Dear Parents and Carers,
It has been a wonderful last two weeks of the year across both schools. The Year 6 Oscars were a joy and thankfully able to go ahead in dry weather, unlike the Year 7 and 8 Summer Fete, which was held indoors out of the rain and was absolutely fantastic. Both schools have managed to find dry days to hold sports days. All the children at WPA spent a day with their new teachers this week and looked very excited by that. We held the first ever Rewards Festival at SWA, where the 150 children with the highest positive points totals spent an afternoon playing games and eating pizza and ice-cream, often at the same time. The last big event of the year - the Year 6 transition to SWA - has gone very smoothly. Those students have been very impressive indeed as they adapt to all the changes that secondary school brings and it has been good to see so many happy new faces around the school.
October Childcare
When we held the consultation on the two-week October half term, we committed to making sure there would be some childcare available for the second week. You will recall that the half-term break runs from 23 October to 3 November 2023. For the second of these weeks, 30 October-3 November, and some of the previous week, there will be two companies providing activity camps. They will each provide a range of activities, including team sports, bouncy castles, arts and crafts, den building, scooter play, soft play, table top games, cinema style film afternoon and more.
We have agreed between the two organisations that there will be a camp set up for Sudbury children in Woodhall Primary school (provision of 6-8 days over the two weeks); in Bury S Edmunds at Abbots Green Primary Academy, in Newmarket at Newmarket Academy and at Samuel Ward Academy in Haverhill. We will not charge the providers for the use of their facilities, instead they will pass on savings / discounted rates to the families. Prestige Sports will work in Haverhill, Newmarket and Bury and Della Sports will work in Sudbury.
All of those provisions will accept children of any age from any of the trust schools, including up to Year 7, so working parents have a choice if they happen to work more local to an area which is not the area where their children attend school.
Both providers will be open for bookings at the beginning of the autumn term and we will ensure more details on booking etc. is available at the start of next term.
Next Term
The new school year starts for both schools on Wednesday 6th September. The school day at Samuel Ward will be longer then, finishing at 3.20pm. The start time remains 8.40am. Westfield start and end times are unchanged.
Thank you for all of your support this year. We look forward to welcoming all the pupils and students back in September.
Have a very enjoyable summer,
Andy Hunter
Executive Headteacher
Samuel Ward and Westfield Primary Academies