Furze Platt Infant School

Newsletter - 28th June 2024

Super Sporty FPIS!

After a very hot start to the week, the weather for our Sports Day was just about perfect. We were so impressed with how well our children joined in with the events - demonstrating LOTS of passion and showing respect towards their team mates and friends. Thank you to all those parents, family members and friends who came along to watch. We also very much appreciated the support of the spectators when leaving the field promptly afterwards. This enabled our staff team to escort the children back to class calmly and safely. Thank you! Please take a look below for more about our Sports Day event.

As we head into our final few weeks of this academic year we will be celebrating and acknowledging the many achievements and successes that the children have had this year, as well as preparing them to move on to the next stage of their education. Please make sure you book an appointment to meet with your child's current Class Teacher at our upcoming Parents' Meetings as I know they have lots to share with you!

We are all looking forward to what will be a very busy, but exciting end to the year!

Have a lovely weekend :)

With very best wishes

Jane Indge

Head of School

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Diary dates - coming up soon!

Here is a look at what's going to be happening in school during the next few weeks...

Tuesday 2nd July - Family Boat Building Fun - Year 2: 3:30 pm - 4:30 pm

Thursday 4th July - Teacher Treasure Trail - Year 1: 3:30 pm - 4:30 pm

Thursday 4th July - Sports Day (reserve date): 1:30 pm

Friday 5th July - End of Year Reports to parents

Wednesday 10th July - Early Years and Year 2 Parent Meetings: 8:00 am - 6:00 pm

Thursday 11th July - Year 1 Parent Meetings: 8:00 am - 6:00 pm

Friday 12th July - 'Road2Paris' Olympic Workshops - KS1

Saturday 13th - Sunday 14th July - FPSA Summer Camp

Tuesday 16th July - Year 1 Excellent Ending: 9:15 am - 10:15 am

Wednesday 17th July - Transition Day - children meet their new class teacher(s)

Thursday 18th July - Year 2 End of Year Performance 9:30 am - 10:30 am

Thursday 18th July - Year 2 End of Year Performance 2:00 pm - 3:00 pm

Friday 19th July - Year 2 End of Year Performance 9:30 am - 10:30 am

Friday 19th July - FPSA Year 2 Leavers Disco: 4:30 pm - 5:45 pm

Tuesday 23rd July - Early Years Graduation: 9:15 am

Wednesday 24th July - Term ends SCHOOL FINISHES @ 1:30 pm

Thursday 25th July - INSET Day (school closed)

Friday 26th July - Summer Holidays

School Attendance

SAM - our School Attendance Mascot, is our FPIS teddy bear who helps our children think about why it is so important to attend school every day.

Our children are busy learning right from the start of the day, so being in class on time each morning matters just as much too. Registration begins at 8:50am and we expect all children to be in class by 9:00am.

Each week, during our Celebration Assembly, the attendance figures are shared. The class with the best attendance overall gets to look after SAM until the following week.

SAM will be staying with Oak Class once again as they had the best attendance overall with a perfect score of 100%! Well done!

Our latest school attendance figures for each class are shown in the table. Our school attendance target is: 97%

You can read our full Attendance Policy here.

Oak 100%

Holly 99.3%

Caterpillar 99.0%

Willow 99.0%

Hazel 99.0%

Silver Birch 98.7%

Dragonfly 98.4%

Bumblebee 97.6%

Beech 88.9%

FPIS SEND Signpost

If you plan on attending the coffee morning please email senadmin@fpis.org so we have an idea of numbers

FPIS Sports Day 2024

Our Sports Day event today gave everyone the opportunity to participate in an afternoon of sporty fun and games.

Working together in mixed house teams, the children all thoroughly enjoyed cheering on their friends throughout. As ever, there was a mix of traditional and also some of our firm favourite Sports Day events, including the baton relay, dressing up and space hopper race! The tunnel, as pictured, was a new addition to our obstacle course this year - and was certainly lots of fun!

We will be awarding our special Sports Day certificates during our Head of School Assembly on Monday,

Thank you to all those who were able to come along and watch - we hope you enjoyed it!

A very special thank you also to Mrs Swaffield for planning and organising our Sports Day event this year. A big thanks to Miss Thompson for facilitating our mini Sports session in the school hall also - making sure everyone was able to participate in some sporty fun!

Look out for more photos on Seesaw!

Early Years

Our Bumblebees, Caterpillars and Dragonflies have been having a fantastic time at school! To continue our project on 'Journeys' we have been reading Paddington Bear and talking about the exciting journeys that he has been on! Having learnt that Paddington Bear always has a marmalade sandwich kept under his hat for emergencies, the children were all delighted to find out that they were going to 'have a go' at making their own sandwich just like Paddington! The children made one marmalade sandwich and one jam sandwich. Before they tasted it, the children predicted which sandwich they thought they might prefer. Following this we recorded their favourite on a class tally chart. Jam was the winner for all classes although many of the children said that they now liked marmalade after trying it with their friends! We have also been making collections of 5 in maths this week and the children enjoyed talking about the composition and how to make five.

Our Early Years have been learning about some famous explorers such as David Attenborough and Ellen MacArthur. Having felt inspired, the children became explorers too! Our Bumblebees, Caterpillars and Dragonflies have been reading maps, building boats, using binoculars and they even worked as a team to build dens outside. This was a real challenge but great fun and the children showed such great collaboration! This led to some wonderful conversations and the children were all so proud that they built their dens together!

We were very lucky to have the arrival of our caterpillars last week. The children have been learning about the life-cycle of a butterfly and many saw the butterflies hatch out of their cocoons. Following whole class discussions about names the children were given the opportunity to choose their favourite. We chose the butterflies names using through voting for our favourite and used a tally to record the result. They have been butterfly spotting in the woodland area and also observing other insects using magnifying glasses.

This week our Early Years children have been learning about the coast. The children were enthusiastic to share and discus their own experiences and created their own postcards, collage and watercolour paintings. We listened to coastal sounds and imagined we were by the sea. We then used our previous leaning about vehicles to discuss how we might travel to the coast by land, sea and air.

Early Years Busy Learning and Exhibition

Our Bumblebee, Caterpillar and Dragonflies were excited to welcome their parents last week on Monday and Friday! The children have been learning about London as part of their project on Journeys. Many of the children planned and designed their models at home in advance. On the Monday morning the children built their Landmarks with their parents or teachers using a range of techniques. We were so impressed with both the thought, teamwork and creativity that went into creating the Landmarks. Throughout the week the children refined, painted and decorated their models ready to display on the Friday at the Early Years London Landmark Exhibition. Thank you so much for all your support. Both events were a huge success and a wonderful opportunity to work together and celebrate the children's learning.

Year 1

This term our project so far has focused on the continent of Africa; the explorer Ibn Battuta who travelled 73,000 miles in the 14th century, the environment and weather as well as typical food that is grown there. This week we have focused on The Gambia and looked at the similarities and differences between it and The UK, including how water is used. We have also been learning and retelling the story of Meerkat Mail and adapting it in order to write our own stories about an animal travelling around the world.

In science we have continued to investigate animals that have adapted to their environment, the meerkat, elephant and giraffe.

In maths we have been focusing on numbers to 100 by applying what we already know about numbers to 10. We have been investigating how to partition 2-digit numbers into tens and ones and placing the numbers from 1-100 on a number line by making our own.

Year 2

After half term we held our Wonderful Water! Magnificant Middle, focusing on science. Following on from all that we have been learning about the layers of the ocean we researched and designed our own food chains and reflected on how each plant or animal in the chain is necessary for the health of our oceans.

Next we considered a range of animals, plants and objects in order to group them into those that are alive, dead or have never been alive. We had some interesting discussions and used the acronym 'MRS GREN' to help us think about the seven life processes.

Finally we conducted a fair test experiment to determine which material would help ice to melt the fastest. We made our predictions and then timed how long each one took using felt, a plastic bag, tin foil, paper and cotton wool to wrap the ice in.

On the 7th June we celebrated World Oceans Day with a special Zoom - read more about this further on.

In maths we have been busy learning how to use a range of positional language to describe directions and the positions of objects.

Over the last few weeks we have been focusing on our Inventor Sticky Knowledge and exploring different ways to join materials together to support us in our design, make and testing boats activity. This included the flange, L brace, split pins, tape, glue, tabs and many more!

In conjunction with being busy boat builders we have been learning about how boats have been used throughout history. We started by learning about HMS Titanic and how it now provides a great habitat for marine life in the North Atlantic Ocean and also how boats were used to help rescue troops from Dunkirk during World War Two.

Yesterday, we tested out our boats on the English Channel (a.k.a a paddling pool!!) and evaluated how well our designs, use of joins and waterproof material had worked. It was great fun! We are looking forward to seeing lots of you at our Family Boat Building Fun on Tuesday 2nd July! :-)

Zoolab visits KS1!

Key Stage 1 were visited by Zoolab last week. They started their class workshops in Year 1, as they have continued to explore how animals adapt to their environment in order to survive, such as meerkats and elephants. Lottie from Zoolab brought some amazing animals with her! She brought along with her Pip the tortoise, Darth Vader the scorpion, Filip the Madagascar hissing cockroach, Giant African land snail and Olaf the corn snake. She told us so many interesting facts about each animal and the habitat in which they are naturally found in. We had the chance to ask lots of interesting questions and observe the animals up close.

Then Lottie made her way to Year 2 to carry out an oceans workshop with each class. She shared the same animals with us but went into more detail about how these animals have evolved over millions of years to now live outside of the ocean. Unfortunately she couldn't complete the whole of the workshop but luckily Zoolab are coming back next Tuesday to complete the Oceans workshop with Year 2!

Rabbi visits Year 1

As part of our Religious Education curriculum, the Year 1 children have been learning about Judaism. They were visited by local Rabbi Zvi Solomons, who ran a workshop and introduced various aspects of Judaism. The children got to put on a kippah, as well as a prayer shawl. They got to see a reproduction of a Jewish scroll and were able to touch the ram’s horn also known as a Shofar that the Rabbi uses on Rosh Hashanah to welcome in the new year. We discussed Shabbat and the various aspects of home life for those that follow the Jewish faith. The Rabbi brought us some delicious challah bread which we were able to share and enjoy together.

Emma Sweeting visits Year 1!

As part of our Sticky Knowledge we have been investigating the significance of murals and how colours and lines are used to make an effective piece of artwork. Recently we were very lucky to welcome Emma Sweeting the amazing artist, to share her passion for art with Year 1. Emma encouraged the children to get started and draw using thick marker pens. As you can see from the photos the children had the fantastic opportunity to work alongside an artist and talk about their drawings with her. A huge thank you to Emma for coming in to visit us and sharing her expertise!

Year 2 celebrates World Ocean Day!

On Friday 7th June our Year 2 children celebrated World Oceans Day participating in two online events. One was led by the charity WWF and taught us lots about how they are protecting our oceans and trying to make them even better. We also joined another online event with thousands of people from all around the world to celebrate all the wonderful things our ocean brings to Planet Earth. The Year 2 children have learnt so much about our oceans that it was great for them to feel part of this global event!

Year 1 celebrates World Rainforest Day!

Year 1 joined a Zoom with lots of other schools led by Amy from the World Wildlife Fund about the importance of rainforests. She talked about some of the animals that you find in rainforests, such as the three-toed sloth, poison dart frogs and orangutans. She also talked about how everyday foods and medicines come from rainforests. We learnt how humans have had a huge impact on rainforests and the efforts that are going on around the world to conserve them for future generations.

Year 2 Mindfulness workshops

On Monday Year 2 were visited by an artist called Amanda from Norden Farm. She introduced the session by talking about shapes and patterns and how we can find them all around us! We then started to create our own patterns using just a white piece of paper and a black pen. We thought about how drawing the patterns made us feel creative and calm. We celebrated the fact that everyone's picture looked different, just like us! Another important message we took from the workshop is that in our patterns there is no such thing as a mistake! We really enjoyed the workshop and felt much calmer at the end of it!

A big thank you to Amanda for running such lovely workshops for our Year 2 children!

African Drumming Workshop - Year 1

On Monday we had an exciting opportunity to make as much noise as we wanted through the medium of music! Our drummer demonstrated how to play each instrument and we got the chance to play some call and response rhythms and sound patterns, thinking about the animals that we might find in Africa. As you can see from the photos, despite it being very loud we had a fantastic time!

Nurture Group

,In nurture this half term we have been looking at the world. We started by colouring in different flags and sticking them to our world map, followed by drawing different animals and landmarks. It was interesting to show the children which countries the landmarks were in.

Now the weather has warmed up, we have loved getting outside to do some gardening. We are very lucky to have some lovely raised beds and planters in the front playground, and we've had great fun planting them up. We planted peas and courgettes in the raised beds and petunias and begonias in the planters. Now we have to make sure they are watered regularly!

Our Seasons board has been updated with some lovely, bright, summer themed crafts including sunflowers, ladybirds and buzzy bees. Also our door has bright, stain glass, summer pictures on.

Eco Team

Now that the good weather is here we have been enjoying being outside a lot more and appreciating the beauty and peacefulness of our nature garden. We took a moment to be still in our nature garden and took a picture with our mindfulness cameras thinking about what we liked best about the garden. This week we decided to weed the wild garden area to give space to the bug hotel so that it can get more sunlight and warmth. The children put on their gardening gloves and made a cracking start at clearing away the weeds! They even discovered under some of the bigger bushes that there was another bug hotel!

Our Eco Team were excited to see that the some of the cocoon's had hatched and that some of the butterflies were enjoying the nectar provided by the flowers. We are hoping that once we release the butterflies into our school grounds that they will enjoy our nature garden!

Eco Team Top Tip: Now that the warm weather is here, do remember to water any plants that you are growing! We have learnt that it is better to water early in the morning or later in the evening so that the plants roots have a chance to absorb as much water as possible.

School Council

School Council have been finishing off their video over the past few weeks! We have worked really hard to share with everyone what it is like to be a school councillor and the exciting things we have got up to throughout the year! This will hopefully give next year's school council an insight into what it may be like to be a part of the team! We have had lots of fun making it and can't wait to share it with everyone soon!

Caterlink Parent Survey - Summer 2024

Caterlink would love to hear your views on the catering service they provide for your children at our school.

Their survey will take approximately 8 minutes of your time.

Your responses will help Caterlink to improve their service to provide quality, healthy and nutritious meals to the pupils they feed.

Please use the link below to complete the survey. Thank you!

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/CN9XYWJ

Awesome achievements!

We love finding out about and celebrating our children's achievements outside of school!

If your child has an achievement that they are very proud of and would like to share with us all, they will get the opportunity to do so during our Celebration Assembly on a Friday.

Bonnie was awarded a badge, medal and certificate for smashing it at Go Ape! Well done Bonnie!

"I got my football medal for helping my team and for my penalty goal!" Well done Joshua!

"This band is for my park runs. I have run a marathon. I got a Personal Best on the same day!" Congratulations Harriet!

Freya has been awarded the orange tag in her recent kickboxing grading! Well done Freya!

Congratulations to Ella who has passed her grading in kickboxing, being promoted to blue tag and brown tag! She also received a grey belt for student of the month! Ella has also achieved her level 1 swimming certificate and badge. Wow, what amazing achievments Ella!

Well done to Edith who is proudly sharing her 3 beavers certificates! She received her creative, hikes and experiment badges. Congratulations Edith!

Eva has been awarded a certificate for completing her level in Kumon English. Congratulations Eva!

Well to Olive who has been awarded her Rainbow Swimming certificate and badge for completing level 1! A huge congratulations!

Isai was so proud to achieve a gold award for completing a Tamil reading challenge! Well done Isai!

Isla has been a very busy awesome athlete and has worked hard to complete two gradings! Keep up the amazing work, Isla!

Well done to Lily for working hard on her swimming skills. She has been an awesome athlete and been given a certificate for her amazing work!

Effie has received a medal for competing a gymnastics competition. Well done, Effie!

Isabelle has been working hard on her swimming skills and has achieved Level 2. Well done!

Charlie made some fantastic saves during football and recived a medal for his efforts. Good job, Charlie!

Well done to Isabelle for achieving Level 3 in swimming!

Well done to Amber for achieving her blue belt in kickboxing. An amazing achievement!

Congratulations to Mia for completing level 3. She was excited to tell us that she did a back float! Well done Mia!

Martha received the star of the week certificate at her gymnastics club. She did a forward roll on the beam! Great work Martha!

House Points

Head of School Awards

Every Friday, during our whole school Celebration Assembly, Head of School awards are given out to a child or children in each class. The certificates are presented by Mrs Indge to those children who have consistently demonstrated excellent behaviours for learning.

Head of School Awards 28th June 2024.pdf

SuperPoWeR Awards

Miss Dexter pops on her Superhero cape each week during Celebration Assembly to present our SuperPoWeR awards. The awards are given to children who have been demonstrating excellent behaviour through our school values of Passion, Well being and Respect.

Super-PoWeR Awards 28th June.pdf

Book Bingo!

Every week, during our Head of School Assembly, a bingo ball is selected from our special red bag. The bingo balls are numbered 1 - 30. Each child in Year 1 and 2 with the corresponding register number to the ball chosen will have the opportunity to bring their Maths book and Project scrapbook to share with Miss Dexter, Miss Edmondson and Mrs Indge later that week. During the Book Bingo session, the children spend time looking through the books together with the adults, whilst discussing and explaining what they have been busy learning about.

FPSA update

Summer Fair

The annual summer fair returned last Saturday and what a fabulous day it was with good crowds and thankfully dry weather. There were fabulous live performances from Furze Platt Junior School choir and Street Dance from both the Infants and Juniors. Popular stalls included the lucky dip, beat the goalie, the giant slide and a tricky golf game. The fair ended with the traditional tug of war followed by a water fight.

The 'Guess the name of the giant doggy' was won by Libby who guessed the correct name, 'Eddie'. The Euro2024 100 Board was won by year 3 teacher Mrs Sweatman who went with captain marvel himself, Bryan Robson.

A huge thank you to everyone who contributed to the fair whether that was donating a tombola prize, volunteering on a stall or simply turning up and enjoying the day. We were helped this time round by a number of year 6 children who helped run some of the stalls.

Windsor & Maidenhead Community Lottery

This is a weekly lottery that raises money for good causes in the Royal Borough including the FPSA. Tickets for the lottery cost just £1 and from that 60p goes to good causes including 50p to the FPSA. Each ticket has a 1 in 50 chance to win a prize each week with a top prize of £25,000! So please sign up and buy a weekly ticket or two using the following link: https://www.windsorandmaidenheadcommunitylottery.co.uk/support/furze-platt-schools-association

Dates for your Diary:

Summer Camp - Saturday 13th July/Sunday 14th July

Summer Camp is back in 2024! There will be options to include either an overnight family camping ticket or a day ticket. The camp includes a BBQ, bouncy castle, a bar and tuck shop. Tickets go on sale next week!

Year 2 Leavers Disco - Friday 19th July (4.30pm - 5.45pm)

Calling all year 2 pupils, it's time to put on your dancing gear and get down to the year 2 leavers disco in the hall with DJ Dexter playing the tunes.