Swinefleet Primary School

Headteacher: Laura Bishell-Wells

Email: swinefleet.primary@eastriding.gov.uk
Website: www.swinefleetprimaryschool.co.uk
Location: Swinefleet Primary School, Low Street, Swinefleet, Goole, UK
Phone: 01405 704386
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/SwinefleetPrimary
Twitter: @Swinefleet_Pr

Instagram: Swinefleet Primary (@swinefleet_pr) • Instagram photos and videos

The Summer Term is well underway with lots of learning going on and still lots to look forward to. The children in Year Six have their SATS coming up the week beginning the 13th May and we are eager to celebrate their efforts on the Friday!

It has been wonderful to welcome three new families over the last fortnight across school and the nursery and we hope that you have thoroughly enjoyed your start with us. We are also looking forward to welcoming Miss Chiswell back next week who has been off due to family reasons and is very much looking forward to being back with the Diamonds from Wednesday next week. A big thank you to Mr George who has been looking after the Diamonds and ensuring they had consistency while Miss Chiswell was absent.

Next year, we are looking at extending our after school hours and the viability of this. If this is a service that you would consider using we would love to know a little bit more and ask if you could complete a short survey which can be found further down in this newsletter.

I hope that you enjoy having a little look at what we have been learning and what is coming up. You will find future diary dates, SATS information, menus, and useful reminders below.

Have a lovely long weekend and hopefully the weather stays nice for us all.

The Pearls children have been working extremely hard over the last fortnight and we are continuing to enjoy this half term’s theme ‘Nature Detectives’.

Last week we were learning about ‘Earth Day’ and we read ‘Someone Swallowed Stanley’ and talked about how rubbish can pollute our oceans and we also learnt about which bin to use for our recycling at home. Last Wednesday afternoon, we planted sunflower seeds, beans and peas with Mrs Beadle. We will be caring for our plants and watching them grow over the next few weeks. We have also read ‘Jack and the Beanstalk’ and in our provision we have been building beanstalks with lego in our construction area, printing sunflowers with cardboard tubes and ordering the lifecycle of the sunflower. In maths lessons, we have been focusing on adding and subtracting and writing number sentences.

This week we have been learning about the life cycle of the Butterfly and we have been reading ‘The Very Hungry Caterpillar’. We have been ordering the lifecycle of the Butterfly and focusing on the foods we eat, finding out which foods are good for us and which foods are a treat! In our provision we have been threading pipe cleaners through holes in leaves, measuring our construction towers and finding minibeasts in our outdoor area and our ‘forest School area’ on the field as well, we have found worms, beetles, slugs and woodlice to name a few! In maths lessons, we have been revisiting odd and even numbers, we have started counting in 2s and 10s and doubling and halving numbers up to 20.

Over the next few weeks we will be continuing to learn about minibeasts and lifecycles.

Rubies have had a fantastic busy couple of weeks! We have been learning about the Sikh religion, dressing in traditional clothing and learning about what people from the Sikh faith believe. In maths we have concentrated on time, looking at days of the weeks and knowing which day is before and after any given day. We have looked at months of year and seasons, knowing what months are in each season along with knowing the months before and after any given month. This has been a little tricky but we are continually recapping, so the children become confident. It would be great if you could quiz them at home!

In English, we have started our new theme of ‘The Great Fire of London’ by watching a virtual reality video of what happened in 1666 on Pudding Lane. We have acted out scenes after reading a book relating to ‘The Great Fire of London’ to get a feel of how people were feeling at that time. We have begun to write sentences describing the setting and the fire.

We’ve had a ball in PE, learning batting skills ready to play a game of cricket.

The year 1 children will be sent home with phonics packs to ready them for their phonics screening test coming up soon. Please also check on your child’s seesaw account for other activities that are posted regularly in the activities section.

Diamonds have been continuing their learning about Anglo-Saxons. We have been looking at our place names and how some of them originate from Anglo-Saxons times such as Huddersfield meaning open land. We have continued to develop our watercolour skills looking at Wassily Kandansky and recreating some of his famous paintings focusing on primary, secondary and tertiary colours. May is coming up for an important time for Year 4's with their upcoming multiplication check. We have been getting ready for this by practising our times tables including using a basketball to help us.

Over the last two weeks, the Sapphires have been getting more involved in ‘The Explorer’ by Katherine Rundell. Who is in the Amazon jungle with the children? What does the X signify on the map? The children have compared and contrasted characters that they have read over this year. In writing, the Sapphires have gathered lots of good words and phrases associated with the rainforest in readiness for their descriptive setting piece of writing. This week, they are ensuring that they include expanded noun phrases, prepositional phrases and some figurative language.

A revision of 4 operations, place value and fractions, decimal and percentages has supported all the children to embed those basic skills in maths. In history, the children have ordered a timeline for Maya and made some comparisons to the Roman and Ancient Egyptian civilisation. This week, the Sapphires have researched the range of job roles for the Maya. As part of RE and world views, the children have enjoyed researching various worldwide charities and presenting their findings to the class. Their science learning has included drawing some peppered moths and showing how they camouflage to their environment. During art this week, the Sapphires enjoyed creating their own hybrid creature using a choice of art materials.

Thank you to Mrs Beadle for taking the children on Monday afternoons for some outdoor learning. All the children absolutely relish this opportunity. Last Monday, the children had the chance to create some posters on plastic pollution as part of Earth Day using recycled materials. The Sapphires were interested in learning about the 17 Sustainable Development Goals and this provoked lots of discussions. During computing, the children are using LBQ and Anton in order to improve areas of maths and English.

Finally, well done to the Year 6 children for continuing to try their best as we prepare for the SATS starting Monday 13th May. The children are working hard and showing a positive attitude to learning – we are nearly there!

Please keep reading on Seesaw and practising spellings at home!

Enjoy the long weekend from the Sapphires team.

Well done to our Stars of the Week and Writers of the Week winners from last week.

Well done to this week's Stars of the Week and Writers of the Week

Next year, we are looking at extending our after school hours and the viability of this. If this is a service that you would consider using we would love to know a little bit more and ask if you could complete the short survey below to help support us in considering whether this is possible for us as a school.

Thank you to those who have already gave their feedback. One thing that has come up is the use of Makaton within the room - we have begun to use this to support some children now within the setting following some training for the Speech and Language Team. Now we are going to look at how we can embed this within the classroom and routines as well as how we can involve parents with this so thank you for this feedback.

We would love to know what current and past parents of our Pearls think about our provision. What do we do well? What could we focus more on? Are their any changes that you think would support the children or you as families?

All responses can be anonymous so please let us know your thoughts. If you would prefer a paper copy then these are available already printed at the main entrance.

We are just commencing a project to further improve our Little Pearls provision and the Pearls including the outdoor area which we cannot wait to share when completed.

We would love it if you could share our nursery advert as widely as possible and the easiest way to do this is liking our Facebook page and inviting your friends to this. You can also follow the nursery on Instagram.

At a time when we have seen local schools closing their nursery we want to ensure the long-term future of ours by ensuring that numbers remain consistent so that we can also keep costs low to you.

Thank you for your support.

Summer 1 clubs can be booked now for after Easter.

Please can I remind parents that if a child misses a club twice and is not ill or at a medical appointment they will be removed from the list. This is to ensure that staff know where children are at all times and to avoid the office chasing up whether children are attending clubs or not. Thank you.

There is also a Wednesday after school gardening club which can be booked separately via email.

Reading reward numbers needed for this half-term:

Bronze - 18 reads

Silver - 24 reads

Gold - 36 reads

Year Six will be taking their exams the week beginning the 13th May and Breakfast Club is free to them for all of that week. Having breakfast together often helps calm nerves and really helps to settle them at the start of the day.

For those that couldn't attend our information evening the presentation was emailed but can also be found below.

Please ensure that P.E kit is in school all week and is named.

Please remember that we are nut free and therefore nut products are not permitted. Thank you for your support in this.

As the weather hopefully warms up it may be that children need suncream. Please apply this before school but your child is welcome to bring some with them to reapply themselves. Children who are unable to apply suncream themselves, such as those in Pearls, should have this put on before school and staff can support them with reapplying as long as they are made aware of this.

Hats can be provided by school in hot weather and all children have access to a water bottle throughout the day.

Creating shade can be an issue for us but we do try to make areas using our school gazebos - if anyone is replacing theirs at home please consider donating to us as we always need more!

Please see the menu below. Children can have a hot dinner on any day and do not need to be hot dinners all week. Dinners do not need to be pre-booked.

Dinners can be paid for via our ParentMail App. Children in Reception, Year One and Year Two are entitled to Universal Free School Meals.

Free School Meals are available to some children dependent on household income. If you think you could be eligible there is more information available via Apply for free school meals - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk) or Mrs Risebury will happily give you further information of how to apply.

Please see the document link below. As a school we tried to give dates well in advance and will avoid changing these wherever possible. Please note new dates are in red.

Below are our term dates up until July 2026.