World of Woodland Issue 08

This month’s value is: Love

This week has really had a music and drama theme with The Greatest Showcase, Harry Potter Day, a screening of The Tempest and last night’s Valentine’s disco. Our value for the month is Love and this has been modelled beautifully by our pupils’ love of singing, dancing and acting.

The Greatest Showcase, gave pupils in Y5 to Y8 (and some staff too) an opportunity to sing and dance along to songs from the theatre and the movies. Songs from shows like The Lion King, Frozen, Oliver, Les Miserables, High School Musical and Wicked wowed the audiences on Tues and Weds night. Thanks and well done to the entire cast and to Mrs Payne, Mrs Wilshaw and Miss Thornett for putting on such a great show! There are loads of video clips on our school twitter account @WoodlandAacademy - we now have over 1000 followers and use it for all our news, polls and advertising - so do please sign up.

Yesterday was also our Harry Potter day – with our school library (led by Mrs Bavister) being transformed (presumably with magic) into Hogwarts. Pupils donned capes, hats and brought their wands to celebrate the books of JK Rowling. Before the pupils “apparated” into the library using portkeys, the floo network or flying cars – I managed to take a few snaps of the magic worked by the Hogwarts staff…

Our sports teams continue to perform well with the Y5 football team coming third in the district league narrowly missing out on a place in the Central Beds county semi finals. Guest managers Mr Solomon, Mr Smith and Mr Rowe deputised for Mr Conquest (whilst he was at Calshot) and came up with two wins on the bounce to put his managerial tenure in grave doubt.

Our Y7 football team (managed by Mr Hughes) have just become the Bedfordshire County Champions, which means that they now qualify for the regional championships in the Danone Cup. Just a few rounds from national recognition…how far can this team go..?

Last week was our Calshot trip for Y8, a slightly shorter trip than was planned due to a late night journey home to avoid the heavy snowfall in Southern England on the Friday. A good decision it seems as the snow did come down harder down south and we had quite a lot of snow to clear ourselves too. Thanks to Mr Smith we were open as normal and even got the pupils out in the snow to play at the end of the day. When we get snowfall next, we are going to text out for volunteers to help clear the snow so that Mr Smith doesn’t face the task alone. Calshot was great and here are a few shots from the week away…

After half-term we welcome back Miss Dimmock from her maternity leave. Miss Dimmock will be taking on her class  5ED and will have and the other classes that are currently taught by Mrs Barrett. Mrs Barrett will be adding additional capacity to our Y6 Maths and English teams in the run up to the KS2 SATs. Our Y6  now has 180 pupils and is full to capacity, so the extra sets will certainly be beneficial for improving academic progress. Today we are interviewing for a new Science teacher to replace Mr S. Smith, so we do hope that we can make an announcement about that after half term

And finally…we hope that you all have a great half term and however you choose to spend it, you enjoy a restful week and that our pupils and staff return refreshed for the Easter run in.

Recently a few of our Pupils have been representing Woodland Academy at the East Regional Schools Acrobatics Championships:-

Under 11 pairs
Millie & Zara achieved 5th, Hannah & Emma achieved 7th

Under 14 pairs
Niamh & Ella achieved 12th

Under 11 group
Hannah, Emma, Millie, Zara, Chloe & Sienna achieved 3rd (Bronze)

The highlight of the day was Chloe & Natalie winning the Under 14 pairs and becoming Regional Champions, they will go on to the National school finals in May representing the school, congratulations to all that took part.

My name is Lucy
For over a year now I have been growing my hair for one reason only - to have it cut off to donate to the fantastic charity Little Princess Trust. 

The Little Princess Trust provides real hair wigs free of charge to children and young adults up to the age of  24, who have sadly lost their own hair due to cancer treatment and other illnesses.

I have wanted to do this ever since I saw a TV programme about a girl who donated her hair. The programme also showed clips of some children that had received the wigs. The children with the new wigs said it gave them a real boast, made them feel that they could do anything and they could just get on with normal life. I want to help other children and young adults who are going through a hard time.

Whilst it is very important to have donations of hair, the trust also need money to create the wigs from the donated hair. Did you know £550 is the average cost to purchase one real hair wig!

Please will you help me to raise money for the little princess trust by sponsoring me to have a large amount of hair cut off or simply by making a donation.

 Donate by giving money into the front office, thank you!

Personal account from Mylo Yr 7— I have a dog called Dodge who is 3 years old and in September last year one Saturday suddenly got taken very ill.  As a result of the treatment he received Dodge has become rather infamous!   He is firstly the only dog to have needed so many blood transplants and have survived!  The vets and the Pet Blood bank company have been using Dodges story for the marketing and advertising on social media and print.  As a result BBC news have picked up on the story and want to run the story on BBC news.

The blood that dodge received was from two donors Tommy and Henry, their blood was collected on a donor day at our Welwyn garden city branch. Blood donation is a life saving process, dodges owners have now been able to take their baby home due to the blood transfusions he has had. Currently we are in high demand for blood and have a shortage of donors. Which we are trying to rectify with education and advertisement of our blood donor days.

Mad About Harry - Help Harry Banks
Harry is a suffering with a stage 4 Neuroblastoma, that can only be operated on overseas & at great expense. Harry although not known to me, is known to several families in the Woodland community. I have been messaged by parents asking us to join the fundraiser and so we will be undertaking a non-uniform day for Harry on Friday 22nd Feb.

If you’d like to know more please see http://madaboutharry.org 

Reporting a child’s absence
If your child is going to be absent from school due to a medical appointment or illness—please notify Mrs T .K. Barker

(Attendance Officer) on 01525 750400 Ext 205 or email:  barkert@woodlandacademy.co.uk.

Messages during school time
If you require us to get a message to your child during school hours please contact us by phone in the first instance and not email as we cannot guarantee your message will be seen during busy periods.

Use of Reception phone
A large number of pupils are using the reception phone to call home for such things as forgotten homework, PE kits, locker keys, food tech ingredients & topping up lunch accounts—Can we please make you aware the this phone is for emergency use only. We have been lenient in the past but children are now being advised that they can only use this phone if it concerns their safety or to change their home arrangements, they will now be required to take more responsibility for ensuring they are prepared for school

Key Dates 2018—
February
Fri 8th SHINE for CHUMS—Non uniform wear bright colours
Mon 11th—Fri 15th Half Term week—School Closed
Thurs 21st Year 8 Parents Evening
Fri 22nd Mad about Harry Non uniform fundraiser
Mon 25th Year 5 House Football/Netball week
Tues 26th—Thurs 28th Book Fair in Library
Wed 27th Battle of the Bands Redborne

March
Thurs 7th World Book Day
Mon 11th—Wed 13th Year 4 Animal Capers Visit
Thurs 14th Year 8 Globe Theatre Trip
Fri 15th Swimming Gala
Tue 19th—Fri 22nd Year 7 Normandy Residential Trip
Mon 25th Mothers Day Pop Up Shop

April
Mon 1st—3rd KS2 production “Alice in Wonderland”
Thurs 4th Year 8 PSHCE Theatre Visit
Fri 5th—13th Ski Trip to Italy Departs
Mon 8th—Mon 22nd Half Term—School Closed
Tuesday 23rd Return to School
Thurs 25th Class Photographs
Fri 26th PTA Quiz Night

May
Thurs 2nd KS3 painting course
Mon 6th Bank Holiday—School Closed
Thurs 9th KS3 Paining Course
Mon 13th—Thurs 16th Year 6 SATS Tests
Mon 20th—Fri 23rd Year 6 PGL & activities week
Mon 27th—Fri 31st HALF TERM—School Closed

Attachments: 
World of Woodland Issue 08.pdf