Latest News
Keep up to date with all the news happening in school
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Weekly Update Friday 7th June
Wed 05 Jun 2024What a super start back we had this week, with our D Day celebrations and our fantastic project hooks. This term is always a busy one, and we are hoping it warms up and becomes sunnier for some of our events to take place. Below is a brief run down of important dates for your diaries for the term. Some of these are weather dependent, so please check your messages if rain is forecast.
Year 2 Swimming
This started on Thursday and the children all had a fantastic time. Mrs Labram, Miss Whitehead and Mrs Creswell are our 3 trained staff members. We also had loads of Year 2 parents who helped too, which was brilliant for our less confident swimmers. Next year, in Year 3, the children will start swimming every week and our transition sessions help the children feel more confident about doing this independently.
Whole School Photograph
We are having a whole school photograph taken on Tuesday 4th June. This will be a commemorative photograph which will include all children and staff in school on the day. They will be available to purchase soon after, and is a lovely commemorative photo of a snapshot of time in Bishops Waltham Infant School.
Sports Day
Our Sports Day is on Friday 14th June. There will be refreshments to purchase on the day (cash only), and the events will last approximately 1 and a quarter hours per year group. Timings are as follows;
Year R:
9:15am-10.30am
Year 1
10.45am-midday
Year 2
1.45pm-3pm
Each Year Group will 'parade' around the top playground to start, so please stand around the edge of the big playground when you arrive.
Year 1 Southsea Trip
This is taking place on Monday 10th June. Please pay via Arbor, and return consent forms via the office. This is a Geography field trip, and your children will amaze you with their knowledge when they return home!
Thursday 20th June
We have been picked to have a 'Health and Safety' Audit from Hampshire County Council. They will be visiting on this day and checking though our policies and procedures.
Friday 21st June
This is our final day of changing to a new caterers and the process will be completed soon after ready for our September start. It is now down to the final 3 companies, and we are looking forward to tasting their food. Watch this space for the new company's name.
Stay and Play Sessions
We have 2 sessions per weeks beginning 17th and24th June. If you have a Year R child starting with us in September, please remember to sign up.
Friday 28th June
Our Year 2 children will be taking part in the Bishops Waltham 'Ceildh Festival' for the first time. We are very excited and have been learning all the dances. This is not a parent event, unfortunately, but in the evening there is a Ceildh Festival for families to attend. Tickets and information can be found here:
Thursday 4th July- Transition Morning
This is when all children will visit their new class and teacher for the first time. They will spend a morning doing fun activities and getting to know each other. Year 2 will be going to the junior school. Their transition is starting next week, where we have weekly activities planned for the children to get to know the school and the teachers.
Wednesday 10th July
Open Afternoon 2-5pm. This is an opportunity to come into school, look through work, see the classroom and receive your child's 'Record of Achievement'.
Friday 12th July
Reserve Sports Day
Monday 15th July
Rock Steady Concert for Parents of children in Rocksteady (2.15pm)
Thursday 18th July
1.30pm Year 2 Leaver's Performance. Details to come out nearer the time
5-6.30pm Year 2 Leaver's Disco
Tuesday 23rd July
3.10pm, school closes for summer break.
As many of you know, Mrs Kate Charles will be retiring at the end of this half term. She has been at Bishops Waltham Infant School for over 30 years and have taught some of our past and present parents too. We are collecting for a retirement gift for Mrs Charles in the school office. If you would like to contribute, please put your contibution in an envelope marked for Mrs Charles. If you would like to write a personal message, we will include it in the special keepsakes we are making for Kate.
Wishing everyone a lovely weekend
Mrs Riches
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Welcome back and D Day Celebrations near Bishops Waltham
Wed 05 Jun 2024Welcome back to our last half term of the school year. This term is always very busy, so please keep up to date by checking our 'Latest News' page weekly.
We had a special 80th D Day Assembly yesterday, where we followed the first part of two children's journeys about their own relatives who had been part of D Day in 1944. If you would like to watch the rest of the film, it is on our 'Learning Links', here;
We will also be having our own special D-Day lunch on Thursday 6th June, which is advertised further down on this page.
There are lots of events in the South East over the rest of this week, which you may want to attend with your children. In Portsmouth, there are lots of events today and tonight there is a 'Drone Show' over the Solent.
On Saturday, to celebrate Armed Forces Day, there is a free event all day, with a display from the Red Arrows too.
To find out more regarding timings and information for the events, please click the links below:
Events in Southampton and Portsmouth
We also have a Beacon Lighting event in Bishops Waltham on June the 6th. The following Information was taken from the Parish Website:
'A reminder that this Thursday evening, 6th June, the Parish Council's beacon will be lit in the palace grounds, to commemorate the 80th anniversary of D-Day. Please join us to mark the occasion. We will gather from 8.30pm, the beacon, part of the national beacon lighting, will be lit at 9.15pm'
Best wishes
Mrs Riches
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D-Day Lunch - Thursday 6th June
Tue 04 Jun 2024Dear Parents/Carers,
We will be celebrating the D-day landings on Thursday 6th June with a themed lunch as follows:
Homity Pie (v)
(Cheese and potato pastry pie)
or
Baked battered fish and chips
on the side:
Mushy peas or baked beans
The kitchen will also be serving the jacket potato option as well.
Kind regards
School Office
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Weekly Update Friday 24th May
Fri 24 May 2024What a busy end of half term we have had. Our children have been excited throughout and have loved the projects they have been learning about. We have lots of green-fingered children in our school, and it was exciting to see the what they have been growing this week and they wowed their parents at project outcome.
This time last week there was hustle and bustle going on preparing for our summer fayre. What a fayre it was! For once, we had sunshine for the day, which was a lovely change. The overall profit raised from the day was £1850, which is a fantastic amount towards our new learning area outside Year R and Year 1. We will hopefully be going ahead with this very soon, and I know that the children in our school will have some great resources to use for many years. This would not be possible if it wasn't for our fantastic PTA and many helping volunteers (including family members). So much hard work went into the event behind the scenes, and also on the day, where staff joined in on stalls. Thank you so much to Claire, Andy, Maddie, Baz, Veronique, Kath and Karen for all your hardwork. It is our main event of the year and it was fantastic! Thank you to all the extra helpers who joined in helping before and on the day too, including many parents, grandparents and staff. A big thank you to Lilypads, CM Sports and our school governors too, who also helped to man the stalls . We also had great performances from Dance Kidz and Roynon School of Performing Arts and our children (past and present) showed off their talents-thank you to Roynon and Belinda for coming along! We cannot wait for everyone to see the result of their hard work, so watch this space!
This time of the year is a very busy one for teachers, who are very busy assessing the learning for their class' summative school reports, as well as preparing the children for the next transition in their school journey. We will see everybody back in school on Tuesday 4th June, the day after our INSET day.
Year 2 will be swimming in the Junior school pool on Thursday afternoons next half term, and they are very excited about it already. They will be taught by Mrs Labram, Miss Whitehead and Mrs Cresswell, whilst being supported by an army of parent volunteers who help support with changing and swimming. We will let you know how our first session has progressed afterwards! Thank you in advance to every helper, who helps to make these sessions so special.
Our new Year R Entrant evening went really well last night, with lots of new parents coming to meet our school community. Thank you to everyone from our school community who joined us for the night including our governors Helen and Roy, the mental health team Christina and Kate, Luke from CM Sports, Andy and Claire form our PTA, Mrs Campone our SENCO and our whole Year R Team led by Miss Turner. There were lots of new parents and returning parents, and it was lovely to see you all.
We have been asked to advertise all the lovely things that you can do in Southampton over the half term break. Please click below to find out more:
https://www.southamptonrocks.co.uk/
Wishing you all a happy Whitsun break, and we will see you back on the 4th June.
Best wishes
Mrs Riches
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Weekly Update Friday 17th May
Fri 17 May 2024The sunshine has come out for our Summer Fayre and the children are very excited about coming today. So much work has gone into planning and preparing for the fayre, including scrubbing a chest freezer, writing to companies and so much more. I know many more people are helping on the day and we hope everybody has a great time. There will be food and drink available, tokens can be bought on the day, and lot of fun activities to do. We will see you all very soon.
Year 2 have been writing their scripts ready to film their short films this week and what a lot of facts they knew-we can't wait to watch their finished show! Year R have also been showing me their amazing writing today, where they have innovated a story by changing a character and a setting-such fantastic learning!
We have also seen some beautiful paintings in Year 1-what talented artists we have!
We have some exciting staff news to share with you all today. Mrs Withers in Squirrel Class is expecting a baby girl in October. She has told her class today and they were overjoyed. Everyone at BWIS wish her and Sam all our love and luck on their exciting journey into parenthood.
Mrs Palmer our Senior Business Administrator in the school office 'Walked the Wight' on Sunday with her daughter Chloe and her dog Jim. It was a very hot day, very hilly and she raised lots of money for Countess Mountbatten Centre. Well done Michelle-your BWIS family are really proud of you!
We have our September 2024 Year R Welcome meeting on the evening of Thursday 23rd May. If you have a child starting with us and haven't signed up yet, please give our office a call.
We wish everybody a lovely weekend.
Best wishes
Mrs Riches
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Weekly Update Friday 10th May
Fri 10 May 2024We have waited all year for the sunshine, and it has finally arrived! We have had a few glorious days, and the children in Year R and Year 1 have had a great time practising their skills on the balance bikes and scooters. We have given the children plenty of reminders about drinking water and sun safety. Luckily, in our grounds we have lots of shady areas to cool down and all staff have been reminding the children to do this.
Thank you to all the parents who donated chocolate today for our chocolate tombola. Our Summer Fayre is next week and we hope to see everyone there. This year, there are raffle tickets coming out to win a trip-please have a look for these in your child's book bag tonight. The PTA still need volunteers on the day, so please contact Claire to help. They will also run a token system alongside cash. These can be bought beforehand or on the day. Please see the PTA social media page for more information.
This week we joined in with National Hedgehog Week, with a whole school assembly and lessons in Year 2. I have 2 hedgehogs that climb steps to my garden every night, and they really help keen the slug and snail population down in my flower beds. The children were amazed to discover that a hedgehog can cover 2 miles in one night! If you would like to find out more about how you can create hedgehog friendly gardens, please click on the children's learning link below.
https://www.bwis.org.uk/national-hedgehog-week/
We will be back to our PAN of 60 children in Year R in September, and we are full in this year group. We do, however, have spaces in our current Year R (Year 1 in September) and 1 space in our current Year 1 (Year 2 in September). If you are interested in applying for these places, please contact the school office. Our Early Years Lead, Miss Turner, has started visiting the pre schools to meet the children who will be starting with us this year, and our New Parents' Evening is on Thursday 23rd May.
We had our governor meeting last night, where we finalised our budget for the forthcoming year. We have a parent position on our governing body, and emails have gone out to all parents re applying. The roll is a rewarding one, where all aspects of school life are strategically looked at. Please look in your emails, if you would like to apply.
INSET DAYS 2024-2025
These have now been agreed and are as follows:
Monday 2nd September
Monday 25th November
Friday 31st January
Monday 24th February
Monday 9th June
Lastly, we would like to make a plea to parents to pop their phones in their bags and pockets, when dropping off and picking up their children. They are really excited to see you, and want to tell you all about their day, and we see their faces light up when they know you are there!
Wishing you a lovely weekend
Mrs Riches
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Weekly Update Friday 3rd May
Fri 03 May 2024Year 2 had their river walk this week and there were lots of excited children talking about their learning. We grasped the only sunshine in April and everyone had a super time looking at the river as a habitat. Year R have been showing me their amazing writing-and they are really proud of how their letters and words look now compared to when they started school. Year 1 have been very proud of their maths and the investigations they can do now. What amazing learning in every room!
We are currently in the cycle of budget setting in school for the year ahead, and we are really pleased that some of the saving exercises we have already implemented are having an impact. We will continue to monitor this over the forthcoming months.
We all had a great time at the PTA quiz last week. Thank you to Andy who was a great Quizmaster, and to our amazing PTA helpers who made sure everyone was well watered and The Hampshire Bowman for making sure we were well fed. It was a super night of raising funds for our wellbeing and learning corridor.
Thank you to all parents who brought in bottles for our Summer Fayre bottle tombola. We are very grateful for all your donations. Next week we have our chocolate donation day on Friday 10th May. Our PTA are looking for volunteers who can help set up our stalls on Friday and help man them too. If you can to this, please let us the school office know and we will pass your name on (or email the PTA directly).
We hope everybody has a lovely May Day weekend and we look forward to seeing you back in school on Tuesday.
Best wishes
Mrs Riches
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Weekly Update Friday 26th April
Fri 26 Apr 2024This week saw our Year 2 children having a visit from the Hampshire River Trust as part of their project. They learned about the different animals that live in the river in our area, and learned about a salmon's journey. They cannot wait to go and visit the river in Bishops Waltham with the experts.
Year R have been busy learning to ride the balance bikes. They managed to get outside on the couple of hours of fine weather we had this week. They were all busy concentrating and the collecting game looked great fun!
Year 1 have been out and about on the scooters, learning safety rules and how to balance. Lots of children at our school scoot to school and we hope that parents will also talk about safety when they are scooting too.
Our PTA quiz is tonight and we are looking forward to having a night of fun with staff and parents. This week the PTA let us know the final figure raised from the Easter event which was an impressive £585.00. The sweet stall events raised £188 and when our PTA heard about a local appeal for Easter Eggs at the Children's Neurosurgical Ward at Southampton General Hospital, they donated 30 leftover eggs to them at Easter time. A huge thank you you to Claire and her team for all the fundraising support. After our upcoming summer fayre, we will be looking at the funds available to transform our corridor space into our learning/wellbeing communal area, following the theme of our 'Wonder Wood' library.
Please remember to bring bottle donations on 3rd May for our Summer Fayre Bottle Tombola. Friday 3rd May will be non-uniform day in exchange for a donation.
Our Whole School Sculpture Day exhibition is now open, if you would like to come and see it. It is in the entrance area, and the area outside my office. It is truly magical and the children are talking about the different sculptures they can see every time they pass it.
Wishing you all a lovely weekend
Best wishes
Mrs Riches
Headteacher
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Weekly Update Friday 19th April
Fri 19 Apr 2024Welcome back to everybody. We hope everyone had a restful break over the Easter period. The children were a little quiet coming back on Monday, but back to their usual, excited-to learn-selves by today!
Summer term is always a busy one at school. All parents with siblings starting in September should now have their offer letters at home, and Mrs Palmer has emailed everybody with regards to documentation to send in.
We had a detailed PTA meeting on the first day back to school. They have been really busy organising our next events. We have a quiz night on the 26th April. This is a great way to meet other parents and have a bit of fun. We then have our Summer Fayre on Friday 17th May. We need parent helpers for this event, so if you can give a few hours to support it will be gratefully received. To support the event, we have 2 donation days for the chocolate stall and the bottle stall. These are;
Friday 3rd May-bottle donations please. Only consumable ingredients, and preferably something parents would like to drink.
Friday 10th May- chocolate donations please-these can be bars or boxes
On both of these days children can wear NON-UNIFORM in exchange for their donation.
The children have been busily finishing off their sculptures and our whole school sculpture display is nearly finished. We will send an email out to each year group to invite parents and carers in to come and see the display, when it is completed.
There are currently a lot of children running into school ahead of their parents, but particularly grandparents. This is a gentle reminder to make sure your children are walking with you, as they get distressed if they cannot see you if they have fallen over. It also means our coming to school times are a calm time, which helps all the children who find large crowds overwhelming. Your cooperation in this is greatly appreciated.
We have had our hanging baskets delivered for the Bishops Waltham in Bloom competition. If we have any greenfingered parents/grandparents who would like to help, please let your class teachers know. We would also like flower donations for the baskets and the boxes on the way into school, so if this is something that you could possibly help us with, please talk to us.
Wishing everybody a lovely weekend
Best wishes
Mrs Riches
Headteacher
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Weekly Update Thursday 28th March
Thu 28 Mar 2024We were really happy the sun stayed out this week for our annual Easter Egg Hunt. The children had a great time hunting for the eggs and found our giant rabbit at the end! Thank you to all the PTA, Teachers and Office staff who worked so hard behind the scenes and on the day. The children had the biggest smiles and we could hear their laughter around the whole school.
Thank you to Miss Whitehead, our Art Leader, who organised our sculpture day this week. The finished pieces are still drying out and we will be putting together our art exhibit when they are all finished.
Please look at Tapestry this week as I know the teachers have been putting lots of pictures on for you to see. We would like to put more pictures of Year groups on our Latest news Updates, and currently we can only put our whole Year 1 group pictures on, due to the number of parents who have said no to this option when their children started school in Year R and Year 2. If you are happy for your child to appear in a large group photograph, such as the one below of Year 1, please can you let the office know next half term and we will update your preferences.
Our newsletter goes out today, with lots of information about what is coming up in the next few weeks. We hope everybody has a lovely Easter break.
Best wishes
Mrs Riches
