Dear Parents and Carers

I hope that you are all well. After my previous newsletters and messages I wanted to thank parents for trying that bit harder to let their children come onto the school site on their own. There have been some very pleased looking FS children who have walked past me at the gate after leaving their parents on the playground. I appreciate that every child is different and some are more naturally anxious than others. One of my own children would have been happy to come in on their own, but the other would have wanted an adult to be there. All children develop at different rates and sometimes ‘baby steps’ is the right approach, for example, walking them onto the playground and then letting them take the next steps on their own.

I have also been pleased to see so many children still using their bikes and scooters to get to school, even though the Big Pedal has finished. Obviously, we hope that more and more children will choose to come to school this way, all year round, and not just in the Big Pedal fortnight. Eco issues have always been close to our heart, and we are already working on some exciting plans. As you know, we would like to add some covered bike racks so that more children will feel that they can cycle to school even on a rainy day. We can’t afford to do this from our own budget and will need to raise funds from charitable donations and the support of the FOWS. Our first fundraising even was the Christmas Biscuits we sold last term. Thanks to your incredible generosity, your donation of £1,161 was turned into £3,000 by BGL. We have now been informed that if we can raise another £1000 at the end of this half-term, BGL will double it to £2000! We will come up with a plan and write to you again. I hope that you will be happy to support this event as £5,000 will go a long way to building the new bike racks.

Even though we have an emptier calendar than normal, we still seem very busy at the moment and I know that staff look forward to the weekends to stop and catch their breath. I always enjoy looking at the tweets that the classes post as they are a reminder of what an exciting and interesting curriculum the children get to experience. We have been passionate about learning and reading for a long time and they have been ongoing projects for us. At this week’s twilight staff meeting, Mr Marks taught the teachers a brilliant dual coding system which we plan to use across the school. He was followed by Mrs Edwards, our Reading Lead, who talked us through some new methods for developing reading. This gave us an opportunity to hear about the inspiring, challenging texts the children have worked with this year and the amazing work that they have produced. We have really ‘upped our game’ with reading this year, even though it was already a strength of the school. We are also grateful that so many of you make the time to read to and with your child at least 5 times each week. We can see where this makes a difference.

You may have seen that we advertised a class teacher post a few weeks ago. We received twenty great applications and whittled these down to ten as they were too good to miss. We had an epic interview day yesterday with back to back Zoom calls from 8 until 5. Even though it was a long day, as we didn’t finalise our decisions until after 6 o’clock, what made it all worthwhile was hearing the candidates explain why they had applied for the post and why they wanted to work at Orton Wistow. Some had been able to make a visit to the school and all of them had been amazed by our brilliant website (thanks Mrs Schneider!). They all talked about how the PRIDE Code resonated with their own values, how they could see that we were a forward thinking school and that we worked hard to build strong, positive relationships with families. As you can appreciate, we had some tough decisions to make. I shall write again next week with a staffing update.

I hope that you have a great weekend.

Kind regards,

Mr Eardley

Head Teacher

^{Photo by Vitolda Klein on Unsplash}

Each week, we publish the latest achievements of the children at Orton Wistow Primary School.  You can find out the weekly results for:

• Attendance
• Class Dojos
• Dojo Masters
• House Points
• Reading Champions
• Shining Stars
• Times Table Rock Stars
• Golden Mile

Times Tables Rock Stars - Get Involved

By Miss Wyatt, Maths Lead

Now that lockdown is over, we'd love to see all the children getting involved in Times Tables Rock Stars again. To find out more, read on...

What is Times Tables Rock Stars?

The Times Tables Rock Stars website, ttrockstars.com, explains how it can help children with their multiplications:

"In either paper form or online, Times Tables Rock Stars is a carefully sequenced programme of daily times tables practice.

Each week concentrates on a different times table, with a recommended consolidation week for rehearsing the tables that have recently been practised every third week or so.

This format has very successfully boosted times tables recall speed for hundreds of thousands of pupils over the last 8 years in over 16,000 schools - both primary and secondary - worldwide."

​​​​​​When it comes to times tables, speed AND accuracy are important – the more facts your child remembers, the easier it is for them to do harder calculations. Times Table Rock Stars is a fun and challenging program designed to help students master the times tables! To be a Times Tables Rock Star you need to answer any multiplication fact up to 12×12 in less than 3 seconds!

You can watch a video all about the Benefits of playing Times Tables Rock Stars.

Times Tables Rock Stars at OWPS

At OWPS, we know the importance of learning our times tables.  It's an invaluable skill that not only helps us with our maths lessons, but comes in handy throughout life.  

Children in Years 3-6 are challenged to practice their times tables at www.ttrockstars.com every week.  It is something that they can do at home, ideally on a daily basis.  

Times Tables Rock Stars is fun and exciting.  It recreates the experience of playing a computer game, with bright graphics and progress tracking.

Each week, OWPS publishes the Times Tables Rock Stars Leader board in the Achievements section of the Wistow Ways Newsletter. The names of the most improved children for each class are listed.

How can my child get involved?

It’s easy to log on to Times Tables Rock Stars and your child can access it from home.  Their username and password can be found in their reading diaries.

Children can play single player games including:

• Garage – multiplication and division questions set by the teacher to help them get quicker at recalling their multiplications facts.
• Studio – multiplication questions from 1x1 to 12x12 to enable children to set their best time across all the tables.
• Soundcheck – 20 questions each with a 5-second time limit to improve their response times.

Children can also play multiplayer games including:

• Rock Arena – using questions set by the teacher, players compete against other members of their Band.  Bandmates need to join the same game in order to compete together.
• Rock Festival – these games are open to players from around the world and questions are selected at random.  It is a great way to play with others if you can’t arrange to synchronise a game with classmates on Rock Arena.

More details can be found on the Times Tables Rock Stars website at ttrockstars.com.

Good luck playing Times Tables Rock Stars! It might be your name on the leader board next week!

^{Photo by AESSIE AUDIO on Unsplash}

OWPS Census Day Lunch

What is Census Day?

Thursday 20th May is Census Day. This is an important day for schools in Peterborough, Cambridgeshire and across the country as we have to submit data to the government. This data helps them to decide how much funding we should have next financial year. We are one of the lowest funded schools in Peterborough and so we need to make sure we get as much funding as possible.

For every Foundation Stage, Year 1 and Year 2 child having a school meal on that day, the school receives a year’s worth of school meals funding, which is £465 per child. If your child misses the dinner on that day, we don’t receive the funding.

Census Day at OWPS

We would like each child to have a school dinner on this day if at all possible, as it would assist the school with gaining this important funding.

We have a delicious menu planned for Thursday 20th May:

Simply top-up the dinner money on Parentmail in advance.  Thank you very much for your support.

Please contact the School Office on office@owps.org.uk or 01733 370646 if you have any questions or any concerns with the menu, and we will see if we can resolve them.

You can also find more information about menus and allergens by visiting the Dining Car.

A weekly section on how to maintain good mental health and well-being.

Find out what is happening in the community, nationally and internationally.

^{Disclaimer: Orton Wistow Primary School does not endorse any products, services or activities that appear in the Community section of this newsletter, and is not responsible for any contract entered into by either party. Given the current circumstances, we would recommend all parents check with any providers regarding the status of these services, activities and clubs}