Great Waltham C of E (VC) Primary School Parent Portal - Newsletter - Friday 3rd March 23

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Friday 3rd March 23 - Spring Term Issue 4

Headteacher Message

We celebrated world book day in style this year! It was wonderful to see the children coming to school in their pyjamas and the array of oddies was quite amazing! We pulled names out of a hat and teachers read their favourite books to different classes - I really enjoyed reading ‘The Tiger who came to Tea’ to Class Australia. There were lots of other fun book related activities throughout the day, Class Asia played book bingo, Class Australia did a book study of David McGee and Class Antarctica made some lovely bookmarks.

On Monday, classes Australia and North America teamed up for a ‘buddy maths session’. They focused on the numbers 1-5 and Mrs Moore was really pleased with the mathematically rich conversations that the children were having.

I’m delighted to announce that Class Antarctica were the winners of the GWPS first International song contest! They sang a beautiful rendition of ‘Heads, Shoulders, Knees and Toes’ in Portuguese. They will now represent our school in a final, against other local schools, at Newlands Spring Primary School next Friday. Good luck children!

We welcomed Reverend Dan in to school this week for collective worship. He talked to the children about Lent and praying. As a school, we are focusing on 40 acts of kindness during Lent this year, the children have been sharing their kind acts in collective worship. I think you will have lots of kind and helpful children at home this weekend so please make the most of it.

I would like to end by sharing some exciting news. Miss Byford is expecting a baby boy at the end of July! I’m sure you will all join with me in congratulating her and wishing her well for the exciting times ahead.

Have a wonderful weekend.

Mrs Brooks

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Awards

Aspire

Well done to our ASPIRE award winners for the last 2 weeks.

24/2/23	3/3/23
Maddie M - Aspiration	Harry M - Strength
Lottie G - Aspiration	Lily M - Strength
Scarlet M - Aspiration	Penelope L - Perseverance
	Albie G - Integrity

Hot Chocolate Friday

Well done to all of the 'Hot Chocolate Friday' winners for the last 2 weeks.

Class	24/2/23	3/3/23
Australia	Taiwo O	Lewis E
Antarctica	Albert H	Nelly S
Africa	Elliott E	Connie W-A
Europe	William G	Rory D
Asia	Sadie D	Betty T
North America	Lily M	Jack H

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News

03 Mar 2023

KS2 Karate Club

There is still time to join Karate club which takes place on Fridays between 3.15 - 4.00pm.The children have been learning different techniques each week.Please see the attachment below for information on signing up.

03 Mar 2023

iRock School of Music

iRock school of music lessons have been taking place for the last 2 weeks. We have enjoyed hearing the rehearsals taking place on a Friday afternoon. We seem to have some budding musicians amongst our pupils! We look forward to seeing them perform in their concert in a few weeks time.

03 Mar 2023

Y 5/6 Cross Country

A fantastic team of year 5 and 6 went to Writtle College to compete in a series of races. All the children tried their best and entered into the spirit of working as a team. They were brilliant!

Price Increases

Due to the rising cost of food and services, we unfortunately will be increasing the cost of school dinners and breakfast club from 1st April 2023. This is to ensure that we can continue to deliver good quality, home cooked, healthy food.

Breakfast Club - Regular users - Increase from £5.60 to £5.70 per session. Ad-hoc users - Increase from £6.50 to £6.60 per session.

School Dinners - Will increase from £2.30 to £2.40 per day.

School Lottery - Thank you to all of you that support our lottery.

Did you know that by taking part, not only do you support the school but you could win a local prize or even the main £25,000 pot! Also, currently up for grabs is an iPhone 14 pro.

Lottery tickets can be purchased here - School Lottery - Please do let family members and friends know that they too can purchase Lottery tickets and help support the school. Each ticket costs £1 and 40p of this comes directly to the school.

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National Online Safety

What Parents and Carers Need to Know about Spotify

A free online safety guide on Spotify.

With around 60,000 songs added to its online library every day, Spotify is a vast treasure trove of audio dating from some 19th century recordings through to giants of the download age like The Weeknd and Ed Sheeran. Factor podcasts, audiobooks and videos into the mix, and the Swedish-based streaming platform quite literally offers something for everyone.

Not everything in Spotify’s depths is universally suitable, however. The sheer mass of music and content on the platform mean that, naturally, not all of it is intended for younger listeners. With an audio chat service available and media reports of predatory activity, our #WakeUpWednesday guide highlights other aspects of Spotify which trusted adults ought to be in the loop about.

In the guide you'll find tips on a number of potential risks such as age-inappropriate lyrics, an audio chat function and recent reports of predatory activity.

Guide to - Spotify

What Parents and Carers Need to Know about NGL

NGL is another of those ‘bolt-on’ apps which is designed to work alongside a major social media network. In this instance, the ‘host’ platforms are Instagram and Twitter – with NGL (meaning, as you may have surmised, ‘Not Gonna Lie’) inviting a user’s friends and followers to ask them questions anonymously. An intriguing novelty, perhaps – but also not without risk.

Human nature being what it is, some people take the smokescreen of online anonymity as an excuse to behave in ways that they certainly wouldn’t if their identity were visible. The idea of exposing young social media users to anonymous messages is one which understandably concerns many parents: our #WakeUpWednesday guide brings you the facts about NGL. This free online safety guide looks at NGL – an anonymous messaging app.

This guide will highlight a number of potential risks including oversharing, cyber-bullying and potentially costly subscription fees.

Guide to - NGL

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