World of Woodland Issue 12

This month’s value is: Tolerance

Summer Term is now two weeks in and with the lovely weather (over Easter) it seems odd to start off the newsletter with a winter sports story – but our ski trip to Italy was absolutely fabulous and with the day in Disneyland Paris tacked on to the homeward journey, our 100 pupils (from Woodland. Alameda and Redborne) had an amazing time. If anyone would like to sign their child up for the Ski USA 2020 trip there are few spaces available that can be reserved by emailing jenkinsn@woodlandacademy.co.uk

Next Wednesday is the deadline for any ballot papers to be returned for the parent governor election. On Thursday the ballots will be counted and the new governors will be determined. Please do bring back your vote to the school office – there is a ballot box in there for your vote!

Thanks to the PTA for arranging another successful Quiz Night last week – with 20 teams of up to six it was a full hall and will have raised good funds for us to spend on your pupils. Our next event is the Summer Fayre for which there has been a date change – it is now on Friday June 7th from 6-8pm. The grand prize draw will NOT be drawn however until the date on the ticket - which was the original Summer Fayre date of the 21st June. We are looking for volunteers to run our stalls – please email conquestj@woodlandacademy.co.uk if you can help. Our non-uniform day to receive donations for the Fayre (bottles, chocolates etc) will be on Monday 3rd June.

Other key dates are listed below for the summer term and the term dates for the 2019-2020 school year too. There are some other date changes however, which have all been a knock-on effect as Redborne moved their Y11 prom night to avoid AmpRocks, to the night that we had booked for the Shrek performances.

This coming week our School Parliament are taking a trip to Westminster to visit the House of Commons and the House of Lords - it’s such a politically charged time in government right now, so hopefully the pupils and staff get to feel how important politics and government are and are inspired to get involved. Thanks to Mrs Watson and Mrs Ashby for arranging the trip again this year.

Mrs Watson and Mrs Ashby have also arranged a new transition event for our entire Y4 cohort (those coming to us in Sept 2019) at Wrest Park to celebrate our shared values (as a group of schools) and also to start to build relationships between pupils from different lower schools. It also gives us a preview of things to come… This event will be supported by selected Y7 pupils too as the future Y8 buddies for Year 5 and will take place at Wrest Park in Silsoe on June 24th .

Straight after SATs our Y6 cohort will be taking part in their activity week with just over 100 travelling to Devon for the PGL week and around 60 stay-ing locally to take part in activities including water sports at Willen Lake MK, some sports events at school and a hike from Woburn (that will include a good look at the elephants, rhino, camels and wallabies…). More details for Y6 parents will be received from Mr Guthrie shortly on the arrangements for the local events and from Mrs Scarr for PGL (booklet issued and parents’ evening held already).

And finally…I would like to wish all our Y6 pupils the very best of luck with their SATs w/c 13th May - we know that it is stressful and we try hard to make it easier by providing breakfast and arranging the activity week straight after-wards BUT try and relax and sleep well and remember that the SATs results do not define who you are – it is your values that do!

Is your child entitled to Free School Meals?
The qualifying benefits to receive free school meals for children in Year 3 and over are:
 Income support
 Income based Jobseekers Allowance
 Income-related Employment and Support Allowance
 Support under Part IV of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999
 The Guarantee element of State Pension Credit
 Child Tax Credit provided you are not also entitled to Working Tax Credit, and your annual gross income does not
exceed £16,190 as assessed by her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs).
To apply for free school meals please call 0300 3008306, please have the following information ready:-
 National Insurance Numbers and Dates of Birth for you and your partner
 Dates of Birth for your children
 If you receive support from the National Asylum Support Service, your NASS number.

Attendance
Pupils are expected to attend school regularly; it is the responsibility of parents to ensure their child attends school regularly and punctually. The Home-School partnership agreement clearly informs parent and pupils of this responsibility. School staff will encourage good attendance and punctuality. Staff will convey to pupils that lateness is very disruptive and affects learning of not only the individual but also the class.

Satisfactory attendance is above 95%. Anything below 90% attendance is considered to be persistence absence. 90-95% attendance needs to be improved. 97%+ attendance is considered good, Illustration: 90% attendance over a year means that 20 days ( 4 weeks of school) have been missed. This could never be described as satisfactory at Woodland.

Family Holiday during term time including extended holidays
The school strongly discourages family holidays in term time. No permission will be given for an annual holiday except in exceptional circumstances. Exceptional circumstances might include parents working in the armed forces, siblings or parents with exceptional needs that cannot be catered for in school holidays. Not being granted annual leave by an employer is not an exceptional circumstance.

In any event, no permission will be given for any school time holiday that will result in a pupils’ attendance dropping below 93%.

If a request form is not completed, the holiday will be unauthorised.

Other leave requests
Each request for leave will be taken on its merits but the current attendance will always be taken into account. Leave cannot be authorised if the current attendance will drop below 90% as this would be sanctioning persistent absenteeism.

Common examples of requested leave are:
Weddings—always permitted upon receipt of copy of the wedding invitation
Overseas wedding—a travel day either side of the wedding is usually permitted
Funerals—always permitted
Overseas funeral—as with weddings
Family events—considered in line with current attendance and the ease at which the event could take place at a weekend or in a holiday period.

Reporting a child’s absence or Change of personal details
If your child is going to be absent from school due to a medical appointment or illness—If you have changed address, telephone numbers, doctors or medical information please let us know so that we can update our records - notify Mrs T .K. Barker (Attendance Officer) on 01525 750400 Ext 205 or email: barkert@woodlandacademy.co.uk.

New Service
We have a new confidential texting service at school introduced by the NHS, available for pupils and parents. If you need advise, don’t think twice!

Teaching Assistant Posts
We will be recruiting for Teaching Assistants to start in September, fixed term post for 1 year with a view to being permanent after this period, if you are interested in applying, please see our website www.woodlandacademy.co.uk for an application pack. Deadline for applications is 6th June 2019.

Key Dates 2019—
May
Tue 7th Houses of Parliament Trip
Thurs 9th KS3 painting Course
Mon 13th—Thurs 16th Year 6 SATS Tests
Thurs 16th KS3 painting course
Mon 20th—Fri 23rd Year 6 PGL residential trip & activities week
Mon 20th Year 8 Leavers Photo
Mon 27th—Fri 31st HALF TERM—School Closed

June
Mon 3rd Non uniform day and Summer Fayre donations
Tue 4th—Thurs 6th Book fair in the Library
Tue 4th Year 6 trip to Harry Potter
Thurs 6th Year 7 trip to Warwick Castle
Fri 7th Summer Fayre
Sat 8th Flitwick Carnival—Woodland will have a float
Mon 10th—Wed 12th Year 5 trips to Wadelows
Mon 10th Year 5 & 6 House Rounders week & Fathers Day pop up shop
Fri 14th Values Day
Tue 18th Year 8 Girls 2nd HPV
Wed 19th—Sat 22nd KS3 Shrek performances
Mon 24th Year 4 Transition day at Wrest Park
Tue 25th KS2 Sports Day
Wed 26th KS3 Sports Day
Fri 28th Year 5 Boulogne trip

July
Mon 1st Reserve Sports day KS2
Tue 2nd Reserve sports day KS3
Wed 3rd House Winners Cup party
Fri 5th Year 7 Drayton Manor trip
Thurs 11th Year 8 Transition day at Redborne & whole school move to new year groups
Thurs 11th & Fri 12th Year 4 Transition days at Woodland
Mon 15th Year 4 Parents Evening
Tue 16th Summer Concert
Thurs 18th Year 8 Leavers Assembly & Year 8 Prom Night
Fri 19th Year 8 Thorpe Park trip
Mon 2nd & Tue 3rd September—Staff Training Days
Mon 22nd July—Tue 3rd September Summer Holidays—School Closed

 Attachments: 
World of woodland Issue 12.pdf