June Update from Mrs Ellis 2024
10 January 2024
Dear Parents and Carers,
It is always wonderful to be able to share news about what is happening around school so here are a few highlights of this half-term so far.
Community
Our school council members recently represented the school by getting involved in our village community. The children worked with volunteers from Shadwell in Bloom to plant the summer bedding in the two beds (including the Jubilee Bed) just outside the school pedestrian and carpark entrances on Main Street. It was a super opportunity for our children to enjoy contributing to the wider village community and we hope everyone enjoys seeing the results of their endeavours.
Inspiring
One of the things we are keen to further develop in our school is a strong culture of inspiring children to read for pleasure. Our children read wonderfully and achieve well academically but we want to strengthen our offer of reading for pleasure including more frequently hearing stories read to them. We started this process last year with the creation of a small school library area which many parents kindly donated books to. FOSS also helped by providing some new bookcases for some classes to enhance our class reading corners. Over the next year we are focussing on further developing our class reading corners as the children tell us they would like to have more opportunities to use them which is wonderful to hear. One of the main steps is to refresh our book stock as many of the class books are now looking much loved and rather past their best. To support this, the monies raise through the Progress Café events this week will be used to contribute to the purchase of new class library books. A fabulous total of £280 pounds was raised through your Parent Pay and on the day donations so I would just like to say thank you on behalf of all the children who will benefit from the new books.
We were relieved that the rain stopped long enough for our Sports Day to go ahead. It was a pleasure to welcome so many parents and to see the children enjoying themselves so much. Mr Brotherton did a wonderful job of ensuring all ran smoothly and ensuring we all knew what we needed to do on the day.
Over the summer the work to upgrade the pond and wildlife area will be going ahead to enhance the opportunities for our children to take their learning outdoors. There will also be other improvements to the school site internally including new carpeting in the main entrance area. With each improvement we make, we aim to create a school environment which inspires our children to learn, and which we can all feel proud of. I will share some further updates on other summer works projects with you later this term.
Inclusive
As part of our new partnership with Leeds Rhinos Rugby League, a representative from their education team came to deliver a special assembly to all our children. The assembly focussed on two main themes:
- What is great teamwork and why is it important in life?
- What do we mean by inclusivity and why does it matter in our world?
The presenter commented on how impressed he was with the children’s understanding of both and their thoughtful contributions to the assembly discussions.
We also hope all families who are attending the Rhinos V Leigh game at Headingly this coming Friday have a wonderful time.
The term is flying by and there is still much learning for children to enjoy as well as all the end of term events, including our KS2 production. We look forward to seeing many of you in school for these.
Kind Regards
Mrs Ellis
Headteacher
Shadwell Primary School
Bramham Shadwell Federation
Inspiring Inclusive Community