December 2015

A huge plea for help. As a school Lea Forest are investing in Health for Life. As part of this we will soon have a school allotment where we will be growing fantastic fruit and vegetables that will be used in our school dinners. In order to start off the seeds for these we are building a greenhouse made entirely of fizzy pop and water bottles.

These MUST be 2 litre bottles so that they all fit together properly. If you do drink these, please can you wash them out and send them in to school. We need 1500 to build a whole greenhouse so your help will be very much appreciated

The deadline for applications for Reception places is Friday15 January 2016 These must be made through School Admissions at Birmingham City Council online birmingham.gov.uk/schooladmissions or call 0121 303 1888

A massive thank-you to everyone who sponsored a tree and helped plant over 250 new trees on the last two Fridays. We have about 150 left to plant, so we have arranged one final session on Tuesday 15th December after school. Everyone is welcome, whether you have already planted a tree or not, but please bring a spade! We are meeting at 3.30pm on the top field.

Nursery and Reception Christmas Performance: Tuesday 15 December 9.30am & 2.00pm

Year 1 and Year 2 Christmas Performance: Wednesday 16 December 9.30am

Year 3 and Year 4 Carol Concert: Thursday 17 December 9.15am

Year 5 and Year 6 Carol Concert: Friday 18 December 9.15am

Christmas Parties: Thursday 17 December

Christmas Jumper Day: Friday 18 December

Autumn Term Ends: Friday 18 December

Staff Training Day: Monday 4 January

Spring Term starts: Tuesday 5 January

We are inviting all pupils and staff to take part in Save the Children’s Christmas Jumper Day. Thousands of people up and down the country will be wearing their Christmas jumpers and we would like to join in the fun.

Everyone will be asked to wear their silliest, sparkliest or cosiest Christmas woollies and make a donation of £1.00 to help save children’s lives around the world. Uniform MUST be worn.

IDEA: If your child does not have a festive jumper already, just dig out a plain jumper and decorate it with tinsel, baubles or homemade snowflakes!

Thank you to all the parents, staff and children who visited the Fayre and helped raise money for bike racks for the school.

We raised an amazing

£1533

A special thank you to Miss Rose and Miss Evans for organising the event

This has been another very busy term at Lea Forest Academy. There have been lots of highs despite the term being overshadowed by the sad loss of Mr Bowden. His wife and family remain in our thoughts at this time of year. Thank you to everyone who has sent in a donation for his memorial. We will be arranging a meeting with his family in the new year to discuss what they would like. If you would still like to make a donation, please send your money in an envelope labelled ‘Mr Bowden Memorial’.

Your children have been amazing this term. We have had many successes. The first half of the football season has gone well with 2 wins in our district league (details at espsfa.pitchero.com/) and fourth place in our local tournament. We are currently in 5th place out of 11 schools in the Pilot Partnership sports league which runs throughout the year. We have competitions in indoor athletics, hockey and basketball next term for Years 3-6. Our children always do us proud on the sports field showing great team spirit.

There are sports clubs every day after school including our new Play Leader club, so plenty to get involved in for everyone in KS1 and KS2.

Well done to the school choir who auditioned for a national AET arts celebration event (of course they were fantastic). We are still waiting to hear- fingers crossed!! The choir was only formed this term and is going from strength to strength.

I am sure you will agree that the Christmas Fayre on Wednesday was a great evening. I would like to thank Miss Rose and Miss Evans for their hard work alongside the volunteer parents in planning and organising the event. Everyone appeared to be really enjoying themselves and we are happy to report that we raised a fantastic £1533. This will be put towards the cost of installing bike racks. We very much hope to run further fund raising activities to enable us to move forward with this as soon as possible.

The last week before Christmas will as usual be a very busy, exciting time. All of our children will be taking part in either a Christmas Performance or a Carol Concert and we very much hope to see all of you at an event. The children and staff have worked very hard on the performances and I think you will enjoy seeing the fruits of their hard work and enter into the Christmas festivities. We will also be having Christmas Parties on Thursday and I’m sure a special visitor will be back to see all of the children, ending the term on a high. The children will break up at their usual times on Friday 18 December.

I would like to wish everyone a very happy Christmas and enjoyable New Year. Please enjoy the break. Have a safe holiday and we look forward to seeing everyone back in school on Tuesday 5 January 2016.

Mrs Thompson

Head Teacher, Lea Forest Primary Academy

We have had a number of incidents of inconsiderate and dangerous parking this week and would like to remind all of our parents to park with care and attention to our children and pedestrians using Eddish and Hurstcroft Road. We do work with the local PCSO team and our staff are actively monitoring both roads in effort to reduce dangerous parking. We will report any vehicles that continue to park in a dangerous or illegal manner to the police.

In the interests of safety it is recommended that parents:

-Walk to the academy if they live locally to reduce traffic congestion.

-Do not use the staff car park for dropping off or collecting children at the beginning or end of the academy day .

-Do not park in the entrances to the SureStart Centre on Ridpool Road or the school entrance on Hurstcroft Road

-Do not block driveways, grass verges or junctions.

-Do not park on the kerbs or pavements outside the school entrances, especially the yellow zigzag lines, as this obstructs parents with pushchairs as well as being a safety issue.

Thank you to all those parents who do walk their children to the academy, or park sensibly on the surrounding roads and respect our community.

The consultation on the proposed school admission arrangements for the 2017/2018 academic year are now available to view on the Birmingham City Council Website http://www.birmingham.gov.uk/2017admissions

Do you have a child who was born between 1^st September 2011 and 31^stAugust 2012? If so, it is important that you apply online for your child’s Reception class place for September 2016 by 15 January 2016. For further information and to apply online please visit www.birmingham.gov.uk/schooladmissions, alternatively contact a member of the Children’s Information and Advice Service on 0121 303 1888.