Key Dates
Friday 19th March
Donate to Dress in Red mufti (non-uniform) day in aid of Comic Relief's Red Nose Day - children may come to school dressed in red clothes
Wednesday 31st March
Easter bonnet competition in school
Last day of term & mufti (non-uniform) day
NURSERY CLOSES AT 11:45 AM
SCHOOL CLOSES AT 1:30 PM - staggered dismissal times will be in place
Thursday 1st April - Friday 16th April
EASTER HOLIDAY - school closed
Monday 19th April
Children return to school - school starts at the usual time
It’s been a fantastic week, welcoming all our families into school again and helping the children settle back into their routines (which they have done brilliantly). We are delighted to see so many happy, smiling faces! Thank you for supporting our social distancing control measures at drop and collection times and helping to keep our community safe. Please refer to our COVID-19 page on the website here for details of what to do if your child is ill, information on the availability of asymptomatic testing for all our families, and links to relevant government guidance.
Reminders
Secondary school places
Please don't forget that the deadline to accept or decline your secondary school place offer is on Monday 15th March. You must do this via the eAdmissions website. If you will be taking up a place at an independent school, please let the office know.
Year 6 leavers' hoodies
The deadline for ordering your child's Year 6 leavers' hoodie is Monday 22nd March. The order form is available here. Please refer to the size and colour guide charts sent via ParentPay this week. Payment should be made using ParentPay by Monday 22nd March.
Attachments
Year Group Newsletters
ESG Tennis Summer 2021
Spartans Basketball Summer 2021
Donate to Dress in Red!
Did you know the first Red Nose Day was in 1988?! It’s run by Comic Relief who support some amazing organisations tackling the key issues of our time: homelessness, hunger, domestic abuse and mental health stigma, all of which have been impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.
On Friday 19th March, we’ll be showing our support for Red Nose Day with a Donate to Dress in Red mufti day and children and staff are invited to come into school wearing red. If you don’t have anything red, please don't worry – our school jumper does just fine! No football kit though! It is a fundraising day so if you can, please donate to Comic Relief through our dedicated JustGiving page. Our target is £650 and however much or little we raise, we’ll be helping to change lives in the UK and across the world.
If you would like to give us your views on the proposed learning objectives of the new RSE curriculum, you have until Wednesday 17th March to do so via the RSE Parent Consultation Feedback Form. All the key resources you need to understand the new curriculum are available on the website here. We will consider all responses received as part of the RSE policy review and there will be a further opportunity for you to review the updated policy during the summer term.
World Book Day
On Thursday we celebrated our ‘in school’ World Book Day and it was lovely to see so many of the children and teachers dressed up in costume. Thank you to all the children who brought in their favourite books to share too.
The day’s special theme was 'The Masked Reader' and the children had great fun guessing who exactly was reading their favourite stories from behind a face filter, including Mr Scott who led a virtual assembly as a giraffe, reading Giraffe’s Can’t Dance! The children became masked readers themselves, creating masks of their own favourite book characters, and took part in lots of other relaxing activities to develop their love of reading and just enjoy being back at school. We’ll be loading some of the resources we used on Google Classroom next week so do log in and have a look.
Don't forget to use your £1 Book Token - you can download it here. The token can be exchanged for one of World Book Day’s exclusive, new £1 books or used to get £1 off any book or audiobook costing £2.99 or more in participating bookshops and supermarkets. The token is valid until Sunday 28 March 2021 although lots of booksellers have said they will accept it after this date. For further information on World Book Day and to see the list of £1 books, click here.
Spark! Children's Book Awards
On Thursday we also launched the Spark! Children's Book Awards in school. Children from over eighty schools across Kingston and Richmond will be judging these awards and deciding which three books, from a shortlist selected by teachers, booksellers and librarians, will be the winners of the first ever Spark! Awards.
We’ve asked the children to try and read four shortlisted books in their age category over the next two months. At school, they will have the opportunity to hear from the authors, enter competitions and finally vote on their favourite book when voting opens at the end of April. The winners will be announced at an online awards ceremony in June.
You can find a list of the books, by age category, on the school website here.
We will be ordering some copies of the books for school but if you would like to buy copies for your child to read at home, please consider using Bookshop.org, which supports independent bookshops, and is offering the titles at a discounted rate via this link.
Look out for updates on the events and activities in our newsletter but in the meantime, you can find out more about the Spark! Awards by following them across a range of social media: Website | Twitter | Facebook.
The Spark! launch video is available here and you can watch the authors talk about their books here.
The Sparks! Buzz Magazine has lots of information on the shortlisted books plus competitions and puzzles for the children – it's available in a page turning online version or as a PDF to download or print.
After school clubs for the summer!
Next term, we will run a small number of after school clubs for children in Years 1 – 6. In line with our COVID-19 protocol and procedures, the clubs will run in year group bubbles, with a maximum of 15 children in each, so places are very limited. If government guidelines allow, we hope to offer more clubs, and places, after the May half term.
Clubs will run for 11 weeks, starting the week of 26th April and ending the week of 12th July.
Bookings for ESG Tennis England and Spartans Basketball should be made directly with the providers – please see the flyers below for further information. Bookings will be open from Monday 15th March.
Bookings for the football clubs will be made directly with us, using an online application form that will be open from 9:00 am on Monday 15th March. You will be sent a link to the form on Monday morning. Bookings will be taken on a first come, first served basis. Payment will need to be made using ParentPay at the same time that you submit your application. Please note that children must wear shin pads and long socks in order to participate in these clubs. If they arrive for a session without this equipment, they will not be able to play.
In the interests of fairness to all families and to minimise the risk of transmission across bubbles, please only apply for one club for your child.
Tree Tops Wraparound Care
Tree Tops will continue to run during the summer term in line with our COVID-19 control measures. To accommodate the new after school clubs timetable, the late half session that runs from 4:30 – 6:00 pm will be available again.
Bookings for the first half of the summer term (which runs from Monday 19th April to Friday 28th May) will open to all families at 9:00 am on Monday 15th March. All bookings must be made online using the Tree Tops Booking Form and a link to this form will be sent to you on Monday morning.
Please note that places at Tree Tops are very limited; unfortunately we cannot guarantee that we will be able to accommodate all booking requests. Priority for the summer term will be given to families who are attending Tree Tops this term.
TEAM POINTS
The overall winner this week is RICHMOND
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Kingston
282
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Coombe
262
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Richmond
395
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Hampton
227
Inspiration 