November 2023

Training Day

Reminder: School will be closed to ALL children on Monday 27th November for a STAFF TRAINING day. Children should be back in school on Tuesday 28th November.

Remarkable Reading Backpacks

We have introduced new backpacks this week for our Remarkable Readers.  Each week, teachers will choose a ‘Reader of the Week’ who will bring home the reading backpack, with Spartacus, a hot chocolate sachet and a range of books.  They will also be expected to create a book review in the journal provided. In school, these remarkable readers will also be gifted with a golden reading token for our book vending machine.  This is all part of our reading culture at Lea Forest, where we want to instill a love of books and reading in all of our children. 

The REP Winter Festival

I had the pleasure of accompanying our drama group,along with Mrs Newbold and Mrs Hudson to the Birmingham REP this week.  It was a wonderful opportunity for the children to be able to showcase their acting skills.  I was blown away by their confidence and ability to project their voices in such a big theatre.  

Parent Mental Health Awareness Workshop

On Monday 4th December (9am – 10am) we will be holding a 'Parent Mental Health Awareness Workshop, where practitioners from the STICK team (part of Forward Thinking Birmingham) will be in school to deliver key information to parents.  This session will offer practical techniques and advice for building resilience and supporting mental health.  It will also go through opening up conversations about mental health and allow parents to ask questions and seek support.

Winter Crafternoon

We will be holding a ‘Winter Crafternoon’ on Tuesday 5th December (3:30 - 4:30pm,) whereby you have the opportunity to come along and work with your children on some winter craft projects.  We will provide all of the resources, all you need to do is turn up and be prepared to get your hands dirty! We will also be selling mince pies and hot drinks during this event, so please bring some loose change.

Christmas Fair

We will holding our Christmas Fair on Friday 8th December 2023 from 3:00pm - 5:00pm.  Entry will be via door 4 on Eddish Road.  There will be lots of stalls, food, games and crafts and even the opportunity to meet Santa.  In preparation for this, we are holding a number of non-uniform days in order to collect some of the items required.  Please note: School will finish for children at 2:30pm on this day to allow us to get the stalls prepared. We look forward to seeing you all!

Final Day of term

On the last day of term (Friday 22nd December), we will finishing at 1:30pm.  Please make arrangements for your child(ren) to be collected on time on this day.  Early Years will be dismissed from 1:00pm, Key Stage 1 at 1:10pm and KS2 at 1:20pm .   

Have a great weekend! See you all again on TUESDAY.

The Academy Council serves as the local advisory body squarely focused on providing insight into the experiences of pupils, parents, staff and the wider community. The remit of the Academy Councils is set out in the Terms of Reference.  If you would like access to the council meeting minutes, you may request a copy from the Governance Team.  Overarching legal responsibility for the academy lies with the Board of Trustees. 

This week, Year 1 visited Legoland Discovery Birmingham to learn about free standing structures. We took part in a class from a Lego creator who taught us how to build a seesaw using special components to make it strong enough for our Lego figures to sit on. We explored ‘Mini-Brum’ which was made entirely out of Lego! Our favourite parts of the day were riding on the attractions and visiting the 4D cinema where we got quite the splash from a giant drooling dog. The day finished with a short walk by the canals back to our coaches where we spotted lots of barges in the water. What a great day!

It has been amazing to see so many of you practising your fluency of your number facts and times tables in school and at home. 

Here are this week’s Numbots stars:

Year 1 - Shanaya Ahmed Hussain

Year 2 - Yassine Ali Mohammadi

Gruffalos - Aadam Nawaz

This week’s Rock Legends are:

Year 3 - Aayan Rahman

Year 4 - Casey Day

Year 5 - Iosif Dumitru

Year 6 - Chelsea Lees

We are pleased to announce that this year’s Christmas Fayre will be held on Friday 8 December. To make the fayre as successful as previous years, we will be holding non-uniform days and asking for an exchange of a small gift for the stalls, as listed.

Friday 17 November

Bottles

Friday 24 November

Tins, Cans & Packets

Friday 1 December

Sweets and Chocs

Friday 8 December

Cakes & Bric-a-Brac

We've been busy recording our trips to school this week and have recorded 4243 active journeys to school so far this month.  Our most active classes this week are: 

RFH, 2JM and 5SJ

We would like to take this opportunity to say THANK YOU to all of our families who consistently ensure their children’s attendance and punctuality is good. Getting these important habits established early on in your child’s life will make a difference to their future.There is a proven link between attendance and achievement and we want your children to have the best possible start in life. A child should attend school every day that they are well enough. Unnecessary absences can affect them in many ways, for example by damaging friendships or them missing out on exciting activities.

It’s great to see everyone working so hard to achieve our 96% target.  

We can only do this if we all work together!

Our attendance for 

the week is

96.5%

Our attendance for 

the year to date

97.0%

Keep up the great work!

We are really pleased to let you know that our excellent attendance this academic year has continued into the new half term and our overall attendance for the year remains above 96%.This is extremely positive and something all pupils, parents and staff should be proud of. Certain year groups have really shone so keep an eye on the attendance for your child’s class to see how well they are doing. Remember that every day your child is in school they are benefiting from the excellent education that we strive to provide for them.

It’s great to see everyone working so hard to achieve our 96% target.  

We can only do this if we all work together!

Our attendance for 

the week is

96.12%

Our attendance for 

the year to date

97.10%

Keep up the great work!

On Monday, 5SJ made their trip to the Roots 2 Fruits Garden Nursery to kick start their science chemistry unit - Properties and Changes of Material.  The children had an amazing time learning how to make cement to create decorative paving slabs and identifying that a chemical reaction happens creating an irreversible change. They also looked at soil types and how we can add nutrient to the soil through dissolving different natural chemicals into solutions. They have also planted wheat seeds which we can watch grow and plant out over the winter and ground wheat kernels to make flour.  It was a really exciting way to introduce the children to their new unit.

We have managed to secure a group booking to the Houses Of Parliament in London on Wednesday 13th December. Invites will be given in the next few weeks to selected members of our School Council and Debate Mate team. 

We are pleased to announce that this year’s Christmas Fayre will be held on Friday 8 December. To make the fayre as successful as previous years, we will be holding non-uniform days and asking for an exchange of a small gift for the stalls, as listed.

Friday 17 November

Bottles

Friday 24 November

Tins, Cans & Packets

Friday 1 December

Sweets

Friday 8 December

Cakes & Bric-a-Brac

It has been amazing to see so many of you practising your fluency of your number facts and times tables in school and at home. 

Here are this week’s Numbots stars:

Year 1 - Armaan Khan

Year 2 - Yassine Ali Mohammadi

Gruffalos - Abdullah Hussain

This week’s Rock Legends are:

Year 3 - Neo Montaque

Year 4 - Inshrah Butt

Year 5 - Falisha Khan

Year 6 - Afifa Ibrahim

At Lea Forest Primary Academy, we follow the ‘Talk for Writing’ process in Early Years and for the first term in Year 1. The aim is for the children to orally retell stories to help them develop their vocabulary base and understanding of story structures before they then apply this to their writing. 

For the remainder of Year 1 and in Year 2 we follow the AET Mastery English approach to writing. This is an ambitious curriculum that provides our pupils with plenty of opportunities to apply the taught skills into shortburst and extended pieces of writing, across a range of genres. 

In Year 3 - 6, writing lessons are taught using the ARK English Mastery curriculum, which is a text-based curriculum that provides children with ample opportunities to engage with high-quality texts and develop a strong command for the written language.

All year groups (1-6) have daily reading lessons, which follow the English ARK Mastery programme of discretely teaching: vocabulary, fluency, domain knowledge, book talk and comprehension. These lessons are talk through high-quality texts carefully selected using Doug Lemov's give plagues. In addition to this, children across the school have access to additional reading sessions through the form of 1:1 reading sessions, hit squad, Accelerated Reader and Reading Gladiators.

We've been busy recording our trips to school this week and have recorded 2489 active journeys to school so far this month.  Our most active classes this week are: 

1ED, 2JM and 3EC.

Early Help

This week our safeguarding focus is early help. Early help and early intervention are forms of support aimed at improving outcomes for children or preventing escalating need or risk. Early help can be given to families and children from a range of external agencies that can include school. Research suggests that early help and intervention can: protect children from harm; reduce the need for a referral to child protection services; improve children's long-term outcomes; improve children’s home and family life; support children to develop strengths and skills to prepare them for adult life. If you would like more information, please contact us at school.

This week’s free online safety guide, provided by the National Online Safety (NOS) website, focuses on Tik Tok. The popular video-sharing social media app allows users to create, view and download looping 15-second clips. Typically, these are videos of users lip-syncing and dancing to popular songs enhanced with filters, effects and text. Designed with young people in mind (but carrying an age rating of 13ᐩ), Tik Tok skyrocketed in popularity in 2019 and now boasts approximately a billion users worldwide. Despite the fun nature of Tik Tok, there are numerous hazards which parents should be aware of (visible on this week's safety poster)  

The livestock farming industry produces 15% of global greenhouse gas emissions. With this in mind, you can encourage kids to be more conscious and eat more plant-based foods. Perhaps you and your kids can practice Meatless Mondays as a family commitment to sustainability.

Welcome back! I hope that you all had a wonderful half term break.  We’ve hit the ground running this week…. We’ve had a few visits from leaders’ from other local schools who have visited classes and toured the school to observe our outstanding practice. Year 4 have visited the Ikon Gallery in Birmingham; Year 6 have been completing SATS baseline assessments. To end the week, our debating team have attended a ‘Debate Mate’ introduction session at Birmingham University. Next week is ‘Anti-Bullying Week’ and the theme this year is ‘Make a Noise about Bullying’.  ‘Odd Socks Day’ marks the start of the week, which will take place on Monday 13 November. We can’t wait to see our pupils in their wacky odd socks! Other anti-bullying assemblies and lessons will take place during this week.

Reception Places for September 2024

If your child was born between 1 September 2019 and 31 August 2020, they will be able to start school in September 2024. Parents must apply online for a reception place at Lea Forest via the BIrmingham City Council website.  Parents can make an appointment with Mr Croxon via the school office if they require any help completing the online form.  We will be holding an open day on Friday 17 November for prospective parents/carers to visit and look around our exceptional Early Years environment. 

Coffee Morning

Mrs Gonzales and Mrs Wakelam held our very first ‘Friends of Lea Forest’ coffee morning yesterday. This was an opportunity to have an informal chat with each other.  Attendees discussed what is working well and what we could do even better. 

Remembrance 

We spent time today in our assembly thinking about our brave soldiers and veterans and the sacrifices they made.   

Children’s University

Our new Children's University Clubs have started this week. Our children have an exciting selection of clubs to participate in including: Arts and Craft, Lego Building, Cookery, Times Table Rockstars, Acting and Theatre Skills, Library Club and our ever popular sports clubs. The children will be earning stamps in our new Lea Forest Curriculum Passports for 

each session they attend. 

We will also be celebrating ‘Children in Need’ next Friday. Children can come to school dressed in their pyjamas and in return we will be collecting £1 

from everyone that will be donated to charity. 

Wishing you all a great weekend!

Mr. Clarke-Castello

It is important that the P.E kit is seen as an extension of our school uniform, therefore our high standards should be kept. All children require the following items for P.E: House Colour Plain T Shirt or Lea Forest Branded T Shirt from the uniform shop (patterned designs and football shirts are not permitted). Red for Holly, Blue for Bramble, Green for Ash and Yellow for Oak.

• Black Shorts

• Black Slip on pumps or trainers for indoor use

• Jogging Bottoms or track suit trousers for outdoor use

• Trainers for outdoor use

We are pleased to let you know that last half term, our overall attendance was just over 97%. This exceeded the challenging target that we had set, and was the best Autumn 1 attendance school has ever seen! This week we are again very pleased with the positive start to the new half term. Although we have a small number of pupils missing school due to holidays in term time, attendance for this week has still been 96.67%.

This week sees the start of our new attendance initiative - Spartacus’ Attendance Emporium. Look out for posts about this on Class Dojo.

It’s great to see everyone working so hard to achieve our 96% target.  

We can only do this if we all work together!

Our attendance for 

the week is

96.67%

Our attendance for 

the year to date

97.10%

Keep up the great work!

We are pleased to announce that this year’s Christmas Fayre will be held on Friday 8 December. To make the fayre as successful as previous years, we will be holding non-uniform days and asking for an exchange of a small gift for the stalls, as listed.

Friday 17 November

Bottles

Friday 24 November

Tins, Cans & Packets

Friday 1 December

Sweets

Friday 8 December

Cakes & Bric-a-Brac

It has been amazing to see so many of you practising your fluency of your number facts and times tables in school and at home. 

Here are this week’s Numbots stars:

Year 1 - Luseia Baker

Year 2 - Shahan Imdad

This week’s Rock Legends are:

Year 3 - Yameen Chowdhury

Year 4 - Aqib Ali Khan

Year 5 - Mia Evans

Year 6 - Naima Abdirahman

At Lea Forest we aim to develop our pupils’ character through the growth of relationships that define us as human. Through our curriculum, we develop a set of competencies (behaviours) which enable each and every one of our pupils to lead a remarkable life. These competencies can be found at in the ‘Character Curriculum’ section of our website.

In addition to the tasks provided by individual class teachers, a ‘Character Curriculum Challenge’ will be set 

fortnightly on the newsletter. On this occasion, we would like you to watch a film and review it. Examples of film reviews (for / by children) can be found on the Common Sense Media website and can even be published on Amazon and beyond. So what’s your favourite film? Remember to send your film reviews to Mr Croxon or your class teachers (either on Class Dojo or Twitter) 

We've been busy recording our trips to school this week and have recorded 953 active journeys to school so far this month.  Our most active classes this week are: 

5SC, 5SJ and 2JM.

This week, voters have been be considering recent events in Israel and Palestine. 

Children have considered their feelings about the stories and insights emerging from Israel and Palestine, sharing their thoughts on: “Are you worried about children in Israel & Palestine?” in KS1. 

Meanwhile, KS2 voters have reflected on the sensitivities and complexities that come with discussing this topic. They have had their say on: 

“Is it easy to have conversations about conflict in Israel & Palestine?” 

Article 17

Every child has the right to reliable information from the media.This should be information that children can understand. Governments must help protect children from materials that could harm them.  

Pupils at Lea Forest have received an age appropriate and factual assembly this week about the events in the Middle East. We want to ensure that our pupils are appropriately informed and supported during this time.  

This week’s free online safety guide, provided by the National Online Safety (NOS) website, focuses on LiveMe. LiveMe is a streaming video app that lets you watch live streams and broadcast your own live videos to anyone interested. The service, which is aimed at young adults aged 17+, has amassed more than sixty million global users and streams around 300,000 hours of footage a a day. The app aims to give creators a “platform to reach a wide audience and share their talents and passions directly with their fans”. Users can buy virtual coins and gifts and send these to broadcasters who create content “they love”, which can be redeemed for money.

Neglect

This week our safeguarding focus is neglect. Neglect is the ongoing failure to meet a child's basic needs and the most common form of child abuse. A child might be left hungry or dirty, or without proper clothing, shelter, supervision or health care.This can put children and young people in danger. It can also have long term effects on their physical and mental wellbeing. The main types of neglect are physical neglect, educational neglect, emotional neglect and medical neglect.For more information about this and what to do if you think a child might be suffering neglect see the NSPCC link below:

https://www.nspcc.org.uk/what-is-child-abuse/types-of-abuse/neglect

On Friday 17th November, our Remarkable Early Years Foundation Stage team (which consists of Mrs Gonzales, Mrs Hartwell, Mrs Hopkins and Miss Freeman) will be opening their doors to share the ‘Outstanding’ Reception provision on offer at Lea Forest Primary Academy. Prospective parents are invited to complete the ‘Early Years Open Day Form’ (which can be accessed via the QR Code on the ‘Reception Open Day 2023 Flyer’) to book a 30 minute insight and ‘meet and greet’ with Reception staff. The ‘Reception Open Day’ will run on a first-come-first-served basis with 30 minute sessions running between 9:30am and 5:00pm.

Air dry your clothes. Not only is hang-drying environmentally friendly, but it will also save you 24 and 72 pence per hour you would otherwise use the dryer, depending on the model. Further information about how much energy your dryer uses can be found here.

Andy Goldsworthy is a British sculptor, photographer, and environmentalist who produces sculptures and land art situated in natural and urban settings. His work makes us think about the world around us and how nature is art.  

Thomas Edison was a very careful worker, who is now known as one of the most important inventors in history. Almost everyone in the world has used at least one of his inventions: the electric lightbulb. We are still using them today, over 100 years later!

John Adams

John Coolidge Adams is an American composer and conductor whose music is rooted in minimalism. Among the most regularly performed composers of contemporary classical music, he is particularly noted for his operas, which are often centered around recent historical events.

In the UK, We have a system of government called democracy. We hold elections to choose someone to represent us. Most candidates who ‘stand for election belong to a political party - a group of people who share similar beliefs.

Together, people who belong to the party agree on the changes they will make if they are elected. These are called policies. Our democracy is a system of government with four special features:

1. Allows people a way of choosing and replacing their representatives through free and fair elections.

2. Protects the human rights of all citizens.

3. Depends on laws, which apply
   equally to all citizens.

4. Encourages citizens to participate
   in politics and community life.