Friday 26th June

Good morning Year 6, it's Mr Purdie here for your morning update. It was so hot Wednesday and Thursday! I decided to move my office outside and work in the garden instead yesterday, which was much nicer than being up in my actual office, looking out over the gardens at everyone playing and relaxing. My son enjoyed it too: it was much easier for him to try and climb up me and pull my hair when I was in the garden! These are two of his favourite things to do right now. 

Don't forget that you were set J2E homework yesterday - the English creative writing task set by Miss Ackroyd should be completed on J2E by Wednesday next week please. 

And now for some more photos of your friends in school! See if you can spot people you know!

Thursday 25th June

Morning everyone, Miss Ackroyd here. Hope you and your families are well. Have you been enjoying the weather? I have decided to take a break from baking (as it's not doing my waistline much good!) and spend some time in the garden instead. I've been trying to spend an hour a day outdoors (in the afternoon when I've finished my school work and it's a bit cooler) and so far I have managed to plant some tomatoes, some herbs, some strawberries, a geranium and, as well as cutting out borders around the edge of the lawn for planting, I have started to cut a border around the edge of my summer house and put pebbles down. It's hard work in this heat I can tell you!

Anyway, as well as talk about my garden, I would like to congratulate Chole in BP for getting 70% in her latest AR quiz, Georgia and Oliver in my class for getting 90 and 70% respectively, Dominic in HM for getting 93% and Dylan and Morgan in MP for getting 80 and 70% respectively. Well done all of you. Keep up the good work.

Keep reading guys and stay safe.

Miss Ackroyd

500 Words: Black Lives Matter

500 Words is the world’s largest story-writing competition for kids. Over a million stories have been submitted since 2011, in response to everything from technology to climate change. Now, we want to bring children’s voices onto the themes and issues emerging from the Black Lives Matter movement. We want children to lead on the process of writing their story.

From 6:30am on Monday 29th June until Friday 3rd July at 11.59pm 2020, we invite children aged between 5 and 13 to respond in whatever way they wish in no more than 500 words, in the form of a story.

The narratives we write and share matter. We ask children to draw on their own experiences and feelings to create a story that can be as imaginative and visionary as they want. Storytelling is a must!

For that reason, we’ve brought together many high-profile personalities, school teachers and librarians alongside the continuing support and academic expertise of Oxford University Press to create 500 Words: Black Lives Matter.

For more information on this competition, please visit: 

https://500words.me/

Wednesday 24th June

Good morning Year 6! It's Mr Purdie here with your daily update. I have been busy in recent days with some major DIY projects! Our family have been inspired by recent events to try and rely less on the supermarket for all our food. We have bought a compost bin to put in our garden, which all our organic waste from our kitchen goes into. I have also taken apart a pile of large wooden pallets that had been left by the previous owner of our house. We were previously using them to just sit a few plants on, but they are now being converted into several small planters and one large raised bed where we can grow our own vegetables. It's very exciting! Although I think it's going to be very expensive to buy enough soil to fill the planter up...

Have you or your parents completed any large garden projects during lockdown? I'd love to see some photos!

French and J2E

Don't forget that today is the last day you can use J2E to submit your French homework, that was set last Friday. Please check back to that page and complete it on J2E if you haven't already. 

Right let's do the MyMaths shout-outs! The following people have compelted tasks on MyMaths in the last week, so a very well done, and enjoy your name 'up in lights'!

Erin K

Rhys M

Ellie Mai M

Georgia W

Bethany C

Ellie May R

Finley C

Haydn G

Aleisha L

Fern C

Calven C

Jake T

Lola W

Leo L

Ruby P

Natalia W

Archy P

Eva W

How about a magazine? by Mrs Murray

Over the last few months, I’ve subscribed to a selection of magazines – I found something for everyone in my family and we always look forward to the next issue dropping through the letter box. If you fancy finding out what magazines are out there for you, why not visit the following website? https://www.magazine.co.uk/kids-magazines

Tuesday 23rd June

Hi everyone, Miss Ackroyd here. Hope you and your families are well. Did you have a good weekend? Were you able to spend it with your Dads? I went round to my Mum and Dad's and we had socially distanced afternoon tea in the garden with my sister and my 90 year old Grandad (who I hadn't seen since January). We had a lovely time, until it started to rain! My Mum and Dad were able to shelter indoors but my Grandad hid round the side of the house while my sister and I (sat on different tables 2m apart) had to put our coats and hoods up to keep ourselves dry but hold our umbrellas over our food to stop it getting wet! My sandwiches, scones and cakes were fine but my crisps did get rather soggy!

Never mind. I think that's the last of the rain we're going to see for a few days. It's supposed to be getting hotter each day this week!

I've had a look at your TTRS data and I would like to congratulate MP on beating RA 399 points to 216 and also HM on beating CA 2418 to 223 (come on CA!) However, CA and RA both beat BP 223 - 0 and 216 - 0!

Don't forget to keep practising your times tables on TTRS.

Stay safe 

Miss Ackroyd

Monday 22nd June

Good morning Year 6 – Mr Barber here with your daily update! I’ve got lots to share with you again so I’ll get straight to it!

First of all, I know so many of you enjoyed having a go at Mrs Doolin’s Staff Smile challenge from last Monday! If you did have a go at identifying the members of staff from their smiles, I have great pleasure in sharing the answers with you. The happy smiles belonged to:

Line 1: Mrs Riddleston, Mrs Howard, Mr McMullen & Mrs Bird

Line 2: Mrs Page, Mrs Adey, Mrs Ginns, Miss Brighton & Miss Kelly

Line 3: Mrs Humphries, Mrs Murray, Mrs Doolin & Mrs Burke

Line 4: Miss Colledge, Mr Barber, Mrs Evans & Mr Cotton

How did you get on? I wonder if any of you managed to spot them all correctly! More importantly, I do hope you managed to achieve Mrs Doolin’s challenge of being resilient, working hard and smiling last week, because it can indeed motivate you and those around you!

When I last wrote your daily update on June 1^st, I introduced our ‘Living Value of the Month’ as Thankfulness. Over the last few days, I’ve had yet more things to be thankful for. Like Mr Dinsley in his daily update last week (and indeed many Year 6 children who I spoke to at the end of last week!) I’ve been very thankful to be able to watch live football again (distractions like this do help to take my mind off some of the other things I need to worry about at home and at school, although those of you who know which team I support will know they aren’t particularly good for my mental wellbeing!).

Yesterday of course, was Father’s Day and being able to share the day with my daughter Chloe and son Jack made me realise how thankful I am for having a loving family around me. We do all have different types of families around us, but I do hope you all continue to be thankful for those around you who love and care for you (that of course includes dads, grandads, uncles, mums, nans, aunties, siblings and cousins!). It’s also important to remember and be thankful for those who aren’t with us anymore and how they touched our lives.

Talking of Thankfulness, I wanted to remind you again of the ‘Action for Happiness Joyful June’ calendar that we shared with you at the start of the month.

How many of the 21 challenges have you had a go at so far this month? Today’s suggestion is to ‘share a happy memory with someone who means a lot to you’ so I thought I’d have a go! When I tried to decide who to share my memory with, I thought who better than with all 450 wonderful children currently at Westacre! When I got thinking about which happy memory, I just couldn’t narrow it down to one. I’m sure you all know how much I like sharing what goes on in school on Twitter, so I spent a little time over the weekend looking back at what we’ve posted since last September and reminiscing – so many happy memories to be both thankful for and joyful about! I know the quizzes that Mrs Humphries and Mrs Doolin shared during their recent updates have been really popular so I thought I would magpie their idea and do something similar. Below are 15 questions (one for each of the amazing classes at Westacre!) that will test how many of my happy Westacre memories from this school year you remember (all of the answers can be found on our Twitter page if you want a bit of help– do remember to ask for parental permission to look at this site if you want to have a look!).

1. In September, our new head boy and head girl spoke at our Open Evening – what are their first names?
2. In October, some children in every year group visited Worcester Cathedral to meet a famous author. What is her name?
3. In November, you all helped commemorate Remembrance Day by making 450 what? 
4. In November, our head girl and head boy shared your house General Election Manifestos with the person who is now our local MP. What is his name? 
5. In December, all of the children in one house got to wear non-uniform in their house colours to celebrate earning the most house points during the first term of the school year. Which house was this?
6. In December, you enjoyed your school Christmas dinner. Which three members of staff joined the normal kitchen staff to serve your dinner? 
7. In December, our Christmas assembly saw the house leaders and children in each year group take part in three special Christmas-themed challenges (Bronte were the overall winners!). What were the three tasks? 
8. In December, many of you took part in our annual Christmas variety performance. What was the name of the show? 
9. In January, we all enjoyed our latest whole school theatre trip to The Rep in Birmingham. What was the production we saw this year?
10. In January, Year 6 children wrote to different world embassies. We were really excited to receive a visit to Westacre from one particular Embassy – which country’s embassy was this?
11. In February, our Year 7 Basketball team won another two Junior NBA matches. What colour vests do the team wear?
12. In March, Year 5 enjoyed a visit from the History Man. What era of history did he help the children learn about?
13. In March, Mrs Evans wrote to you all as school closed for lockdown. The letter reminded you about an assembly she delivered earlier in the year about a type of animal that sometimes needs a push from its Mum. Which animal was it?
14. In April, our whole school community came together to create a special video to play our part in the Chase The Rainbow movement. What did we all do?
15. In May, our whole school community came together to help create a special school video to help commemorate the 75^th anniversary of what?

Please send in your answers to these questions via email to the school office by the end of the week (with your name and house) and I will award one house point for every single correct answer. This could make all of the difference as we get closer to finding out who the 2019/20 house champions will be!

Thank you for reading my update and thank you for playing your part in these happy memories!

As well as looking back, me and the rest of the Westacre staff are starting to looking ahead to the future. Monday 6^th July was due to be the Droitwich pyramid Transfer Day. Of course, that cannot happen as normal this year, however I can tell you that we will be holding a Virtual Transfer Day on our website that day. This will include various activities that will help you with your transition to Year 7 and will also be the day when we hope to be able to tell you who your teacher will be next year! Watch this space as we have lots more exciting things coming your way to help you prepare for life in Year 7 over the next few weeks.

For now, enjoy having a go at my Westacre Memories quiz, keep trying the Joyful June tasks each day to keep you happy and continue to try your best with the home learning opportunities your teachers will be sharing with you this week!