Whitehouse Common Primary -

Arty contributions to Let's Go Cultural!

 Although most of the countries involved, like us, are learning remotely at this time, our Erasmus+ project Let's Go Cultural! continues. 

Remote Learning - Weekly Challenges

Congratulations to all of our families who have been completing the weekly challenges throughout lockdown. It is clear to see that you have all had a lot of fun and we’ve been really impressed by your efforts.

Newsletter 26 February 2021

Please [click here] for the newsletter

CBBC are on YouTube!

CBBC have revamped their Youtube Channel and have lots of entertainment to offer our children over half term and outside of home-schooling hours now we are in lockdown. This consists of a range of videos daily that are suitable for 5-11 year olds and there are lots of top CBBC brands and programmes available, with something for all children providing a wide range of genres from factual shoes, news, dramas, comedy and entertainment.

This is a great resource that we can use and is completely free. If you want to access you must subscribe to www.youtube.com/cbbc

Express yourself in lockdown

Speaking a language confidently and coherently is an important part of the curriculum in the United Kingdom. However, the impact of Covid-19 has meant that many pupils have had fewer opportunities to speak the languages they are learning.  Therefore, the Association for Language Learning, the British Council and the cultural and linguistic bodies in the United Kingdom have combined efforts to devise an exciting event entitled ‘Express Yourself in Lockdown’.

This will be an opportunity to showcase language learners’ enjoyment of a language that they are learning or that is normally used in their home community from home (except for English!). 

Language learners can prepare:

• A short poem in the target language (written by themselves or by another author)
• A short presentation on any theme e.g. climate change, equality, why I love languages
• A short sketch
• A short dialogue

This can be a solo or joint performance but should be no longer than 90 seconds in total and should be recorded in landscape mode. The participants will record themselves delivering their performance, however participants who are under-16 should use either PowerPoint slides/Bitmoji/other pictures or video imagery rather than showing their faces.

Teachers can then upload the performances to a teacher or school Twitter, Instagram or YouTube account with the hashtag #CelebrateSpeaking and the language chosen (e.g. #French) by 28 February 2021.

Fancy joining in the challenge? Let Señora Stevens know if she can help you, otherwise choose your category, prepare your ‘speech’ and send it to Señora Stevens via Teams or ClassDojo so she can make sure you’re entered into the festival.

We’ll be having a look at some simple poems in our Spanish lessons over the next couple of weeks so you might like to recite one of those!

Find out more (including helpful tips!) here http://bit.ly/36lnGYz

Support for Parents: Self-care, Anxiety and Sleep

Birmingham Education Partnership have published a series of self-care videos, specifically aimed at parents and covering topics like anxiety and problems with sleep. These are embedded below for your convenience:

There is also an accompanying newsletter that contains all sorts of helpful information and contact details for some of the help and support available to you. Please feel free to give this a read: 

PDF: BCP Letter to Parents & Carers

Newsletter 29th January 2021

Please [click here] for the newsletter

Thanks from Orchard House

Wow, thank you so much for all the effort that all your pupils put into the amazing poems, stories, cards, paper chains, tree decorations and puzzle. Our residents loved them and so did our staff, we put them up on the wall after reading them so that everyone could enjoy them and the lovely pictures that the children drew. We have an activity session afternoon which is called Namaste, which is a sensory dementia program to honour the spirit within, we watched your Nativity recording during this session, there was lots of comments and laughter and smiles in reaction to the children’s singing and we all felt very festive afterwards; all the songs were sung so beautifully and we loved watching the actions. We want to thank all the children at Whitehouse Common Primary School for their kindness and for thinking about others at these difficult times when our residents are very restricted to who they can see; they should all feel very proud!

With many thanks