Friday 28th February 2025
Headteacher's Update
What a busy few weeks its been across the Federation. The children should all feel really proud of their achievements. They make for a very packed newsletter this week.
Pupils from Year 5 and 6 successfully navigated their way around Woolton Hill and led the staff and parent volunteers on some very interesting, engaging and muddy routes! We were impressed with their map skills which they have practised this term in their Geography topic.
To launch their science learning for this term, Upper School have also taken a trip to Thatcham Lakes to take part in a variety of activities linked to the classification and identification of animals and mini-beasts. Thank you to all of the parents who helped on these trips.
Our new Equality And Rights Advocates/Diversity pupil leaders led a brilliant assembly to our junior children about gender stereotypes. They challenged our thinking on some of their stereotypes about what girls and boys are like as well as what sorts of jobs and roles they do. The children found this really interesting and it really made them think!
Thank you to Nina H, Alfie W, Alice M, Noah A, Thea B, Lydia M for their hard work and commitment to helping us all have respectful and diverse world views.
They have also launched a competition for children to write stories which challenge gender stereotypes - these will then be collated to make a school book of stories for the Library. The deadline is Friday 21st March so please remind your child(ren) to write one if they would like.
Book Week
We are very excited to be meeting children's author Anna Kemp today.
Don't forget she will be signing copies of her books at the Junior School from 3.30pm. Also a reminder that pupils can dress up as their favourite book character next Friday 7th March.
Woolfest 2025 - Save the Date
The Friends of the Woolton Hill Schools are delighted to announce that preparations have started for this year's Woolfest and soon we will be letting you know about some exciting changes to the format for 2025.
However they need your help if the event is to go ahead. If you are able to give up some of your time to help with the preparations, then please email friendsofwhjs@gmail.com. This will not mean you have to join the Friends committee and you would only have to give a small amount of time. Organising Woolfest is a big job and a huge fundraiser for the school; so if lots of our parents can each commit a small amount of time this year - this will really help to make the event a success. Please do get involved.
Foodbank Update
I wanted to let you know the result of your hard work for West Berks Foodbank at the end of last half term.
Your donations weighed in at 144.0kgs. To put that into perspective, that equates to approximately 302 meals that you have provided for local residents who are currently really struggling and have insufficient money to buy food. Not only that, but 144kgs is the approximate weight of a fully grown ostrich and they are enormous!
Thank you so much for your support for our charity. It means a great deal.
Mobile Phones
In the last newsletter I wrote to parents about some of the potential safety issues around children's use of mobile phones. I shared a link to a video about these risks supplied by the campaign: Smartphone Free Childhood. Founded in February 2024 after one WhatsApp group went viral, SMARTPHONE FREE CHILDHOOD is now a community of over 150,000 parents, working together to change the culture around children and smartphones. They seek to:
-Grow the national conversation around the use of mobile phones.
-Empower Parents & Schools with educational resources & tools.
-Pressure Government & Tech Companies to do more to keep children safe.
I would like to invite all parents to a meeting with a member of the SMARTPHONE FREE CHILDHOOD campaign at 5pm on Monday 28th April at Woolton Hill Junior School. This will be an opportunity to find out more about the issues around mobile phone use as well as how to keep your children safe on the internet. Sign up using the link below:
Easter Workshop
I wish Sofia P was in the newsletter.