Category: Kids

It Has Been A Wonderful Year

  Gwenfo School News May Notes

It has been a wonderful year here at Gwenfo. As we begin our summer holidays we say goodbye to some much loved members of staff. Reception class teacher Mrs Leach and LSA Mrs Edwards have begun their retirements. They have been fantastic educators and supporters in their time with us as part of our Gwenfo family. They will be sorely missed but we wish them well on their new adventures. We also say goodbye to Miss Sheanon who is returning to Ireland and to Miss Vowels as she works to get her PGCE. We are so grateful for all they have done for our school and the children in their time with us. Good luck both! Mrs Maunder begins her maternity leave and we wish her and her family well in this special time. We can’t wait to meet the new baby.
Our last month has been very busy. Year 6 have celebrated the end of their primary education with a wonderful Leavers assembly for their parents, a celebration service at Llandaff Cathedral with other faith schools and a fun packed day at Cosmeston. We know they will do us proud at their new schools in September and are excited to see what the future holds for them.
As a school we participated in Race for Life. Every class took part and they did an amazing job. Thank you to all parents who made a donation for Cancer Research. We celebrated our fantastic children with our end of year talent show. It was wonderful to see all the amazing talents our children have. Thank you to our Year 6 children and staff for organising and running the show. Years 2 and 6 have worked with Mr Rogers from the Local Authority, Year 2 completing road safety lessons and Year 6 taking part in cycling proficiency. Years 1 and 2 had a fantastic messy morning in the last week of term for the end of their Muck, Mess and Mixtures topic.
It’s been a lovely year, the children have learnt and grown and we are so proud of them. We hope all our Gwenfo family have a restful and enjoyable break.

 

Breakfast Club and Open Morning

WENVOE PLAYGROUP NEWS AND EVENTS

Registered Charity, right in the heart of the Village.

The Playgroup operates from the Village Hall and has been operating for over 50 Years. We are registered with Care Inspectorate Wales to care for 30 Children at any one-time from the age of 2 Years 4 months. We open 8.00am until 1.00pm Monday to Friday and on Wednesday and Thursday we offer care until 3:15pm.

Breakfast Club: Our breakfast club is open daily from 8.00am, where we support children across to Nursery and Reception class for 08:50am. Children may also remain with us into our 9am session until 12noon or 1.00pm.

Wrap around care: We collect children daily at 11:20am from Wenvoe Nursery and on into lunch club until 1.00pm or 3:15pm on Wednesday and Thursday. We also take children across from our morning sessions to afternoon Nursery for 1.00pm daily.

30 Hour Free Childcare Offer

Children from Cardiff and the Vale are benefiting from this offer. 12.5 hours are used for LEA Nursery and 17.5 hours per week can be allocated to time with us here at Playgroup. This offer is for children the term after their 3rd Birthday. To find out more, please visit our website: www.wenvoeplaygroup. co.uk

Tax Free Childcare: We accept payment via the Government’s Tax Free Childcare. Many parents at this time use this method to pay fees, or use alongside the 30 Hour Free Childcare to top up their extra hours/fees. Families set up a Tax-Free Childcare account and for example; for every £8 the family pay in; Welsh Government pay in £2. For further information go to www.gov.uk/tax-free-childcare

Further information can be found on our website www.wenvoeplaygroup.co.uk

Our Statement of purpose and Admissions Policy & Procedure can be found in ‘DOCUMENTS’ on our website which may be useful for times and prices. However; if you want to know more, please email or phone. All contacts are on our website.

We are holding an open morning on September 9th from 9.00am until 12noon. Please feel free to bring your child along to view our provision or pop in and ask your questions. We do have limited space at this time. We have waiting lists started for September 2023; should you wish to be added to our lists please email.

Wenvoe Playgroup message of thanks.

We would just like to take this opportunity to thank a few important Volunteers from behind the scenes:

Our Voluntary RI – Russell Godfrey, along with our Voluntary Management Committee for their support with fundraising and management decisions.

Thanks to Darren Bellamy for putting up with our constant emails to update our website and Lisa for all her support in helping the group with Christmas and Easter fundraising efforts.

Thanks must go to Dave Pritchard, who has helped with painting and odd jobs for the group and is always there in our hour of need.

A big thanks must go to Chris Evans of Lawray Architects, who has worked tirelessly with the group to secure a shelter for the children to play outside in all weathers. As the cost of materials rose this year, in between receiving the grant money and paying for the equipment, we would like to thank Chris for the extra money he paid to finish some work.

We are so reliant and grateful to those who help us on a voluntary basis. Wenvoe Playgroup couldn’t do it without all you lovely people coming to our rescue. The children and staff are very grateful to have you all supporting us.

We are grateful to all the families who have supported us this year. Your generosity has been amazing, supporting fundraising, raffle prizes and tickets, and supporting the group with essentials throughout the past year.

In the past academic year, we were very sad to see Auntie Marilyn retire from Playgroup life. Marilyn has been a huge part of our community for the past 30 years, that I have known her. Marilyn has worked and supported the Playgroup for many years, most of it for the love of it! Marilyn was committed to our Village Hall and Playgroup and we would like to take this opportunity to thank her for everything that she has done in the community over many years. Thank you Maz x

From the end of this academic year, Auntie Fran will also be retiring, to enjoy travelling the world in term time. Fran has worked with pre-school children since 1998 and supported the group since June 2008. Fran will be greatly missed by all the children and staff. I know many parents past and present will be sorry to see her retire. We would all like to wish you a very happy retirement Fran. However, as Marilyn will know, retirement is never the end. I’m sure we will be calling on your help in the future.

We hope everyone is having a safe summer and we look forward to seeing our returning children and new families in September.

 

Platinum Jubilee Picnic

WENVOE PLAYGROUP NEWS AND EVENTS

Here at Playgroup, we held our Platinum Jubilee picnic on Thursday 26th May during a morning and afternoon session.

Children made their own picnic, by buttering their own bread, choosing a sandwich filling, then folding into rectangles and cutting into squares. Children also decorated their own cake with red, white or blue icing, in time for the picnic. Running up to the event, all children decorated their own crown and coloured their flags. A fun time was had by all.

We had a good turn out at our open afternoon in June and have limited space into the Autumn term. Should your child be interested in joining us in the next academic year, then please get in touch.

We will be holding an open morning on Friday 9th September from 9am until 12noon, with the group returning on Monday 12th September 22.

For more information and to keep up-to-date with the very latest, please view our website www.wenvoeplaygroup.co.uk

You will also find many more photos in our gallery.

We close on the 22nd July.

Have a wonderful summer everyone

 

Another Wonderful Month

Gwenfo School News June Notes

It has been another wonderful month for us at Gwenfo. Our current value is Truthfulness, We have been talking about why we tell the truth, and what it means to be truthful to God.

We have been so delighted to welcome parents in to share in our Jubilee fun, as well as for our Share Our Learning sessions where children could show their parents the amazing work they have in their books. It has been so lovely to open our school and grounds back up. Thank you to all who have come and sup-ported their children. Our Jubilee celebrations culminated in a wonderful concert and picnic. Each class performed a song from a different decade of the Queen’s reign from Nursery singing ‘We don’t talk about Bruno’ to Year 6 performing a song and dance to Elvis’ Jailhouse Rock. We are so proud of our children; they were amazing! Huge thanks to staff for organising and choreographing.

As we move into the final weeks of this year we look forward to a host of exciting events including Sports Day, our talent show, and the Year 6 leavers assembly. Everyone is working hard and practising to make these special days so fantastic. We are grateful for this wonderful weather allowing us to get outside and enjoy wonderful break times together on the field. We continue to enjoy our fortnightly visits to the library and extend our thanks to the fantastic volunteers at the Hub for making it possible.

 

May Notes

  Gwenfo School News May Notes

It has been a short but busy half term here at Gwenfo. Years 4, 5 and 6 thoroughly enjoyed our two weeks of swimming lessons at Barry Leisure Centre. Everyone has learnt something new or challenged themselves. We are so proud of them! Year 6 had a great trip to Crucial Crew where they had talks from essential services such as National Rail, Western Power, and the Fire Service. They learnt key ways to keep themselves safe in a variety of situations. In Years 5 and 6 we had two wonderful art afternoons where parents came, created art with their children and got to see art the classes had been creating over the half term. Thank you to all parents to came to support.

As a school we have begun our trips to the new library. We all had an introductory talk to explain how the library works and what we can do there. Since then, we have all had the chance to go and choose a book that we can keep for three weeks! Thank you to all at the library for helping our children discover and learn. They really enjoy choosing their books and experiencing the library.

As we go into our final half term, we say a fond farewell and thank you to our PGCE students. They have made a huge contribution to our school community, and we are so grateful for all they have done for our children and our school.

 

 

Lovely End To The Spring Term

  Gwenfo School News April Notes

We had a lovely end to the Spring term, celebrating Easter in style with the return of our Easter bonnet parade. Thanks to all parents and children for taking part and creating some fantastic headwear!

With restrictions easing we’ve been delighted to have a few Family Friday playtimes. The children have loved playing with other year groups, especially getting to see their siblings!

Key Stage Two had a wonderful morning before the holidays engaging in an Easter rotation, making Easter nests, Easter lilies, Palm crosses and Easter cards.

In our Action for Happiness work we have been looking at emotions. We have been encouraging children to recognise their and others emotions, and have explored how to deal with big emotions like anger and how to focus on and look for the good around us to help us feel more positive emotions. We have been practising gratitude and saying thank you for all the things and people in our lives that help us feel happy. Our next action is Acceptance, and learning to be happy with who we are.

Our value for the half term was Justice, and we have talked about what that means for us. We have thought about how all of our needs are different, and sometimes we can’t always have the same things as others for things to be fair. We talked about how we use rules both in school and in our country to ensure that we are all treated justly.

 

 

Thank You for Donations

THANK YOU

FROM GWENFO SCHOOL

We would like to express our heartfelt gratitude to all in our community who, over a very short period, filled the school with donations to be taken to Poland for families fleeing Ukraine. We were overwhelmed by the generosity of our community who contributed towards over 250 boxes of donations collected over just 3 days which have now begun their onward journey to Poland. Thank you to all the staff and pupils who have been involved in sorting donations, especially Mrs Barbara Sliwinska who works in our Nursery for organising everything!

 

 

Gwenfo School News March Notes

  Gwenfo School News March Notes

This month we are celebrating the huge generosity of our school community. With just a short deadline our wonderful families and wider community donated over 200 boxes worth of clothing, food and medical supplies to send out to Ukrainians who have fled to Poland. We are so grateful to all who made donations and showed their support. Thank you to members of our staff and some of our Year 6 pupils for sorting out all the donations into the boxes to be sent to Poland. We have been so impressed by the empathy and kindness that our children have shown.

At the beginning of March, we celebrated our Eisteddfod. We had a wonderful time sharing the fantastic art, poetry, stories and handwriting that our children have worked so hard on. Parents had the opportunity to buy their child’s framed artwork, the proceeds from which are going to our Criw Cymraeg to support the learning of Welsh in school. The children also enjoyed our carousel of Welsh themed activities, including Welsh folk dancing and making Welsh cakes or Welsh rarebit.

Years 3 and 4 have been creating art out of fruit and vegetables inspired by Giuseppe Arcimboldo’s Vertumnus, for their topic Sow, Grow and Farm. Years 5 and 6 have been busy exploring their new topic Gallery Rebels. They are researching art styles and artists, using a variety of media to create their own art and reading the Frank Cotterell Boyce novel ‘Framed.’ Years 4, 5 and 6 had a wonderful time with an online codalong session with Code Club.

Staff had a lovely visit after school to the newly refurbished Gwenfo Library and we are all looking forward to the prospect of returning to the library for a variety of activities. Whilst we will be celebrating World Book Day later in the year, we were delighted to welcome Mel from Griffin Books in Penarth who brought some books for the children to choose from and spend their World Book Day vouchers on.

 

Volunteering At Gwenfo School

VOLUNTEERING AT GWENFO SCHOOL

Would you be free to volunteer a little time on a regular basis? If so please contact the school and we can chat to you about opportunities here. We would love to be able to open our doors up to our community again and need to rebuild our list of volunteers. We will help organise the DBS checks and will always provide a warm welcome!

Please pop in for a chat with Miss Starke if you are interested.

 

 

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