Summer 2026 Newsletter No 5

Contents:

Scroll down to read all, or skip to an article.

Head teacher’s update Skip to article
Collective Worship Skip to article
Half Term Activities at Kingswinford Library Skip to article
Ace Coaching Half Term Course Skip to article
Old Swinford Hospital School Open Morning Skip to article
Day of the Dead art in 5/6M Skip to article
SATs Week Skip to article
Year 1 & 2 Science Skip to article
4C Volcano Poetry Skip to article

Head teacher’s update

A huge well done and thank you to our year 6 pupils who have completed their SATS tests, this week. They have been absolutely fantastic and had a great attitude towards completing the tests. Thank you also to our year 5 pupils who have relocated so sensibly and done some super, creative work, while the tests have been taking place. Well done, all!

Our reception children had a fantastic time at Experience Church, yesterday. They did get caught in the rain on the way back but that didn’t dampen their spirits and they were full of excitement when they got back. Well done and thank you for listening so carefully and showing such respect in our church.

I am very much looking forward to seeing you at the Family Festival, this afternoon. Members of the HSA have been working incredibly hard to organise and set up what promises to be a great festival with lots to see and do. Thank you to the year 6 pupils who have kindly volunteered their evenings to run games and stalls.

We are very excited for our school’s annual Ascension Day celebrations on Friday 22nd May. We will all be heading over to church for a service lead by our Worship Committee, in the morning. We will then be doing some art work for a competition to help Bishop Hugh to decorate his new office, followed by the children celebrating their own and each others’ talents. This is one of our favourite events in the school year and we are very much looking forward to what I am sure will be a great day.

Mr Bradley has asked me to pass on the following message to our school community –

I would like to say a huge thank you to all the parents and children who have sent me best wishes, cards and gifts on my retirement. I have been overwhelmed by the kind messages and sentiments. I look back on my career with pride, remembering the many good times and smiles on faces we generated.

Mr Bradley

Collective Worship

Thank you to Father Chris, who led our Collective Worship, this week. With Ascension Day officially being on Thursday 14th May, Father Chris reminded us of what Ascension is a celebration of. Ascension Day is also called the Feast of Ascension and it is the day that Christians celebrate Jesus’s ascent into heaven. Father Chris reminded us of all of the good work that Jesus carried out during his time on earth, but that his ascent into heaven meant that God’s word could be spread further and wider. Father Chris compared Jesus’s work on earth to a torch, shining light into darkness. However, once Jesus ascended into heaven, God’s message is like the torch shining on a disco ball – reflecting the light across the whole world.

We are very much looking forward to our own Ascension Day celebrations, on Friday 22nd May, when our Worship Committee will be leading us in a service at church and the children will demonstrate their skills and talents.

Half Term Activities at Kingswinford Library

Please see the information below:-

May Half Term activities (1)

Ace Coaching Half Term Course

Please see the information below from Ace Coaching:

Ace Coaching Whitsun Half Term Booking Flier

Old Swinford Hospital School Open Morning

Please see the following information from Old Swinford Hospital School:

OSH Open Morning June 2026 flyer

Y7 Tailored Boarding flyer 2027

Day of the Dead art in 5/6M

We have immersed ourselves into our art in the afternoons this week. We’ve learnt about the Day of the Dead festival and the role of art in this. We have looked at the work of Frida Karloff and explored the colours and symbols by designing our own calavera. We loved transferring 2D work onto 3D masks.

SATs Week

Year 6 enjoyed a well-earned ice lolly after finishing their final SATs test this week, well done everyone!

Year 1 & 2 Science

This week in Science, our Year 1 and 2 children explored the question: “Which direction is the sun?”

To help answer this, we took our learning outdoors! The children observed their own shadows and noticed how these changed depending on where they stood in relation to the sun. They discovered that shadows are always formed on the opposite side of the sun, helping them understand its position in the sky.

We also had a thoughtful discussion about how daylight changes throughout the year. The children learned that the length of the day varies with the seasons, with winter having the shortest amount of daylight and summer having the longest.

It was wonderful to see the children working scientifically—observing, questioning, and making connections to the world around them. Well done, everyone!

4C Volcano Poetry

This week in 4C, we have been looking at different types of poetry. We have explored kennings, haikus and tanka poems. We wrote our own poems about volcanoes.

Here are some of our Kenning Poems: