Whitehall Park School Newsletter 28th November 2016 T : 0 2 0 7 5 6 1 0 1 1 3 E : o ffi c e @ w h i t e h a l l p a r k s c h o o l . o r g . u k

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Learn Enjoy Succeed

Message from the Head Dear parents, children and families,

I just wanted to personally thank the many families who have kindly followed our advice and are now either not driving to school, or (if they absolutely have to drive!) are parking on St. Johns Way or Dun-combe Road and walking round to our entrance. It is an extremely small space right outside our rear gates and so it is crucial that we all work together to keep our children safe by keeping cars and traffic away from that area. If you are still driving to school, please consider the safety of our children and families and park well away from the school gates! Thank you so much! It means a lot that we can all work together to keep our school safe.

Tomorrow evening at 6.30pm we have a parent event for families interested in a place at Whitehall Park School. Could all families attending, please enter the school via our school entrance on Dun-combe Road please? The wooden gates between the Victorian build-ing and sports pitches are the way into the event! We are looking forward to meeting you there! Thank you to the parents who have volunteered to come and speak to our prospective parents. If you are available on the 6th or 13th December it would be amazing if you could come along and speak to any potential parents and let them know your experiences of our wonderful school! Have a great week, Laura Birkett Headteacher

Parent and Community News

Quiz night Update Thank you so much to everyone who bought a ticket and came along to our Friends of Whitehall Park School Quiz night—we are delighted to announce that we have raised over £1000 towards our school fundraising for play equipment, library and tree house! This is an incredible amount and is down to your amazing support and kindness. Thank you all! Thank you! Thank you so much to all our parents and carers for volunteering their time this week to come along on our various different trips to the theatre and the River Cruise this week. Without your help and support trips and visits such as these just couldn't happen. We really appreciate your support., without you these trips would not be able happen!

Christmas Post box The Christmas Post Box is now in the foyer. Children are invited to post their Christmas cards in here and our wonderful elves will distribute them across the school. Make sure you write the recipients name and class on the front of the envelope, as we would hate to disappoint someone if their card was sent to the wrong class.

Children’s PE Kits Now there is a definite winter chill in the air, we ask that all chil-

dren come to school with their outdoor PE kit. Please bring your children’s PE kits into school on a Monday and take them home every Friday to wash.

Attendance and Punctuality

Here at Whitehall Park, we are really asking parents to en-sure children are on time and we are asking parents to

please ensure that they are punctual—Please ensure you arrive at school by 8.50am as school starts at 8.55am. The

class with the highest attendance gets to look after Richard, our Attendance Bear, for the week ahead!! Congratulations to Parsley class who have the highest attendance again this

week! An incredible achievement!

Well done Parsley Class!

W.C 21/11/16 W.C 28/11/16

Sage 93.1% 97.9%

Parsley 99.7% 97.6%

Jasmine 92.3% 97.7%

Lavender 97.9% 97.6%

Chive 93.9% 93.1%

Basil 96.6% 98.3%

Whole School 95.6% 97.%

Celebrations We are always incredibly impressed with how well our children are doing at school and are so proud of their achievements. Each week we cele-brate our achievements in our Golden Book assembly, where we cele-brate everyone’s green behaviour and learning and even award excep-

tional learning with special stickers and certificates!

Class Child Reason

Sage Gabriel For writing addition number sentences independently

Parsley Anmol For being a fantastic role model and trying super hard on the trip

Jasmine Sebastian For excellent learning and progress in English!!

Lavender Ethan For a fabulous and detailed recount of The Stick Man

Basil Max For always listening to others with kind-ness and respect

Chive Dean for maintaining a positive attitude to-wards learning and beginning to be-

come more independent!

Whitehall Park Living Advent Calendar This Christmas there's an amazing community art project happening right here in Whitehall Park., which started last year and was a huge success Each night from 1st to 24th December, a house or community hub in Whitehall Park will reveal a festive window in the Living Advent Calendar. The houses will remain illumi-nated each night until 5th January. Our Whitehall Park School window will be displayed in Whitehall's Estate Agents and will be switched on at 18.30 on Friday 9th December. It would be great to get as many of the Whitehall Park family there for the big turn—especially as last year was so spectacular! The local community is warmly invited to come along and watch each festive window get switched on, and to tour the windows until they close on 12th night. You can find a map of the Living Advent Calendar and a timetable of the “switch-ons” on the Whitehall Park Living Advent Calendar Facebook group for further information.

Reception Nativity –Wednesday 14th December

Don’t forget to come into the office and sign up for your tickets to see an original Christmas Nativity! Written for us by some of the fantastic Mount Carmel girls and based in the traditional Nativity story, our Re-ception classes are performing the play in the Mount Carmel hall on Wednesday 14th December. Make sure you sign up for your tickets be-fore Monday 12th December, as tickets are being allocated during the day and will be sent home in your child’s book bag. If you wish, we ask that you make a small donation to the WPS Friends Fundraising com-mittee on the day of the performance so we can continue to raise mon-ey for some exciting play equipment in our new building. We asked that all Reception parents brought in children’s costumes today ready for our dress rehearsals this week – if you didn’t manage to do that today, please can you bring them in as soon as possible. Year 2 children, who are narrating, will require their full school uniform on the day. An afternoon of festive songs - Tuesday 20th December 2.30pm

Not to be left out! Our Year 1 and 2 pupils have been polishing their performances ready for their concert on Tuesday 20th December. There will be a mixture of traditional treats and some international songs from around the world. Signup sheets for the performance are out in the office now and every family in Years 1 and 2 are entitled to two tickets each, please ensure you sign up before Thursday 15th December. Miss Sami and Miss Donkin have been working tirelessly with the teachers to put together a fantastic programme for our first Christmas Carol afternoon. Please encourage your child to practice their lyrics as often as possible in preparation for the big event. As a multi-faith school, we are aware that not all of our families cele-brate Christmas, so please do let us know in the office if you do not want your child to take part in this concert. If you would like to make a donation towards the tickets, there will be an opportunity to do this on the day of the performance. All chil-dren will be performing in their school uni-form. Festive decorations made by our Whitehall Park School pupils will be on sale at each of the performances, we look forward to seeing you there!

News and Updates

Christmas Parties-Wednesday 21st December.

On our last day of school the children will be having their Christmas parties. Pupils and teachers!) can wear

their party clothes to school in preparation for an exciting day of games, snacks and dancing. Any food and drink donations would be gratefully re-ceived. As we are a healthy school we ask that any food or drink donations be of a healthy nature. We are also a nut free school due to a number of severe allergies so please be extra careful with ingredients.

Here are a few healthy treat ideas:

Last day of term: Wednesday 21st December

School will close at 2pm on the 21st of December and will remain closed to children until Wednesday the 4th of Janu-ary 2017. (There will be no after school club on Wednesday 21st December)

Christmas Jumpers! Friday 16th December

Don’t forget that next Friday the 16th December is National Christmas Jumper Day where we will be raising money for Save the Children. We will not be wearing our uniforms on that day, so we are looking forward to seeing everyone wrapped up warm and cosy!