It has been another fantastic year for the children at Bedwas Junior School. Mr. Cook and I would like to thank the parents and the wider community for supporting the school over the past year and helping the pupils to continue to be well behaved, polite and hardworking; it has been greatly appreciated.  We wish the very best for the Year 6 pupils who are moving on to secondary school.  They have acted as role models for everyone in school and should feel very proud of all their achievements.  Thank you also to the teaching and support staff.  Their ongoing commitment to their respective roles ensures that they have played a major role in the success of the school.

Most of all, however, we would like to thank the children across the school for their continued positive attitude to their learning and their overall contribution to the school. It is an absolute pleasure and a privilege to be part of Bedwas Junior School.

Have a wonderful Summer break and stay safe. We look forward to welcoming all children back to school on Tuesday 4^th September.

We currently have a large number of items of clothing in lost property. These include jumpers, cardigans, polo shirts, PE kits, coats, lunch boxes, water bottles, trainers and rugby boots. Unfortunately, none of the items have names on them so we are unable to return them to the correct owners. All lost property is located at the back of the school hall. Please feel free to come into the school to see if you recognise any of the items. The school hall will have the lost property available for you to view at the end of each school day until the end of term.  Any clothing left after the end of this school year will be donated to a local charity shop.

If you have not yet paid your child’s fees for a musical instrument or an extra-curricular club, we ask that money is sent into school by tomorrow. Thank you in anticipation for your support.

In September, we will be welcoming Mr Dimeck who will be teaching the year 5 pupils in Purple Class. Mr J. Nisbett will be covering Ms. Storey’s maternity cover 5^th November. Until then, Mr Nisbett will continue to teach all classes across the school whilst covering PPA each week.

Miss Bodenham will return to school for 2 weeks in September and then will leave us to begin her maternity leave. Miss Bodenham’s replacement is Mrs J. Richards, who is currently a Deputy Head Teacher in Waunfawr Primary School. Mrs Richards will continue to be Deputy Headteacher across both Bedwas Junior School and Rhydri Primary School and will take on all of Miss Bodenham’s current roles in her absence, which includes taking on a non-class based role as Inclusion Manager. This allows the school to have an even better focus on pupils with additional learning needs.

Unfortunately, we will be saying goodbye to Year 6 class teacher, Miss Slater. Miss Slater will be leaving us as she relocates to take up a teaching position in Cinderford. Miss Slater has made a significant contribution to the school over the last five years and we wish her the very best for the future.

We recently had an energy week where the children had lessons and assemblies linked to saving energy. From this the children have become very passionate about saving energy within school, this includes ensuring lights are switched off when we leave the classrooms, turning whiteboards off and putting laptops into sleep mode. The children also decided they would like to hold an ‘Earth day’ so we spent today using as little or no gas and electricity as possible. We took meter readings last Wednesday and we have done the same today, so we can compare the amount of gas and electricity used on both days. These results will then be used to help us think of new ways to save energy as a school.

We currently have a large number of items of clothing in lost property. These include jumpers, cardigans, polo shirts, PE kits, coats, lunch boxes, water bottles, trainers and rugby boots. Unfortunately, none of the items have names on them so we are unable to return them to the correct owners. All lost property is located at the back of the school hall. Please feel free to come into the school to see if you recognise any of the items. The school hall will have the lost property available for you to view at the end of each school day until the end of term.  Any clothing left after the end of this school year will be donated to a local charity shop.

Over the Easter period, PHS asked pupils across various schools within the Caerphilly County Borough to design their interpretation of what LifeCycle means to them. PHS would like to thank all of the pupils in Bedwas Junior School who took part in this competition.  PHS were overwhelmed by the amount of fantastic entries across all schools, but they have decided to award first place to a pupil in class Yellow Class for her design. The design captured what LifeCycle is about and her representation of LifeCycle was accurate as PHS are trying to ‘create a brighter future’ for generations to come. As the pupil is in Bedwas Juniors, PHS are awarding the school with vouchers to purchase art supplies. The design is being blown up on the side of their Titian trucks for 6 months.  We are all really proud of the design!

Due to the success of previous community book swaps, we will be holding another book swap on Friday 13^th July. This will be a chance for children and parents/carers to share books with each other and discover new books which can be taken home to enjoy. Children may want to use this as an opportunity to recycle books they no longer want or need. Children and parents are invited to donate age appropriate books.

Children’s books will be swapped during school time and children will be given the opportunity to take home books which have been donated. Although donating is not compulsory, first choice of books will go to children who have donated. Teachers will support the children in choosing books, however they are obviously unable to check each book in detail so parents are asked to support with this when books are brought home. If there are any problems, please contact the school.

Parent/carer and teacher’s books can be swapped in the school hall between 3.10pm and 4.00pm on Monday 16^th July. Any children’s books which are not taken home will be used to replenish the school and class libraries and any adult’s books which are not taken home will be donated to a local charity shop.