Latest News

Mrs Delany Meets David Walliams

Sat 02 Dec 2023 Lauren Read

Mrs Delany attended a book signing by David Walliams for his new book 'The Blunders'. When Mrs Delany told David that she was a librarian at Westwood, he signed a copy for the school and donated it to our school library! Thank you David Walliams and Mrs Delany.

Siobhan Dowd Book Foundation Award

Thu 13 Jul 2023 Mrs Delaney

The Siobhan Dowd Book Foundation awarded Westwood pupils £600 to spend on books from an independent bookshop of our choice. We selected Niche Comics | Books in Huntingdon as they had a beautiful range and kindly agreed to open the shop an hour early for us so we had it all to ourselves!

Fourteen children with high word counts and good to be green behaviour from year 4 and 5 were selected to go alongside Mrs Delaney, Mr Albert (who kindly drove us) and Mrs James.

The children all selected 5 books each, 2 that they’d choose for a KS1 child and 3 they’d like to read themselves. It was entirely their choice, with the focus being on reading for pleasure. The children loved the experience of selecting the books and exploring a book shop. The shop gave us a discount of £1 off each book so we were able to get 75 books in total! Below you can see a photo of the incredible selection of books that will be going into our library over summer!

No Paper Day

Fri 19 May 2023 Mrs Smith & Eco Council

Today at Westwood, we participated in our first No Paper Day. All learning was achieved by not using paper!

We used resources such as whiteboards and chromebooks to record our learning.

Wellbeing Team Update - Summer Term 1

Tue 02 May 2023 Mrs Smithson

Thank you to those of you who completed the wellbeing survey. Communication and extracurricular opportunities featured most frequently in your comments. Below are the Wellbeing Team's summary response to the survey and in particular the areas of extra-curricular enrichment and communication from school.

Parents and carers told us that they look forward to fortnightly newsletters and parent consultations; they are also enjoying the re-introduction of "book looks" in the classroom. These parent afternoons allow the children to share their work and talk about what they are proud of and these are something our children are loving doing.

There was a question about the opening time of the School Office. The offices are open throughout the school day but unfortunately there may be times, especially during the busiest on-site periods of the day, where telephone calls take slightly longer to be answered.

Parents liked the workshops on wellbeing and workshops alongside their children, for example the recent "Escape Room"! We have recently re-established the Friends of Westwood and they have a host of exciting plans including: regular cake sales to raise funds for the school, discos and a summer fete!

In terms of extra-curricular opportunities, we feel we have offered a great deal so far this year.

We have held residential trips for Year 4 and Year 6, both of which were a huge success. Children have visited places of worship and also took part in art workshops. We have also been lucky to receive visits from both a gold-medal winning Paralympian and also a Commonwealth Champion who gave us all inspiration with their amazing achievements.

After school clubs have included: how to draw; athletics; handball; origami; tennis; basketball; rounders; arts and crafts; tag rugby; board games; skipping; science; outdoor art; eco club; gymnastics; digital leaders; dodgeball; gardening; team games; craft and sewing; challenge; creative stories; archery; short mat bowls; clay; embroidery; orienteering; construction; recorders; chess; bowls; songwriting; seasonal arts and crafts; and sketching!

Choir club resulted in a visit to Wembley as part of Voice in a Million. This was in the words of members, an ‘amazing’ experience and ‘made us smile.’ Let's not also forget our school discos. Phew!

Twenty 20 Productions ran six workshops with our Year sixes on the five ways to wellbeing. These ran over six Fridays and were a huge success. They took part in different activities each week: Connect, Give, Be active, Take Notice and Learn.

In addition to this, we have also delivered extra-curricular academic support to targeted pupils. We have run booster groups for maths, reading and writing.

Thanks to the amazing Mrs Delaney. we have had author visits from: Jeanne Willis, Ben Davis, Julia Jarman, G.R Dix and John Dougherty. Wow! These visits have inspired our children to read more and have introduced them to a variety of genres and styles of writing.

Sporting events continue to be a brilliant success. With your support, the Pro-Strike challenge raised a phenomenal amount for the school. Equally importantly, the Mintridge Foundation held mentoring sessions with some students and ran judo sessions after their inspiring assembly. Peterborough United gave us a visit, there was even a staff dance off with their mascot Peter Burrow! Northampton Saints are holding a rugby ‘takeover’ day when children can learn more about how the game of rugby is played.

This week, we will be holding a Coronation picnic after school to celebrate the crowning of King Charles III.

Other things to look forward to this year are a summer fete, professional footballer visit and a Royal Opera House Project. Watch this space!

There's always so much going on and we hope you'll agree there's plenty to celebrate.

Wellbeing Change Team

John Dougherty Visit

Tue 07 Mar 2023 Mrs Delaney

Tuesday 7th March saw us hold our first author visit involving an assembly for every year group. John Dougherty was also our first author to focus on poetry which included putting poetry to music. He delivered 5 separate assemblies which were all different and tailored perfectly to the age group! The musical numbers were a massive hit with our children, they laughed, clapped and sang along!

John answered lots of questions from our children and even tried to relate certain poems to his answers. John taught us to find the joy in poetry, whether we are making up a silly rhyme, want to tell a sad story or just have fun with words!

We were also very lucky to have John share his brand new book with most of our children. ‘The Hare Shaped Hole,’ is a beautiful rhyming picture book which gently explores the theme of grief and loss. I know a lot of our staff and children found it very moving and I would definitely recommend it to anyone looking for a way to help children who have experienced a loss.

We finished the day with a book signing where John signed some books for children and teachers. Look at the lovely array of colours John bought so he could sign in everyone's favourite colours!

Thank you to everyone who supported our signing! I would also like to say a massive thank you to parents for donating on World Book Day to make this event possible. I can’t express how much the children enjoyed this visit, how much they laughed and the fact that a lot of children went away with a much more positive, excited view of poetry!

Garry Dix visit

Fri 16 Dec 2022 Mrs Delaney

Today at Westwood the amazing author Garry Dix came to visit us. After battling with the traffic like so many of us today, he came straight in to do an assembly. The plan was for him to talk to year 3 and 4 but we invited year 6 to join since their classrooms were unavailable! Garry took it all in his stride! He told us about his 6 part series of books that he has written over the last 5 years. He read an extract from his third book, ‘Scowl of the Scorpion,’ describing the menacing villain Carl Scorpion.

Now I don’t know if authors ever worry they won’t get many questions but this is never an issue with Westwood children! They always have LOADS of questions. A young boy kicked it off with the classic, "Do you like football?" question! After that though we had plenty of wonderful insightful questions about the world of writing, creating books and the life of an author. Our children were very impressed that he knew Liz Pichon!

After our fabulous assembly Garry visited our four year4 classes. Again he answered LOTS of questions, it was wonderful to see our children so excited and engaged.

A couple of classes also had time to go through with Garry, his key 5 steps for starting to write a book. The children quickly came up with ideas, characters, villains and lots went away inspired and ready to write their own stories. Mrs Keenoy kindly wrote out the guide so we can share it with everyone!

It was truly a wonderful visit, probably a record for the amount of questions asked, even the teachers and Mrs Delaney had lots to ask! Garry's passion for writing was infectious, everyone was brimming with ideas! When Garry was asked if he’d won any awards and he sadly replied that he hadn't, a year 4 boy put his hand up and said, "Well you have now, I award you best author visit ever!"

Tom & The Trolls

Wed 19 Oct 2022 Mrs Delaney

The amazing storytelling company Gripping Yarns came to visit year 3 and 4 to tell us the tale of "Tom and the Trolls". The story uses very large (2 metre tall) puppets for dramatic impact and to clarify core messages applicable and comprehensible to children between the ages of six and eleven.

Tom and the Trolls tells the story of a young human child who meets and makes friends with a group of trolls. When he is unable to join in their games because he is different from them. He is teased, called names and threatened. Tom’s feelings are explored and a range of typical responses offered for evaluation. When silent suffering, fighting back and bribery fail to stop the bullying. Tom eventually realises he needs help and tells the Chief Troll what has happened. Together Tom and the trolls, with the help of the Chief, change their behaviour and break out of their bullying roles, establishing a new ethos of
co-operation and support.

The children were then encouraged to ask questions or make comments. The children were curious about how the puppets were made and thoroughly enjoyed seeing their heads come off to reveal how they were put together! The children also shared some of their real life experiences with conflict on the playground and we discussed our best methods of resolution.

Our children were also incredibly polite and shared how much they’d enjoyed the play with the actor Simon Firth. Our year 4 classes have very kindly reviewed their experience! They have written some beautiful reviews and Mrs Delaney wanted to share a selection of them.

I liked it because of how much effort he put into it! I loved it.
I love it so I’ll rate it 10 out of 10, it’s just so so so cool.
I was flabbergasted, he was a fantastic actor.
I liked it because it was funny and he acted it out really good. The puppets were made of love and the show was just really pleasant.
I loved the story because now I know not to keep a bad secret.
It was impressive how it was made up and acted, I liked how big the trolls were.

Author visit inspires Upper Key Stage 2 pupils

Fri 07 Oct 2022

Ben Davis comes to Westwood Primary School

The author Ben Davis performed an incredible assembly for year 5 and 6! He talked about his own embarrassing Dad and asked the children to share their own embarrassing family stories!

He read a couple of extracts from his books, making the children laugh and jump! We were also extremely privileged to be the first school to hear a part from his newest book. He talked about how his inspiration came from real life events, including an amusing anecdote involving trying to deliver letters to a house being guarded by an angry swan!

He kindly answered lots of the children's questions about being an author and whether he was ‘mates with anyone famous’!

Year 6 Workshops

Ben visited year 6 classes and together they created a character. They voted on what sort of family member it would be, what hairstyle they’d have and what they’d wear. The children then chose a name for the character - this would be the antagonist (the bad guy). They then created their main character and decided upon their goal or quest. We had one who wanted to be a pro wrestler, a Hollywood actor and a footballer. The children had to then create a story around these characters and their motivation, they could use drawings, make notes or start writing the story.

Visiting Year 4 and Book Signing!

Ben was kind enough to also come and visit our year 4 classes and tell them about his books and answer lots of questions! The children were very excited and had lots of wonderful questions prepared. Mrs Delaney also cornered Ben in the library and got him to sign all copies of his books that we have in the library! Lots of our children also designed their own autograph cards or got Ben to sign their work. Even Mr Albert joined in and got a photo for his door! There was a great deal of fun, excitement and laughter all day!