Newsletters

George Spicer newsletter - 24th February 2023

Nothing like a nice easy week straight after a holiday!!

In case you aren’t aware we had some visitors who come from another planet, but you’ll read about that in the Reception weekly update.  Ofsted also arrived for a two day Inspection.  I am not allowed to share the outcome until it has been formally ratified, which can take up to 30 days. However, I would say it was a positive experience which allowed us to show off our school and the children.  The Inspectors left satisfied with their judgement, as was I with our moving on points.  Thank you to those parents that wished us well, provided biscuits and especially the 259 who completed the survey.  Some positive and pleasing elements from that were that: 94% would recommend the school; 97% of you agreed or strongly agreed that your child was happy at GS; 96% stated their child felt safe and 95% of parents felt their child did well at our school.

The other information will really help us to improve the school further still, so thank you very much for the feedback and support.

Parent Consultation Day - Friday 24th March 2023  - Our Spring Term Parent Consultation Day will be held on Friday 24th March 8.30am-6pm. This is a designated INSET day, meaning that your child will only attend school for their learning review meeting.

Appointments will be available from 6pm Wednesday 1^st March via School Cloud.  

If you have children on both sites, please ensure you leave a minimum of a 30 minute gap between the appointments you book in order to give you time to walk between the sites.  

Lateness 

World Book Day - Friday 3rd March - The focus this year 'You are a reader' is all about encouraging children to love reading and to make reading fun.  

We will once again be allowing and encouraging children to dress up as a character from a book.  As has been the case recently, after listening to feedback from the Parent Reps, there will be no theme.  However, it is not just a wear what you want day, children should clearly resemble a character from a book.

Important dates for your diary

NEU Strike Day - 2nd March - see Mr Spong's letter.

World Book Day - 3rd March 2023 

Year 2 Maths Workshops - 9.10 – 9.45am.  The dates are as follows:

Sparrow’s Workshop – Monday 27th February

Woodpecker’s Workshop – Tuesday 28th February 

Owl’s Workshop – Wednesday 1st March

Robin’s Workshop – Thursday 2nd March rescheduled to Wednesday 8th March

Reception Story Café 

Snowdrop Class 9:15am-10am Monday 6^th March

Daffodil Class 9:15am- 10am Tuesday 7^th March

Primrose Class 9:15am-10am Thursday 9^th March 

Bluebell Class 9:15am-10am Friday 10^th March

Educational visits/workshops

Please visit ParentPay  to consent and make payments

• Year 3 - Whipsnade Zoo 13^th June 2023 £25.50
• Year 3 - Anglo Saxon Workshop 14^th March 2023 - £7.50
• Year 5 - Egyptian Artefact Workshop 2^nd May 2023 £7.50
• Year 6 - Dharma Mandir Temple 24^th Feb 2023 Defiants & Spitfires £1
• Year 6 - Battle of the Atlantic and Codebreaking 13^th March 2023 £7.50
• Year 6 - WW2 Trip to RAF Duxford 20^th March 2023 £13.75
• Year 6 - WW2 Cheryl Moskowitz Summer 2023 - £3.50

Attendance week ending 24/02/2023

Overall school = 94.66% Lates = 85

Best attendance: 1st Sioux 99.26% 2nd Bluebell 98.89% and

3rd 98.85% are Ash, Odysseus and Theseus 

Punctuality: There were no classes with 100% for punctuality 

Reception Class

This term we are looking at modes of transport. With the title of "Let's go on a Journey." Each classroom have transformed their role play area into a form of transport. Primrose have a bus, Daffodils have a rocket and are travelling to the moon. Bluebells have a departure lounge with an up and coming airplane and Snowdrops have a yellow submarine. 

We also had a very strange experience in the playground this week but more about that next week.

Year 1

Last week Year 1 presented their reports on Skara Brae to the rest of the class.  Skara Brae is an ancient village that was discovered in 1850 during 'The Great Storm'. Year 1 worked hard to write their report throughout the week. They answered some very important questions: What is Skara Brae? Where is it located? How was it discovered? What did they do in their spare time? 

This term, the children in Year One have been learning about the Stone Age period.  They made Neolithic Clay Pots.  The children practised manipulating clay using a variety of techniques, such as rolling, pressing and pinching, in order to replicate a clay pot, similar to what would have been used in the Stone Age. We later evaluated our clay pots, discussing what worked well and how we could improve our pots next time. 

Year 2

This week Year 2 have been very busy!  They have learned all about natural materials and their properties, testing them to see what objects they could be used to make.  In writing, we have read ‘The Baker’s boy and the Great Fire of London’.  We all enjoyed acting out the scene when the boy discovers the fire and then wrote some great third person narratives.  This included the use of inverted commas to mark the character’s speech.

  

Year 3 

In Science this week, Year 3 have been learning how to record findings using scientific language and labelled bar charts. Their topic is Animals including Humans. The children were shown different bar charts and discussed as a class what information has been recorded and how we read it. Year 3 were then set a task to accurately draw their own bar chart, representing the information they were given.

Their bar charts look great!

Year 5 

This week in Science, we started our new unit of work 'Living Things and their Habitats'.

We began by looking at the reproduction of plants with a focus on lilies and daffodils. The children worked in groups to dissect, identify and label both the male and female parts of a flower.  They were so engaged during this activity and were amazed when they carefully split open the ovary and saw all the tiny ovules inside.  Fantastic work year 5!  

 

In PSHE this week, we began by recapping our year 4 learning about the health risks of smoking and the effects it can have on our body. The children were shocked to hear that an estimated 5 million smokers die each year as a result of smoking-related illnesses. That is equivalent to one person dying every 6 seconds. Also, that tobacco contains over 4000 chemicals many of which are harmful.  We discussed how knowing the facts will help them to make an informed decision about whether or not they choose to smoke.  We finished by thinking about how smoking is portrayed in the media. e.g. by people on TV and films, in celebrity culture and whether or not the media puts ‘pressure’ on young people to behave in certain ways.  The children all agreed that even though there are lots of anti smoking campaigns,  smoking is often portrayed in the media as fashionable or cool.  Once again, the children showed great maturity during our discussions. Well done year 5!

For our writing this week, we journeyed back to 1540 and told the story of the execution of Thomas Cromwell through the eyes of a young pickpocket.  From the excitement upon hearing the news of the upcoming execution to the festival like atmosphere at Tower Green, the children wrote some detailed and atmospheric recounts.

Year 6 

Shackleton Days

What a brilliant start to this half term we’ve had! On Monday and Tuesday, Year 6 engaged in the Shackleton immersion days.

First, we learnt about Shackleton’s attempted journey across the Antarctic (Endurance expedition) from 1914 to 1916. Because the ship got stuck in the ice with no way to communicate with the rest of the word, Shackleton and his crew had to fight many obstacles and the elements to try to find a way to get help. The pupils immersed themselves in different activities to help them learn about this epic voyage.

In music, the pupils wrote songs about the Endurance expedition. Each class had a verse to write out, which related to the main parts of this event. In art, the pupils used different materials to create the ship that Shackleton and his crew travelled on – The Endurance. In Drama, the pupils rehearsed and practised a scene that may have played out during this expedition. In Geography, the pupils had a go at identifying the position and significance of longitude and latitude.

It was a busy and eventful week, but the Year 6s were amazing as always. Well done!

The Latymer School - Open Evening 

The Latymer School and its board of governors are very keen to promote The Latymer Grammar School to our local children in Enfield.  Our outreach working with several local primary schools includes familiarisation visits for children that are thinking of applying, mentoring and subject visits in the summer term.

This year our Open Evening is on Thursday 27 April 2023. Please encourage your children to come and see the school and registration for the entrance tests opens on 3 May 2023 and closes on 16 June 2023.

The Elms Holiday Camps 

Multi Sports Camp @ St Andrew’s Primary School

Please see below flyer with full details of the Multi Sports Camp The Elms are holding at St. Andrew’s Primary School, Enfield, during the Easter holidays

Please note, the reduced Early Bird Prices expire on Friday, 17^th Mar 2023.