Let’s talk about Little Wandle. At Middle Park we use Little Wandle as our synthetic phonics programme as we teach our children to read. Yesterday, our school’s Improvement Partner came to see how we implement the programme in school. She saw several staff delivering whole class phonics teaching, she saw how we use ‘flooding’ to continue teaching reading in small groups several times a week and she looked at how catch-up sessions support children who might benefit from some over-learning. We introduced Little Wandle in January 2022 and it is having a significant impact on our children’s reading – the gateway to so much of their future learning.

We express our deepest sympathies for the passing of HM Queen Elizabeth II. Her dedication to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and to her other realms and territories is unparalleled and we thank her for her service. Middle Park Primary School will observe the mourning period and continue to support our children, families and staff.

We have enjoyed a totally epic jubilee day with so many fun activities. We had a whole-school street party picnic, we enjoyed art workshops, singing dancing, tug-of-war and we ate way too much cake. We are part of history and our children know that their children and their children’s children will all want to ask them about Queen Elizabeth II, the longest ever reigning monarch. The school gifted every child a special commemorative medal to help them remember every second.

Chick newsflash – we fledged FOUR!! Our first two chicks left the nesting box at 6.38am. Both parents were in and out and then they started tempting their young out of the hole using food. One and two plopped out together. Ten minutes later the parents came back for number three. And at 7.22am they came back a final time and coaxed their fourth chick out into the world. There are no feathers or any signs of drama so we have decided that everything went perfectly and four new blue tits have entered the world! We’re not saying this is definitely one of ours, but this little fella was found down at the golf club on Court Road this afternoon. He’s being very well guarded. And you never know do you!!

You may recall that two of our Year 6 children Ashae Millwood and Stanley Lorraine, were announced winners of a competition to design a sustainability mural through the Cross River Partnership. This reflects our love of nature and some of our very favourite feathered visitors alongside our urban location. We are absolutely thrilled to come back after the Easter holidays to see the finished mural which was created by @aspireartwork. The children are delighted with the bold design and we particularly love all the different angles you can view from around the school. We have further developed this front to our school with some cherry laurel planting and will continue to add to the biodiversity we are already achieving. What an amazing legacy for Stanley and Ashae – thank you both.

Year 4 explored the new Spike kits this morning. The challenges were to make a fan and to create a robot that moved without using wheels. We had to use coding and sensors to programme our robots.

On International Women’s Day 2022, we consider some of the amazing artwork produced by female artists from Ukraine. Which is your favourite?

It was an encouraging turnout for our parent coffee morning on Wednesday and we are so grateful to Shaymaa and Tracy for organising it and putting so much effort in. One of the losses during the pandemic was opportunities for parents and carers to get together with one another and build those lovely networks and friendships. Shaymaa and Tracy are really trying to do something about that and hoping to build some new Middle Park connections.