#Techognition - a national celebration of technical support staff.

We asked our staff across PolyMAT to pledge their support and send in comments for our amazing technicians.

This short video is a culmination of all these lovely comments that we wanted to share with our school community today.

A huge thank you to all of our technicians across the trust and all that they do for our schools.

 

World Book Day 2024!

Today at Woolwich Polytechnic School for Boys we celebrated World Book Day.

We kicked off the day with an assembly for Year 7 students where our Librarian Ms Griffiths showed that 7C1 had loaned the most amount of library books so far at 222 books. Since they started here at WPSFB Year 7 have loaned 1296 books.

Frederick, Sami, Ayrton and Harley were recognised for their help and support in the library and received a certificate and were able to pick a brand new book to keep as a prize.

Ms Griffiths also gave certificates and books to the following five students for being the top library borrowers, well done to Abdulmateen, Daniel, Nilesh, Cyras and Saswin.

There was a quiz at form time today, which challenged students to identify the title and author of 10 of the most popular books in our school library.

There were also 15 posters placed around the main school building featuring a number and a photo of a book. Students had to find all the numbers, names and authors of all 15 books and all successful entries won a prize.

Our Sixth Form Literacy Leaders have also been gathering student and staff favourite books for a display.

Thankyou to all the staff and everyone involved in literacy week, it has been fantastic to see so many students talking about reading in the build up to World Book Day as well as witnessing so many silent reading sessions going on around school. Reading for pleasure is so very important - Never stop reading!

#worldbookday #worldbookday2024 #wbd2024

Dear Parents and Carers,

Please find attached a link to an opportunity to sign-up to a training course on preventing knife crime with the Ben Kinsella Trust, in Islington on the evening of the 7^th March. They are an organisation that was started in response to the death of Ben Kinsella by his sister Sophie Kinsella. Ben was just 16 years old when he was stabbed to death in a horrific act of senseless violence on 29th June 2008.

The Ben Kinsella Trust - Parents and Carers Knife Crime Awareness | 7 March 5:30pm-7:30pm (beaconforms.com)

Thank you 

Ms J Lumbis

Trust Safeguarding Lead

World Book Day changes lives through a love of books and reading.

World Book Day was created by UNESCO on 23rd April 1995 as a worldwide celebration of books and reading. World Book Day is marked in over 100 countries around the globe. The first World Book Day in the UK and Ireland took place in 1997 to encourage young people to discover the pleasure of reading. As World Book Day founder, Baroness Gail Rebuck, recalls “We wanted to do something to reposition reading and our message is the same today as it was then – that reading is fun, relevant, accessible, exciting, and has the power to transform lives.”

World Book Day Website

Dear Parents and Carers,

The week beginning the 4^th March is Literacy Week at Woolwich Polytechnic School for Boys.  This means there are a number of activities and events taking place across the week in order to promote and encourage literacy.  Throughout the week there are two important events to be aware of:

• On Thursday 7^th March it is World Book Day and staff and students are encouraged to dress up as a character from a book, in cultural dress or in the theme of a genre of books (e.g. a geographer if they like reading about geography).  They can also dress up as a notable individual.  We do not permit students to wear a tracksuit as a character. 
• Each day there will be a Drop Everything And Read event where students are expected to read in silence for 10–15 minutes.  This will be at different times during the day and will be announced on the tannoy.  Please ensure students have access to a reading book of their choice for these times.  Students can access a book from our school library, or we encourage them to use the local libraries if they do not currently have a book they are reading. 

We thank you for your support in promoting literacy amongst our students at Woolwich Polytechnic School for Boys and look forward to a successful Literacy Week. 

Yours faithfully,

Miss Malone

Lead Practitioner

Click to download the Proposal to change the timings of the school day letter

Re: Proposal to change the timings of the school day

26^th February 2024

Dear neighbours,

I am writing to you to consult you on the proposed changes to the school day at Woolwich Polytechnic School for Boys.

The reason for this proposed change is to ensure that students can safely access transport to and from school whilst we expand our sixth form numbers from around 380 to approximately 490 students in September 2024 and up to 620 students in September 2025.

We are aware from our own monitoring that public transport frequency is not adequate to meet the demands of two adjacent full schools finishing at similar times, resulting in long waits for students and congested bus stops. We are also aware that buses are often full when students try to access them on their way to school from the Plumstead area, leading to lateness.

We believe that the following changes are necessary to ensure safer dismissal of students as well as easier transport to school in the mornings.

For Woolwich Polytechnic School for Boys, the years 7-11 changes can be summarised as:

• A 10 minute later start time of 8.40am every day;
• A 15 minute later finish time of 3.20pm every day except Wednesday;
• A finish time of 2.40pm on Wednesdays which will include an afternoon registration;
• We will no longer need to have different finishing times in Week A and Week B, meaning that the finishing times above are consistent each week;
• The lengths of periods, break and lunch will not change;
• Interventions that we run after school will also start and finish 10 minutes later, normally from 3.20-3.50pm Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays;
• We will continue to meet the minimum length that the Department of Education requires of 32.5 hours per week.

Woolwich Polytechnic School for Girls, our sister school right next door, intends to start at 8.15am and finish by 14:55pm, creating a 25-minute gap between both schools’ start times and a 30-minute gap between finishing times. This difference in start and finish times will make students’ access to public transport significantly easier and safer, both to and from school.

For years 12 and 13, the same start time applies but these students will not have afternoon registration, meaning that they will finish school at 3.05pm on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays and at 2.30pm on Wednesdays at the latest. This is also intended to relieve more pressure on public transport as our sixth form numbers grow to ensure safe dismissal of our students at the end of the day.

Should these changes be approved, they would come into effect from 2^nd September 2024. 

If you would like to give your own feedback on this proposal, then please email us at consultation@woolwichpolyboys.co.uk by Friday 29^th March 2024.

We will release the results of the consultation by Friday 3^rd May 2024 via our website and the final decision will be made at that point.

Yours faithfully,

Mr. T. Lawrence
Head of School
Woolwich Polytechnic School for Boys