Newsletters

George Spicer Newsletter - 29th September 2023

• Communication with school - a reminder that the main contact with the school is via the Offices: email:  office@georgespicer.enfield.sch.uk Telephone: 020 8363 1406
• Communication with Breakfast and After School club - Please email: basc@georgespicer.enfield.sch.uk
• Contact details - please ensure that your contact phone numbers and addresses are up-to-date 
• Absences - must be reported in writing or by phone by 9am daily. Please leave a brief message with child's name, class and the reason for their absence.  It will be recorded as unauthorised if you do not leave a reason or say your child is 'unwell'.  
• Attendance - as a school we do not authorise absence for family holidays during the school term.   Parents / Carers who choose to take their child out of school for holidays should be aware that their child’s absence will be recorded as ‘unauthorised’ and a penalty notice will be issued.  A Penalty Notice costs £60 per parent and per child, if payment is made within 21 days. £120 if paid after the 21 days but within 28 days.
• Lateness - The number of children arriving late in the mornings is high. Unfortunately, it is the same children repeatedly.  Gates close at 9am and learning starts promptly at this time.  If your child is 5 minutes late every day, this equates to nearly 3 whole days of missed learning, plus it’s disruptive for other children.  Please try to drop your child/children at least 5/10 minutes early to avoid this continuous lateness.  
• Appointments - you must provide an appointment card / letter for your child’s absence to be classed as medical, otherwise it will be marked as an unauthorised absence.  Please note we expect your child to attend school either side of their appointment where possible.
• ParentPay – ‘we are a cashless school’ - every child at the school has a ParentPay account (If you are new to George Spicer, a login will be issued shortly). If your child attends Breakfast and After School Club please ensure that your account is paid in advance and up-to-date. 
• Be prepared - please make sure your child/ren is prepared for school and is sent in with everything they need, e.g. water bottle/lunch. Reminder no chocolate spread in lunch boxes as we are a nut-free school.
• Harvest Festival - Please could you bring in any donations for our Harvest Assembly on the morning of Monday 9th October. We will be donating to the North London Foodbank.
• Governors - Please click the link to see the annual Governor's Report

Important Dates for Diary

Year 6 to Boreattan Park - £100 due by 30^th September 2023

Year 4 to Cuffley Camp - £60 due by 1^st October 2023

Tuesday 3rd October - Boys Football Match after school

Wednesday 4th October - Reception Parents Curriculum Meeting at 5:30pm at Kimberley Gardens.

Friday 6th October - Year 4/6 Disco - Please see FOGS section below for tickets.

Friday 13th October - Quiz night - Please see FOGS section below for tickets.

Year 4 Maths Workshops at 9:15am:

Tuesday 3rd October - Theseus 

Wednesday 4th October - Odysseus

Thursday 5th October - Heracles

Friday 6th October - Achilles

Responsibility

This week our value of Responsibility has been focused on our responsibility to look after the planet.  Assemblies looked at the problems caused by dropping litter – my biggest pet hate – especially looking at the damage plastics cause to the environment and oceans.  Ask your children if they can remember some of the facts about plastic pollution and things we can do to help save the earth and make it a better place to live.

Attendance week ending 29/9/2023

Overall school = 95.27% Lates = 78

Best attendance: 1st Woodpecker 99.7% 2nd Robin 98.38% 3rd Oak 97.88%

Punctuality: Well done to Cheyenne and Osiris with 100% for punctuality.

Reception

"Swishy swashy! Squelch, squerch! Splash, splosh!" 

In Reception we have been reading Michael Rosen's 'We're going on a bear hunt'. We had a wonderful time retelling the story with props and materials. We enjoyed playing with an assortment of objects and textiles to build and create scenes from the story. Child A said "I'm going to use the wreath to make the narrow cave!" Child N said "Watch out for the snowstorm!" as he threw cotton wool into the air!

Once we were familiar with retelling the story, we created our own story maps, detailing the locations from the text. We explored collage and made marks on paper to represent sounds. 

Year 1

This week Year 1 have immersed themselves into the book of 'Peace at Last'. In writing they have been thinking about what Mr Bear would be thinking at different parts of the story. They have also had the opportunity to practise their writing, under the table before writing in their books, this has helped develop their arm strength and fine motor skills when writing.  

Year 2

In Year 2 this week we have been colour mixing our primary colours to make secondary colours. We have also written a narrative to describe Rat from the story, Wind in the Willows. We have used lots of adjectives and time adverbials.

Year 3 

Year 3 this week in Art and Literacy have been learning about the Turkish abstract artist Princess Fahrelnissa Zeid. In our writing lessons we have been critiquing some of her fabulous pieces of artwork. We have focused on ensuring we use capital letters, conjunctions and expanded noun phrases in our critiques. Year 3 have produced some brilliant writing!

Year 5 

This week Year 5 have been continuing to rewrite the Dracula story. This week we wrote a diary entry of Jonathan Harker’s stay at Castle Dracula, which turned out to be a very unsavoury affair.

In Geography we continued with our maps of Romania. Colouring the elevation and creating a key. We learned that Romania is a fairly mountainous country, especially compared to the UK, which has far fewer tall peaks. Unlike the UK Romania has a small coastline only on its eastern side.

In PSHE we learned the meaning of sympathy and empathy and related this to feeling empathy for the situations many refugees face escaping war torn or dangerous countries. We wrote an acrostic poem around the words EMPATHY and REFUGEE using the refugee experience as inspiration for our words. Here are some of our poems.

Year 6 

It's been an exciting week in Year 6. We have begun our gymnastics unit on counter balance and tension, working in pairs to create sequences using each other's body weight to transition from balance to balance. 

Our work on Macbeth has also evolved to writing letters between Macbeth and Lady Macbeth, thinking about the witches' prophecies and both character's reactions to this. 

We are very much looking forward to next week when we will begin some of our sports league fixtures with many of the Year 6 boys representing the school in football.