ATW News for week ending 16th December

Mr Veale’s welcome

What week we have all had! With our eyes gazing out of our hopefully warm front rooms on Sunday afternoon, we wondered what would become of the snow.  Temperatures plummeted and a thick covering of snow laid deep and crisp and even, adding a magical dynamic to the last week of our term together.  Nonetheless, the intrepid Atwood team banded together, led by Mr O’Connor, in shovelling duties.  Business as normal, as they say- no school closure; no learning lost.  Good work!  I have popped a couple of photos in the gallery below of Reception enjoying the snow.

From  everyone at Atwood- Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you all

School Office News- please read the below carefully.

Many of you will be aware that Mrs Dobson is currently away from Atwood and this situation may continue for a while longer.  This means that Mrs Middlemiss has been taking the lead in the office and she has been assisted by Mrs Curtis for two days per week.  You will all know what an amazing job the Atwood office staff do for us all.  I often receive praise for their dedication and  professional.  The office is such a busy place, with the phones ringing, the gate buzzer buzzing, visitors and children all contributing to a high energy working environment.
I need your support in the new year.  All schools MUST ensure that the registers are officially closed by 9.30am.  If the staff have interruptions or have to deal with other things, then this key task is compromised.
Therefore, PLEASE ensure that your child arrives on time each and every day. You will know that the start of the school day is later and therefore there should be no reason for children to be late.  A long queue of late arriving children causes real issues as they all need to be registered and their meal choices need to be taken.  This time is far better used in other ways and it means the children would not miss out on vital learning.
From January, there may be times that we switch our phone system to answer phone, as we are dealing with people face to face.  If this is the case, it is to ensure that we are being efficient.  Please do bear this in mind.

Forgotten items!

Once again, the office is having many more forgotten items: coats, lunch boxes, water-bottles.  These all need to be delivered and as we do not have the full capacity of staff, we simply cannot do this anymore.  Therefore, from January, the office staff will not be able to deliver any forgotten items.

Labelling Clothes

The Atwood staff have noticed that the majority of school clothing is NOT labelled.  This means that valuable time is wasted trying to find the owner and in certain cases, the owner is never found and this expensive clothing goes to landfill.  Please can I ask that you spend time over the Christmas holidays labelling all uniform?  Thanks.

Medications

In the season of cold and ‘flu, lots of parents are asking the offics staff if it is ok to administer medication such as antibiotics and Calpol.  The simple answer to this is “NO”, we cannot do this.  Please bear this in mind from January.

Medical and Dental Appointments

Please ensure that all non-urgent medical and dental appointments are made during the school holidays.  We wish to minimise the disruption to learning, and children attending such appointments disrupt their day and cause additional work for the office staff.

Topping up Lunch Payments 

Please can I ask that you top up your School Gateway lunch accounts in readiness for the new term, thus starting off in credit as this will save the offics staff a lot of work as they won’t need to chase up families.

News Round-up

Here is just a small flavour of what is happening in the wonderful world of Atwood.

School Council visits the Houses of Parliament

You will remember in last week’s edition that Mr Simons and Mrs Adams took the School Council to the Houses of Parliament so that they could see for themselves the Palace of Westminster and learn about what happens in this important building.  Mr Chris Philp MP, Croydon South’s Member of Parliament, took time out of his busy day to meet the Atwood children.  Here is the children’s recount of this super trip.

‘On our trip to the Houses of Parliament, we experienced a once in a lifetime opportunity. We had an interesting tour guide who showed us around the Palace of Westminster.
We learnt a lot of intriguing facts, like when in Westminster Hall, King Henry VIII was  playing tennis when he accidently hit the ball too hard, and it got stuck in the high regions of the hammer wood ceiling, which was found 400 years later because he could not be bothered to get it . It is now in a Museum in London.
We went to the House of Lords, although we were not allowed to sit down as it is only allowed for Lords, Barronesses, Barons and other high ranking citizens of the community. We unfortunately were not able to go in as it was the Prime Minister’s Questions.
We had a debating workshop about homeless people on the streets and learnt a lot about how parliament ping-pong works (and what it is). We got to meet our MP, Chris Philp.  He was very nice and answered all of our questions.’ Charlotte and Millie

It’s the School Panto (Oh no it’s not) 

On behalf of the children, I wish to say thank you to the FOAP for funding the annual Chaplins Pantomime.  This year, the children were treated to a rendition of Aladdin.  It was loud, it was raucous, it was fun- and that was just the interval.  I have placed an image in the gallery below.

EYFS Christmas Concert 

I know that Ms Docherty posted a separate news story for the Christmas Concert so please do head over to here to take a closer look: https://www.pegasusacademytrust.org/news/eyfs/atwood-reception-christmas-concert 

KS1 Christmas Concert

Later in the week, it was the turn of KS1 to shine as they performed their Christmas Nativity performance.  I have placed some photographs in the gallery below.

Word of the Week

This week’s word is STADIUM.  With the news that England’s dream of progressing in the World Cup finals being dashed at the hand of France, they will not be seeing a stadium for some time to come.  Children, do you know where this word come from?  In ancient Rome, a stadium was a round track used for both running and chariot races.  The Latin word came from the Greek word, stadion which means ‘a measure of length’.  A stadium’s length was usually one eight of a Roman mile.  Mile came from the Latin mille passus- or 1000 paces (steps).
Do you know the plural of stadium? Answers at the end of this e-newsletter so keep reading!

Team Points (Pupil Reward Points)

Remember that everyone at Atwood believe in the Terrific Trio- Kind Words, Kind Thoughts, Kind Actions and for that, the children are rewarded.  The first key milestone for a pupil is to reach 50 Pupil Reward Points because they will be awarded a £5 Book Token in Celebration Assembly, as we also wish to promote the love of reading at Atwood.  Each pupil has been assigned to a Team or House.  These are Air, Earth, Fire and Water.  All Pupil Reward Points also contribute to the Team Points each week.

Here are the all important totals for the term so far:

Congratulations to AIR who have won the Team Points Competition for Autumn Term and as such, may wear Yellow on Friday 6th January. 

Why not head over to the Pupil Reward Points website?  https://www.pupilrewardpoints.co.uk

Attendance

To note, Atwood, like a lot of other schools, have been hit by quite high levels of illness over the last 3 weeks, hence our attendance figures have dropped.  However, a polite notice to families- we do not authorise holidays in term time, including trips to Lapland.

Attendance is important.  After all, children only have one opportunity to go to school, don’t they?  As a rule of thumb, we expect children to attend school at least 95% of the time.  Here are the Attendance figures for this week:

Forthcoming dates with newly added items in BOLD

Tuesday 3rd January – INSET day for staff- school closed for the children
Wednesday 4th January – First day back for the children
Friday 6th January- AIR Pupils may wear Yellow
Thursday 12th January- Reception Height and Weight Checks
Friday 20th January- PAT poetry competition @ WHJUN
Saturday 21st January- SLH Cross Country Races
Tuesday 24th January- Class Reps Meeting- 2pm at Atwood
Friday 27th January- LAC or AFC event- 2pm-3pm  
Tuesday 7th February- Safer Internet Day
Friday 10th February- Last day before the half term holiday
Monday 20th February- Pupil and staff return after the half term holiday
Wednesday 22nd February- Year 6 Dental Screening
Week commencing 27th February- Book Week
Monday 27th February- Author Visit- Dan Freedman  author of Unstoppable 
Week commencing 6th March- Whitgift Primary Project for Year 5
Saturday 11th March- Farthing Downs Cross Country Race
Week commencing 13th March- Science Week- Our Theme is CONNECTIONS
Saturday 18th March- SLH Cross Country Races
Monday 20th to Wednesday 22nd March- Year 5 Residential to Carroty Wood
Friday 31st March- Last day of the Spring Term- School finishes and 1.30pm

To note, all of the ATW dates are on the calendar and so please click on this link to find them: https://www.pegasusacademytrust.org/events-calendar?school=ATW  

Answer:  Stadia