Dear Parents and Carers,

We've had a cold and windy start to the second half of the Autumn term but a very positive one in school! Half-term was a welcome break for us all, and we are now ready for an exciting few weeks, especially the build-up to Christmas. 

It is unfortunate that the current pandemic situation has meant that we can't do all the things we had planned for this term, but we are finding ways to make it work in school and give children the opportunities they would normally get, including performing on stage. Year Five will still perform their assembly to the rest of the school next week and Mrs Fidgett and Miss Phillips are working out a way to record it and share it with parents. Parents not seeing their children perform live is a disappointment but allowing the children a chance to learn lines and songs and then perform to others is something we didn't want to miss out on entirely. 

My assembly today was the final one looking at the book 'Buckets, Dippers and Lids - Secrets to your happiness'. Since introducing this book, I have had several conversations with children where they have spoken about their bucket and what had helped to fill it and when it had sadly been dipped. The final part of the book was about 'Lids'. We all have a lid that we can use to protect our bucket and the happiness inside. When someone is dipping we can cover our bucket with our lid, choosing to recognise that when someone is dipping it is usually because there is something they are unhappy about. We can also use our lids to protect others' buckets by being good upstanders and supporting our friends and peers. Please ask your children about the book and get them to tell you about their bucket, dipper and lid, after all, you all have them too! 

Lastly, we have had two minor accidents outside of school recently where one car has hit another. Thankfully, no one has been hurt in either incident but if you need to drive to school to drop off or pick up children, please be careful on Wistow Way, the last thing we want is for someone to be hurt. 

Have a lovely weekend everyone,

Mr Marks

Deputy Head Teacher

^{Photo by Sajad Nori on Unsplash}

Each week, we publish the latest achievements of the children at Orton Wistow Primary School. 

Children in Need - Friday 19th November 2021

By Mrs Johnson, Learning Mentor

Together we can change young lives in every corner of the UK 

BBC Children In Need helps children who need them most, working across communities to help children and young people overcome challenges made more difficult by Covid-19. 

Children and young people who … 

• Have lost a loved one 

• Aren’t safe 

• Are living in poverty 

• Are lonely or isolated 

• Have challenges with their mental health 

On Friday 19th November 2021, children and staff at Orton Wistow Primary School will be raising money for Children In Need by: 

• Having a non-uniform day and donating £1.00 
• Buying a Pudsey Biscuit for 50p 

Let’s work together to change young lives on Friday 19t

Anti-Bullying Steering Group

By Mr Newton, Anti-Bullying Lead

WANTED

Are you a parent of a child at Orton Wistow?

Would you like to play a part in shaping the work we do at OWPS to prevent bullying?

Do you have 30 -40 minutes to spare once a term?

At Orton Wistow we are really passionate about doing all we can to prevent bullying in our school and we are proud to currently hold the Silver Anti-Bullying Quality Mark. 

A key part of the work we have done in the past is our Anti-Bullying Steering Group.  Our steering group is a team that is made up of members of teaching staff, support staff, pupils and governors with the aim of collaborating to develop the work we do with anti-bullying at Orton Wistow as we start to move towards hopefully achieving the Gold ‘Anti-Bullying Quality Mark.’

Having diverse voices on our group that come from different points of view really helps us to do this well, and so we would really love to have a couple of parents join us to lend their unique perspective to help us with this work. 

Meetings will take place once a term and will only last 30 -40 minutes and will usually take place at the start of the school day so should fit conveniently around morning drop-offs.   If this sounds like something you’d be interested in contributing to, or you’d like to find out more please get in touch with Mr Newton via office@owps.org.uk.

^{Photo by Dee @ Copper and Wild on Unsplash}

Times Tables Rock Stars Competition

By Miss Wyatt, Maths Lead

Maths Week England takes place from 8th - 12th November 2021. It was set up in 2019 with the goal of ensuring that no children miss out on the opportunities that being a confident competent mathematician can give them.

To celebrate Maths Week England at OWPS we will be taking part in a friendly competition involving schools from England from Monday 8th November to Thursday 11th November. It’s all done online via Times Tables Rock Stars at play.ttrockstars.com.

For every correct answer to a multiplication or division question, your child will earn their class a point. The Times Tables Rock Stars platform will calculate the class average. Winning classes in the school and in the competition as a whole will be the ones with the highest average.

All game modes (Gig, Garage, Studio, etc.) will count but only from games played between 7:30AM GMT and 7:30PM GMT on Monday 8th, Tuesday 9th, Wednesday 10th and Thursday 11th. To support player wellbeing, there is a daily time limit of 60 minutes per player. In other words, each player can earn competition points for up to 60 minutes between 7.30am and 7.30pm. Once the player goes beyond 60 minutes of play on a given day, they will still earn coins but will no longer earn points towards the competition.

Please encourage and support your child to take part if they wish, and hopefully we can win! Thanks for your support.

^{Photo by AESSIE AUDIO on Unsplash}

OWN Trust Cup Football Match

By Mr Cowles, PE Lead

On Monday 18th October, OWPS Year 5/6 Football Team played against Woodston.

Over the last two academic years, it has been challenging to get competitive games organised. This was the first competitive match OWPS children have competed in for over a year.

One of the benefits of being part of the OWN trust is the added relationship between the schools. Between OWPS, Woodston and Nene, the OWN cup has been created. It stems from three different sporting events across the year.

We travelled to Woodston on what was a very wet and windy day to compete in the first game of this new competition. The opposition was a very strong team, showing brilliant skills throughout the opening exchanges. It came as no surprise when they opened the scoring. The half-time whistle blew and OWPS found themselves 3-0 down. Having shown brilliant desire and passion on the pitch, a few changes were made. The children then came out in the second half and scored two quick goals. The games ended 4-2, but the boys and girls who competed in the game did themselves and the school proud. A highly competitive game started the OWN cup in fantastic style!

Year 3/4 Tag Rugby Festival

By Mr Cowles, PE Lead

On the 20^th of October 8 year, 3/4 children made the short journey to OBA to take part in a tag rugby competition. The competition was made up of six teams all from the local area. The Orton Cup has been running for several years now and this event is always a great introduction to this sport.

The team got off to a challenging start, and with some showing a bit of confusion on rules, it took us a little bit of time to get going. We lost our first game to a very strong side. We went on to be undefeated in the rest of our matches, meaning we finished a very impressive 2^nd place.

Considering the children had to deal with a torrential downpour, their attitudes were brilliant from start to finish. They represented the school extremely well and kept going no matter what. A brilliant afternoon!

Peterborough Cathedral Year 6 Visit

By Miss Tansley, Year 6 Toucans Class Teacher

On Tuesday 2nd November, Y6 were lucky enough to be visited by a member of staff from Peterborough Cathedral. The aim of the session was for the pupils to be introduced to some of our local history, based on monarchs and how they fit into historical chronology on a national scale too. The session promoted great discussion among the children, they had the opportunity to ask questions and enhance their own knowledge. Videos were watched, that were created by cathedral staff in character, to help immerse the classes into specific time periods and they were even spoken to by the current Bishop of the cathedral - Bishop Donald.

After our initial information gathering session, the children were then given the opportunity to carry out some matching games and activities to enhance their knowledge - later enabling a 'Top Trumps' style game to be played! Overall, it was a super visit, where both the classes and adults learned a lot! Thank you to the Cathedral Staff for a super morning. 

Honours Awards

Congratulations to the children who received an Honours Award on Wednesday 3rd November 2021.  The award was given 'For showing great resilience. You bounce back when things go wrong! Well done!'

Meet the OWPS Reading Racoon

To continue to encourage a love of reading at OWPS, Reese the Reading Racoon has joined our school.  Each class voted on a selection of names and the name that was the most popular was chosen.

Each week, Reese will be awarded to the class who are our Reading Champions for that week.

The Reading Champions are announced each week in the Achievements section of our website and newsletter. Every time a child reads with an adult at home, they earn a Dojo point towards their class reward. Our target is that every child reads WITH an adult at home 5 times a week. The class with the highest percentage of children who read 5 times or more that week become our Reading Champions for that week.

We hope that the children will enjoy having Reese to visit them if they are the Reading Champions and that she will encourage the children to keep reading five times or more with an adult each week.

Stay Connected at OWPS

In the last questionnaire that we sent out to parents in July 2021, 94% of respondents said that the school communicates well with parents. 

The Contact page of the website gives details on how to phone or email or drop into the school office, but we would also like to draw your attention to the ways you can stay connected with OWPS digitally.

Twitter

The school and each class at OWPS have lively and regularly updated Twitter accounts that we would love you to follow.  Teachers post photos and information about class and school life. Twitter is a great way to see what's going on in your child's class on a day-to-day basis.  We encourage positive interaction with the tweets including comments, retweets and likes if you wish.  Please do follow the school and your child's class Twitter if you can.  The twitter handles are:

@OWPSchool - whole school

@OWPS_FS - Magpies and Penguins

@OWPSwombats - Wombats, Year 1

@OWPSiguanas -  Iguanas, Year 1

@OWPSelephants - Elephants, Year 2

@OWPSsquirrels - Squirrels, Year 2

@OWPS_seals - Seals, Year 3

@OWPSnightingales - Nightingales, Year 3

@OWPScobras - Cobras, Year 4

@OWPSgiraffes - Giraffes, Year 4

@OWPS_pandas - Pandas, Year 5

@OWPSflamingoes - Flamingoes, Year 5

@OWPStoucans - Toucans, Year 6

@OWPS_sharks - Sharks, Year 6

Parent Portal

The Parent Portal is a one-stop digital hub created by our website providers, E4 Education, where parents can access relevant information about their child/ren.

A simple login by choosing the Parent Portal Quick Link on the homepage brings parents to a dashboard that contains the following information:

• your child's attendance
• emails from the school that are relevant to your child
• copies of all newsletters
• school news articles
• school calendar
• link to ParentMail

We will also upload student reports directly to the Parent Portal throughout the year. New parents have recently been sent an email regarding signing into their Parent Mail Portal.

What are the benefits of the Parent Portal?

• When we send out an email to parents, the Parent Portal automatically generates a copy in your Parent Portal account.  Instead of having to search through emails, you will have all the school's emails in one place.
• If you'd like to check your child's attendance statistics, you can do so on the Parent Portal in one glance.
• A copy of all the school e-newsletters that are published on the website are also stored on the Parent Portal, making it easy to find and read useful information.
• The school news feed that contains articles about the latest news from OWPS is also published on the Parent Portal.
• If you want to check the details of upcoming events, you can open up the Parent Portal and gain access directly to the school calendar from there.
• There will also be quick links to useful items such as ParentMail, the school's contact details and a form for you to update your address or contact details.

News and Events on the Website

There is an area on the OWPS website called News and Events containing the following pages:

• Achievements - including Attendance, Class Dojos, Dojo Masters, House Points, Reading Champions, Shining Stars and Times Table Rock Stars news feeds.
   
• Calendar – the OWPS calendar of events, which you will be able to sync to your devices’ calendar (more details below).
   
• Children’s Work – showcasing the best of the children’s work from Foundation Stage, Years 1 & 2, Years 3 & 4 and Years 5 & 6.
   
• Clubs – containing information about termly clubs.
   
• Community News – passing on news and events in the local, national and international community.
   
• Dining Car News – keeping you up-to-date menus and special events.
   
• E-Newsletters – containing our new website-created newsletters (more details below).
   
• Head Teacher and Deputy Head Teacher Blog
   
• Library News – informing you about what is happening in the library.
   
• School News – a newsfeed containing all the latest news stories from OWPS.
   
• Staff Vacancies – advertising the latest staff vacancies at OWPS.

News and Events App

A News and Events App is already available and we would encourage you to download it.  The App will display all of the news feeds from the OWPS website and events from the website Calendar.

You can find it on our website by clicking the link here or by following the instructions below:

Firstly, you will need to download the app from either the iTunes App Store , Google Play or Windows Store by clicking on the relevant buttons below or by loading up the app store on your phone and searching for ‘School News’.

Once you have located and downloaded the free app, launch the app and you will then be able to either click on the ‘Find my school’ button which uses the phones GPS to locate all the schools in the surrounding 20 miles, or you can type in the school’s postcode and click on ‘Get my school’ button.

Your school's postcode is:  PE2 6GF

You will then see a list of schools that use the app. Click on the school you wish to view news & events for.

You will then be able to click on the ‘News’ button to view all of the latest news items that have been added to the school(s) you have selected and also all of the upcoming calendar events by clicking on the ‘Events’ button.

Clicking on ‘My Schools’ will display a list of schools that you view news and events for. Clicking on one of the schools will the display the school address, telephone number and email address which you can click on to either phone or email the school directly from the app.

Syncing the OWPS Website Calendar to your own Calendar

A fantastic feature on the OWPS website calendar means that you can sync the calendar to your phone or device.

So that you can select the year group events that you would like to view, events on the calendar have now been assigned the following categories:

• Foundation Stage
• Year 1
• Year 2
• Year 3
• Year 4
• Year 5
• Year 6
• Whole School

This means that parents and carers can choose which calendars they would like to view in a new tick-box menu called 'Calendars' which appears on the calendar page of the website:

Once you have selected the relevant calendars, you can then click 'subscribe' to link the calendar to the calendar on your chosen device if you wish.

For example, you could unselect all the calendars, then choose Whole School and Year 6 to see and/or subscribe to the dates that are relevant to a Year 6 child.  If you also had a child in Year 3, you could tick that option too.

To visit the website calendar and try out these new features, please click here.

And finally…

We hope that these initiatives help you stay connected to what is happening at OWPS.  If you have any questions or queries, please dp not hesitate to contact us at digital@owps.org.uk.

A monthly article to keep you up to date about what's happening in the Library.

Discover what is coming up in the OWPS Dining Car.

Read about what is happening locally, 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}