Friends of Woodlands would like to invite all parents, carers and grandparents to a free mince pie and hot chocolate morning to say Merry Christmas and thank you for all your support over the autumn term.

This will take place in the Eco Lodge on Friday 21st December from 8.50am.

We have lots of exciting things going on over the Christmas period. A chance to see Cinderella in Panto, a visit from Santa, Christmas Hamper raffle, bedtime stories and a chance to purchase books from our school book fair, which make lovely Christmas gifts.

Santa’s grotto will be in the Eco Lodge all day on the Friday 14^th December.  Your child will have the opportunity to see Santa, have a photo taken and receive a wrapped gift.  Please complete and return the slip sent out today by Friday 7^th December and enclose £2 if you would like your child to see Santa.

The School Council have decided, during their meeting, to run a Christmas Hamper competition to get in the festive spirit. 14 classes will take part in making their own Christmas Hamper.  The money raised from raffle ticket sales will be split between the winner’s class to support their next class trip, and the Friends of Woodlands who are currently raising funds to support class wish lists. Each year group have been given a colour theme.  Children will need to bring in any new item of that colour by Friday 7^th December to help fill their class hamper e.g. Purple – Cadburys chocolate bar.

Raffle tickets will go on sale outside the Eco Lodge from Monday 26^th November costing £1 a strip and will be drawn at 3.30pm on Friday 14^th December.  Friends of Woodlands will be running a Christmas sweet shop while the raffle is being drawn.

We will be holding a Bedtime Stories Afternoon, on the 14^th December.  Your child’s class will be inviting you in to the classrooms to share some stories whilst drinking hot chocolate!  More information about this will follow.

There will be a book fair in school as part of the Christmas events. The children will have had chance to ‘browse’ the shelves the day before.  The book fair is 100% commission, so once we sell over £300 worth of books, we can keep the same value of sales of books for school. To give parents the chance to come over several days, I will run it in the same way as the summer one, open before and after school the following week until the 20th December when it is collected.   You can purchase Extra Value Book Fair Gift Vouchers online, for your child available at: https://bookfairs.scholastic.co.uk/gift-vou Get a £6 Gift Voucher for £5   /   Get a £12 Gift Voucher for £10 / Get a £24 Voucher for £20   /   Get a £30 Voucher for £25    

The Eco Council have been sorting through the school lost property to try and find the owners but unfortunately there are no names in them.  It is really important to label school uniform so we can get it back to the right person.

Here is Woodlands lost property from the last 8 weeks..

The Eco Council will be taking the lost property out to the playground after school this Wednesday.  Please have a look to see if something belongs to your child. If you are a parent/carer that cant get to school to have a look please contact Mrs Bailey and we will have a look for the missing item.  All lost property is kept in the café area.

Any items not collected will be sold on Friday 14th December after school for £1 per item.

Thank you for your support.

We would like to say a BIG THANK YOU to everyone involved in todays Children In Need.  We raised over £521 which is an amazing amount of money for such a great cause.  A special thank you to the Friends of Woodlands volunteers who spent the day making biscuits to sell and face painting.

Here are a few photos of the day…

A huge thank you to all the children (and parents and carers) that took the time to ‘get their bake on’ during Anti Bullying Week, in aid of Bullying UK. We were overwhelmed with the amazing bakes: we had some fantastic cakes donated, that were sold and then enjoyed by the whole school.

Our semi-finalists were:

• YN–Harley Wright
• YR-Kiera Leigh Tench Preece
• Y1–Caiomhe Seddon
• Y2-Astrid Blackburn
• Y2-Chase Smith
• Y3-Brooke Horner
• Y4-Keeley Bailey
• Y4-Alannah Watson
• Y5-Riley Harvey
• Y5-Lucy-Ann Gifford Mitchell
• Y6-Samuel Somerfield
• Y6-Luke Tyler Lovatt

Our overall winner was Riley Harvey, chosen by our Woodlands Safeguarding Team Members. Riley’s innovative design included a group of shortbread people, standing holding hands, with a clear message that ‘together we can stand up to bullying.’

Riley was presented with a chef’s apron, cookie cutters and a cook book as a prize for his design and  delicious tasting cake, in our whole school assembly.

Our runner up was Astrid Blackburn. Astrid’s cake was decorated with gingerbread men ‘having fun’. The different coloured buttons placed on the gingerbread men represented different faiths and cultures standing next to one another. Astrid was also presented with a prize as runner up.

We are delighted to announce Woodlands Bake Off, together with the sale of the Bully UK wristbands raised a total of £256.00 for the charity Bullying UK.