Newsletters

25/26 - Autumn 2, Week 5

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Dear parents and carers,

It has been an incredibly festive week at William Ford, filled with joy, celebration and togetherness. From our Christmas dinner and iSingPop concert, to a visit from Santa, the Williams Winter Wonderland Christmas Bazaar and, of course, Christmas Jumper Day today, the school has been full of excitement and smiles. These events do not happen by accident. They are the result of staff working incredibly hard behind the scenes and pulling together to create memorable experiences for our pupils. Thank you to every member of staff for the time, energy and care you continue to give.

You can read more about each of these events below and on our website, where full news articles and photo albums are available. We hope you enjoy sharing these moments with your children and seeing the range of experiences they are able to enjoy at school.

Also, a group of our Rights Respecting Ambassadors from across the school attended a visit to Barking Town Hall. This was a valuable opportunity for pupils to learn more about democracy, rights and responsibilities in action. You can read more about this visit in the news articles below.

We would also like to celebrate the incredible efforts of Ava, who completed a 5km walk/run yesterday in support of Mind, raising an amazing £530 for the mental health charity. In addition, Ava visited St Francis Hospice on Saturday, where she generously donated 50 selection boxes and took the time to meet patients and their families. This is a wonderful example of kindness, compassion and thinking of others, and we are incredibly proud of her.

In Collective Worship this week, pupils have continued exploring the story of Daniel, alongside learning about the characteristics of Jesus. The focus this week has been on forgiveness and why it is such an important value within our school community, helping us to build positive relationships and move forward together.

Looking ahead to next week, we are very much looking forward to our Christmas services at Dagenham Parish Church on Tuesday, as well as our Christmas disco taking place on Thursday. A reminder that school will close at 1.30pm on Friday, and we will send out one final newsletter next week.

Finally, a last call to parents to please complete our parent survey. Your feedback is genuinely invaluable and has directly shaped many aspects of school life, including regular newsletters, clearer information about what pupils are learning and will learn next, curriculum and spelling information on the website, website updates and the sharing of photo albums from trips and events. At a busy and tiring time of year for staff, it is also hugely appreciated to be able to share the positive feedback that so many of you have already given. Data so far shows the survey is taking no more than four minutes to complete. Please click the link below or scan the QR code to take part.

Survey link: https://forms.office.com/e/dyPLPw3FD4

I pray you all have a wonderful weekend.

 

Mr. David Huntingford

Headteacher

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As we head towards Christmas, the build-up is always full of excitement, special activities and plenty of festive energy!  

I wanted to share a resource that I’ve found particularly helpful in supporting children with autism who may find the festivities and changes in routines particularly overwhelming.  

You can read it here: Preparing for Christmas: autism resources 

I hope you find it useful, and I wish you a peaceful, restful and healthy Christmas break when it arrives.

We would like to say a huge thank you to everyone who donated and helped with the William Ford Winter Wonderland. 

Staff and parents collected and donated their time, ideas and physical items. All money raised goes back to the children to provide them with special treats and activities throughout the year.

Businesses such as 

Morrisons

Flip out

Kings 

West Ham 

Dagenham and Redbridge 

 

Huge thanks to everyone who helped make the event possible. Businesses and individuals you have all been amazing and generous.

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Year Three

Kaleb

Year Four

Kris

Year Five

Jameel

Year Six

Justin

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Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak 

 

This is a fun picture book which tells the story of a little boy who dressed up as a wolf and causes mischief. I love the pictures in the book the best. 

 

Darcie 4F 

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Christmas Church Service Y3-4
9:30am – 10:30am
16
December
Christmas Church Service Y5-6
11:00am – 12:00pm
16
December
Virtual Pantomime - Cinderella School Hall - all year groups
2:00pm – 3:00pm
17
December
School Disco Years 3 & 4
1:30pm – 3:00pm
18
December
School Disco Years 5 & 6
3:30pm – 5:00pm
18
December
School Finished at 1.30PM
1:30pm – 3:30pm
19
December

We are kindly asking for food donations for the school disco and class parties 

Crisps, biscuits -  individually wrapped foods for the school disco's

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12 Dec 2025
Ava's Amazing Charity Contributions
Ava from 3BL,  tells us about how she raised money for MIND and donated selection boxes to St Francis Hospice
Read more
12 Dec 2025
William's Winter Wonderland - Christmas Bazaar
William's Winter Wonderland 2025 brings festive joy to William Ford School
Read more
11 Dec 2025
Barking Town Hall - Rights Respecting Schools
William Ford speaking about Article Seven: Every child has the right to be registered at birth, to have a name and nationality, and, as far as possible, to know and be cared for by their parents.
Read more
11 Dec 2025
iSingPop 2025 - inc videos
Our unique pop concert, celebrating the birth of Jesus
Read more
11 Dec 2025
Christmas Dinner and Visit from Santa
Christmas at William Ford
Read more
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Year Three

It has been an incredibly busy but exciting week in Year 3. 

What we have learnt about this week 

In English, the children have learnt about the features of a postcard. They then used these features to plan and write their own postcard.  

 

In maths, we have continued to work on multiplication and have focused on multiplying and dividing by 3.  

 

In R.E. this week, the children enjoyed making Christingles and learning the symbolism of each element.  

 

We have discussed who made the pyramids by looking at historical events to inform our understanding. We have also finished designing and painting our own papyrus paper in our art lesson. 

 

The children have begun to practise their sewin skills in preparation for next week’s design and technology lessons. 

 

What we will learn about next week 

As the end of term approaches, we will be focussing on designing and making a textile Egyptian collar for our design and technology unit of work.  

In science the children will use shadow puppets to retell the nativity story. 

We will also use our creative skills on the iPads to design a Christmas jumper  and we will complete some Christmas craft. 

We wish you an enjoyable and restful weekend. 

Year Four 

Year 4 have worked incredibly hard this week and shown great focus across all subjects. 

What we have learnt about this week 

In English, the children wrote their own continuation of Journey to Jo’burg, bringing their plans from last week to life in full stories. They worked carefully to keep the tone and characters consistent. 

In Maths, we carried on with multiplication and division, including lots of practice with the 9-times table. The children tackled problem-solving activities that really tested their reasoning skills. 

In RE, we explored where and when people use the Bible, thinking about its role in everyday life and special occasions. 

In Art, we finished our paisley pattern tiles ready for printing – the designs look amazing! 

We also enjoyed a brilliant Christmas Dinner together and loved seeing everyone in their colourful Christmas jumpers. What a festive end to the week! 

What we will learn about next week 

Next week in English, we will be finishing our stories based on Journey to Jo’burg, polishing them for a final piece of writing. 

In Maths, we will continue working on multiplication and division, building confidence and fluency through problem-solving activities. 

In RE, we will look at the Gospels and the Nativity story within Matthew and Luke. The children will then create Christmas cards with designs inspired by one of these accounts. 

Have a lovely weekend! 

Year Five

It has been yet another action-packed week in Year 5, as we begin the countdown to Christmas! 

 

What we have learnt about this week 

This week in Year 5, pupils have had an amazing collection of activities as the build up to Christmas becomes more of a reality!  

 

We began the week on Monday, we our annual UK day, which was a great success. Pupils dressed up and then explored further knowledge about the UK, designing a new Union flag, incorporating the Welsh flag, as well as learning about traditional UK food. They were also treated to some typical British sports games – Toss the caber (Scottish Highland sport), Gaelic football (a typical Irish game) and tennis.  

 

In maths, we have continued our unit on fractions as the pupils have tackled adding to a mixed number.  

 

In English, pupils have been writing their narrative, relating to the book: The Boy at the Back of the Class. Pupils used dialogue to write a narrative. 

 

In Science/DT, we had the privilege of having a workshop, run by the team from Billingsgate market. Pupils were educated in the fishing system in the UK, they learnt about different types of fish that we farm and sell in the UK and they were lucky enough to get up close and personal with a variety of fish, as well as an octopus!  

 

We hope you have a brilliant weekend and we look forward to our Christmassy events next week! 

Year Six

We are fast approaching the end of term and it has been fantastic for the Year 6 pupils to be involved in school events such as ISingPop and our annual Christmas Jumper Day.  As always, the children found Christmas dinner delicious so a big shout out to Cook from Year 6! 

 

 What we have learnt about this week 

The children have continued working hard in their English lessons this week during which they wrote and edited their powerful speeches.  It has been great reading their work, they have clearly worked hard during the research and planning phase of this task in order to produce such powerful speeches.  In maths, the children have begun their topic of measuring units; during their lessons they have begun to explore a number of metric measures and practised converting between different measures. In science, the children have investigated the effect of the length of wire on resistance in an electrical circuit.  They then used this new knowledge to help them design a festive electrical circuit.  The children have also begun creating their show-piece mantle of the expert virtual exhibits by using the Freeform app on the school IPads. 

What we will learn about next week 

Despite being the last week of term, the Year 6 teachers have lots of curriculum-based activities planned for the children; this includes continuing their virtual exhibits to conclude their historical study of the Victorians, moving on to the next stage in their science lessons in their planning and creating of a festive electrical circuit and using drama to help explore an alternative ending for the novel ‘The Last Bear’ which is our focus text in English. 

 

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Each week, staff select two children from each class who have shown effort and commitment to upholding an aspect of our school vision, shown at the bottom of the page. Congratulations to this week’s ‘stars of the week’ for their tremendous endeavours!

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Scheduled Community Food Bank deliveries over Christmas

Tuesday 23rd December 2025 and Wednesday 31st December 2025

Join our community group for updates and to get the up-to-date delivery information.

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