WORLD OF WOODLAND ISSUE 48

This month’s value is: APPRECIATION

Today is the first day of Advent and we can all sense that Christmas is coming! With the arrival of December, we have a new values focus of Appreciation—easy to relate to in the Christmas period when we should be grateful for our circumstances compared to many unfortunate children in war-ravaged parts of the world.

There are quite a few ‘Christmas’ dates for your diary:
1 Dec Christmas Fayre 6-8pm—all welcome
4 Dec Christmas card postboxes open for pupils
6 Dec Christmas recital evening 6.30pm (ticket only) 13 Dec Carol service at St Peter and St Paul’s 7pm—parents and friends welcome
14 Dec Christmas lunch 12-2pm
14 Dec Christmas disco, KS2 5pm, KS3 7pm
15 Dec Christingle service Y5 2pm—parents welcome
19 Dec Staff Panto KS2 8.40am, KS3 9.40am
19 Dec KS2 Panto trip to Milton Keynes Y5 and 6, departing 1.30pm

Holidays begin on 20 December with pupils returning on 3 January 2018. School is open for staff and enquiries on 2 January 2018.

With wintery weather forecast, this is a good opportunity to remind you all of our inclement weather and school closure arrangements. The school is highly unlikely to close for bad weather as we have a high proportion of staff who live locally. The exception to this is when the school site is deemed to be unsafe for staff and pupils due to excessively icy conditions or deep snow. In the event of a school closure, we will alert all parents by text message, put a notice on the Twitter feed (which also appears on the website) and alert the Central Beds SOS website https://www.centralbedfordshire.gov.uk/webApps/SOS/cbc.aspx

Since our last edition, we have had a few events of note in school including our anti-bullying week with the theme of ‘All Different All Equal.’ Our huge display of children’s thoughts on how they are proud of their differences is very moving. All pupils also experienced the OSCAR car simulator provided by Central Beds to help pupils with their road safety awareness. 

Sporting success has long been a feature at Woodland, recognised this week by the awarding of the School Games Gold Award— an award that is given jointly by the Youth Sport Trust, Team GB Olympics/Paralympics and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. To exemplify the fabulous work, here are a few image of our Zone Hockey Championship’s winning team. Also, a special mention to the Y8 boys’ football team who reached the National Cup Competition Round 4, beaten by a team from Northampton who have an ex-pro as their full time coach!
Today also marks the start of Miss Bryan’s maternity leave—we all wish her the very best. Miss Dobson has taken on the Music teaching from today and we welcome Mrs Barrett to the teaching team to take over Miss Dobson’s timetable.

Next week is our Y6 parents’ evening (5 Dec). You are able to make appointments online—but if you have any difficulties please contact Liam Griffin on griffin@woodlandacademy.co.uk for IT support.

And finally, ‘it’s beginning to feel a lot like Christmas!’ Enjoy the start of the festive season.

Notice from the PE Department
Winter athletics begins on the 4th December for two weeks. Pupils will need to bring appropriate footwear for the field and wear extra layers for the cold weather. They are allowed to wear baselayers, long sleeve tops, leggings, hats and gloves as well as their normal PE kit—however hoodies are not permitted.

Sea Cadet trip to Canada
My trip started off on July 9th where I had to wake up at 5:30! The flight took 9 hours as it was delayed; we got to Halifax in Canada and it felt weird as it was so hot. We had to wait in the airport for about 3 hours as we had to pick up some Canadian cadets as well who were flying from different parts of Canada. After we had collected everyone we drove to base at Nova Scotia.

We got issued two pairs of black shorts, tops, a tracksuit and a tilly as this is what we had to wear while walking around base. We then had to go from headquarters to our accommodation where everyone’s luggage had already been delivered and we had to go make the beds as there was an inspection the next day even though we had only just got there!

After morning inspection we went down to the sailing centre and got changed into sailing gear, then went to our division to have a morning lesson. After lunch you would go and rig your boats then get ready to sail!

You would sail until about 3, then you would come back in and unrig or storm rig your boats ready for the next day. Once this was done you then had a debrief about how the day went, you would then get onto the buses ready to go back to base and have dinner. There were evening activities such as going to the beach; basket ball; capture the flag; disco; swimming; movie night or a drill practice. After your evening activity you had free time from 8-10 where you could go to the canteen and buy food, clothing or toiletries; or you could just meet up with people from other courses.

On the last day we went on a shopping trip as the flight was a late one and we had the day to spend exploring.

Excerpt from email to Mr Conquest from Kelsey Ward, ex pupil

Attachments: 
World of Woodland Issue 48.pdf
Christmas Fayre 2017 cupcake.pdf
Puss-in-boots-panto.jpg