Birkwood Primary School | The official website of Birkwood Primary School

Headteacher’s Welcome Message

We wish you a very warm welcome to the Birkwood Primary School website and hope that by using this site you will get a picture of our vision, aims and the values we uphold.

It is quite possible, that the last year has been the most stressful many of us have ever experienced in our lives. I am immensely proud of the way we have come together as a community during this time. The relationships with our children and their families has really shone through and the number of positive comments has been quite overwhelming.

We are excited to welcome all of our children back on Monday, 8^th March ~ the priority remains to keep our children, staff and community safe. Therefore, we have undertaken a thorough Risk Assessment in order to minimise risk, which is regularly updated

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To reassure our families, we will be prioritising children’s social, emotional and mental well-being. It will be a big thing for the children who have been in school welcoming their classmates back and also those children who have been at home for a long time. We will spend time reintegrating them all together again and make sure that they have lots of fun together as a priority. We will be doing lots of creative Maths and English activities in the mornings. When everyone is happy and settled, we can resume more formal learning.

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Our school will continue to be a caring, supportive and family orientated community where we encourage our children to ‘be the best that they can be’. This is achieved by us having an exciting and relevant curriculum that meets our children’s needs and is underpinned by our School Logo ‘Inspire, Cherish and Achieve Together.’

Our high quality learning environments include a Trim Trail on the large playing field, a purpose built children's kitchen, so that they can cook as part of their learning in Science, Maths and Literacy. Thanks to Big Lottery Grant and Tesco ‘Bags for Help’ funding, we also have a community and sensory garden area where children grow vegetables, fruit, flowers and herbs. In addition, we have a potting shed and poly tunnel, thanks to Community First Grant funding.

Our strong and committed Governing Body have made the decision to keep class sizes as small as possible in Foundation Stage in order to ensure high quality support for our youngest children.

We also have outstanding provision in our Early Years Foundation Stage Unit with 2 mini-ICT suite areas and excellent outdoor provision.

Due to the demand for places at our school, we had to convert our Library into a classroom, so we bought and converted a Double Decker Reading Bus into an exciting Library resource which the children love, although there is limited use at present.

We are very proud of our school community; if you would like further information please do not hesitate to contact us.

With best wishes,

Mrs Julie Allen MBE
Headteacher

The Foxes’ Jorvik Viking Experience

The Year 3 Foxes have been learning about the chorology of British history, so we were lucky to go on a school trip to the Jorvik Viking Centre to explore Viking life and times. First, there was a ride which taught us lots about Viking homes, cooking, tools, trade and medicine. After this, we went to DIG to be archaeologists by carefully uncovering artifacts, bones and other clues about what it must have been like to be a Viking. In our final workshop, we learned Norse and Old English, heard some kennings and looked at Viking Mythology. It was a fantastic day out and we learnt so much!

An Inspirational Woman

This young lady was very interested to learn about the life, successes and struggles of the inspirational Helen Keller as part of our “Born in the USA” topic.

The Hungry Caterpillar

The children have been enjoying reading this story and learning all about the life cycle of a caterpillar. They also looked at all of the fruits the caterpillar had been eating and tried some themselves. They talked about how the fruits tasted and if they liked them or not. They are so good at trying new things! We are very proud of them.

Key Stage 2 Cycling

Our cycling event took place on Wednesday 9th June. We had 51 children participating from KS2 and everyone gave their best ~ we will be announcing the winners shortly.

Pupil voice…

The Year 2 Butterflies have been thinking about all the lovely things that happened at school to help them settle when they returned. They reminisced on the fantastic times they had and then they wrote down what they thought helped them the most. Everything was then put together to make a scrapbook – doesn’t it look beautiful?

The Year 1 Caterpillars have been exploring our new Wacky Weather topic…

…by learning about how rainbows are made. We predicted what would happen during our experiments with our partners. We were amazed that the rainbows grew up either side of our paper towel!

Groovy Like a Friday Morning!

This Year 3 ensemble are sounding groooooovy today! Enjoy…

How did you feel?

We have been talking to our children about how they felt when they returned to school and what they had missed while staying safe at home. Here are just a few of their answers!
It is clear to see how much friendship means to our children, and how important playing and learning together really is for their mental wellbeing and happiness. We have spent lots of time talking about emotions and what we can do to help ourselves when we feel sad, angry or we don’t understand our big emotions. Our children are such an inspiration and have worked extremely hard to develop their personal, social and emotional development. We are SO proud of them.

Hello World!

The children in FS2 were so excited when our chick eggs arrived. They observed them carefully each day to see if they were cracking. They couldn’t believe it when they hatched – they loved them and looked after them so carefully. Watch our video to see their adventures.

Filming in Year 4

Year 4 recorded their contribution to the online Key Stage 2 Music Festival, hosted by Barnsley Music Hub this morning. You’ll LOVE Mexicana!

School Council Meeting – Minutes 11th June 2021

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Newsletter 32: Friday, 11th June 2021

Summer 2 Week 1

The Tigers had the amazing opportunity to explore historical Stone Age heritage sites in the UK using VR headsets. The children loved the experience and the detail which VR brings to the classroom. It was a fantastic afternoon!

Fractions and Decimals

Year 6 are regularly playing games to practise their recall of facts. Here they are working on their knowledge of fraction and decimal equivalents.

Stone Age Commercials

The Leopards worked in pairs to plan and create dramatic TV adverts for a bow and arrow. They found out about why they were useful in the Stone Age and used this information to convince others to get a bow and arrow of their own.

Wow

Please enjoy this amazing performance from one of our Year 6 pianists today. He’s been working on dynamics with Mrs Marples.

Goldilocks and the Three Bears

The children in Nursery have been reading this traditional tale. They have been retelling the story and joining in with the repeated refrains. They talked about how the three bears must have felt when they found Goldilocks in their house. They helped to make some porridge and talked about their likes and dislikes. They were super stars!