Today our Year 4 children welcomed their parents into school for a fun‑filled Times Tables Inspire Workshop and what a brilliant morning it was!

Together they:

🎸 Battled it out on TTRockstars

🎨 Relaxed with times‑table mindfulness colouring!

🎲 Played Times Table Snakes & Ladders!

🗺️ Went on a times‑table treasure hunt around the room!

🏅 Took on the bean‑bag challenge to make the biggest times‑table they could!

The room was full of teamwork, laughter and lots of impressive number knowledge. A huge thank you to all the parents who joined us — your enthusiasm made the session extra special.

Well done, Year 4. You rocked your times tables today! 📚✨

For more pictures from the workshop, please see our gallery.

Each week, during our Friday Achievement assembly, we celebrate our ‘Pupils of the Week’ from each year group. Pupils are recognised for this weekly award for a variety of reasons and are nominated by their class teacher. They may have excelled in a particular subject through the week; may have shown one, or more, of the school values in abundance, or they may have impressed their teacher, or other staff members with a huge amount of effort. Whatever they are nominated for, they are recognised in the whole school achievement assembly, receive a certificate to take home and get to wear one of our prestigious black and gold t-shirts. 
During the assembly, we also celebrate children who have 100% attendance for the week and have been in school every day on time. A lucky dip, of all children who are eligible takes place, and one pupil walks away with £5 to spend on whatever they want, Standards and presentation of a child’s book, chosen at random, are also reviewed and celebrated with the school and the child, whose book has been chosen, has the chance to win a dip out of the basket of goodies, as long as they have used their best handwriting every day, completed their feed forward marking and taken care in the presentation of their date and learning objective. We are extremely proud of all of the efforts of our pupils and the Friday Achievement assembly recognises this pride. 

Our weekly winners this week are:

Eleanor - REB

Aurora - RJL

Kyrie-Rose - RPM

Joey - 1AP

Harley-Mai - 1RW

Denerio - 2HS

Kyan - 2SWS

Remeh - 3JC

Frankie - 3NW

Jack - 4HA

Millie - 4PW

Tiwa - 4BB

Robyn - 5LH

Nevaeh - 5KG

T'Zyah - 6ES

Alfred - 6LM

Henry - 6ST

Book Look Winner – Edward -  6ST

Attendance Hero - Luna-Rae - REB

Students across the school gathered with excitement this week for the annual House Spelling Bee, a lively competition featuring Bat, Hulk, Super and Spider houses. The event saw pupils from each house take to the stage to spell a challenging range of words, cheered on by classmates as the tension built with every round.

The contest proved to be exceptionally close, with all four houses displaying impressive spelling skills and determination. As the final scores were tallied, only a handful of points separated the teams, keeping the outcome uncertain right to the very end. Judges praised the competitors for their focus, confidence and sportsmanship throughout the competition.

In the end, it was Super House that emerged victorious, narrowly securing first place by just a few points. Bat, Hulk and Spider houses were congratulated for their strong performances, making this one of the closest spelling bees in recent years. The event was widely enjoyed and has already set high expectations for next year’s competition.

For more pictures from the competition, please see our gallery.

Year 1 pupils and their families enjoyed a step back in time this week during a creative Inspire Workshop that saw children and adults working together to create model Tudor houses. The event was designed to enrich the children’s learning and link closely to their history topic, The Great Fire of London.

The workshop invited parents, carers and family members into school to share a hands‑on learning experience with the children. 

Families worked together to design and build their own model Tudor houses using a range of craft materials. Children applied their knowledge by including wooden beams, small windows and overhanging upper floors, while adults supported them in following instructions and developing their ideas. The room was filled with enthusiasm as pupils proudly explained how their houses linked to the events of the Great Fire of London.

The workshop also supported important skills such as teamwork, creativity and fine motor development, while strengthening the partnership between school and home.

Parents and carers commented on how enjoyable it was to learn alongside their children and appreciated the insight into what Year 1 have been studying. Many said the session sparked further conversations about history at home.

For more pictures from the workshop, please see our gallery.

We are excited to make you aware of a change for all parents and carers of Smith's Wood Primary Academy.

We have recently started using Arbor as our main pupil management system, which has been very successful! This new platform is crucial for our processes for attendance, communication, assessment, school trips, clubs, and parents evening as well as providing us with an excellent tool for end of school year reports.

Our new Arbor Parent App is now available for you to download and register. Please follow the attached guide on how to activate your account online, and then log in to the app. We will send you an activation email from the Arbor system, please check you inbox and junk folders for this communication. 

Smith’s Wood Primary Academy will be using Arbor Parent App for the following:

• Overview of your child’s attendance.
• Overview of your child’s personal information including medical and dietary requirements.
• To update the school if any details around your child’s medical and/or dietary requirements have changed.
• To update your contact details.
• Written communications

Soon, we will also be using it for school meals, trips, clubs, payments, parental consent, parents evening booking system, assessment results, and more. This will replace the current platforms we use with the aim of making processes simpler and more user friendly for parents and carers. This will be a gradual process to ensure accuracy. We will keep you updated!

Please ensure you activate access to this platform as soon as possible as it will be used to share your child’s end of school year report.