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05.05.23
Dear Parents
We’ve all been feeling celebratory these first few weeks of term, building up to our second long weekend! Fluttering bunting in the playground, some painted with union jacks by the children; a royal palace (in the Wendy House), complete with red carpet and throne and ever changing royal family and today; biscuit decorating for our Coronation tea - all contributing to a build up of anticipation to this weekend’s festivities.
The children marched regally into today’s Celebration Assembly to Handel’s Zadok the Priest and, as for every week, we celebrated children from each class for a variety of reasons. These included: lovely writing in Reception, confidence in reading aloud in Year 1, perseverance in Maths in Year 2 and good attitudes, lovely manners and kindness especially when welcoming visitors, from pupils in all classes. This was particularly noted with regard to our new addition to Year 1, Josh, who joined us at the beginning of this week, and who has been warmly taken care of by peers. Welcome again to Josh and family to The Children’s House!
It's the season for growth! Some of the children are noticeably taller, sprouting away from their current year groups as we edge towards the summer. Reception and Year One have been planting sunflowers and beans as this is their termly theme, and there are tadpoles in Years One and Two. Do pop your head in and have a look, remembering that Open Classrooms is happening on the morning of Thursday 25th May.
Our Action Plan, in response to the Inspection findings, has now gone to the DFE and we await a date for the progress monitoring visit. We are reaping the benefits of working with Liz Coley, a consultant and ex-ISI and Ofsted inspector who was instrumental in writing the ISSRs (the Independent School Standards & Regulations). Her detailed and precise knowledge of the regulations are proving invaluable, and she’s quite the character, full of stories and able to recite and rapidly locate specific references in both the ISSRs and the EYFS standards. She continues to be in touch with us, reviewing our processes and responding to queries.
We’re advertising for a Teaching Assistant for September and have begun interviewing. Do publicise this amongst your networks.
Taiba and I attended an 11+ event this week at Forest School, in which we learnt about their new 11+ process. Pupils will sit digital assessments, using a platform called Atom Learning, plus a writing task and interview. They are looking specifically for children who demonstrate collaboration, communication, and leadership skills as well as intellectual curiosity. We are currently finalising our Year 4-6 curriculum, keeping these essential qualities in mind.
The Good School’s Guide visited yesterday and I will share their report with you when it comes in. They were extremely impressed, and told me that our children were some of the most chatty and friendly she had come across on her many visits to schools. They had plenty to share about their work and were proud to show off their school. Bravo!
Happy Coronation weekend, full of quiche and cucumber sandwiches!
Ellie
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Some upcoming dates -
Please note the school calendar can be found here (no login required)
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Nursery Dates
*Monday 8th May
Bank Holiday
*W/C Tuesday 9th May
Themed Week- Science and Healthy Living Mental Health Awareness Week
*Friday 12th May
Parent Forum Meeting
*Monday 15th May
Early Reading/Phonics Workshop for parents
*Friday 19th May
Wheelies
*Friday 16th June
Nursery Sports Day - details TBC
*Saturday 24th June
Summer Fair
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Upper School Dates
*Monday 8th May
Bank Holiday
*w/c Tuesday 9th May
Themed Week: Science & Healthy Living Mental Health Awareness Week
*Wednesday 10th May
Piano & cello lessons (missed on Monday)
*Friday 12th May
Reception trip to Kew Gardens
Parent Forum Meeting
Reception Trip to Kew Gardens
*Tuesday 16th May
Year 2 Trip to Florence Nightingale Museum
*Wednesday 17th May
Piano & cello lessons swapped from Monday 15th
*Friday 19th May
Wheelies for both Nursery and Upper School children
*Wednesday 24th May
Piano & cello lessons swapped from Monday 22nd
*Wednesday 24th May
Class and whole school photos
*Thursday 25th May
Open Classrooms
*Thursday 25th May
Last day of school before half term
*Saturday 24th June
Summer Fair
*Wednesday 5th July 2-4pm
Summer Concert
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Eco Committee and School Council news
As spring finally brings some warmer weather and light we are very happy to be spending more time outdoors, exploring and learning about plants and growth. This has included trips to King Henry’s Walk Garden, planting seeds, and we are excited that the nature table is up and running in the playground! The children have been very curious to see what they can find amongst the logs and soil, using magnifying glasses for a closer inspection. A variety of minibeasts are being introduced, much to the children’s delight. We also have tadpoles in the classrooms, and the children are loving watching them grow every day. Many thanks to the Thorold family for allowing David to collect these from their garden!
We will soon be meeting with the architects of the St Jude’s Street outdoor space development – it’s lovely that our children can be involved in this and input their ideas for things they would like to see happening.
Have a lovely long weekend
Rick
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Relationships and Sex Education
Thank you to those who were able to attend our RSE (Relationships and Sex Education) parent sessions for Year 1, Year 2, and Year 3 pupils. These sessions were specifically for parents and aimed to provide an understanding of our approach to teaching RSE. We covered topics such as how we begin introducing the concept of consent, healthy relationships, and how we adapt our teaching to suit each year group. If you were unable to attend the sessions, recordings of these are available for each year group:
RSE Parent session Year 1 Recording 2023:
RSE Parent session Year 2 Recording 2023:
RSE Parent session Year 3 Recording 2023:
We hope that you find these resources helpful in supporting your child's education. We also want to remind you that our school has an open-door policy, and we encourage parents to reach out to us with any questions or concerns you may have.
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PE & Games News
Dear Parents,
It has been a shiny start to the summer term! Children have created a PE & Games display of their favourite sports and all the skills learned throughout the year. I am very proud of them, not only for how much they have learnt and improved but because other members of the staff and myself can see how much they are getting better at embracing the rules and helping each other when playing games and team sports. Soon you will be able to witness it by yourselves on a very special day!
The Downstairs Nursery children had thier very first PE lesson at the US this week, working on spatial awareness. They could not have been more excited. Upstairs we have started working on ball skills with our feet and cooperative games such as 'Pirates control'.
In the Upper School it is all about football this half term!
In Reception, on Mondays, children are working on ball skills with their feet, becoming magicians with the ball! They are learning to control, dribble the ball around to collect magic, and even learning some rhymes such as ‘Toe, toe, toe, no, no, no’.
On Wednesdays, children are learning how to play, cooperate, embrace the rules and develop simple strategies to be able to play simple games, like ‘spiders and mosquitoes’, or ‘stuck in the mud’. With these games we are also focusing on developing values such as honesty and teamwork.
In Y1 we have started our long unit of ball skills with football. Children are really enjoying this unit and working hard to learn as much as possible to become better footballers. Controlling, passing and dribbling the ball with the inside and the sole of the foot in different activities and games have been their main objectives these first weeks and they have reached them with excellence.
Y2 and Y3 children have been enjoying the new footballs, slightly larger and heavier than the others, and developing their control, passes, and dribbling skills. Even some children that before the lessons did not enjoy football particularly have approached games like “Cross the river” or “The gates” with enthusiasm. They have been applying their learning and collaboration skills to get better results.
Have a great weekend!
Pablo
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Online Safety News
With the increasing use of online platforms and social media, it's essential that we stay informed and vigilant about the risks associated with these technologies.
Currently, an Online Harms bill is going through Parliament, highlighting the urgent need for safer internet use, especially for children. In fact, the NSPCC has referred to the internet as the "Wild West," emphasizing the importance of taking steps to protect our children.
Despite age ratings for many online and social media platforms, including YouTube, WhatsApp, and TikTok, children still regularly use them. Managing screen time on these platforms can be challenging because of addictive design features and the easy access to extreme and dangerous content. Even titles such as "Huggy Wuggy" can mask violent or scary video content.
We urge parents to remain actively involved in their child's online life, just as we do when teaching them to swim or cross the road. We also encourage you to consider the risks associated with social media carefully. Think of social media as junk food - not no tech, but good tech.
To help with this, we recommend that you create a "Digital Diet" and set boundaries around technology use, such as screen-free mealtimes and bedtimes, no technology in bedrooms, and gaming only on weekends. It's also essential to choose quality programs and films to watch together and stay actively involved in choosing apps and online games.
To help you manage your child's online safety, we recommend using parental control and monitoring tools, such as Google Family Link, Apple ScreenTime, and Microsoft Family Safety. We also encourage you to stay informed about online safety risks by visiting websites like https://parentsafe.lgfl.net and https://www.internetmatters.org
If you need further support, please don't hesitate to reach out to us. We have an open-door policy and are always here to help.
Thank you for your attention to this important matter.
Best regards,
Stay safe online!
Sincerely,
David.
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Year 3 News
The first few weeks of our summer term have flown and Year 3 are off to a tremendous start. I’m sure by the end of this school year some of the children will have outgrown their desks at the rate they’re shooting up!
The class had a fantastic time learning about the Islamic religion whilst at London Central Mosque last week; it was superb to listen to the children share their knowledge, as well as having a tour of the mosque and learning lots about the five pillars of Islam. Special thanks to Clare for accompanying us on our trip!
During the maths lessons, Year 3 have been mastering fractions; the class can now competently find equivalents and identify patterns when using fractions on a scale. Additionally, the children worked exceptionally well in pairs whilst tackling some difficult reasoning and problem solving challenges.
English has focused on setting descriptions and Year 3 have demonstrated some exceptional vocabulary, such as ‘ear-poppingly hot’ ‘grim-reaper like’ and ‘living hell’ when describing a grotto deep inside a volcano. Additionally, the whole class have shown great skill when applying inverted commas to both direct speech and quotes.
Starting our new topics (Light and ‘Royal Rivalry’) has been lots of fun. The class have excelled at identifying light sources as well as busting myths left, right and centre. In case you didn’t know, the moon is NOT a light source and Vikings did not have horns on their helmets! The children also enjoyed finding out that we still use some Viking words today, such as egg, mud and dirt.
What a fantastic two weeks, lets hope the next two are just as exciting!
Kate
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Year 2 News
Year 2 have come back after the Easter holidays with real focus and determination to enjoy the last term! We have been so impressed with their efforts and hard work over the last 10 days!
Our first week started with a mixture of emotions as we all wished the wonderful Izzy well for her maternity leave. We have already pencilled in some potential catch-up Zoom calls, and we all miss her energy and laughter! All the children have welcomed Laurel to our classroom, and we all are looking forward to having her as part of the Year 2 family for the rest of the year.
In Literacy, we have been reading the hilarious Dairy of a Wombat by Jackie French. Simple past and past progressive has been the name of the game with this excellent text and the children are getting ready to write their own diary entries.
In Topic, we have been learning all about animals (including humans) and sorting animals and their offspring, discovering what metamorphosis means and what life cycles are. We also welcomed an army of tadpoles to our classroom and we have already seen them grow so quickly. Some of them have already started to grow their legs!
In Numeracy we have been learning about how to tell the time with lots of matching and pairing activities. We have been looking at being very precise with where our minute and hour hands go!
James
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Year 1 News
Year 1 have had a very green-fingered start to the Summer term as they began to explore their final topic, Plants and Growth. The children started off their learning by thinking what they already know, and asking questions about what they’d like to find out. They had many interesting questions to ask, which I hope we will be able to answer as we move through the term and become plant detectives. As botanists the children have been dissecting and labelling parts of the plant and their functions. They used magnifying glasses to look closely at parts hidden within the flower. They also became bean experts and wrote incredible explanation texts all about the life cycle of a bean. The children planted beans in zip lock bags by the window, as well as in soil, and will be monitoring their growth closely to see which conditions allow for the tallest and healthiest bean plants.
We were lucky enough to visit the Garden Classroom at King Henry’s Walk Garden this week and take part in a workshop all about trees. The children understood that trees fall into two categories, deciduous and evergreen. They embarked on a tree hunt to locate many different trees within the garden, describing their features before finishing with a bark rubbing exercise. The sun was shining and it was a perfect day to be immersed in one of our favourite local pockets of nature.
In Maths the children have been working practically and have been understanding how to measure and compare capacity and volume using non-standard units. At one point the classroom floor almost began to resemble a swimming pool, but the children delighted in practising their pouring skills. Our Jigsaw lessons have started and the Children’s focus for this term is relationships. They have been having many meaningful discussions about what makes a good friend, and how to make friends. It has been fantastic to see the children putting these actions into practise throughout the day and I am excited to see what the rest of the Summer has to bring.
Aisha
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Reception News
It has been a joy seeing the children and hearing all about their exciting Easter breaks. This term Reception will be exploring the topic ‘Growth’. To begin the topic the class planted their own sunflower seeds. The children explored the book ‘Sam Plants a Sunflower’ and used their phonic knowledge to write instructions explaining the steps needed to plant a sunflower. The class decorated individual pots and planted their seeds in them. Reception also looked closely at Vincent Van Gogh’s ‘Sunflowers’ we discussed the colours, texture and style of the painting, the children created their own beautiful compositions, using small marks to mimic Van Gogh’s style of painting. In maths the class looked at number bonds of 10 and 20 as well as doubling. The children created sunflowers and ladybirds to represent a number bond.
Last week Reception explored vegetables. The children used recycled materials to create a collage of their favourite veggies and then wrote their own version of ‘Oliver’s Vegetables. Following our trip to King Henry’s Walk allotment the class discussed the story ‘Florette’, brainstorming ways in which we can grow our own produce in urban areas. The children looked closely at different ways vegetables can grow, above and below ground, they then created a portrait of root vegetables. Reception culminated their week by making their own vegetable soup. The class measured their ingredients with care and chopped their vegetables into halves and quarters. The result was scrumptious!
This week Reception have been looking at flowers and the artist ‘Georgia O’Keefe’. The children used tissue to mould 3D flowers and explored graduating colours to paint them. The class used their phonic knowledge to write about the stories ‘Poppy and The Blooms’ and ‘Wild’. They used recycled materials to create their own ‘Wild’ characters. Reception also developed their fine-motor skills by threading ribbon through hessian to create a background for their flower display.
Zoe and Lucy
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Nursery
Welcome back to a new term filled with warmth and sunshine, offering endless opportunities for outdoor activities and learning. The Downstairs class has already embarked on an exciting adventure of Monday morning trips to the Upper School for sports sessions with Pablo, now that they are that bit older. The children have welcomed the change of routine and pace with great enthusiasm, and staff have noted the significant benefits to their physical development and mental wellbeing. Meanwhile, our trip to KHW garden was a hit with the pre-reception children, who couldn't wait to share their discoveries of plants and minibeasts with every adult at the nursery.
As always, we are keen to celebrate and showcase the children's impressive work this term, which already covers most of the display boards. We are excited to invite nursery parents to attend the open classroom mornings this half term, where you can see first-hand the progress and learning that the children have achieved so far. Downstairs, I saw the children create self-portraits, and reflect on their growth and changes since they were babies. It's been delightful to see them recognize similarities and differences, and to witness their curiosity and wonder about how they continue to develop. Upstairs, the class explored the fascinating world of life cycles and changes, planting seeds, studying plants and flowers, and learning from the artist Georgia O'Keeffe. Through scientific investigation and critical thinking, they are beginning to develop a great understanding of the world around them.
We had the most exciting run up to the end of the week, where we prepared for the King's coronation. Everyone sent out invitations, baked biscuits, and made bunting for the ultimate afternoon tea party. We all had a royally fun time! We have more exciting activities planned for the rest of the term, so read on to learn about all the accomplishments at the start of what promises to be an enjoyable and rewarding term.
Have a lovely bank holiday weekend,
Taiba
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Upstairs Nursery News
We have started this term’s topic with a visit to King Henry’s Walk Garden, a great opportunity for the children to learn about the environment that surrounds them. They were buzzing with excitement to explore every corner of the garden and were curious to learn about the variety of plants growing there. The children used the IPads to record their favourite flowers, quietly observed the birds eating seeds, and had lots of questions to ask about planting whilst inside the greenhouse. The pond area was a massive attraction as well, as the sunny weather encouraged the insects to be active. The garden filled with copious amounts of laughter as the children watched a very entertaining show led by pond skaters and mosquitoes!
The trip to the garden inspired the children to grow their own mini gardens at the nursery. Through stories such as ‘Eddie’s Garden’ and ‘A Seed in Need’, the children began to look closely at the life cycle of a plant and the conditions needed for a seed to grow. Here we saw the children lead the direction of their learning as they came up with research questions to investigate: “Can we grow seeds in the dark?”, “Do seeds need soil to grow?” and “Why are leaves green?”. They have begun carrying out a variety of these experiments, making predictions and monitoring the changes that take place.
‘The Tiny Seed’ story was thoroughly enjoyed by the children this week. They have used their imagination to create alternative endings as they have wondered where the seed will travel next. The children applied their phonic knowledge to write captions and sentences and created wonderful drawings to illustrate their ideas. Many of the children also enjoyed working collaboratively with friends to act out their stories – what fun they had!
Providing opportunities for children to work with varied materials helps children develop critical thinking skills and enhances their ability to problem solve creatively. These skills were shown and developed whilst working with natural materials, to create transient art garden scenes. The children impressed us with their attention to detail and use of expressive language to describe and explain their creations.
In maths, our focus has been on measuring length and height. The children got busy using rulers, as well as cubes and other non-standard units, to measure, compare and order plants. It was wonderful to witness them using maths related vocabulary appropriately.
We are ending our week with a Coronation Tea party and the children have been excited to lead the preparations by painting bunting, making crowns and baking biscuits!
The Upstairs Team
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Downstairs Nursery News
The children at the Downstairs Nursery have been learning about how we grow. We read books about babies, looked at our baby pictures, and discussed similarities and changes to how we look now, and our abilities. We measured our heights using blocks and straw and we painted self-portraits.
This week has been all about Spring! We discussed seasonal changes and looked for Spring signs during our walks and Garden visits. The children noticed that the leaves on the trees were green again and they were excited to collect flowers, plants, and sticks. Everyone was incredibly proud of their flower collages which were created using a variety of techniques and materials. In a bid to nurture their green thumbs, the children planted Freesia bulbs in pots and eagerly await the first signs of growth. They used their senses to explore planting in soil and had lots of fun transferring it with their spades.
The King's Coronation at the Nursery was an occasion fit for royalty. The children helped make UK flag buntings and turned the home corner into the King's carriage. They also made crowns using clay and baked crown-shaped biscuits. Our royal tea party was a resplendent affair, celebrated in true Children’s House style with a sumptuous spread!
The Downstairs Team
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