November 2019

It’s almost time to decorate the hall and prepare for a very special visitor. In preparation for our Christmas Fair on Friday 13th December, we are asking parents to donate the following items on the non uniform days listed here:

Friday 29th - Bric-a-Brac

Friday 6th - Bottles/Sweets/Chocolates

We would also welcome donations for our tombola's and hampers that will be raffled off during the Christmas performances . All proceeds will help to support the school to provide more amazing resources for our children.

Miss Lewis and a team of 18 athletes from Year 5 and Year 6 travelled to Nechells Sports Centre on Wednesday for a morning of indoor athletics.

Our children competed against 8 local schools and did remarkably well scoring 602 points, the highest Lea Forest has ever scored at the event and finishing in first place.

Well done to our amazing athletes. We look forward to seeing you compete in the school games finals in the summer term.

Our girls had a fantastic night of football at an icy cold Sedgemere Road with dramatic wins and plenty of goals scored in our league games.

Lea Forest 8 vs Audley 0

Rosary 3 Vs Lea Forest 5

Hillstone 4 Vs Lea Forest 1

Brownmead 4 Vs Lea Forest 5

Well done to Reece in Year 5 who is a champion Go Karter! It was great to see his racing outfit and trophies this week.

Our year to date total stands at:

95.63%

This week’s attendance was:

95.21%

Here’s our top classes of the week:

1st - 2MC with 98.33%

2nd - 4RW with 97.50%

3rd- 4ST with 96.67%

Our year to date total stands at:

95.63%

This week’s attendance was:

95.21%

Here’s our top classes of the week:

1st - 2MC with 98.33%

2nd - 4RW with 97.50%

3rd- 4ST with 96.67%

This Week has been a week of success! Check out page 2 of the newsletter to find out all the activities that have been talking place.

Save the Dates

School is CLOSED on Thursday 12 December for the General Elections.

Our Christmas Jumper Day and Christmas Fair will take place on FRIDAY 13 DECEMBER.

Please note the following dates for different Christmas performances:

Mon 16th Dec - Years 5/6 (9:30 start)

Tues 17th Dec - Year s 3/4 (9:30 start)

Wed 18th Dec - Years 1/2 (9:30 start)

Thurs 19th Dec - Nursery/Reception (9:30 start)

Reminder: On the last day of term, Friday 20th December, we will be closing school at 12:00 (midday) for Christmas.

Punctuality

Children arriving to school late is becoming more of a problem. We provide a breakfast club from 8:00am and the main gates and doors are open from 8:45am until 9:00am. Anyone arriving after the doors have been closed at 9:00am must report to the main reception and will be signed in as being late. Our lessons start at 9:00am and child arriving later than this time are missing parts of their education. Ms Wale and Mr Wills will be working with our Attendance Officer to start tackling families that are arriving late regularly. Please work with us and give your children the best opportunities to achieve their full potential by arriving at school on time.

Focus Fortnight (Attendance)

Come to school every day for the next two weeks for the chance to win great prizes for you and your family. Focus Fortnight is back from Monday 25 November until Friday 6 December. See the posters for more information.

I’d like to wish you all a happy weekend! See you all again next week for another fun-packed week.

Please help us to support reading at home by ensuring that your child’s home reading record is signed everyday and bought into school with your child’s home reading book so that it can be updated and changed during their reading session. Reading is a major focus this year and we will providing support, including story telling sessions from our Librarian, Mrs Clarke and workshops with Miss Evans. If your child isn’t bringing a diary or reading book home, please inform their teacher.

Our attendance is continuing to improve week on week and we are on track to beat our 96% target this term! Let’s keep this great work going and make sure every day counts.

Should you have concerns about your child’s attendance, please make an appointment with Mr Wills or Ms Wale to discuss this.

Freddy Fit has been back in the hall this week working with all of our children to help develop healthy and active lifestyles.

Freddy has also been busy working with our play leaders teaching new activities for them to use at lunchtime with our school community.

Year 2 and Year 6 have been completing assessments this week. These are the first set of the tests for this year.

ALL Year 2 and Year 6 children sit SATS tests in May and these initial tests allow us to baseline where the children currently are and helps us identify what further support if needed.

Work to dig out the foundations has started on the Hurstcroft Road side of the site . Next week should see the demolition of the old caretaker’s house which will eventually be replaced with an extended Key Stage 2 building that will include new classrooms. We cant wait to see the building start to take shape over the coming months.

Please help us to keep our children safe by reminding them that constructions sites are dangerous places that they must not enter.

Lea Forest were in action at Sedgemere Road in the 5-A-Side Semi Finals this week, with teams from the East Birmingham Schools FA. Here are the results from this week’s fixtures:

LFP 5 vs Starbank 0

LFP 2 vs Mapledeane 1

LFP 4 vs Elms Farm 0

Parents of children in Early Years, Year 1, Year 2 and Year 3 are invited to attend our Bug Club Reading Event on Tuesday November 19 at 2:30pm.

Come along and learn how to use a this great online resource at home to help support reading with your child.

We started the week with Remembrance Day and I would like to say a huge thank you to Mr Taylor and Mr Haw who both ensured that our Remembrance event was a successful and memorable experience. As always, the children showed their respect in a sensible way.

We spotted hundreds of odd socks at Lea Forest on Tuesday as we celebrated and supported Anti Bullying Week on Tuesday. Thank you to everyone for taking part and showing that ‘change really does start with us’.

We had a visitor in school on Wednesday who is a consultant Headteacher for 5 AET schools. I gave him a tour of Lea Forest. We visited classes and talked to children about their experiences and learning opportunities within school. He also got time to look through the children’s work. He was absolutely blown away by the high standards and expectations we have here at Lea Forest. He was also very complimentary of our wonderfully polite children.

We held another Early Years event on Thursday. The Light and Dark event was not well attended. Thank you to the parents and carers that did attend. It’s always such a great experience for children when you are able to join in with their learning.

We have ended the week with our spotty day in aid of Children In Need. Some of the children made a fabulous effort with their spotty outfits.

Looking ahead to next week, we have Road Safety Week. We will be teaching lessons based around road safety and ensuring the children are safe. This is a continued programme and is part of our curriculum which Miss Hadfield has constructed specifically for our children at our school. Please speak to your children about road safety and help by parking safely around school.

We also have a Reading Bug session for parents next Tuesday at 2:30 which will be led by Miss Evans and will be for any parents/carers of children in Nursery, Reception, Y1, Y2 and Y3.

Happy weekend! See you all next week!