Autumn Term Issue 2: 11th September 2026
Flourishing in the love of God, love of life, love of learning
Dear Families,
Our first full week has been fantastic! It has been a real pleasure to see our Reception children settling in so wonderfully, making new friends and embracing school life with such enthusiasm.
We are also thoroughly enjoying our new catering service and menu. There has been lots of positive "yummy" feedback from the children so far, which has been lovely to hear!
Thank you to everyone who has been able to attend our Meet the Teacher sessions. It has been wonderful to connect with so many families. For those who have been unable to attend, or who would like to revisit the information shared, we will be sending out copies of the presentation slides once all sessions have been completed.
We are very much looking forward to our annual International Evening on Friday 25th September, immediately after school until 5:00pm on the playground. This is always a wonderful celebration of our diverse school community, and all families are warmly invited to join us. We encourage families to bring a much-loved favourite dish that represents their culture or heritage to share with others, while enjoying the music, food and welcoming atmosphere. Our class representatives will also be sharing more information about ways you can help us celebrate and learn about the rich cultural traditions within our community.
Finally, I have a small request on behalf of our neighbours. When collecting children from after-school clubs, please be mindful not to leave car engines idling and avoid parking across driveways. We are grateful for your support in helping us maintain positive relationships with those who live around our school.
Thank you, as always, for your continued support.
Have a wonderful weekend.
With warmest wishes,
Alli
Reception
What a fantastic start to Reception! The children have been busy discovering the whole new world of school and are already becoming familiar with many of our daily routines. By the time we take the register each morning, everyone is settled and ready to learn and have fun.
We have loved starting Drawing Club, where the children are enjoying purposeful mark-making every day. In Phonics, we have been exploring sounds, syllables and rhymes through nursery rhymes, building the foundations for learning letter sounds. In Maths, we have been looking closely, spotting differences and learning to subitise groups of two and three.
In RE and PSHE, we have been celebrating how special and unique we all are and learning about belonging to our class family and school community. Even at lunchtime, the children are developing independence and responsibility.
Most importantly, there has been lots of choosing and learning because in Reception, play is the work!
We are so proud of how well the children have settled, shown kindness to one another and embraced every new challenge.
Please keep supporting our mantra:
"One hug, one kiss, and in I go!"
And a very important reminder: please label all clothes, bags and water bottles.
Year 1
Year One have had a fabulous start to the new school year! We have been so proud of the way the children have adjusted to and settled into their new learning environment.
This week, we introduced our new text, Beegu. It wasn’t long before Beegu began visiting the children and leaving clues to suggest that they were lost! To help us find them, the children created wanted posters using exciting adjectives to describe our new character. They came up with some wonderful descriptions, including, “Beegu has long, floppy ears” and “They have a yellow, round body.” We have been amazed by the children’s fantastic imaginations and descriptive language!
The children have also loved exploring our new outdoor set-up, making the most of the different areas and opportunities for play. They particularly enjoyed making their own playdough and have loved getting creative, experimenting with different shapes, colours and ideas together.
In Maths, we have been exploring the value of ones and ten ones, beginning to develop our understanding of place value.
To top off a wonderful week, we were incredibly lucky to have a live-streamed call with the wonderful Julia Donaldson on Friday! She shared her brand-new book, Gruffalo Granny, with us, which was such a special experience for the children.
The Year One adults would like to say a huge thank you to all of the children for such a fantastic first full week. We are so proud of them and cannot wait to see what the rest of the year brings!
Year 2
This week in English, Year 2 have dived into an exciting new story: Billy and the Beast by Nadia Shireen! The adventure began with a surprise—our classroom had been mysteriously trashed! The children arrived to find clues left behind by an eyewitness, sparking lots of curiosity and imaginative thinking. Using the clues, the children have been busy writing wanted posters to help catch the mischievous Beast. We’re loving the creativity and enthusiasm the children are bringing to this unit—watch out, Beast, Year 2 are on your trail!
Year 3
This week, Year 3 stepped into the magical world of The Tear Thief and became fantastic diary writers! The children imagined they were characters from the story and wrote exciting diary entries using past-tense verbs to describe what had happened.
We explored an important question: Do tears always mean someone was sad? The children discovered that tears could have come from many different emotions, including happiness, sadness, fear, anger, worry, relief and excitement.
The children used ambitious vocabulary to describe their characters adventures and included powerful past-tense verbs such as cried, whispered, hurried, discovered, wondered and shimmied. They carefully explained what had happened and how the infamous tear thief behaved.
We are incredibly proud of the imagination and creativity shown in their writing. Year 3 discovered that every tear could have told a different story!
Year 4
Inspired by the character in our new English text Weslandia, Year 4 have been building creative shelters and then describing them using modal verbs and abstract nouns. We’ve also been familiarising ourselves with column addition and place value. In RE, we are thinking about heroes in the Bible and it was lovely to discover that so many of the children’s heroes are in fact their parents!
Year 5
In year 5 we have started to learn about decimal numbers. We thought carefully about what makes a whole and one tenth, using Dienes to show this practically. We had lots of fun creating a range of numbers such as 2.7 and thinking about why this is also the same as 2 7/10.
Year 5 are already impressing us with their maths brains!
Year 6
Year 6 had a fantastic time taking part in a How To Fix A Bike workshop this week! The children learned essential bike maintenance skills, discovered how to stay safe on the road and even had the chance to try some repairs themselves. It was a fun, hands-on experience that built confidence, independence and plenty of enthusiasm for cycling!
News from the Art Studio…
This week in the Art Studio all the classes explored our school values in a creative way, by making their own zines. A zine is a small, homemade magazine made from just one piece of paper folded and cut in a clever way to create several pages. This was tricky at first, but the children showed resilience to problem solve as they made their booklets. Next, they used their creativity to fill their pages with something they loved which was a great way to get to know everyone. It’s been a brilliant first week meeting all the fantastic artists at St John’s and St Clements and I’m excited to start our next projects based on their class artists.
Music this week…
It has been lovely to welcome children back into the music room this week. We have been thinking about how we communicate in music and the importance of eye contact and listening skills. We were therefore playing lots of circle games which used sounds, hand gestures and eye contact as a means of connecting.
Stars of the Week
Stars are celebrated because they have demonstrated the school values, or gone above and beyond.
Well done to all our stars this week …
Have a great weekend, see you next week!