World of Woodland Issue 42

This month’s value is: RESPONSIBILITY

The summer term now draws to a conclusion and the last few weeks are always so VERY busy, especially for our Y8 pupils who are preparing for departure and transition to Upper School. This week is our amazing Grease production, with the final performance tonight being a complete sell out. If you’re coming tonight, you’re in for amazing entertainment - the show is so fabulous that you feel you’re transported to 1959 at Rydell High! A few images are included below from the opening night. Well done to the whole cast and crew and a huge thank you to Mrs Hardacre, the driving force behind these crazy projects – and of course her huge team of staff and parent helpers. (Top left Fin as the Teen Angel, top right Holly as Rizzo, bottom left Greased Lightning and Fran and Alex as Danny and Sandy).

Our Ofsted inspection from May was published and emailed out to all parents in mid-June. This is the first very public opportunity to express my delight at the ‘Good’ outcome and thank all the staff, pupils and governors that come together to make our school the wonderful place that it is. It was especially comforting to have an inspection team understood Middle schools in contrast to the previous inspector. The support from parents too was overwhelming

and we really feel very blessed to have a great community to work with and for. The latest report can be downloaded from our school website but if you’d prefer a hard copy, one can be collected from the school office.

Since our last newsletter, we took Year 7 to the brilliant Chessington World of Adventures, a theme park and a zoo rolled into one. The pupils really enjoyed the day and we’re planning on doing this or something similar next year. We have placed a Twitter poll with a choice of Chessington or Drayton Manor Park for pupils in the current Y6 to respond to…it will steer our decision at least!

Last week we had our annual Values Day #Values17, which is an activity day that allows our pupils to model and show their really positive values. The activities were very wide ranging, from archery to hiking, from mosaic creation to yoga, from baking to poetry without writing… There are loads of images of the day on our Twitter site but I’ve in- cluded a few lasting images below. Mrs Payne has been our Values Leader this year – so a huge thank-you to her and Miss Fox for the organisation of this whole school event. Our staff love to be creative and spend time learning with our pupils out of class – which makes this day something we all look forward to each year! Next year our Values will be co-led by Mrs Ashby (now full time at Woodland!) and Mrs Watson – so we look forward to #Values18 !! If you get the chance - check out the Values video on Twitter.

We have all the Y4s visiting us today from our feeder lower schools and our own Y8 pupils are hopefully enjoying their transition day up at Redborne too. The end of term is so close now and the holidays are coming. I include the remaining key dates below and also the term dates for the 2017-18 year ahead.

2017

July 17th - Y4 Parents’ Evening
July 18th - House Winners’ BBQ – Normans (3-4pm)
July 18th - Summer Concert (evening)
July 19th - Y8 Leavers’ Assembly (1-3pm)
July 19th - Prom Night (7-9.30pm)
July 20th - Y8 Thorpe Park trip and End of Year
Sept 4 & 5th - INSET days (open for enquiries)
Sept 6th - Autumn Term commences
Oct 23rd - Half Term week
Oct 30th - INSET day (school closed)
Dec 19th - End of Autumn Term

2018
Jan 2nd - INSET day (school closed) 
Jan 3rd - Spring Term commences
Feb 12th - Half Term week
Mar 29th - End of Spring Term
Apr 16th - Summer Term commences
May 28th - Half Term week
July 20th -  End of Summer Term

Ahead of next year there are some staff changes. We are saying farewell to two staff next week. Mrs McGregor is retiring after working at the school as our Head of Design Technology. Mrs McGregor has been at Woodland since Sept 2000 and has been an amazing leader of an outstanding department as well as a staff governor for the past 12 years too. I will certainly miss her hugely and will hold her to her promise of helping on future school trips! I’d like to wish her an amazing time in Singapore which is where she heads off to soon. Mr Tate is the new leader of DT, trained up of course by Mrs McGregor! We are also saying farewell to Miss Dial (Teaching Assistant) who is moving to Goldington Middle School as a training teacher – best of luck in your studies and qualification, come back and teach here in the future!

We have three new teachers arriving at Woodland for September too, all of which are in school today spending time with their new form groups. Miss MacLennan is joining as our Head of Modern Languages, Mrs Davies-Smith who is 

new Design Technology teacher, and Miss Dimmock re-joins us as a Y5 form tutor after living and teaching in Cornwall for 2 years. We also have a new TA starting—Miss Cornish will be joining the team and we will be recruit- ing for a further TA in September. Anyone interested can contact Kate on martink@woodlandacademy.co.uk for an application form.

As previously mentioned, Mrs Ashby will become full time in September and join the Y8 form teacher team – it will be great to have her in school all week, every week next year!

On the subject of next year – parents, please be reminded that the school’s uniform requirement is that pupils wear school shoes. Unfortunately some parents have believed their children that trainers are ‘ok’. Trainers are sometimes permitted where there are injuries, but this should always be excused with a note from a parent. Next term we will be clamping down on bringing fizzy drinks into school too – a habit that has been creeping in of late.

And finally…it’s been (mostly) an amazing year, lots of successes (academic, sporting, school and individual), a ‘Good’ Ofsted judgement that was very richly deserved, lots of wonderful opportunities for our pupils and staff. As a school we also have had a very low moment with the death of our pupil Lucy Green. Lucy will never be forgotten by us; we are so upset by the cruelty of her illness and the loss that we and, even more so, her family and friends feel. We are in the process of commissioning a sculpture in her memory for the school grounds and will be raising some funds to help pay for this next year. This week we have prepared a short film with all of our Y7 pupils, sending their love to Lucy and her family, filmed using a drone high above our school field. We hope to make this film available for all to see shortly.

Best wishes to everyone this summer, have a great holiday. Relax, rest, recover, explore and have fun!

To the staff: what an amazing team – have a wonderfully deserved rest and see you all again for 2017-18 in September.

Instagram warning
Some pupils in Y7 & 8 have been following Instagram accounts of ‘fake pupils’ at Woodland, such as HollyStanley12. In this case and others, the account holder could be a member of our pupil community who is sadly lacking in values OR could be someone from outside our community masquerading as a pupil – which is more concerning. Advice from Beds Police has always been never be friends or have discussions on social media with anyone that you do not know in person. Parents please check your child’s social media contacts and ask them if they know in real life each friend they communicate with.

Pupil success
Natalie Baker 6TDK entered the 2017 Salto Gym Championship and came away with four gold medals.

For the 11+ group she won golds for floor, beam, vault and overall highest points.

Attachments:
World of Woodland Issue 43.pdf