July  2024

I can’t believe that we only have 2 weeks left of this school year! As always, it’s been a incredibly busy week here at Lea Forest. I want to extend my heartfelt thanks for the children's excellent attendance. Your support plays a crucial role in their success and development. Let’s ensure that attendance remains a priority for the last 2 weeks - we don't want children missing out on all the fabulous experiences we have planned.

School Visits

We held a number of ‘Teaching and Learning Showcase Events’ again this week, where school leaders and trust members visited Lea Forest to explore the remarkable curriculum offer available to our children. The visitors travelled from schools up and down the country to spend the morning visiting lessons, looking through books and talking to the teachers and children and they couldn’t praise the standards, expectations and quality of work highly enough. 

Safeguarding report

We are thrilled to announce that Lea Forest has been awarded the prestigious Platinum Plus award for safeguarding by Incyte. This recognition highlights the strong culture of safety and well-being within our school community.

Year 4 trip to BCLM

Year 4 visited the Black Country Museum this week and had lots of fun learning about life in our local area over 100 years ago. They took part in a wonderful art workshop where they painted roses like the ones used to decorate canal boats. There was a trek underground into an old mine to experience how some children had to work and a visit to the iron forge to watch an ironmonger making chain links. The children were a credit to Lea Forest really enjoyed living history being brought to life.

Year 6 Greenwood performance 

We are incredibly proud of our Year 6 students who performed a fantastic dance from the Wizard of Oz at Greenwood Academy this week. They did an amazing job and represented our school beautifully!

Year 2 trip to Weston

We are delighted to share that Year 2 had a brilliant time visiting Weston-Super-Mare this week. Their behavior was impeccable, and they made us all very proud! 

Summer Fair 

Please remember that our summer fair is being held on the afternoon of Friday 12 July at 2:30pm. School will close early at 2pm to accommodate this. Please do support where you can by attending and helping us raise extra funds for school so that we can continue to provide the children with wonderful opportunities and experiences.

Reports & Open Parents Evening

On Wednesday 17 July we will be handing out school reports during our ‘Open Parents’ Evening’ (3:30pm-4:30pm).  You can also use this time as an opportunity to meet your child’s new class teacher and see where their classroom will be in September. We do not send out appointments for this event, it is much more informal, giving you a chance to thank class teachers and teaching assistants.

 Have a great weekend!    

Mr Clarke-Castello

At Lea Forest we believe there is a strong link between attendance and safeguarding. A child's absence from school can often be an early indicator of an increased need within a family and poor attendance can be a sign of a safeguarding concern. A child who is not in school is a child who is not achieving: development, social and emotional wellbeing and safety may all be compromised. It is important that if a child is going to be absent from school, parents call in every day throughout the absence.

Our attendance has dropped slightly this week.

Only 5 classes have managed to beat our 97% target this week.

Our attendance for 

the week is

96.3%

Our attendance for 

the year to date

96.4%

We're delighted to announce exciting developments for our Curriculum Garden project! Following a productive meeting with local beekeeping expert, David ("The Bee Man"), we're thrilled to confirm the launch of a school beehive in January.

Spearheaded by our Year 5 students, this initiative will see them actively involved in every step.  They'll embark on a design and construction project, building their very own hive to welcome a honeybee colony. Upon successful establishment, these dedicated young beekeepers will take ownership of marketing and selling their own Lea Forest honey!  Keep your eyes peeled on local supermarket shelves – you might just find a jar of Lea Forest honey there soon!

We've reduced our electricity usage by 8% so far this year that's a saving of almost 10,000 kWh of electricity and enough to run an average house for 5 weeks. Our Gas savings are even better! We've managed to save almost 20% so far this year by adjusting our boilers to ensure they are as efficient as possible.

Self Esteem

Self-esteem is about valuing yourself as a whole person. Here’s how you can support yourselves and your children in this journey. Celebrate strengths and uniqueness – we need to ensure we focus on what makes each person special, their talents, and their positive qualities. Practise positive reinforcement – celebrate their effort, progress, and achievements in all areas of their lives, focusing on growth, development and effort – not just outcomes. Set realistic goals and celebrate milestones – setting achievable goals builds confidence. Celebrate even small successes along the way. Practice self-compassion – we all have flaws, and that’s okay! Treat yourself and others with kindness and understanding. How can we expect others to listen to our affirming words if we don’t take heed ourselves?