School Newsletter – 15th May
Key Dates
Monday 18th May – Friday 22nd May – Assessment Week
Wednesday 20th May 8.50am-9.20am – 11+ Reading Talk with Mrs Allison and Mrs Melanie
Thursday 21st May – Ducklings leave
Friday 22nd May 9.00am-9.40am – Year 4 Assembly
Dear Parents,
It was wonderful to see so many of our children proudly wearing clothes to signify their families culture on Heritage Day on Tuesday. We had a cowgirl from the United States, Nigerian Yorubas, Indian Sherwanis and plenty of football shirts from around the world! We also had a number of parents visit classrooms to share their heritage story.
The nursery celebrated The Dragon boat race festival. They listened to the story about the festival, learnt how to make pork dumplings and made small dragon boats which they decorated using different colours and sequins. It was a fun morning!
The Reception children learnt about Mexico, where they tasted traditional sweet bread and discovered the meaning and purpose of worry dolls. There was also a focus on China, where the children carefully made paper origami frogs and learnt more about Chinese traditions. Finally, the children had the opportunity to see and explore traditional clothing from Germany and Japan.
In Year 1, a parent came to talk about their Cantonese and Malaysian heritage, highlighting the importance of spring and flowers for their community and the symbolism of the cherry blossom flowers. As an activity, the children created their own Chinese artwork by blowing ink on to a piece of paper and adding different petals with paintbrushes.
In Year 2, children heard about different Mexican celebrations. Later the children were shown how to write their names in Hindi and they also sang along to a sea shanty!
In Year 3, children were lucky to hear about Australia and its many exciting features including its wildlife and fun linguistic twangs! They also heard about Ireland and its rich heritage, before watching an Irish dancing demo.
Year 4 were fortunate to discover Carnatic music, a type of Indian classical music which is quite niche. Pupils heard different audio clips and got the chance to sing a little too!
Year 5 had two wonderful parents who came in, to talk about their Brazilian tambourine which has been passed down through many generations of their family. We watched a clip of them being played at carnival in Brazil. Our second visitor talked about the Bulgarian alphabet and some of the children wrote their name using it. We sampled edible treats from around the world.
Thank you to Sñra Vanessa and Miss Rebecca for organising the day and for all the parents who came in to help and also donate yummy treats for the food stall at pickup.
Spring came to life with the arrival of our Reception duckling eggs this week. Our first hatchling appeared on Wednesday. A very cute fluffy yellow chick.
On Tuesday and Wednesday, Year Five went on a trip to the Wandsworth Refuge and Waste Centre and got to see behind the scenes. It was part of their science topic on materials and geography topic on rivers. Some of the children managed to also do some wonderful river sketching of habitats and the river Wandle opening into the River Thames but Wednesday’s trip was cut short due to the horrific weather!
On Wednesday, the Reception children found out all about money, receiving a financial workshop led by one of our parents.
The Year 3 production on Thursday evening was fabulous! The children truly shone, acting, singing and dancing wonderfully. They truly brought the story of Theseus and the Minotaur to life and there was an impressive mix of Spanish included too.
Today’s assembly was given by David Simpson pastor of Holy Trinity and All Saints churches. He gave an engaging presentation to the children on C for Compassion from The Roche Approach.
