Newsletters

George Spicer newsletter - Friday 14th October 2022

Half term - 24th - 28th is half-term school closed 

Inset Day - Please note that Monday 31st October school will be closed

Attendance - At George Spicer, we believe that good attendance is an essential requirement for effective learning. Parents / Carers commit an offence if their child doesn’t attend school regularly and the absence is not agreed by the school.  As a school we do not authorise any 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.

Pupil Emergency Contact Form  - For the new academic year, we are requesting your contact details along with at least 2 additional contacts for your child/ren. The requirement is a minimum of 3 emergency contacts. This year we are also asking for photographic & image consent. Please click on the link Emergency contact and consent form   to complete the form. Deadline is Monday 31^st October.

Parents’ Consultation evening meetings -  Monday 21^st November & Wednesday 23^rd November.  We will be conducting parents evening via Schoolcloud which is an online video meeting platform.  Appointments can be made from Wednesday 19^th October from 7pm and will close on Sunday 30th October at 10pm.  Families who need to book separate appointments, please contact the School Office at office@georgespicer.enfield.sch.uk no later than Monday 17^th October.

Secondary School Admissions Deadline is 31 October 2022 – If your child is currently in Year 6, please ensure that you have applied for a secondary school by the end of ½ term.  Please click on this link to apply School Admissions and for more information visit  www.eadmissions.org.uk

New Reception Tours (2023-2024)

Thursday 20th October at 9.15am

Thursday 3rd November at 9.15am

Wednesday 30th November at 9.15am

Tuesday 10th January at 9.15am

One of the best ways to get to know a school is to request a visit.  Please call or click below to register your interest and for any further information.                    RECEPTION TOURS REGISTRATION

Scholastic Book Club is up and running! Go to scholastic book club to browse the latest books and order online. For every £1 you spend on this month’s Book Club, our school will earn 20p in Scholastic Rewards.  Please place your order online by November 30th, 2022.  

Relief Lunchtime Playleader - We are looking for relief Lunchtime Playleaders to join our team. To find out more about the role please visit LunchtimePlayleader. 

Important dates for your diary

Reading and Phonics  Workshops - Year 2 team are holding Reading and Phonics Workshops next week at 9.10am each day for about half an hour.  

Miss Williams’ group – Monday,

Miss Hennigan’s group – Tuesday,

Mrs Tullett’s group – Wednesday 

Mrs Kyriacou’s group – Thursday.

Letters have been emailed out to say which group your child is in – please ask your class teachers if you are unsure.

We look forward to seeing you there!

Parent Rep meeting - Friday 21st at 10am via Zoom, you should all have received the link to join the meeting. 

Wednesday 2nd November - Individual children's photographs during the school day and an opportunity for family photographs after school at Sketty Road from 3.30pm -4.30pm.  Please note that if your child has PE on the day you can send them in wearing white polo shirt or shirt and school jumper/cardigan.  Tracksuit bottoms as usual.

Monday 21st November - Parent Consultation evening meeting 3.40pm - 6pm

Wednesday 23rd November - Parent Consultation evening meeting 3.40pm - 7.30pm 

Friday 2^nd December - Y4&5 Carol Service at Enfield Baptist Church

Friday 9^th December - Y3&6 Carol Service at St Andrews Church

COFFEE MORNING 9.30am Tuesday 1^st November at Sketty Road

We are excited to be rolling out a new dual language ebook library for our children and families that speak English as an additional language.  A coffee morning will be held on 1^st November to provide more information and to support parents on how to access the ebook library with their children.

If you are interested in attending please email InclusionTeam@georgespicer.enfield.sch.uk.

We are also looking for parents to support with translation at the coffee morning and would be grateful for any dual language speakers to offer their support to other parents on the day – please also email InclusionTeam@georgespicer.enfield.sch.uk to offer your support.

Attendance week ending 14/07/2022

Overall school = 93.60%  Lates = 59

Best attendance: 1st Theseus 99.43% 2nd Sioux 98.33% 3rd 98.03%

Punctuality: Well done Willow and Apache with 100% for punctuality 

Pupil Outcomes and Achievement

As many of you will be aware, last summer was the first time in 2 years that primary aged children sat their Statutory Assessments (SATs).  The Government have decided that they will not be sharing results that allow direct school comparisons, which is a positive thing.  This also means that schools are currently limited in what they can share, certainly not the individual percentages and outcomes.  During that time the children experienced serious disruption due to Covid measures, however I am really pleased with both the achievement and more importantly the progress our children made.  In all year groups (Reception, Year 2 and Year 6) our pupils did tremendously well, outperforming the Enfield, London and National averages in all areas.  Our Phonics Screening results were the highest they have ever been and our Times Tables checks were well above average. 

These outcomes are very pleasing and all the staff, children and parents who do their bit supporting should be very proud.  For me though, I am most proud when I look at the progress the children in Year 6 made.  Again, our progress hugely outperforms the Enfield, London and National averages in all areas. Progress scores are a fairer measure than simply comparing SATs results like for like, because they take into account our children’s prior ability and how much they’ve improved.  The progress scores of all children in Year 6 are added together and divided by the total number of children in the year to give the average.  Our progress scores would have in the past, put us in and around the top 10% of schools nationally. This is phenomenal achievement and a real testament to hard work of all involved and how strong teaching and learning at George Spicer is!

Black History Month Update!

This week, we continued our Black History Month celebrations. Dr Lola visited Year 1 to talk about her job as a Paediatric Ophthalmologist.  She shared her vision of a future where all children will choose to be kind to others, treat others fairly and perhaps become doctors like herself.. Year 6 had an online discussion with Becca who talked to them about her job in the wine industry. The children were inspired by how she found her passion after changing jobs and discovering what she wanted to do.   

Mrs Mangiapane carried on from last week and delivered an assembly on Madame CJ Walker - the first black millionaire in the United States! The children could not believe the adversity she faced and made some connections to the previous assembly on Garrett Morgan. Mr Combe delivered a similar assembly to KS2. KS2 also had an online assembly from Mr Roberts and Miss Mulenga about inventor Lewis Latimer. Ask your children all about what they have learned this week.   

Reception Class

This week is Well-being week and in Reception we have been focusing on the word, proud. The children have been learning all about the incredible things that they can do and have been singing the song, 'Proud,' by M People. Each day, as these pictures show, the children shared what they have been doing, either at school or at home, which makes them feel proud. They have enjoyed using the microphone to talk to the class. We have had some wonderful examples including, 'I am proud of learning to ride my bike,' 'I am proud that my mum has my baby sister out of her tummy.' Our story, 'Incredible You,' helped us to understand why it is great to be proud of being you!

Year 1

Last week, Year 1 wrote their "What am I?" riddles. Can you look at the clues to figure out what type of bird Ariana is describing? We worked hard to think of clever clues that did not give away too much information! 

On Tuesday, Year 1 had a special visit from Dr. Lola who is an eye doctor! Dr. Lola mentioned that from a very young age she loved Science and that she has always wanted to help people. We were inspired to hear about Dr. Lola's job and how she helps so many children with their eyesight. Leonardo said, "I love Science! I also want to be a scientist so that I can help lots of people like Dr. Lola".  

This week, all of the Year 1 classes went to St Andrews Church to learn more about Harvest Festival. We were really lucky to have Vicar Steve speak to us and let us explore the different features of a church.  We spoke about how we treat everybody with kindness and share with people who are less fortunate. 

We also had our phonics workshops this week. It was lovely to see lots of parents attend and join in with our lesson. We thoroughly enjoyed all the different activities! 

Year 2

This week, Year 2 have been exploring the tricky emotion of 'disappointment' in our PSHE lesson as part of Mental Health Week. We discussed what disappointment feels like and what it might look like to us as individuals. The children shared scenarios of when they have experienced disappointment. After reading a story about a girl called Lucinda who had to miss her school trip because she had chicken pox, we looked at different ways to turn a negative into a positive. Some ideas we came up with were finger breathing, counting to 10 or distracting yourself. The children then designed their Disappointment Dragon and Dragon of Hope, also sharing what strategy they would use when they feel disappointed. 

Year 3 

Mental Health Week

This week in Year 3, we have been focussing on the emotion Anger as part of Mental Health Week. We discussed how this emotion might feel and some strategies we may be able to use to turn it from a negative emotion to a positive action. We linked the emotion to Princess Fahrelnissa Zeid, the Turkish artist we have been studying this half term, and produced an abstract piece of art to represent the emotion anger. We thought carefully about the shapes and patterns we used and the colour choices to best show anger.

Art

This week in Art we have continued to study the abstract artist Princess Fahrelnissa Zeid's work. We observed her painting called Fight Against Abstraction (1948) and attempted to create our own examples. This was achieved by using our prior knowledge to draw hands, arms and faces, before adding mosaic patterns. We have begun to paint our pictures using similar colours to Princess Fahrelnissa Zeid.  

Year 5 

Year 5 - Mental Health Awareness Day - Loneliness

This week, Year 5 celebrated the importance of World Mental Health Day, as part of Mental Health Awareness Week! On Monday, Year 5 explored the theme of loneliness and looked at what loneliness is, what the feeling of loneliness can look like and how we can look out for signs of loneliness in ourselves and others. We also spoke about how we can overcome these feelings and what support we can offer to ourselves and others to, 'make connections.'

We began by discussing the similarities and differences between ourselves and our talk partners. We then discussed what mental health was and discussed the difference between loneliness (an unwanted feeling of sadness) and connection (a feeling of being included and belonging). We also spoke about the need for connection and discussed ways in which we can feel connected to others, such as taking part in clubs, and getting active.

In pairs, we read two scenarios about two children who had both suffered loneliness, when moving to a new area. We wrote open letters of support and advice to the two children, remembering the different areas of connection and making sure that the advice they gave suggested strategies and techniques to combat the unwanted feeling of loneliness. 

Well done Year 5 on your mature, respectful and sensible conversations. You gave excellent advice and were able to suggest brilliant ideas on how we can all build connections to combat the feeling of loneliness. 

Year 6 

Green With Envy

On Mental Health Day, Year 6 explored the emotion envy. 

To start with they were asked if colours can be associated with certain emotions. We knew that blue links with sadness, associated yellow with happiness/joy and thought that the colour pink might represent love. We also thought of other colours that we could link emotions too. 

As we knew we were going to be exploring an emotion today, we kept in our mind this question: Are any emotions solely negative? We wanted to not make a rash decision and think about this throughout the whole lesson.

We then went on to notice something peculiar about the Disney Villains...

Have you ever noticed that nearly all villains are shrouded in a green mist? We asked why this was and linked it to the idea of being "Green with Envy". We then went on to discuss what they might be envious of and realised they all coveted (desperately wanted) something out of their current reach.

We linked this to not only one of our GSR books from this half-term: "Loki: Where Mischief Lies" but also to our study of the play Macbeth. Lady Macbeth can be seen to covet power and rather than use it to inspire her (which we learnt was called benign envy) she uses it as resentment (malicious envy). We decided to teach Lady Macbeth what we had learnt and wrote her a letter before she convinces her husband to commit regicide. 

We thought about how sometimes envy can be all consuming and makes us believe that we have nothing. To combat this, we thought about gratitude. We set the children a challenge every night to think of something they are grateful for. We also linked this to our PSHE work this half-term and thought about different children in the world who would actually envy not only our safe homes but our access to education - something which we know we all take for granted. 

We came to the conclusion that envy isn't necessarily always bad as it can be turned into inspiration if our mind-sets allowed us.