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together Everyone Achieves More

Walter Evans CE Primary School

www.walterevans.derby.sch.uk email us at - admin@walterevans.derby.sch.uk

Tel. 01332 557139

Newsletter – July 2018

Monday 23rd July Y6 Leavers Service, St Matthew’s Church, 2.00pm-3.00pm. Parents and grandparents welcome. Refreshments will be served in the school hall afterwards.

Tuesday 24th July Last day of term. Clapping out for Y6 (parents/carers and friends welcome from 3.15 pm).

Wednesday 25th July Inset day. Thursday 6th September Inset day. Friday 7th September Inset day. Monday 25th February 2019 Inset day. Monday 3rd June 2019 Inset day. Thursday 25th July 2019 Inset day.

A message from Mr Brown and the Walter Evans Team…

As our school year draws to a close, I would like to take this opportunity, on behalf of all the staff at Walter Evans, to wish all of our families a restful and enjoyable summer holiday and thank you for all your support over the course of the past year. We are very proud of all of our children – they have worked exceptionally hard again and we are really pleased that our school results continue to improve (see below for the data summary or follow this link http://www.walterevans.derby.sch.uk/key-stage-results to see our full results on the school website). We wish all of our children who are moving on the very best of luck for the future and look forward to welcoming all our other families back on 10th September. Staffing for September 2018 Sadly, we say farewell this term to a number of staff in school. Mrs Jane Foulkes will be leaving us as she takes up an exciting role as School Business Manager at the new Derby Cathedral School from September 2018. Jane has contributed an incredible amount to our school over the past 13 years, being pivotal in ensuring our school is such a bright and well- resourced learning environment, contributing to the successful governor team we have, leading many major building projects including the construction of the Year 5/6 block and guiding Walter Evans through the process of becoming an academy. On behalf of the whole school community, I

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would like to pass on our collective thanks to Jane for her dedication and hard work and wish her the very best of luck in her new job. Thank you to Mrs Kerry Venskus and Mrs Beth Murfin who have both taught in Y3 and Y4, respectively, since Christmas 2017. Both teachers will leave us this term as they continue to work across Derbyshire in their supply teacher roles. Miss Alice Rubini will be moving on from September 2018 as she continues her degree in Child and Youth Studies. Thank you to Alice for all her hard work in After School Club, making all our children and families feel so welcome. As Miss Molly McCormick has completed her A-Levels, she will finish working in our Early Years after school club, starting university from September 2018 as a trainee teacher. Thank you Molly for your hard work. We look forward to welcoming the following staff into new roles from September 2018: Congratulations to Mrs Emma McCrea who has been appointed as our new School Business Manager. Mr Elliott Dalton, joining our Y4 team from St Joseph’s Primary School in Derby. Mrs Claire Selby, joining our Y3 team for the autumn term from Moorhead Primary School in Derby. Miss Abbey Bennett, who joins our Y5/6 team and after school club, as an Apprentice Teaching Assistant. Miss Ellie Haynes who joins our Reception team and after school club, as an Apprentice Teaching Assistant. Roofing Works

The construction of our new roof remains on course to be completed in time for the start of the new

academic year. The project has so far run very smoothly and I am pleased to report that as well as

the new roof, we will also benefit from some air-conditioning units fitted in our computing suite and

shared reception classroom.

Parking

Parking and traffic near school continues to be a problem. Only recently there was an accident on

the road outside school causing damage to three cars. Please be reminded that there should be:

No double parking at any time.

No blocking of our neighbours driveways.

No stopping or parking in the indicated red areas outside school at any time.

No parking in ‘reserved’ spaces in the car park.

We will be supporting St Matthews Church during the next academic year to raise much needed

funds to resurface the church car park that so many of our parents/carers use on a daily basis.

Parent Presentations

Thank you to all the parents who attended our ‘Meet the Teacher’ sessions this week. The

presentations can now be found on the school website by following this link:

Year 1 and 2 http://www.walterevans.derby.sch.uk/key-stage-1-years-1-2

Year 3 and 4 http://www.walterevans.derby.sch.uk/key-stage-2-years-3-4

Year 5 and 6 http://www.walterevans.derby.sch.uk/key-stage-2-years-5-6

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All current lost property will be recycled on the last day of

school, so please come and take a look before Tuesday.

Any items found on the last day of school will be available

for collection on the inset day (Wednesday 25th July).

Planning ahead for September, please help to save time for

your child, their class teacher and yourself by ensuring that

every item your child brings to school is clearly labelled with

their name. Two reliable companies are mynamelabel.co.uk

and stamptastic.co.uk, and support our PTFA.

Bishop’s Badge Award

We are proud to share that some of our pupils have recently visited Derby Cathedral to

receive the Bishop’s Badge Award for their contribution and efforts towards charity work they

have been involved in. Well done!

Thank you to those who have already signed up for both Parent

Hub, our new school communication app, and scopay, our online

payments system.

Please be reminded that from September Parent Hub will be our main method of communicating with you although we will continue to post all important information on the school website. Please therefore make sure you sign up if you haven't already done so. Anyone with parental responsibility can register. Registering is very easy, just search for ‘Parent Hub’ in the App store, download the app and subscribe to @WalterEvansSch. From there you can choose to follow your children’s classes and receive whole school messages. Please contact the school office if you have any questions.

From September, we will be moving towards becoming a cashless school. Scopay is our online payment system and is the method you should use for making payments for trips, dinner money, and Out of School Club. Please contact us before we

break up for the summer if you have not yet registered and have any questions.

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Nursery – In nursery we have been learning all about the seaside in our final topic, ‘How many pebbles on the beach?’ We have had a wonderful time making seaside music using our own home made instruments and composed a fabulous stormy masterpiece. As we couldn’t quite manage a visit to Hawaii, we brought Hawaii to Darley Abbey for two fun-filled, sun-soaked days! We all had lots of fun splashing in the paddling pools and dancing to some favourite beach songs before cooling down with a delicious fruit ice pop. One of our favourite seaside stories has been ‘Sharing a Shell’ as this has reminded us how important it is to share and be kind. It has also helped us think about growing and getting ready for our next adventures in September. It has been an absolute pleasure teaching such brilliant young children and we have loved every second of it. As a team, we would like to say a huge and heartfelt thank you to all the parents for such amazing support. We are so proud of all of the nursery children and will really miss each and every one of you!

Reception – Reception children have had a very busy summer term… During June we invited our grandparents to

join us in school for a roast dinner. Children had fun showing their grandparents their daily lunch time routine.

We also had a great time when dads and granddads came into school to help us build our dinosaurs. The fun continued as we enriched our learning this term with a recent trip to Twycross Zoo. The children had lots of fun during our day out and met lots of friendly animals.

Most recently we have also had our FS sports day and end of year celebration songs which everyone enjoyed.

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The children in Year 1 and 2 have really enjoyed our Pirate and Seaside topic. They have enjoyed pretending to be pirates and learning the different parts of a pirate ship. They have all acted out the Spanish

Armada where they used powder paint and water pistols. More recently they have dissected different sea creatures. Everyone loved going to Skegness where the children had an opportunity to paddle in the sea, build sandcastles, collect shells, have a donkey ride and enjoy an ice cream. We saw an end to this topic on 16th July by having a mermaid and sea monster day.

This half term we have been looking at the topic Urban Pioneers. We have been able to

walk the local area and take photographs of various landmarks around Darley Abbey. We used different photography techniques to make our photos look more interesting and then we commented on them when coming back to school. We have also had a Graffiti artist into school where we were able to design our own Graffiti board to take home. In Art and Design, we have created silhouette pictures of Derby landmarks and using our colour mixing skills created a sunset backdrop that

look stunning. We are now creating our own statues to celebrate Derby landmarks.

This summer, our pupils in Year 5 and 6 have been enjoying our Mexico topic, which began with a cultural 'trip' to Mexico! We boarded our 'plane' in the hall and disembarked in Mexico City, where the children (digitally) explored ancient ruins, learnt some local phrases, and took part in a dance lesson. Through our art lessons, we have created some fantastic calacas masks and in history we have been finding out about the Aztec civilisation. Even the weather has been joining in our topic!

Year 6 also had the opportunity to visit the National Museum of Justice in Nottingham. The museum is based at Nottingham’s historic courthouse and County Gaol. This trip provided an exciting insight into law, crime and justice. Pupils explored key areas of the museum which particularly related to the Victorian period. They used their investigative skills and discovered the techniques used by police in the Victorian era as they became crime scene investigators! Pupils also explored a historical criminal or civil court case and took part in a mock trial. Everyone had a role to

play whether in role as the prosecution, defence, witnesses, judge or jury.

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My trip to Derbyshire School Games by Henry, Y5.

On Tuesday 10th July, 20 athletes were chosen to represent Walter Evans Primary School at the Derbyshire School Games. I was one of them. The day started with an opening ceremony and I was selected to be a flag bearer. I led the Derby City East competitors around the track. We were then introduced to some athletes who were likely to be stars in the future. We were entered in the multi sports events to compete in four activities which included: orienteering, archery, a

healthy eating activity and Nordic walking. The activity that was the most popular with athletes was orienteering as they enjoyed finding different stations in a maze. As we made it to Nordic walking we were joined by another class making us one of the longest Nordic walking lines the

leaders had ever had. At the end of the day we were very tired. We had all worked incredibly hard and had been a great team.

Our stock of school sports tops and football kits is currently very low therefore please can you check at home and return any that you may still have so that our children can continue to enjoy wearing these and representing our school at events. Many thanks. Derby City School Sports’ Track and Field Event

Walter Evans entered a team of 6 boys and 6 girls into the track and field athletics event at Moorways Stadium last Thursday. All our athletes performed brilliantly on the track and in the field, finishing within the top three positions in nearly every event. As a result, they finished 2nd out of 22 schools overall. In the girls event, Walter Evans also finished 2nd, whilst the boys finished joint 3rd in their competition. Well done to all who took part.

Our trip to the FGS Super Schools Festival of Sport - by Lauren, Y4.

On 6th July, the children in year 4 went to Harvey Haddon Stadium in Nottingham to take part in three sports: dodgeball, basketball and football. The children were there all day playing against other schools. The final event of the day was a tiring relay. The two teams entered by Walter Evans came third and fourth out of 15 schools. At this sports event, the children were given a massive challenge

but still smiled all the way.

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What is the Summer Reading Challenge?

The Summer Reading Challenge takes place every year during the summer holidays. You can sign up at your local library, and read six library books of your choice to complete the Challenge. There are exclusive rewards to collect along the way, and it’s FREE to take part!

The Summer Reading Challenge website helps you keep track of your reading all year round: find new books to read, take part in competitions and play games.

25 June 2018 - Press Release

Derby School Signs Armed Forces Covenant

Walter Evans C of E Primary School has confirmed its support for the Armed Forces and their families by signing the Armed Forces Covenant. The covenant was signed by head teacher David Brown and creates a commitment on behalf of the school to support employees involved with

either the Armed Forces or Cadet Organisations, to participate in Armed Forces Day and to support the education of Service and ex-Service children. For further information please visit our school website. To find out more about the Armed Forces Covenant visit: www.armedforcescovenant.gov.uk

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Our AGM is being held in school on:

Thursday 20th September at 8.00 pm

(cheese and wine provided!)

Please come along and join us for our AGM in September. The PTFA is at the heart of our school

community offering parents and children opportunities to socialise and have fun, whilst also

fundraising and therefore enriching and enhancing the children’s education and experiences at

school. If you haven’t been involved before but would like to then this is an ideal opportunity to

come along and meet the wonderful PFTA team that we are so lucky to have here at Walter Evans.

If you have any questions then please contact Sam McCool at WalterEvansPTFA@gmail.com or

drop a note to the school office and we’ll be happy to pass it on.

A huge thank you to everyone who has been involved in our PTFA this academic year!

In my capacity as chaplain it has been a privilege to serve Walter Evans school through another academic year. I very much appreciate the connections I have made with staff, pupils and many parents. It’s that time of year where there is a variety of change, perhaps including for some a new teacher, new friends, new class and a new school. Change is not always easy but is a part of life. If I can be of help through this process of change then feel free to contact me. One big change is for the years 6’s leaving Walter Evans. I can just about remember when that happened to me – more classrooms to navigate; so many pupils, and would I remember what I needed each day! One of the most important things for me was having friends to share the new experience with to help each other through all that was new. A quote I read recently said: “Choose your friends with caution; plan your future with purpose, and frame your life with faith”

You become like the five people you spend the most time with so choose your friends

carefully

Planning your future with purpose helps you to create your life the way you want to

Having faith in your life will give you inspiration and comfort during any rough times

To all year 6’s - bless you and go well, dream big. It has been amazing getting to know you. Sandra Hinds – Chaplain/07833 646687