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Dear Parents,
Welcome to another busy and fun-packed newsletter! October was a busy and exciting month. It started with our fantastic Primary Sports Day where our students had a great time practising all of the sporting skills they are learning in their PE lessons.
We have successfully completed our beginning of year baseline assessments in our Reception and Primary classes. These results will form the basis of our parent-teacher meetings on 8th November. We look forward to seeing you between 1:00pm-6:00pm. Please make sure you have an appointment with your class teacher.
October is also a time for giving and sharing with others. As part of our charity work NOTME, our students have been collecting tins of tomato paste for TIDER. Thank you all very much for your generosity. The tins will be sent to TIDER to use in their food bank.
Our House system is developing well with the introduction of our new House Trees, where house points are displayed for all the children to see. When you are next in our Primary building, please stop and have a look.
We finished off this month with a fantastic Halloween event. I would like to thank Miss Lynne and all of our Class Parents who arranged and ran such an exciting and fun day for our students.
I feel we've had a positive and fruitful start to the first half term of this academic year. Thank you all for your support and cooperation. I wish you a safe and restful half term holiday.
Kind regards,
Alison Jones
director's note
director's note
Pastoral Care & Wellbeing
This month in our Wellbeing lessons we continued to look at gratitude and reflect upon what we are grateful for and why. Following on from our ‘GET AN ATTITUDE OF GRATITUDE' PSHE ASSEMBLY, we played a whole school game finding 5 things that we are grateful for. In our lessons we looked at this more carefully and made gratitudes jars and an alphabet of gratitude. We concluded the lessons with a mindful body scan for gratitude. This month we focused on another area of gratitude too, which involves all of the senses in an act of ‘savouring’ and really appreciating something. We focused on mindful eating, but of course this mindful noticing can be practised in many other ways as we will continue to look at throughout November.
Mindful Eating, Gratitude and Savouring
An introductory article for parents for parents adapted from https://www.actionforhealthykids.org/activity/mindful-eating/
Understand mindfulness. Lay the groundwork and help children understand what it means to practise mindfulness and why it is important. Mindfulness means paying full attention to something – with no distraction, staying in the moment and noticing our thoughts and how we feel (both physically and emotionally). Being mindful means taking our time and staying relaxed.
Encourage children to use the 5 senses and practise small “mindful bites”. Now that children have a general understanding about what it means to practise mindfulness, have them experience their food in a new way. Encourage children to remain present and in the moment by drawing upon their five senses to take small, intention bites.
See: What do you notice? What colour is it? What shape is it? What stands out?
Feel: When you hold it in your hand, what does it feel like? Is it soft or hard? Squishy or rough?
Hear: Does it make any sounds? What about if you squeeze it between your fingers? (You can also revisit sound during taste)
Smell: How would you describe the smell?
Invite children to close their eyes as they explore taste.
Taste: Put the food in your mouth. Before you chew, what is the first thing you taste? Is it sweet or salty? Sour or savoury? As you start to chew, chew slowly and before you swallow, think about the change in flavour, texture and sounds. Does it change the longer you chew?
KS2 STUDENT COUNCIL
This month we invited students from all of KS2 to come along to join the Forest campus Primary student Council.
I was so surprised to have nearly 40 volunteers who are willing to give up their time to help others ☺ I am looking forward to working with this great group of young people after the half term break to put together a fantastic charity event. WATCH THIS SPACE!
IDEA in Primary
Dear Families,
For our first IDEA lesson together, Y1-Y6 students began exploring the topic of diversity by discussing similarities and differences. We read the book, Same, Same, but Different by Jenny Sue Kostecki-Shaw and had meaningful conversation about the and similarities and differences we share. To celebrate the diversity of our community, the children illustrated a self-portrait. All portraits are now displayed throughout the Primary building!
The students also worked to make a video about what IDEA means in Primary school, which we played during our Friday assembly. Please click to the link above to view!
Sincerely,
Ashley Vaccaro
Y1-Y6 SPORTS DAY
Congratulations to our Primary students for a successful Sports Day! Each autumn, students from Year 1 to Year 6 divide by house and participate in friendly sports competitions alongside their peers. It is a fantastic opportunity for the students to exhibit teamwork and sportsmanship. The event culminates with sprint races and medals for all. Thank you to our PE department, teachers, and wonderful parents for their support in making our Sports Day one to remember!
HALLOWEEN 2023
On Monday October 23rd we had a fantastic day with lots of scary activities taking place at Forest Campus Zekeriyakoy.
Students dressed up in their favourite costumes and we walked the catwalk :)
We started the morning with a choir performance of the monster mash and had a wake up shake up halloween style with Ms Katrine and Ms Talya.
The children were invited to walk around the haunted house which was amazing!
Thank you to all the lovely class parents for setting this up for us. All students received a yummy bag of trick or treat sweets.
Of course we had a yucky lunch, bloody spaghetti bolognaise, slime pea soup and a delicious pumpkin cookie.
The children took part in a carousel of ghoulish games all day and won house leaves for participation.
It was a wonderful day of fun for all, and really emphasised the amazing community we have here at the Forest campus,great things happen when staff, parents and children all come together.
A huge thank you to everyone!
Miss Lynne
Deputy Director Pastoral Forest Campus
EYFS
Miss Elise: Preschool 1
Hello from the Ants Class! October was rich in both outdoors and indoors activities. From walking around the school gardens and hearing different sounds in the air, on the street, our feet on the sand, to doing dishes and getting familiar with home sounds. We also learned about the colours yellow, red and blue, and the numbers 1 and 2. We are counting with sticks, eggs, pinecones, and we are crafting eggs in a self handmade bird nest.
Miss Ogomoditse & Ms Hatice: Preschool 2
The Butterflies are busy! We reviewed mini beasts, indoor and outdoor sounds. We also started activities of name recognition. We are learning about shapes. We listened to the bee sound and learned that we get honey from the bees and the spider has 8 legs. We also learned to arrange numbers 1-3 in order. We played the sleeping giant game which focuses on listening and concentration skills.
Miss Lauren & Miss Melike: Reception
We have been busy using maps to explore our local area and our school.
Our OWL lessons are full of fun!
We have been counting and comparing size in Maths.
We have been talking about people who help us this term and we were very lucky to have some of our parents come and speak to us about their jobs.
We have been getting messy and having fun!
Year One
Miss Katrine & Miss Sena: 1D
Students in 1D have been learning about maps and how they help us navigate. As a part of this, they have practised naming continents and have explored globes and a range of maps in class. The students particularly enjoyed taking their learning outside to the Botanical Gardens, where they were able to have a go at putting their learning into practice by reading their own map to find a hidden treasure. They identified where their treasure could be by looking for key places on the map to help with their navigation. All the students were very excited to find their treasures.
Miss Belen & Miss Sena: 1G
Y1 has been working on a lot of diverse activities to foster creativity while learning. We have built 3D facial sculptures, first, practicing with play-dough to make a final work in clar. We rehearsed pinching, rolling out and molding in order to make the different parts of our sculpture. In maths lessons we have been using non-standard units of measurement to measure things in our surroundings while making comparisons with classmates to understand why they are called non-standard.
We also had our first mid term baking with the Halloween theme, which was an opportunity to share and follow instructions. We rehearsed the importance of following steps in the procedural writing piece: our recipe. We also spoke about World Food Day and linked it with the role that water plays with the growth of crops and how it is vital for animals as well. Kids made a hand craft to better understand the water cycle and also planted two different kinds of seeds to observe their sprouting and growth.
Year Two
Ms. Verralls & Miss Neslihan: 2V
In English we have been acting and writing sets of instructions. We enjoyed writing instructions on how to bake Halloween biscuits and made actions for the different steps.
In science we have been learning about rocks. We took a visit to the secondary school to find out about the rock collection they have there and asked many questions.
In humanities we have started our new topic about Oceania. To begin the topic, we created a class aeroplane and made a role play about travelling to Australia.
Ms. Aycan & Miss Neslihan: 2A
October has been a busy month. The 12Th was our KS1 Community Picnic- the food was bountiful, the weather glorious and we had such a great afternoon. This was followed by our fantastic Sports Day. We celebrated Whale Week by reading and writing poems based on whales and made a special Whale Booklet. In Food week we made a model to show how rainfall is formed and we planted some bean seeds. We have been busy in Literacy learning about Instruction text and in Numeracy we have been learning about Addition and Subtraction.
In KS1 we looked at the Whales festival in South Africa. The children learned all about how to look after the environment and care for the whales around the world. In Year 1 the children completed art work on this topic and made thir own whale. In Year 2, the children looked at whale poetry.
Thank you to all the parents of KS1 for joining us for our picnic in the park. Everyone had a lovely afternoon.
We enjoyed our first KS1 bake. The children worked in groups and followed all the instructions to make some delicious Halloween biscuits.
Year Three
Mrs. Robbins & Miss Neslihan: 3R
Halloween Fun in 3R
3R worked in teams to build catapults. They were given popsicle sticks, rubber bands and a spoon. They had to work together to create caterpults that would work.
Then they had to get as many small "pumpkins" ( pompoms) into their cauldrons using the caterpault. Each team had 20 seconds to caterpualt as many pumpkins into the cauldrons as they could. The team with the most pumpkins won. This activity inspired team building, creativity and problem solving... and of course fun!
Ms. Adesanya & Miss Neslihan: 3A
In science, we have been studying materials. In this lesson we were looking at filtration. We used funnel and cotton wool as a filter to separate the sand, stones and dirty water. When the dirty water filtered through into our plastic bottle, the water was clean. We found out that we can separate the insoluble solids from the liquid by pouring the mixture through a filter.
Year Four
Ms. Lincoln & Miss Zerrin: 4L
4L is a fantastic team of children to work with each day. Our first half term together has been hard-working, productive, and clear progress in many areas being made. Our pictures show the children working carefully with chalk pastels, still life work to create their own peaches related to James and The Giant Peach, I think Roald Dahl would be impressed. We sadly had to say goodbye to Ella. She will be missed by this class who have known her for 4 years. Halloween was a beautiful sunny day with some impressive dressing up by all.
Ms. Newman & Miss Zerrin: 4N
Children in year 4 have become engrossed in their class novel 'James and the Giant Peach' from which they have developed a range of English skills. They have written descriptive pieces using literary methods to create tension as well as playscripts involving speech from multiple characters. They have been encouraged to draw inferences such as inferring characters’ feelings, thoughts and motives from their actions, and to predict what might happen next in the story. They particularly enjoyed using drama to perform a section of the story, showing understanding through intonation, tone, volume and action.
Year Five
Ms. Halabi & Miss Mos: 5H
This month, we held our annual Sports Day in glorious sunshine and everyone involved performed brilliantly!
Students in Year 5H have written mini- biographies and used timelines to organise information in chronological sequence. The show and tell presentations of their own timelines were fantastic! Well done 5H!
Year 5 students have been observing the seasonal changes in the botanical garden and learning about how plants and animals are adapted to the seasons.
They have also explored and investigated how the movement of tectonic plates form fold mountains such as the Alps and the Himalayas. We used towels to represent what can happen to rock layers over time near fault lines.
Our half term ended with a memorable, fun-filled Halloween Day!
Mrs. Deufel & Miss Mos: 5D
In maths we added and subtracted whole numbers and decimal numbers, both mentally and using written methods.
In humanities we researched many of the world’s mountain ranges, finding out the height of the tallest mountains and how these mountains were formed. We will continue this unit after half-term.
5D have been busy learning about timelines and information texts. The students collected information from home about significant events in their own lives and created a personal timeline. We then moved onto researching well-known people, scientists, composers and playwrights and wrote a biography of their chosen person.
Lots of fun was had at sports day and October is closing with a Halloween bang. A fun-filled day began on the field with music and moves to classics like The Monster Mash and Thriller. The fun continued as the children rotated activities. They played musical chairs, bobbed for apples, told Halloween jokes and paraded on the red carpet.
Year Six
Mr. McCann & Mr. Furkan: 6M
As part of our coastal unit, the children have been learning how our coasts are shaped over millions of years by the processes of both erosion and deposition. The children then created a display to showcase their learning. The displays describe the processes by which caves, arches, stacks and stumps are created.
Ms. Ward & Mr. Furkan: 6W
We would like to congratulate Layla and Seonghyun on becoming House Captains or Deputy House Captains for their house.
Agastyaa, Daniel, Ayla, Aysa and Tuana are also on the Student Council, so well done to you too! We’re looking forward to the exciting projects you’ll be leading
Halloween was celebrated in great style with a range of costume ideas on display. Well done everyone!
Our Coastal Projects are well underway with some creative presentations taking shape. Students have been learning about how non-fiction text is displayed and used by authors, and now using that learning in their own projects. We look forward to sharing these with our school community after the holiday break.
Sadly we farewelled Sarah, our well-loved classmate who we will miss immensely. All the best with your new school. The students and teachers there are lucky to have you! Thank you to our class parents for contributing to the class party to farewell Sarah.
Languages
Miss Talya: KS1 ESL
We have been doing so many things together with our ESL KS1 and reception classes mainly focusing on building our daily language through learning the colours, days of the week, daily routines along with adding polite gestures such as “can I ?” , “please” and “thank you”. We have been using the outdoors as much as possible and creating a variety of interactive learning environments using our school setting playgrounds and gardens, and playing ESL related language games in these areas which encourage our children to have a time out and have fun but also continue to build their language skills through engaging in team work. Not to forget that as its the spooky season we have made our own halloween fridge magnets and talked about things that we are “scared” and “not scared”. We read the book “Winnie the Witch” and did sequencing along with working on our comprehension skills.The children also very much enjoyed the spooky dancing and singings we did in class.
Mrs. Gwilliam: KS2 ESL
In ESL, the children have been working hard. Our new beginner students enjoyed learning new songs. The elementary group interviewed their class and practised adverbs of frequency. The intermediate students are getting to grips with the past tense and learning new words to write about a visit to a park. Year 5 wrote about their home in Istanbul and were proud to display their work with photos. Year 3 are reading Winnie the Witch for a story writing activity. Well done to all for your hard work!
Ms. Hatice: Turkish
We continue to learn Turkish through engaging activities. In KS1, students learned colors and numbers, reinforcing their knowledge through age-appropriate games. In Year 3, the focus was on self-introduction, months, and days; Year 4 countries and languages; Year 5 plural suffixes and adjectives; and Year 6 learned personal pronouns.
Mr. Vincent: French
Bonjour à toutes et à tous,
This month Year 6 students worked on learning about sports. Year 5 students learned about physical description and countries, Year 4 learned about animals. Y3 had been learning about week and months of the year.
Au revoir et bonnes vacances
Monsieur Vincent
Ms. Ana: Spanish
Year 6 are learning about places in town and will be able to identify the main sites in the city. They will also be learning prepositions to be able to read a map and give directions.
Year 5 are working on countries and nationalities around the world. Students will be able to ask and answer questions in Spanish such as 'where do you come from? I come from...'
Year 4 are learning about different animals such as pets, farm and wild animals. Students will learn different vocabulary as well as questions about 'what is your favorite animal' or 'do you have a pet at home?'
Year 3 will be learning about seasons and clothes. Students will be learning the seasons of the months along with everything covered so far. They will also learn the clothes that we wear in different seasons.
Learning Support
Mrs Bartola and Miss Jess
Does your child need a little extra help with fine motor skills? (holding a pencil, forming their number and letters, drawing). There are lots of activities you can do at home to support your child with this that can still be fun!
Arts, Crafts and Games
Finger painting, finger gym
Play doh modelling, playdoh songs
Board games, lego, construction, water and sand play
Cutting and sticking activities, origami, beading
Cooking and food preparation
Get your child involved in stirring pots, rolling pastry, pouring ingredients or drinks
Serving out dishes
Cutting and chopping vegetables and fruit
Using cutlery or chopsticks independently
Dressing
Fastening buttons and zips, tying shoe laces
Hair braiding, nail painting
OWL (Outdoor Woodland Learning)
Ms. Lloyd
EYFS through Year 6 students have been organising their routines with changing clothes and tidying away. They have made inquiries in our school Forest. Here is an outline of some of the fantastic learning that has been taking place.
EYFS/Reception: Building Relationships
Year 1: Staying Healthy, Feeding Animals and Plants,
Year 2: Planting tubs and wild flowers, Caring for Living things
Year 3: From Seeds to Plants, Planting tubs and wild flowers, Caring for Living things
Year 4: Energy and Movement, Water Rafts
Year 5: Scents/Smells, Nectar Cafe/Flower Garden
Year 6: Fungi, Parasites, Diseases, Food Hygiene
Please note: OWL clothes are coming home for washing and should be returned after October break, in the named plastic bag on your child’s OWL day. Thank you!
Music
Miss Rebecca: EYFS Music & Drama
This month Reception and EYFS engaged in new musical vocal exercises and songs. As well as doing Freeze Dance and some Halloween songs this past week. Lastly, engaging with physical activities such as dancing and singing to "There was a Crocodile" song.
While in drama classes for KS1, each class performed two poems for the Halloween Poetry Performance last Friday. As well as learning new Halloween games, such as Zombie Freeze. Thank you again for all the children wearing black t-shirts for the performance and for participating.
Here are some images taken of the performance in the theatre.
Mr. Dennison: Y1-Y6 Music
Passing games encourage coordination, a strong sense of steady beat, fine motor skills, and teamwork. We all must work together like a machine in order to reach the end together. Great job Year 4!
At the beginning of most classes, we do a warmup to get our voices, bodies and minds ready for Music class. We have begun incorporating the Kodaly hand signs to help us sing more accurately and consistently.
We have been focusing on Beat versus Rhythm this term. I think we also might be learning that composing rhythms and melodies then performing for classmates can be a time consuming, yet rewarding experience.
We had a silly and spooky time putting together this whole arrangement of the song "Birds and Bats". We were able to supplement the song with multiple instruments, reflect on our work, make improvements, and have a little fun along the way.
Year 3 tested their rhythm literacy and singing skills along with their sense of teamwork in order to be able to play many different versions of the same song on several different unpitched percussion instruments.
Music is embedded in every part of every culture of the world. We have read stories and added sound effects and melodies to storybooks...maybe we can compose a soundtrack to a movie scene one day...STAY TUNED!
Year 4 has been learning about how songs are structured (we use the term FORM) through improvising in small groups. Singing a song, then taking turns improvising with familiar rhythms by instrument groups is called a Rondo.
ICT
Mr Hassan
Debate Club with Ms. Bartola
Beyond Arguments: The Transformative Journey of the Debate Club
The Debate Club has proven to be more than just a place for debate. It is a place where children can learn important life skills such as effective communication, problem solving, and critical thinking. Students learned not only to express their opinions but to do so persuasively and convincingly. The ability to articulate thoughts clearly and confidently is a skill that benefits them in countless ways, both in and out of the classroom. Members were tasked with researching and analysing debate topics from different angles. Which also helped them improve their research skills!
At the core of every debate is critical thinking. Students evaluated evidence, assessed arguments, and determined the most valid position. Through this practice, students developed the ability to think critically. One of the most visible transformations among Debate Club students was the boost in confidence. This newfound self-assurance extends well beyond the debating arena, benefiting them in presentations, interviews, and interpersonal interactions.
Reminders & Upcoming Dates
Monday 30 October-Friday 3 November: School Holiday
Wednesday 8 November: Parent-Teacher Meetings 1:00pm-6:00pm, students dismissed at 12:00pm
Monday 13 November: World Kindness Day, EYFS Nursery Rhyme Week
Please be sure to complete our student registration form and social media consent form if you have not already done so. We thank you in advance!
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