Wellfield Middle School
October 2020
Dear Parents, Carers, governors, family and friends
We have reached the end of a busy half term and all things considered, it has been quite a success in terms of attendance, learning and the wellbeing of our school community. Thank you for all your support.The children have been a credit to you. Our pupils have adapted so well to the new routines and safety measures in place. Students have listened to instructions and abided by rules to ensure everybody in our school stays safe.
We are extremely proud of our new year five cohort. They have all settled well and have become very proficient at being a Wellfield Middle School student. All the pupils have become very familiar with their Ipads and are learning how their device can help them achieve in lessons both in school and at home. We view the learning muscles of resilience, reciprocity, reflectiveness and resourcefulness as important tools to develop as successful learners and our younger children have begun their learning journey's admirably.
We are very grateful for the food donations that many of our families have provided this week in what would have been our harvest festival celebration. We continue to be a kind and giving school and have many other events planned over the course of the year to support charitable organisations.
Parent/carer consultations will also look a little different this year. Your child's form teacher will hold the meeting via telephone call and share with you relevant information. Please ensure you have booked a slot for the first week back after the half term break using the link which can be found on the school website and in the parent message sent through school comms.
We are currently organising a number of residential trips for all year groups. Whilst this might seem a little ambitious, we are always hopeful that things can return to normal and that we are able to resume our varied and exciting curriculum beyond the classroom. Our plans depend upon the current restrictions being lifted. With this in mind we will continue with the usual payment plans but will not pursue any firm bookings with outside organisations without appropriate COVID-19 insurance.
All that remains is for me to wish you an enjoyable, restful and safe half term break and we look forward to seeing all our pupils again on Monday 2nd November 2020.
Thank you for your continued support
Susan Winter
Spooky Writers
Combining all their skills from the half term, Y6 have worked on a piece of spooky writing this week. We created a first draft for homework linked to a picture and then worked on editing vocabulary, sentence variety and building up an atmosphere in class (using our iPads to edit)
The year 6 teachers were blown away by the quality of everyone’s writing and how much it improved through the editing process. We hope you enjoy this small selection; try not to be too scared...
Miss Stephenson
Hand Washing Stations
Hygiene is our top priory at the moment and these great new hand washing stations in reception allow us to easily wash our hands before and after lunch with ease!
Y7 eNGLISH
Year 7
In English this half term, Year 7 have been studying refugee literature. We have been looking at a wide range of texts and students have thorough;y enjoyed learning about this relevant topic. Students created some speeches about the refugee crisis, acting as a character from a text we have read and encouraging others to treat refugees better. Examples of these can be seen on our twitter page!
Year 7 have also created some brilliant ‘Blackout poetry’ using the poem ‘Refugee Blues’ by W.H Auden. Some pictures of these can be seen below.
y8 english
Year 8 have been studying the theme of the Gothic this half term- fitting for the time of year! They have been looking at the history, conventions and themes of the genre and have produced a number of creative and academic pieces of writing. Writing their own opening to a gothic story allowed year 8 to experiment with their creativity and they even managed to give Miss Kelly nightmares!
Miss Kelly
Y5 History
Year 5 have been learning all about the Victorians this half term. They enjoyed a special visit from Mrs Mountford, a Victorian expert, who showed them many Victorian artefacts including: coins, clothes and washing equipment. The children thoroughly enjoyed themselves and learnt lots of new facts. Fearne said, “I really enjoyed the visit from Mrs Mountford because we all learnt something new, including how the Victorians did their washing.”
“I loved it, we learnt so much, I learnt that they had a carpet beater to hoover their rugs,” Will.
“I learnt all about the clothing they wore and that Victorians wore seven layers, it must have been so heavy!” Mason.
fACE MASKS
A huge thank you to the Y8 girls who have been busy after school sewing face masks:
Lucy France
Poppy Chaplin
Emily Morton
Eva Pattinson
Amelia McClurry
Millie Dodds
Thank you from Mrs Gordon and Mrs Pattinson
Reading Plus
Reading At Wellfield
Since returning in September, all year groups have resumed their weekly home reading and we have lived hearing about the different books they enjoy.
The children have been creating videos and posters to recommend their favourite books and authors to others which are displayed as QR codes for everyone in scan in the main corridor (just because we can’t all mix as one school won’t stop us spreading our love of reading!)
Home Reading Reminders:
· All year groups are recording their home reading on Google Classroom each week
· They are expected to read at least 4 times per week (and some of this should be with an adult)
· Adults should leave a comment or sign their google document each week (just like we did with planners last year)
Year 5 and 6 have made a great start to their Reading Plus program on the iPads. This is a specially designed program which is pitched at the exact level of the individual children and helps them to improve their fluency and comprehension skills (we have already had many children moving up through the levels and increasing how many words per minute they can read)
We are fully committed to helping every child discover and nurture a life-long love of reading; if you have any questions about your child’s reading or would like some support with hone reading strategies please don’t hesitate to contact your child’s form tutor.
Miss Stephenson
Virtual Author Visits
Onjali Q Raúf (author of Boy at the Back of the Class) will be ‘visiting Y8 on Thursday 12th November.
Paul Cookson (performance poet) will be ‘visiting’ Y7 on Friday 20th November.
(Details to follow shortly about author KS2 visits)
Miss Stephenson
Y6 Science
Year 6 have been studying the topic of Light in Science. We have enjoyed investigating how light travels, how and why it is refracted in water and looking into Newton’s colour wheel and the colour spectrum. Did you know that the colours of the rainbow are always in the same order due to the wavelength of each of the colours?
We are looking forward to finding out about Electricity in our next topic.
Miss Stephenson
Positivity and Resilience
Coming back to school after such a long period of time was always going to be a bit of an adjustment. In 6 Coquet we talked through the things we found difficult and discussed strategies to help us stay positive, not give up and to be the best learners we can be.
We hope some of our positive posters inspire you!
Miss Stephenson
Halloween Art
Mrs Douglas