours before this evening.
Today is a day to share reading with your children. Encourage them to find out what family members liked to read when they were their age, whether it be fiction or non-fiction. My son was astounded when I told him that I had no internet to find things out and that we had to books! Living in a tiny village, that meant waiting for the mobile library van to come around once a fortnight and putting a request in-not the instant stream of information in different media that is at our children's fingertips!
Have an amazing day!
Best wishes
Mrs Riches
