Key Dates
Saturday 15th & Sunday 16th December
Christmas trees on sale
Tuesday 18th December
Year 3 & 4 Christmas Concert at All Saints Church, Kingston, 10.15 am
Year 5 & 6 Christmas Concert at All Saints Church, Kingston, 1.30 pm
Wednesday 19th December
Year 2, 3 & 4 trip to the Rose Theatre
Thursday 20th December
Reception to Year 6 class Christmas parties - children may wear party clothes to school
Year 1 - 6 pantomime performance of Sleeping Beauty in school
Friday 21st December
Years 3 - 6 end of term Talent Show
Mufti day - children do not need to wear school uniform to school
School closes at 1.30 pm
Monday 7th January
INSET day - children return to school on Tuesday 8th January
Reminders
Christmas tree sale
It's the last weekend of our Christmas tree sale! They will be on sale outside school from 9.00 am to 3.00 pm on both Saturday and Sunday. An amazing 50% of the money raised from the tree sales will go directly to Fern Hill, so please make sure you go along, buy your tree and support our school.
Class Christmas parties
The children will have their class Christmas parties next Thursday 20th December. Thank you so much to all the Class Reps who are coordinating food donations and parent helpers for the party. Please may we remind you that we are a nut free school and to be mindful of any food allergies children in your class may have. Thank you!
Lunches for the spring term
Lunches for the first half of the spring term are now available to book online via ParentPay. You can find the menu and information on how to book on our website here. The deadline for booking lunches is always midnight on the Sunday before the previous school week. Please don't miss the deadline for the first week back after the Christmas break, week commencing 7th January 2019, which is midnight this Sunday 14th December.
Attachments
Year group newsletters
Pleiades February Holiday Camp
Year 3 photography project with the Tate
On Monday 10th December, Year 3 children took part in a Tate photography project led by Turner Prize and Oscar winning artist, film director and screenwriter, Steve McQueen. The initiative aims to photograph every Year 3 class across London; these photos will be brought together into the largest group portrait ever made to capture the children during a milestone year in their development. A Tate photographer visited us to take portraits of Elm, Beech and Rowan classes which will now form part of this vast exhibition of tens of thousands of Year 3 pupils. The exhibition will be centre stage for six months next year in the prestigious Duveen Galleries at Tate Britain. We are incredibly excited about going to see them! You can find out more about this project, and what’s on at the Tate over the holiday, here.
February Holiday Camp
We are pleased to announce that Pleiades will be running a half term holiday camp here at Fern Hill from Monday 18th February to Friday 22nd February. Pleiades currently teach our own outdoor PE provision to children in Years 3 to 6. They are a UK based organisation which offers specialised coaching in fitness and sport to children of all abilities in schools and sports clubs around the country. The Pleiades team are planning an exciting and active week, including multi-sport games, lazer tag and Nerf wars! Places are available to book online now on the Pleiades website here.
If you have any questions, please contact Pleiades directly by telephone on 01483 270160 or email at info@pleiadesleisure.com
Christmas concert photographs
This week, our school photographer, Mrs Bahara, has been taking lovely photographs of the children in Nursery, Reception, Year 1 and 2 to celebrate their Christmas Concert performances. If you have a child in Reception, Year 1 or Year 2, you will receive a message via Parent Pay with details of you can securely view and buy your child’s photographs. With the end of term just round the corner, if you would like guaranteed delivery to school before Friday 21st December, you will need to place your order by Tuesday 18th December. Orders placed after Tuesday will not be delivered until after 7th January when we are back at school. If you have a child in Nursery, photographs will be available to view and buy as 7 x 5 inch prints outside the Nursery gates from Monday next week at pick up and drop off times for both Daisy AM and Daisy PM sessions.
If you have any queries, please contact Mrs Bahara directly at info@inTime-Photography.com or by telephone on 07931 593169.
Happy Christmas Jumper Day!
Children and staff looked absolutely fantastic in their Christmas jumpers today! Thank you to everyone for showing your support for Save the Children, a charity working to create a brighter future for children all over the world.
Christmas Concerts
Well done to all the children in Nursery, Reception and Years 1 and 2 who performed in their Christmas concerts to families this week. It takes lots of courage to stand on the stage in the Large Hall in front of so many people! They spoke so clearly and sang so beautifully; we were all very impressed indeed.
The children in Nursery had their Daisy class Christmas party all together on Wednesday and were delighted with a surprise visitor: Rocky, the eco pup from Paw Patrol!
Mrs Matthewson would like to say a very big well done to all the children in Reception for putting on an amazing Christmas concert too.
'The children had worked so hard to practice all the words and actions to lots of lovely Christmas songs. They all looked amazing in their Christmas outfits and were very proud of themselves!'
We're really looking forward can't wait for the next round of Christmas concerts next week for Years 3 - 6 which will be held at All Saints Church in Kingston. There will be two performances on Tuesday 18th December, one for Years 3 & 4 at 10.15 am and another for Years 5 & 6 at 1.30 pm.
Christmas lunch at Fern Hill
On Wednesday, over 500 children and staff enjoyed a fabulous Christmas lunch together in the Large Hall. We’d like to say a huge thank you to our wonderful catering team, Vicky, Karen, Leigh, Venus and Sally, for serving up a mouth-watering festive feast and to the Finance team for their helping hands!
Sports News
Our Year 6 Girls’ Football team are off to the London Youth Games!
It might have been a little cold! It might have got a little tense! It might have gone down to goal difference - AGAIN! - but the girls have come through as overall winners of the Borough football tournament. Their reward? They are representing The Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames at the London Youth Games, in March, against other London boroughs.
It was a great competition, playing against some of the toughest schools, but their determination, team spirit and commitment saw them come top of the table by the end of the evening.
Well done girls, and we can't wait to report on how you do in March.
In the new year, there will be a very shiny plaque in the trophy cabinet in school reception, engraved with our school name – please come in and have a look. The girls have also been given two free tickets to the Women's FA Cup Final in May 2019.
The Year 6 Boys’ football team are in action on Monday 17th December, competing for a place at the Danone Cup Finals in the new year. Watch out for the result in the last Newsletter of term next week. Good luck boys!
- Mrs Lawn, Year 6 class teacher and PE lead
After School & Lunchtime Club News
All after school and lunchtime clubs have now finished for the term, with the exception of the Football club for Years 1 and 2 which will be running a catch up session on Monday 17th December.
Many of the clubs are filling up for the spring term so please do apply for a place for your child as soon as possible. Computer club, Magpie Makes Art and Sewing clubs and Chess for Beginners club are now full but we are holding a waiting list so please get in touch if you would like your child’s name added. If there are enough children on the waiting list, we will explore the possibility of running additional sessions with the club leaders. At the moment, we do not have enough bookings to enable the Cricket, Rugby, Hockey or Orchestra clubs to run next term so if you plan to apply for a place for child on one of these clubs, please do so before the end of term.
Tree Tops News
As school closes at the earlier time of 1.30 pm next Friday 21st December, Tree Tops after school sessions will be longer. There are two sessions available to book: an early session which will run from 1.30 – 4.30 pm and a full session which will run from 1.30 – 6.00 pm. The cost of these sessions is slightly higher than usual at £15 for the early session and £20 for the full session. If you have already booked and paid for a session, you will need to top up your payment and we have created a separate payment item for you on Parent Pay to do so – ‘Tree Tops - Top Up’. Please note that to ensure the correct staffing ratios and health and safety provision, all bookings for Tree Tops sessions on Friday 21st December must be received and paid for by Wednesday 19th December. Bookings cannot be accepted after this date. Thank you for your understanding.
Friday 21st December is the last day that Tree Tops will be running until the children return to school on Tuesday 8th January. There will be no Tree Tops provision on the INSET day on Monday 7th January.
Team Points
The overall winner this week is COOMBE
-
Kingston
277
-
Coombe
361
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Richmond
272
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Hampton
272
PSA News & Events
Christmas Fair
We hope you had a fantastic time at our wonderful festive Fair today! It's always a great occasion and it was lovely to see so many parents and children there, having fun and helping support the PSA's fundraising for our school. We will of course let you know how much money the fair raised as soon as we can. A huge thank you to all the parents and staff who gave up their time to organise the fair, run stalls and help make it such a success!
Were you a winner on the raffle? If you are one of our lucky winners, but weren't at the fair to collect your prize, don't worry! Winners will be notified by phone and prizes will be available to collect from the school office next week.
Weekly Attendance
Well done to both Year 3 and Year 5 who share the best year group attendance for this week.
This week the Attendance Cup goes to BEECH class for the best attendance with 99.7%.
| Year | Attendance % | Star Year ★ |
|---|---|---|
| Reception | 95.7% | |
| Year 1 | 97.1% | |
| Year 2 | 94.7% | |
| Year 3 | 97.8% | WELL DONE! |
| Year 4 | 94.9% | |
| Year 5 | 97.8% | WELL DONE! |
| Year 6 | 94.9% |
Inspiration 