Communication
At John Wheeldon Primary Academy, we use communicate with parents / carers using the Class Dojo platform. When our child joins our school, you will be given a code to sign up and join Class Dojo. Each year group will then share important information with you via Class Dojo as well as whole school messages. You will also be able to send your child’s teacher a message if you have any queries or concerns. We also welcome photographs sent to us if children would like us to share and celebrate any extra curricula activities that they are proud of.
The office are also be able to be contacted on class dojo and well as members of the senior leadership team.
Please be mindful that if you message staff on an evening or weekend they may not reply to you until their working hours.
Click picture to go to Class Dojo
What is Class Dojo?
Class Dojo is a school communication platform that teachers, children and families use every day to build close-knit communities by sharing what’s being learned in the classroom home through photos, videos, and messages.
Class Dojo will not replace existing processes for contacting school for pupil absences, holiday requests etc.
Is Class Dojo safe?
All of your child’s information is kept safe on Class Dojo. Only their teachers and you as their parents/carers can see their information. Class Dojo is COPPA-compliant and fully support FERPA.
Please see their privacy policy here at https://www.classdojo.com/website-privacy/.
Class dojo will display important whole school messages as well as year group specific messages.
Weekly newsletters will be sent on class dojo and also uploaded to our website on the ‘News’ section.
Parent Pay
ParentPay is a tool that enables School Trip payments and School Meal bookings for pupils of all ages. Parents can provide consent, check upcoming trip details and manage funds for any outstanding payments.
When your child starts with us our friendly office team will provide you with an activation letter to set up your account, linking directly to your child and their associated trips/ activities. School meals can be booked on a daily, weekly or termly basis with menu options available up to one half term in advance.
Universal Free School Meals are applied to all pupils in Early Years and KS1, whilst KS2 pupils can apply based on the Local Authority Eligibility based criteria by following the link below;
https://www.staffordshire.gov.uk/Testing/2023-Archives/Education-archive/Educational-awards-benefits/FreeSchoolMeals/Apply-online.aspx
Workshops and ‘Learn with us’ sessions
Over the course of the year, we run workshops for parents to attend. These are mainly based on EYFS where parents will be introduced with Phonics including how we teach sounds and early reading and tips for how parents can support with this at home. We recognise how important it is to get the foundations of learning in place for our children starting with us so there are also early writing and maths workshops. All of these are advertised on Class Dojo.
Themed reading workshops take place throughout the year where children have the opportunity to be joined by their parents to listen to an engaging story telling session and then complete linked craft activities. All of these are advertised on Class Dojo.
In addition, each year group will invite parents in for at least one session to join their child in school and complete an activity with them. Again, details of these will be communicated via Class Dojo.
Other Parent Events
- Assemblies – all year groups will hold an assembly over the course of the year. Each of these will include an element of musical performance based on learning from their music lessons. The themes of these are as follows:
- EYFS/KS1 – Christmas Assembly
- Years 3/4/5 – Topic based Assembly
- Year 6 – Leavers Assembly
- Sports Days
- Remembrance (Year 6 and forces families)
- May Day Celebration
Clubs
Our clubs are in important part of our school life. We offer a range of clubs including sports, wellbeing, arts and performance based clubs. There are also academic based clubs and ‘Booster’ clubs provided for our Year 6s in the lead up to SATs.
All clubs need to be booked via Parent Pay to secure a place. Clubs are all advertised via Class Dojo which will have more information about timings etc.
See below for this terms clubs.
Autumn Term Clubs
Parent Evenings
We run one formal parent evenings a year where parents have an appointment time to meet with teachers and discuss their child’s progress.
Parents of children registered on our SEND register will meet with teachers termly to review and set their specific targets.
We have a parent drop in during the first half term where parents can come in to school, meet the teacher and see the classroom as well as looking at some examples of work.
We also have a parent drop in towards the end of term so that parents can again look at books and celebrate the successes of the year.
All dates for these will be on our weekly newsletter and the whole school calendar on our website.
Adult Learning Courses
If you are looking to learn a new skill then please take a look at the courses that are available in Staffordshire. You can follow the link below to find out what is happening in your local area.
https://www.staffordshire.gov.uk/education/Community-learning-service/Courses/Overview.aspx
Staffordshire County Council’s Adult and Community Learning Service works with a range of learning providers across the county to deliver innovative, stimulating and engaging Community Learning programmes for adults using, where appropriate, informal community-based venues. This wide range of learning activities and courses help to improve the lives of Staffordshire residents.
Curriculum
Curriculum
