Parents

Weekly Parent Bulletin - Friday 16th January

Dear parents,

Thank you for the excellent attendance at our parent evenings this week. From chatting to several parents, and our staff, it sounds like lots of helpful conversations have been held.

This week a letter was sent home about plans to adopt a new approach to our playtimes via the Opal Play strategy. This approach essentially pulls on an EYFS continuous provision style - helping children initiate play. In time it should see lots of exciting new additions to our lunchtime offer such as giant sandpits, den building and performance. The project is still at the early planning phase, with a parent information session due to take place before this launches.

On Thursday we were visited by 50 regional Headteachers and colleagues to learn more about our approach to Oracy. This links through to where Miss Wyatt and Mrs King are both commissioned by the DfE to support a regional English Hub, helping raise standards in schools across the county. It was a proud moment for Avonwood to showcase our work in oracy to date, with our goal to become the first 'Voice 21 Centre of Excellence' on the South Coast. It never ceases to amaze me to hear Year 1 age children starting sentences aloud with ' I respectfully disagree with X because..." or "I would like to build on X's answer because"... quite extraordinary!

With it feeling like a monsoon has hit us at times recently, a plea for every child to have a good quality warm waterproof coat. We are always keen to get outside and an appropriate coat makes all the difference. Please can I also ask parents to remind children that bracelets are not permitted in school. If you could reiterate the need for these to stay home it would be very helpful. Any bracelets next week will be collected in by staff and passed to parents at pick up.

Lastly, a reminder of the next PTA meeting taking place on Wednesday night from 7:30 at the Barrel Room bar in Southbourne. If you'd like to attend to hear about the latest bids and contribute to fundraising / community ideas, then do come along. The more the merrier!

Have a great weekend!

Mr Jackson

Whole School Reminders

PTA Updates

PTA Meeting

We will be holding our next PTA meeting at The Way Outback in Southbourne on Wednesday 21st January. Welcome from 7:15pm for a start time of 7:30pm. Lots of fun things to plan for 2026!

Year 6 Cake Sale

Friday 23rd January 3:05pm by the school gates.

Donations welcome! Please bring to reception on Friday 23rd at drop off- NO NUTS please!

Thank you

Whole School Updates

SEND Updates

Anxiety Advice from our school Educational Psychologist

We are inviting all parents along to our coffee morning,

to support with anxiety in children. This will be held by our wonderful

link Educational Psychologist, Beth Sharpe.

Beth will be coming into school on Wednesday 21^st January @ 9:00am

to talk about anxiety in children; how this may present, strategies to support and a

chance to ask her any advice or answer any questions.

You are more than welcome to just turn up on the day, but it would also be very helpful

to have a rough idea of numbers. If you are interested and able to confirm your

attendance, please do so by letting the front office know or emailing us at

sendsupport@avonwoodprimaryschool.org.uk

Well Done Sam!

Last weekend, Sam was selected to represent Dorset at the South West Squash Regionals - under 11s. His team competed against teams from Wales, Devon and Gloucestershire - winning 2 and losing 1.

Weekly Year Group Updates

EYFS

Parents evening - Thank you to all parents for engaging with our meetings last week.
Reading records - Our reading records have finally arrived (hooray!). Thank you for your patience with this. Please continue to log when you read with your child. There is lots of useful information in the records including sound mats, CEW mats etc. Please ensure you are sending in your child's reading record every day.
Wellies - please can you make sure that your child has a set of wellies in school as we are still going outside in our sessions while it is wet. You may also want to send in a waterproof all in one to keep on their peg too.
Cardboard tubes - over the next few weeks we will be creating things like cardboard tube dragons and castles. Please can you send in toilet roll and kitchen roll tubes for us to use.
Padlet - please remember to check the EYFS parent information padlet for information about what we are learning about and ideas of how to help your child at home. https://padlet.com/danielledimambro/eyfs-avonwood-hwijufw6exnk0gq

Year 1

None this week.

Year 2

A massive well done to both classes who have earnt their reading reward! On Friday (23rd), we would like the children to bring in a soft teddy, a blanket and their favourite book. We will be making reading dens for the children to read to their teddy. If you do not have these items, please do not worry as we will have spares in the class.
Spelling shed has now been set. You need to login using the information on the slip given. Thank you to those that have already come to see us regarding logins. Please bare with us as we cannot access the logins and have to wait for them to be resent to us.
Thank you so much to you all for a fantastic parents evening, we hope you found them useful.

Year 3

A letter went out yesterday detailing the Year 3 Ancient Egyptian day on Friday 6th February. Please make sure you have read this - any questions, please speak to your child's class teacher. Payment for the drama session as part of the day should be made via ParentPay.
We are hoping to have some parent helpers to come in and listen to some readers in the afternoons. If you are interested in this, please talk to your child's teacher.

Year 4

We are looking forward to our RE day, which takes place on Friday 23^rd January.
We have enjoyed looking at all the entries for the photography competition run by Miss Keates. A reminder that the deadline for this is the 30th January.

Year 5

Thank you for all of the cardboard sent in for Roman Day. The children made some incredible Roman villas and had a lot of fun in the process.
Another thank you for your support and for engaging with parents evening this week.
A reminder that we have our RE day on Tuesday next week. The children do not need to bring anything in.
A polite reminder that we will now be using the online reading record from Monday 19^th January. All parents will receive an email on Monday which will take you straight to your child's account. If you do not receive an email, please check your junk box.