Keep up to date with all the latest news happening in school at the moment.

• Pedestrian Training

  Wed 10 Nov 2021

  Whitehall Junior School has taken part in Practical Pedestrian Training during November for Years 3, 4 and 5 pupils during the school day. This training was led by The Road Safety and School Travel Team, London Borough of Hillingdon and took place out of the school grounds on residential streets surrounding the school.  The children gained vital safety tips during their session and now all know to remember - Stop, Look, Listen...THINK!

  

• Young Shakespeare Company

  Thu 04 Nov 2021

  The Young Shakespeare Company visited Whitehall today to perform 'Macbeth' to all of Year 5 in preparation for their study of this Shakespeare text in their upcoming English lessons.  The performance was thoroughly enjoyed by all of the children and they now have a thorough understanding of the story plot and main characters ready for their study of this text.  The Year 5 pupils are very much looking forward to their upcoming English lessons where they can explore this play in greater depth.  

  

• Launch of our New Reading Scheme!

  Tue 02 Nov 2021

  Today marks the launch of our new reading scheme! We are really excited to unveil over 2,000 books - a great mix of fiction and non-fiction reading, which is carefully tailored to match pupils' decoding and encoding ability. All pupils have had a personalised reading assessment which feeds directly into our new PM Benchmark scheme, ensuring that the book they are reading (and taking home to read) is precisely aligned to their current ability. There were a lot of enthusiastic readers around the shelves today!

  

• Festival of the Month: Diwali

  Mon 01 Nov 2021

  Thursday 4th November marks the start of Diwali - 'The Festival of Lights'. This festival (translated from the sanskrit 'dipavali' meaning 'rows of lights'), is celebrated by Hindus, Sikhs, Jains and even some Buddhists across the world, between October and November, based on the Hindu lunar calendar. Lights, candles, lamps (called 'diyas' or 'divas') and fireworks are all lit to represent light over darkness, and to celebrate Prince Rama and his wife, Princess Sita, returning to their home of Ayodhya in India after 14 years away, as told in the Hindu epic 'The Ramayana'. Throughout this festival, which lasts for 5 days, worshippers will also pray, sing, dance, decorate their homes with 'rangoli' (colourful designs and patterns made from sand rice and flower petals), exchange gifts and sweets (called mithai), wear new colourful clothes and feast with family and friends. It is a time of light, love, warmth and positive new beginnings, and so it also signifies the start of the Hindu new year. We would like to wish all those celebrating a very happy Diwali and invite you to share your experiences of the festival with us, if you would like.