Newsletters

George Spicer newsletter - Thursday 18 November 2021

• Covid symptoms and reporting absence – Mr Spong has sent a letter to all families this week. Please click here if you haven't already seen it.
• Litter around Sketty Road – We are aware of the state of the roads around the school, which are not pleasant when you are bringing your children to school. This has been reported to Enfield Council and we hope that the situation will improve soon. Our site staff are busy in the mornings ensuring that school premises are safe and clear, so we cannot ask that they undertake this role too. Please bear with us.
• Year 4 Residential 2022 – deadline for the next instalment is Friday 3 December 2021
• Nasal flu vaccines – Kimberley Gardens date has been rescheduled to Thursday 9 December 2021
• School photos deadline is 1 December. This is to ensure that photos are back in school before the end of term.
• End of term – Friday 17 December. Please note that we finish at the end of the school day. There will be no After School Club

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Parent Consultation Evenings are next week – 22 & 24 November

Please don’t forget your appointments are next week. A reminder will be sent via email on Monday morning from noreply@schoolcloud.co.uk. Within this email, you will have a link to connect to your video call with your child’s class teacher. Please be online and ready at least 10 minutes before the start time. You will be held in a queue until the teacher arrives. The meeting will start promptly and will not overrun. The link will look like this:

Christmas jumper and lunch day – Tuesday 14 December

If your child doesn’t already have school dinners, you can book them in for a Christmas lunch. Cost is £2.50 if your children are in Year 3 - 6 and not eligible for Free School Meals. Please email the school office with your request (only if they are currently packed lunches) by Monday 6 December and top up ParentPay. If you wish to make a donation on this day, we will be sending all contributions to Save the Children

        Mental Health Week – Useful Resources for Parents 

One question can change everything.  We know it’s good to talk about mental health, but it’s not always easy.  This UNICEF link provides age appropriate questions & guidance for parents of primary & secondary age children.  https://www.unicef.org/mental-health-on-my-mind?utm_source=email&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_term=advocates&utm_campaign=sowc-web

The National Sleep Helpline:

Having a sleep issue is surprisingly common. At any given time this affects up to 40% of adults and 50% of children (this rises to 80% with a SEND diagnosis). These problems are typically persistent and do not resolve themselves without intervention.

Poor sleep can affect anyone and it can be a major stress for parents whose own sleep can be impaired by their children's difficulties getting to sleep, staying asleep or staying in their own bed, leading to greater stress.

The National Sleep Helpline helps anyone with sleep issues including adults, parents and young people. The helpline 03303 530 541 is available from 7pm and 9pm, Sunday to Thursday. 

#Help for Hunger

Ethical Edit is a charity set up by a mum in a local Enfield primary school.  Her aim is to support reducing the hunger levels of Enfield children by providing hampers for their families this Christmas. This is a great way to spread kindness locally in what has been a tough year for so many. If you are in a position to support with providing an item for a hamper, then we will be collecting non-perishable food items (tins, cereals, pasta, tea etc) & household essentials (shampoo, soap, toothpaste etc) on Monday 29^th November, before & after school, on both sites.  Hampers are being organised within year groups and Parent Reps will provide further suggestions of items if you are interested in contributing.   Many thanks. 

Attendance week ending 18/11/2021

Overall school = 94.96% Lates = 72

Best attendance: 1st Theseus 99.41% 2nd Woodpecker 99.08% 

3rd Achilles 98.54%%

Punctuality: Well done to Oak, Owl, Heracles, Ra and Daffodil with 100% for punctuality

Reception

On Thursday 11th November, Reception learnt all about Remembrance Day part of this was how we remember those that lost their lives and why we wear poppies. The children watched the service at the cenotaph in London and saw dignitaries lay wreaths of poppies. We commemorated Remembrance Day in different ways – through the creation of poppy-related craft whereby we asked a child to lay down and pose as a soldier doing a salute. Children drew round the child and we decorated this outline as you can see from the pictures. Reception asked lots of questions about this important day and many went home telling their adults all about what they had learnt. 

Year 1

This week it is Anti Bullying week. Year One have been busy learning about what bullying is. We learnt that bullying doesn’t just happen once: it goes on over time and happens again and again. We spoke about the importance of being kind to each other and following our class charter. In our classes, we have been completing a kindness calendar where children tell their teacher what they have done to show they are being kind to their friends.

We spoke about our rights. Everyone has the right to be safe and not bullied. Finally we worked with a group looking at the three pictures. We discussed if they are showing bullying or a one-off incident. We enjoyed our lesson.

Year 2

As part of anti-bullying week, Year 2 read the book, 'Seeds and Trees'. It is about a prince who plants the seeds from kind and unkind words. From the kind seeds beautiful green trees and flowers grew, while the unkind seeds grew dark leafless trees covered in thorns and thistles. We spoke about how unkind words can cause pain like these thorns while kind words make us feel happy and joyful.

In art, we reproduced one of the pages in the book to represent this.

Year 3 

This week is Anti-Bullying week and we have been having some wonderful lessons about why it is so important to be kind. We have discussed the different types of bullying and have come up with solutions of what we would do if we were being bullied or we saw someone else getting bullied. We have been very mature and are now well equipped to make sure everyone is safe and happy at school.

We then designed posters promoting using "one kind word" so we always remember how important it is to be kind and how just using one kind word a day can really make a difference.

Year 5 

This week in Year 5, we began looking at perspective viewpoints in preparation for creating our own perspective drawings in the coming weeks. We first analysed and evaluated one point perspective paintings by artists, such as Vincent Van Gogh, Leonardo da Vinci and Gustave Caillebotte. We learnt that artists often play with perspective to play tricks on the viewer. One illusion that artists try to create is that of depth and distance in their paintings and drawings, using lines. One-point perspectives are a technique used to create a three-dimensional scene on a two-dimensional surface by using lines (known as a vanishing point) on the horizon line.  To allow us to understand where a vanishing point is on a piece of work, we have to understand where the horizon line is situated first.

In groups, we looked at a range of one point perspective photographs and discussed where the vanishing point was situated. We marked on the horizontal line and also the parallel lines using string to help support our understanding as to where the vanishing point was located. This activity will help us when we start to plan our own one-point perspective drawings next week! 

Thank you to Miss Ahmed for planning such a challenging and engaging lesson! 

During Anti-Bullying Week, we have been looking at kindness and how we can pass kindness on! We made our own kindness calendars with our partners and discussed acts of kindness that we enjoy receiving and how we could pass kindness forward! This allowed us to support one another with showing kindness and consider the important impact it can have on one another. Linking to our child rights, Article 14 (freedom of thought, belief and religion)and that whilst every child has the right to think and believe what they choose, we must show responsibility for our actions and be responsible for our words and actions. 

Year 6 

Year 6 have really enjoyed Anti Bullying week and have taken part in some lovely activities.

We explored the term 'normal' and how opinions and ideas around this term could be linked to prejudice and discrimination. We really enjoyed taking part in Mr Combe's assembly, comparing the words received by Juston Fashanu and Josh Cavallo, two professional footballers, who came out as gay, and how they affected their lives afterwards. The response of the children was astoundingly mature and thoughtful. We were so proud of them.

We then discussed acts of kindness, where we gave examples of how we had shown kindness to others or how others had shown kindness to us. Later in the week, we looked at different friendship scenarios and discussed in groups whether we felt that they were examples of bullying or not. To finish off, we wrote a kind thing about each member of our classes, which was a lovely activity to end the week and something that we could take home and treasure. 

World Children's Day

Saturday 20th November is World Children's Day! Children's Day is a fun day with a serious message. This day offers us an opportunity to promote and celebrate children's rights that will build a better world for them. 

As a Right's Respecting School, we promote children to have their voices heard and share their beliefs/views with us. Our children have always blown us away by their mature and thought-provoking responses. Let this day be exactly the same, where we encourage our children to share their opinions on important matters. 

You can celebrate this day by discussing with your children how they could turn the world into a better place.
What would need to change?

What would stay the same? 

Many famous landmarks will be lit up in blue to celebrate, could you wear blue on this day too?