What talented, creative young people we have here at Witton-le-Wear! Have a look below at the fantastic designs!

The overall winning design was created by Declan-James, Angel-Janae & the Simpson family:

Our year group winners are:

Nursery – James’ Dinosaur

Reception – Charlotte’s flowers

Year One – Polly’s Ice Cream

Year Two – Jacob’s Pikachu

Year Three – Frankie’s Octopus

Year Four – Verity’s COVID-19 model

Year Five – Grace’s Farmyard

Year Six – Freya’s Robinwood Activity Centre

Update on GOV.​UK.

Voucher scheme launches for schools providing free school meals

Page summary
Weekly shopping vouchers worth £15 to spend at supermarkets while schools are closed due to coronavirus

Change made
First published.

Time updated
12:15am, 31 March 2020

Children eligible for free school meals will benefit from a national voucher scheme allowing them to continue to access meals whilst they stay at home.

Schools can now provide every eligible child with a weekly shopping voucher worth £15 to spend at supermarkets while schools are closed due to coronavirus.

Schools can continue to provide meals for collection or delivery themselves, but where this is not possible, the scheme will allow schools to provide vouchers to families electronically, or as a gift card for those without internet access.

The vouchers can be spent on food at a range of shops including Sainsbury’s, Tesco, Asda, Morrisons, Waitrose and M&S, with the Department working to get more shops to join the scheme as soon as possible.

Info for parents: Your child may be able to get free school meals if you get any of the following:

• Income Support
• income-based Jobseeker’s Allowance
• income-related Employment and Support Allowance
• support under Part VI of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999
• the guaranteed element of Pension Credit
• Child Tax Credit (provided you’re not also entitled to Working Tax Credit and have an annual gross income of no more than £16,190)
• Working Tax Credit run-on – paid for 4 weeks after you stop qualifying for Working Tax Credit
• Universal Credit – if you apply on or after 1 April 2018 your household income must be less than £7,400 a year (after tax and not including any benefits you get)

Children who get paid these benefits directly, instead of through a parent or guardian, can also get free school meals.

Your child may also get free school meals if you get any of these benefits and your child is both:

• younger than the compulsory age for starting school
• in full-time education

How to avoid catching or spreading coronavirus

Congratulations to our Cross Country runners today! Despite the weather conditions, our children in years 3-6 put in a brilliant effort, racing around the course at Bishop Auckland College. There was lots of muddy fun! An extra special congratulations goes to Jay in Year 6 who came in first place! Fantastic run, well done!

Our newly appointed Science Ambassadors were invited to visit Ushaw College for a special training day. The children enjoyed testing & carrying out many different experiments including chromatography, making 3D structures and balloon kebabs. As the exciting day drew to a close, our Science Ambassadors were given the opportunity to work alongside children from other schools, presenting the different ways to carry out the experiments.

We’re all looking forward to their scientific knowledge and enjoyment being passed onto to all the children across our school. It should be great fun!

Our School Councillors were lucky enough to be invited to the unveiling of our Advent Window display in Bishop Auckland. Bishop Auckland Town Team planned ambitious and creative displays  for 2019, celebrating the heritage of Bishop Aucklandinvolving the construction of 24 life size models – one for each day of window openings between 1st and 24th December. As well as creating models of Joseph, Mary, Gabriel, the infant Jesus, various animals, a crib and a star, local schools were also asked to create 13 figures of biblical characters Jacob and His Twelve Sons, based on the paintings by Spanish master Francisco de Zurbaran, which have been housed in the town’s Auckland Castle for more than 250 years.

Our whole school contributed to the art work for the display. Laura Brenchley, from Auckland Castle, worked with each class in turn to decorate the life-sized wooden figure of Gad.

Our School Councillors also had the opportunity to visit Auckland Castle after carol singing in Peacocks! It was a fab day to complete an excellent art activity in the community!

There is to be a Christmas Eve parade, which will be the advent window’s grand finale, with all 24 models being taken from their shop window displays and paraded through the streets of Bishop Auckland to Auckland Castle. There, thanks to the permission of the Bishop of Durham, they will be assembled into a life-size nativity scene in St Peter’s Chapel for the local community to view throughout the holiday period.

Congratulations to our competition winners for your fantastic designs!

What a fun night!

Many thanks to our small PTA for organising such a good night. It was lovely to see children and their families dancing, chatting and having fun, listening the fantastic band playing traditional Gaelic folk music. It was great fun to join in with the jovial dancing, learning the routines by following the directions of our ‘caller’. It was certainly an enjoyable evening!

(video to follow asap!)

The Community Centre was decorated with vibrant, colourful bunting, all of which had been designed and created by our school children. The PTA ran a little competition for the best design, judged by one of the lovely Ceilidh band members. She chose four winners:

• Georgie Taylor won the prize for the infants.
• Ella Hutchinson won the lower junior prize
• and Joe Farren was awarded the prize for the upper juniors.

Fab art work!

Wow! What a talented bunch of pupils we have in Witton-le-Wear Primary School!

Our whole school participated in “Art Week”, producing self portraits using differing mediums as inspiration. We were so proud of our work we put in all on show in an Art Exhibition, inviting our parents and families along to view our masterpieces!

Class Four based their self-portraits in the work of Vincent Van Gogh. He used lines and colour to portray feelings. After creating mood wheels the children chose the colour and line patterns to paint their self-portraits to represent their moods. Can you identify what they are?

The children then went on sketch their faces from a photo stimulus before using Microsoft Word to create different effects on their individual photographs.

Class Three manipulated photographs to reflect Picasso’s abstract style, matching them to their sketch portraits. They also used oil pastels to recreate Picasso’s use of vibrant colours in their Roman Masks.

In Class Two the children were studying the portraits of Andy Warhol. They discovered that he used bright colours to print lots of versions of the same portraits. The children used the “Photo Booth” app to take their own portraits in a Pop Art style. They then used their own photographs and coloured them in different combinations just like Andy Warhol’s portraits. Mrs Smith also taught the children in Class Two how to draw a self-portrait making sure that all their features were in proportion. They used pencils to add shading too. Who can you recognise on our wall?

Class One had a fun time sketching and painting their own self portraits too! What do you think? These children have also been looking at the work of David Hockney, who created a photomontage of  the different sides his mothers face. It was fun!