Dear Parents and Carers,

It has been a busy fortnight in school and everyone has been working incredibly hard. Please take a moment to have a look at your child’s year group blog. This will give you a good flavour of what has been happening in the classroom and what is coming up. Thank you to the teachers for putting these important learning updates together.

There have been some amazing things happening in and around school and I have included some of the highlights below. I have also passed on 99 notes of thanks to members of staff across the school. Your messages of gratitude mean a lot to so many. It is very important to be grateful as it helps create a positive climate across the school.

RSPB Big School Bird Watch 

This week the whole school had the chance to to take part in lunch time activities for the Big School Bird Watch (Liaba, Aisvanya and Aswika helped Mrs Chavda). The aim was to count how many birds landed on site within a 15 minute window. The children and adults took bird seed and binoculars out and followed the bird watching code carefully. Each day different year groups went out and Mrs Chavda took an average which she will be sending off to the RSPB.  So many children wanted to take part in Year 5, so Mrs Chavda trained 12 children up and they explained to their class and then each class went out in the afternoon – so all of year 5 were involved!

In a 15 minute window the following was seen :

Children from across the school were involved in important learning on Tuesday linked to staying safe on-line. There are some amazing examples of children’s learning on our school Twitter feed @WigmorePrimary . Huge thanks to the teachers for planning these and for the expert input from our Computing Subject Leaders – Mr Pateman and Miss Peacock.

Children’s Mental Health Week

Today children and staff across the school donned bright clothing and completed some important learning in class linked to developing positive mental health.

Dr Rangan Chatterjee offers some helpful advice to us all on practical things we can do to ensure positive well-being and resilience as this can help towards having positive mental health.

Relax

• Have some “me” time everyday
• Have plenty of time away from screens and devices
• Keep a gratitude journal
• Have one meal per day around the table and away from a screen
• Practice stillness

Eat well

• De normalise sugar and re train your taste buds
• Eat 5 portions of different coloured fruit and vegetables every day
• Drink 8 glasses of water every day
• Eat less processed food
• Eat all your food in a 12 hour window

Move

• Walk as much as you can
• Exercise regularly – strength training and high intensity exercise
• Connect mind, body and breath through exercise such as yoga
• Get up and move every 30 minutes

Sleep

• Create an environment of absolute darkness
• Spend at least 20 minutes in the fresh air of a morning
• Create a bedtime routine
• Manage activity before bedtime
• Consume caffeine before midday

Chinese New Year Assembly

Earlier this week Mrs Chavda led an assembly on Chinese New Year. The children were so mature and during the reflection they came up with some amazing wishes for the future. Max in Yr 1 Rowan Class helped with assembly by explaining how his Grandad, who used to live in Singapore, always sends him a letter and some information on Chinese New Year. He was very grown up and spoke very well.

Some of the things the children came up with included:

• To reconcile with enemies
• To end hunger
• To end poverty
• Education for all

The Back Page

Well done to the Year 5 children who represented Wigmore so well at the Multi Skills Festival at Inspire last week. The photos on the the PE Twitter Feed @WigmorePe show the children enjoying a range of different sports.

Congratulations to Harley and Oliver (Year 5) who took part in the County Cross Country Finals at Ampthill Park this week. They did an amazing job competing against the best athletes in the county finishing in the top 20! Great effort!

Huge thanks to Mr Marshall, Miss Williams and Mr Addison for their contributions to organising these opportunities for the young people at Wigmore.

Thank you NHS

On a personal note I would like to take this opportunity to thank all the staff who have been ensuring the school continues to make progress as a learning community over the last 2 weeks. Unfortunately I had appendicitis the weekend before last and required emergency surgery early last week to have my appendix removed and had an infection stemming from this. I know some of our parents and carers work for the NHS and all the staff I have interacted with during my time in hospital and during my recovery at home have been exceptional. The NHS are amazing! Nothing was ever a problem and the service I had was outstanding. I take my hat off to all our NHS workers. I am looking forward to returning to school after half term.

House Points

The children have been working incredibly hard in school to earn points for their House!

The Gold Book

Well done to the following children who have been in the Gold Book over the last two weeks.

Loyalty award winners for the month of January

Our value of the month for January was loyalty and these children displayed this value consistently in the classroom and on the playground.

ATTEND TO ACHIEVE!

496 (Week beginning 7.2.22)  children’s names were entered into our attendance “Wheel of Fortune” family prize draw. This is the number of children who have been in school every day since the beginning of the term.

At Wigmore we have to aim to be here every day! Excellent attendance is 97% or above. There are strong links between good attendance and good progress in school, both academically and socially.

Attendance for this school year at Wigmore stands at 93.5% which is slightly above the national average. At Wigmore we do not want to be slightly better than average – we want to be the best we can possibly be and reach our school target of 97%.

Lateness = lost learning!

Days off school = lost learning!

With thanks for your continued support,

Mr Johnston