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Thank you to all those families who joined in 'Ready, Set, Read', the sport and games theme for this year's Summer Reading Challenge. As well as the rewards from the library of stickers, certificates and a medal we will be giving all children who completed the challenge a session on our inflatable obstacle course in the summer term (hopefully that will encourage even more children to take part next year). However, the real reward will be the enjoyment children can  have from reading and the progress they can now make through keeping up their reading skills over the summer.

Please make sure your children continue to read regularly at home.

A number of schools have been asked to close because they have unsafe RAAC (Reinforced Autoclaved Aerated Concrete) in their roof construction. We had a survey for this on 18th July and received the report on the first day of term. This confirmed that no RAAC was found and confirmed we can open as normal with no action needed. The surveyors intend to return at some point to look at areas they were unable to access but think in unlikely that we have any RAAC. The letter below sent before we had this confirmation therefore still applies.

Dear Parent,

You may have seen recent media coverage regarding Reinforced Autoclaved Aerated Concrete (RAAC) and its use in educational settings. RAAC is a lightweight form of concrete; because it is weaker than regular concrete, concerns have been raised about its long-term durability. Department for Education (DfE) has recently changed its guidance to education settings on the management of RAAC to take a more precautionary approach and as a result areas in affected spaces will be vacated.

We do not have any confirmed RAAC in our buildings and have not been asked to close any areas. However, we want to take care and to be sure, and are currently working with the DfE and our surveyors to actively check whether RAAC has been used in the construction of any part of our buildings. If RAAC is identified, we will let you know straight away, and we have contingencies in place.

We think this is highly unlikely as RAAC was used from the mid 1950s until the early 90s and Woodside was opened in 1952. Also, since becoming an academy we have had all the original roofing professionally surveyed and the covering replaced with funding from the DfE. We would have expected the decking to have been replaced at the same time if it had been any problem.

The change in guidance is precautionary in nature, and only affects education premises where the presence of RAAC has been confirmed.

Any contingency plans will prioritise the continuation of education and ensure that, if RAAC is identified, any impact on children is kept to an absolute minimum. Rest assured that the safety of children and staff is of paramount importance to all concerned.

Thank you for your understanding.

Yours faithfully,

Mr E E Caines

Principal

At a time when the reality of climate change is clear to everyone and members of the scientific community are expressing doubts whether world governments can meet their target to limit warning to just 1 degree we are pleased be a school doing everything we can both to educate children in this and to set a model through our actions.

We have just been awarded our third Green Flag  with the following congratulatory comments  in the letter from our assessors:  

We have changed to Monster Phonics as it's a much livelier scheme with up-to-date resources which are intended to be used for class teaching. This means children can be with their own teacher for phonics rather than going off to different groups. The monsters are used to remember the different sounds and have different colours which are used for that sound in the Monster Phonic reading books. We will be giving you more information as part of our official launch in September. Meanwhile, however your children read, make sure they take part in this year's Summer Reading Challenge - there are lots of rewards from the library and the school and it's great fun. 

Our school kitchen was recently visited by hygiene inspectors who reaffirmed our rating of   Level 5 (Very Good) the highest rating they can award. Congratulations to Debbie and her excellent team. The food tastes great too!

Well done to our year 6 children for putting together this excellent show with everything else they have been doing this term. With each class doing a separate performance most of the children could have speaking parts and develop their talents and confidence on stage as well as supporting each other  with a whole year choir, stand-ins for any absent children and backstage with lighting and sound. 

See below for national results for comparison.

The English composer Ralph Vaughan Williams was born 150 years ago and the East Anglian Traditional Music Trust are celebrating his work collecting folk songs with a special project where schools work with young musicians to breath new life into these songs. You can view a professionally recorded video of our Y3 children singing the song with the background to the project explained here  (you may need to scroll back to the beginning) which will feature at the Folk East festival in August and the trust's Traditional Music Day in September. They will then become part of an online resource for anyone wanting to learn the songs.

At Woodside we already teach children to play Steel Pans and our band played for the Tilbury Windrush celebrations the same day we recorded this, but it is important to also teach them some of their own musical heritage. The song we chose to sing is Van Diemen's Land which was sung to Vaughan Williams in 1904 at The Old Dog East Horndon, just 9 miles from here, by woodcutter Jim Bloomfield. The song is about some men who are transported to Australia as a punishment for poaching. Our year 3 children very much enjoyed learning the song from the inspirational singer Ben Vonberg-Clark who you can see on the video.

Well done to all our children and staff for another great sports day with some superb achievement and terrific sportsmanship clearly on display.

At the end of the morning the junior scores were:

Our discos on Wednesday 5th July will go ahead as planned and children who are not at school that day because of NEU industrial action can still come to them.