Wincheap School Newsletter May 2025

Wincheap School March 2025 Newsletter

Wincheap School Newsletter February 2025

We currently have two parent governor vacancies on the Governing Board of Wincheap Foundation Primary School.

The letter with details as well as a nomination form have been emailed out and copies are also available from the school office.

If you would like to join the school's Governing Board, please complete the nomination form and email it back to us or bring it into the office no later than 4th November 2024 at 5pm.

We do hope you will consider becoming a parent governor at the school. If you require more information, please do not hesitate to contact us. 

Best wishes,

Wincheap Primary School

Welcome back to another busy term! It has been wonderful to see all our incredible children again - many seem to have grown so much over the summer! We are all settling back into school life and wanted to share a few developments with you.

Firstly, we have revised our vision for Wincheap, based on what we consider to be our ethos:

‘The things that make me different are the things that make me’

Winnie The Pooh

Pupils will leave Wincheap Foundation Primary School valuing their uniqueness as individuals. They will appreciate their strength in diversity whilst embracing the world and people around them, with understanding and tolerance. Their thinking will be deepened, their minds opened and their curiosity inspired, enabling them to effect positive change on the world they live in, with compassion and empathy.

To summarise this, our mission statement is:

'Celebrating individuality, enabling every child to flourish and reach their full potential'

In order to achieve these goals, we have the following aims:

• To provide a happy, safe and secure environment with exciting and stimulating opportunities.
• To provide an inclusive, creative and enriched curriculum, reflecting the diversity of needs; enabling every child to make best progress, whilst nurturing their talents and aspirations within a positive ethos.
• To acknowledge and celebrate efforts and achievements.
• To develop self-esteem and promote an awareness of health and physical well-being.
• To provide children with the skills to learn and to foster a sense of confidence, independence and responsibility.
• To teach children how to be responsible citizens by encouraging appropriate social skills and values.
• To cultivate a passion for life-long learning amongst all.
• To prepare our children for the challenges and opportunities that lie beyond KS2.
• To provide opportunities for parents to have an active and supportive role in their child’s education and to promote links with the wider community.

As I am sure you will agree, these aims will be of benefit to our entire community, and we hope that you will support us to achieve them.

With this nurturing ethos, we have also decided to change our approach to behaviour management, with a real focus on teaching children to take responsibility for their own actions and learning from these. Consequently we have removed the card system and substituted this for the opportunity to provide children with time to reflect and repair when appropriate, encouraging them to consider what went wrong, how it impacted others and what we can do to make the situation better. This has already had a positive impact on the children. Our behaviour policy has also changed to reflect this change in approach.

We are also delighted to announce some exciting changes to our curriculum this year. We have created new history and geography topics specially chosen to inspire children’s curiosity and develop their knowledge of key areas of these subjects as they move through the school.  We have put a good deal of thought into designing ‘topics’ which will engage the interests of the children as well as make the most of the rich range of opportunities afforded by Canterbury and the local area to bring learning to life. Termly topics will start with a ‘wow moment’ to spark children’s enthusiasm and there will be ‘showcase’ occasions during the year for classes to share their learning with families.

We will be enriching classroom learning too through a range of exciting trips, both local and further afield, as well as visitors to the school and other fun experiences. Children’s learning in other subjects will be linked to these termly ‘topics’ where possible to broaden their knowledge, especially in English.  We are also moving to the White Rose schemes to teach maths and science, with additional opportunities to extend and broaden children’s learning in these important subjects. Watch out for information about our new curriculum via Seesaw, School Comms and our website over the coming weeks!

Finally, we have a new leadership structure, intended to support the entire school community and further develop our school. Alongside our senior leadership team of myself, Erica Kokle (Deputy Headteacher), Karl Sutcliffe (Assistant Headteacher) and Debbie Hoare (Assistant Headteacher/SENCo), we have added key stage leads, who have introduced themselves below. We congratulate them on their appointments and look forward to working together on whole school improvement.

Mrs. Middleton and Mrs Hutton – Year 6 Class Teachers and Key Stage 2 Leads

We are excited about stepping into our new role as Key Stage 2 Leads. We can't wait to get going and start making a positive impact.  We are thrilled about the opportunity to get to know all the wonderful children across Key Stage 2. We are looking forward to lots of singing, celebrating fantastic achievements, and cheering on those moments when the children go above and beyond. We will be sharing the role throughout the week, as we work part-time. Mrs. Middleton will be here from Monday to Wednesday, while Mrs. Hutton will take over from Wednesday to Friday. We are excited to work together and make the most of our time with the children. 

Miss Hoare – KS1 Lead and Year 2 Teacher

I am thrilled to part of the KS1 Team, helping to ensure your children get the best start at Wincheap School. I am currently a full time teacher in Year 2 (Class 6) with the exciting new role of KS1 Lead. In KS1, we have a wonderful team of teachers, TAs and support staff. My role is to support all children in KS1, celebrating successes and being there on the more challenging days. I am eager to help in any way I can so please do not hesitate to get in touch if there is something I can help with.

As always, we welcome your thoughts and views on next steps for our school, and hope to set up opportunities for parents from across the school to contribute to our improvement process through sharing suggestions and feedback. More of this to follow in coming weeks…

With thanks for your continued support,

Nicola Dawson
Headteacher

Re: Change to the length of the school week from September 2024

I am writing to you to inform you of an important change to the timings of the school day from September 2024.

The Department for Education has announced that from September 2024 the minimum amount of time that a student spends in school each week, including breaks and lunchtime, should be at least 32.5 hours. The 32.5 hour minimum expectation includes the time in each day from the official start of the school day (i.e. morning registration) to the official end of the compulsory school day (i.e. official home time).  At present, the week at Wincheap Foundation Primary School is 30.75 hours and therefore shorter than the new expected minimum.

To comply with this directive, we will change the start of the school day for pupils to 8.30 am each day. This means that from 4^th September 2024 our school gates are going to open at 8.20 am and close at 8.30 am. Children need to be in their classrooms by 8.30 am.

Staff have been consulted on the change of school day timings and the Senior Leadership Team have put this change to the Governing Body, which has approved the changes, coming into effect from September 2024.

I am sure you will all agree with me how important it is that all pupils achieve their full academic potential and how importance good attendance is. I therefore anticipate that all of you will support your child/ren and our school with this important change and ensure that your child/ren are in school by 8.30 am every day when the new academic year starts on 4^th September 2024.

Thank you for your support. If you have any questions on the changes outlined, please contact me by email.

Yours sincerely

Nicola Dawson
Headteacher