Newsletters

Newsletter - 25th June

Dear Parents,

It has been a difficult fortnight with the appearance of covid and the upstairs Nursery having to self-isolate, swiftly followed by Year 1 at the Upper School.  Thank you to staff who immediately switched to online teaching and particularly to parents whose lives have been disrupted. There have been no further covid cases in Year 1, so I suspect many of our children already have antibodies. I am as desperate as you to have all of the children at School, so I hope that rules around self-isolation change for September.

I know that many parents are anxious about school-time lost during lockdown, but we have received our end of year English and maths progress scores for all of the children in the Upper School.  Children sit an end of year assessment in exam conditions, which is marked externally.  Scores are standardised according to a child's exact age, and we receive detailed results.  Despite the most recent lockdown, children have made excellent progress in both core areas of learning. I am extremely proud of the children and thankful to you and the teaching staff.  The latest attainment data will be uploaded onto the website, but most notable is the fact that the percentage of children in the 'above average' and 'very high' bands, far outstrips the national average.

The DfE released interim covid advice to schools last Friday.  They advise extreme caution about parental attendance on-site.  Social events should not take place and we should not be inviting parents to watch children's performances.  It reminds me of the huge number of parental visits and interactions that normally take place.  At the end of a tough year, it would be wonderful to meet socially, but sadly it is out of the question.

It is most important that children enjoy their final fortnight at School before the summer holiday.  

Wheelies will take place in the playground on Tuesday 29th June during the school day.  Children will complete a maximum of fifteen circuits of the playground, sponsored by you to raise money for our Cerebral Palsy charity, CPotential. Please remember to send your child into school with their bike or scooter on that day. Sadly, we cannot accommodate parents.

The one parent/child event that will still take place is the new Reception tea party on Thursday 1st July.  Transition into 'big school' is an important step for children.  The event will take place in the playground at the end of the school day and will not be attended by Year 2 children this year. 

We are holding our usual leavers' assembly on Monday 5th July.  Photographs will be taken and sent to parents.  Children will be given autograph books to fill in during their last week at the School.

The Year 2 outreach sale will still take place for the children.  Less expensive items will be sold directly to the children at stalls in the playground on Wednesday 7th July, so please give your child pocket money to spend at the stalls on the day.  More expensive items such as T-shirts and tote bags, can be ordered from a price list which will be sent to you next week.  If you have books or toys to donate to the stall, please send them into School as soon as possible. Monies raised will be sent to the Marine Conservation Society.

Amy, our dance teacher, always leads a Year 2 tap dancing class/performance for parents.  Parents are invited to watch the class via Zoom at 3.00pm on Thursday 8th July.  Lilly will forward a zoom invitation.

There are no end of term shows this year, but Hannah, our music teacher, will lead each class in a singing performance (in the open air) on the final day of term Friday 9th July.  Reception children will sing at 10.00am,  Year 1 children at 10.45am and Year 2 children at 11.30am.  Reception and Year 1 children can be taken home afterwards by prior arrangement with Lilly, or can be collected at midday when the school year officially ends. 

Enjoy the newsletter that follows.  Please stay well and enjoy the weekend ahead.

Warm wishes,

Kate

Upper School News

Year 2

This week has been another busy one for Year 2. With only two more weeks to go until the children graduate from the Upper School, they have been making the most of their time spent with each other. In literacy, they focused on ‘Happy Poems’, performing and writing their own.  

The children are also continuing to create amazing products for their Outreach stall, raising funds for the ‘Marine Conservation Society’. They are very excited to get selling and show off all of their hard work! From painted t-shirts to beautifully constructed papier mache bowls, framed art posters to colourful shopper bags, there is certainly something here for everyone. The children have also been starting to think about the changes animals and humans go through within their life cycles, and have linked this to seasonal changes, illustrating their ideas through careful pencil drawings.  

For the first time, our Year 2 children were lucky enough to have the opportunity to spend two of their lunchtime play sessions at the King Henry’s Walk Adventure playground. They had an absolute whale of a time and cannot wait to spend more time there over the next couple of weeks. I would also like to thank Glenn and Martha for their dedication and commitment this week as covid restrictions continue to present us with new challenges. You have both been absolutely incredible, and instrumental in keeping things running smoothly throughout my absence in the classroom, albeit with some slight technical hitches!  

As the end of term draws near, emotions run high, and hearing the children sing their hearts out to ‘When I grow up,’ is in equal parts touching and sad. The children really are growing up so quickly, and very soon it will be time for them to fly the Children’s House nest and make the journey to their new schools. Next week we will be starting to look back at our time at the Children’s House, think about our favourite memories and what we will be looking forward to next year. I can guarantee it will likely be rather an emotional week for both children and grown-ups. 

Aisha

Year 1

It’s been a rather unusual couple of weeks! Firstly, the drama of the Chilterns trip being postponed, swiftly followed by a sudden return to self-isolation. We ended up having a lovely day at King Henry’s Walk Garden and the adventure playground just before this though, and it was lucky we ended up spending so much time outdoors. It is unfortunate that we made it so close to the end of the year before having to make a return to home learning! For those who managed to make a model town, the results were fantastic. Thank you for supporting your children with them. I know some of you have struggled to do Seesaw work this week and that’s no problem at all. I hope anyone that has been ill makes a full and speedy recovery, and that everyone else manages to keep well. 

Have a great weekend. 

Rick 

Reception

If Reception were to appear on Mastermind, their specialist subject would undoubtedly be 'Minibeasts'!  Over the past couple of weeks, they have extended their knowledge of creepy crawlies to include bees, ladybirds, slugs, and snails and even met a whole host of bugs in person on our 'Minibeast Safari'.  Suffice to say, they have really done their research and are fast becoming experts in this field.  We can tell the children look forward to proving just how much they have learnt in our weekly Bug Quiz!

We have also been putting their creative abilities to the test and they have produced some wonderful artwork as a result.  Each child carefully selected the materials and media they wanted to work with to create this hive of exquisite and beautifully unique bees.  When it came to the artistic interpretation of snails, the children enjoyed working with clay and experimenting with different collage techniques.  Inspired by Matisse’s ‘cut out’ work, they created incredible versions of ‘The Snail’ showcasing that they too can paint with scissors.  They even found time to write some poetry about slugs and snails and we were amazed at how well they used rhyming words to inject both personality and humour into their poems.

'The Bad Tempered Ladybird' by Eric Carle provided us with a rich context for learning about time.  We made our own clocks so we could practise reading and writing times and we had fun exploring activities that take seconds, minutes, and hours.  'The Creepy Crawly Cafe' had us recognising different coins and totting up money to buy and sell items! 

We cannot believe we are coming to the end of the school year! Here's to a fun filled last couple of weeks!

Taiba and Lucy

Nursery News

Upstairs Nursery

The children have loved being back together again!  

They were very excited when the caterpillars arrived at Nursery in response to their wonderful letters inviting them to visits us! We have been carefully observing them each day and the children made some wonderful observations:  

Leo: “They have lots of tiny legs and hairs.” 

Jack: “The caterpillars look spiky. That one is moving – it’s a bit like a centipede when it moves.” 

Huxley: “They are very wiggly and furry - they need to keep eating.” 

Eva: “The caterpillars are getting bigger and they are crawling up to the top.” 

Jackson: “One caterpillar is hanging …he might make a cocoon soon.” 

The children can’t wait to witness the metamorphosis process and are keeping a close eye on them.  

This week we have also enjoyed engaging in collaborative large-scale art are inspired by beehives, explored doubling in maths with ladybirds and had lots of fun completing our circuit course during Sports Day. The children demonstrated great enthusiasm and team spirit!  

Jess, Anita and Zoe 

Downstairs Nursery

The children had so much fun last week exploring wind, air and flight. We first looked at insects and birds, and talked about their wings, then learnt about things that fly that do not have wings, such as hot air balloons, helicopters and kites.

The children combined a variety of materials to make kites and had a go at weaving ribbons to create their own pair of wings. They really enjoyed exploring tempo and using their imagination to mark make on a large scale whilst listening to The Flight of the Bumblebee.

The transformation of our Home Corner into a Kite Shop proved to be very popular! It was wonderful to see the children using their creative and critical thinking skills to plan and make decisions about how to solve problems, to test their ideas and to play with possibilities.

This week’s focus has been on caterpillars and butterflies. The children have welcomed some tiny and very hungry caterpillars into school and are very excited to follow the changes that they will go through, as they metamorphose into butterflies.

Our Sports Day was on Tuesday at Almorah Garden. The children enthusiastically joined in obstacle courses, egg and spoon races and parachute games, and showed great resilience and team spirit. We are all very proud of them!

Mihaela, Peny, Maddy and Kate