Newsletter - 14th February 2025

Furze Platt Infant School

Our new FPPF Wellbeing Journey is launched!

We are very excited to be launching our new Wellbeing Journey through FPPF, which links to our 6 Pillars for Wellbeing:

Connect with other people

Give to others

Care for ourselves, each other and our environment

Pay attention to the present moment – Notice

Be physically active

Learn new skills

As mentioned by Mr Wallace in his letter to parents and families today, to help the children to understand the 6 pillars and actively engage in them, each year group from Early Years through to Year 6 will have their own Wellbeing Challenge card to record activities they have completed linked to one of the pillars each short term.

After half term we will be encouraging the children to complete the 'Notice' challenge at home. More information about Wellbeing at FPPF can be found on our website: https://www.furzeplattinfantschool.co.uk/wellbeing-at-fppf/

We very much hope that parents and families will help us to get all of our children active and engaged in promoting and strengthening their positive wellbeing!

After a busy first half to the Spring Term, we have had lots to celebrate and be proud of at FPIS. We seem to have packed an awful lot into the past five or so weeks, with Busy Learning Afternoons for all year groups as well as lots of events and visitors in school too.

A particular highlight was yesterday, when Beech Class gave an incredible performance at the Ascot and Maidenhead School Sports Partership Dance Festival, held at Braywick Leisure Centre. It was wonderful to see the joy and enthusiasm on the children's faces as they performed their routine to a packed auditorium. Our congratulations to the children for such a beautiful dance - and a very big thank you to the Beech Class staff team - Miss Aggarwal, Mrs Akhter, Mrs Din, Mrs MacGregor for all their hard work over the past few weeks. Our thanks also to all the parents and families who came along to watch. What an incredible experience for our young children! Well done everyone!

Please read on for more about the Dance Festival and all the other events that have been happening in school recently - we really have been very busy learning indeed!

With the next half term promising to be just as busy, please do keep checking our diary dates and messages sent out via our SchoolApp.

Have a restful, happy and safe half term break. We look forward to welcoming our children back to school on Monday 24th February.

With very best wishes

Jane Indge

Head of School

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Diary dates - coming up soon!

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

Friday 14th February - Term ends

Monday 17th - Friday 21st February - Half term holiday (School closed)

Monday 24th February - Term begins

Monday 24th February - Friday 28th February - The Big Chick Knit: egg collection

Monday 24th February - Hazel Class trip to London

Monday 24th February - Early Years Mastering Number at Home Project - Parent Workshop: 2:00 - 3:00 pm

Tuesday 25th February - Willow Class trip to London

Wednesday 26th February - Early Years Mastering Number at Home Project - Parent Workshop: 2:00 - 3:00 pm

Thursday 27th February - Early Years Mastering Number at Home Project - Parent Workshop: 2:00 - 3:00 pm

Friday 28th February - Year 2: 1666 Dress-up Day

Monday 3rd March - Holly Class trip to London

Wednesday 5th March - Early Years: Farm visiting school

Friday 7th March - World Book Day celebrations (Non-uniform: dress up as a book character or a hint of)

Friday 21st March - Comic Relief/Red Nose Day

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 8:45am 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 spending his half term holiday in Bumblebee Class as they had the highest attendance overall, with an impressive figure of 99.4%! Well done everyone!

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.

Bumblebee 99.4%

Beech 97.7%

Silver Birch 97.0%

Oak 96.8%

Dragonfly 95.7%

Caterpillar 95.0%

Hazel 94.8%

Willow 93.5%

Holly 91.9%

FPIS SEND Signpost

Beech Class 'Move It, Move It!' at the Dance Festival!

The theme for this year's Dance Festival was '20 - a celebration of 20 years of this event'! Beech Class danced to Madagascar 'I Like To Move It' as this iconic film was released 20 years ago in 2005. They were absolutely AMAZING and certainly did 'Move it, Move it!' as they had the whole audience clapping along and wanting to join in! They represented our school beautifully and we are so proud of the hard work they put in to their performance. Well done Beech Class!

NSPCC Number Day 2025 - Dress up for Digits!

We had a day filled with even more Marvellous Maths than usual last Friday to show our support for NSPCC Number Day 2025. Everyone looked great in their number-related outfits and together our school community managed to raise an impressive £255!

Thank you to all those who were able to donate towards this very worthy cause :)

National Skipping Day Celebration

As you may know National Skipping Day is celebrated towards the end of March and so we decided to celebrate this in school with workshops for every class.

Every class took part in a skipping workshop run by 'Skipping Workshops' with their aim being to encourage children and adults to skip for health, fun and fitness, whilst introducing modern and traditional skipping games including some rope tricks too.

All the children had a wonderful time and it has certainly inspired lots of the children to practise their new skills at lunchtime.

Safer Internet Day 2025

Safer Internet Day this year gave us another opportunity to discuss and think about how we can keep safe online. The theme for 2025 was 'Too good to be true? Protecting yourself and others from scams online.' During Assembly, we talked about the many ways in which we use the internet for learning and playing games. We also looked at what a scam is, how we might spot one and what to do if we are worried about something we see online.

Further information about Safer Internet Day for parents can be found at: https://saferinternet.org.uk/guide-and-resource/parents-and-carers

fake-news-and-scams (2).pdf

Children's Mental Health Week 2025

The theme for this year's Children's Mental Health Week was 'Know Yourself, Grow Yourself.' with the aim of helping our children discover how getting to know who they are can help them build resilience, grow and develop.

Following on from our class discussions during the week, the children thought carefully about some of the things they can do - and also what they would like to do in the future to develop themselves. Their thoughts and ideas have been captured on leaves which have grown into a wonderful giant display of beanstalks in our school hall!

Early Years Busy Learning Afternoon!

pmOur Early Years children were very excited to welcome their grown up's in for our Maths Busy Learning afternoon! Following a maths workshop, our parents and carers were able to join their children in the classroom. Mrs Wytchard challenged the grown up's to help their children to create five puppets to support mathematical learning at home. All children and parents were working together, talking about how many they needed to make and using mathematical language such as more and fewer. It was fantastic to also hear the children singing the rhymes to their grown-up's!

During the session we were also able to share our upcoming Mastering Number at Home Parent Project that is taking place after half term on 24th, 26th and 27th February 2pm -3pm. You only need to attend one of the three sessions on the sign up form. Please do sign up to a session if you are able too, it would be great to see you there for all things maths!

Early Years

Our Bumblebee, Caterpillar and Dragonfly children have been busy continuing with their project 'All About Animals'. They have been finding out lots of information and facts about animals through our non-fiction animal books. The children have been sorting books into fiction and non-fiction and discussing the differences between the two. Some children even had a go at creating their own fact sheet all about their favourite animal. They used non-fiction books to help them find out some fun facts about their chosen animal.

Early Years have been taking part in the Big Garden Birdwatch. They designed their very own binoculars to help them focus on the birds that they could see in the woodlands. The children have also been wildlife photographers, using the I-pads to photograph the birds they could see. Some children made a tally chart each time they spotted a bird! It has been lovely to see that some children have been doing this at home too! The children really enjoyed getting messy by creating some bird feeders, which are hanging up in the woodlands. The children have also designed some detailed drawings and water colour paintings of some of the birds that they saw! We were very impressed with their paintbrush control and techniques.

Our Bumblebees, Caterpillars and Dragonflies have been busy learning about the Chinese/Lunar New Year. We were so pleased to welcome Alice (Isla's Mummy) into school to help us learn all about the Chinese/Lunar New Year. The children were so excited to learn about the celebration, see photograph's of Isla and her family celebrating and we even had a go at saying the word 'snake' in Chinese, as this year is the year of the snake "Shé".

The children were interested to learn the story of the Chinese Zodiac and made lots of links to our previous learning about animals and other celebrations. They have been challenging themselves and practising using chopsticks, developing their fine motor and hand eye coordination skills. The children learnt how to say' Gong Hei Fat Choy 'and sang the song together.

Our Bumblebee, Caterpillar and Dragonfly children have been amazing authors and illustrators this week, creating their very own stories using the Tales Toolkit model. The children have been using their imagination to think of a character, setting, problem and a solution. They drew their illustrations and then had a go at labelling the different parts of the story. It has been lovely to hear the children confidentially reading their story to their friends and class. We are so proud of our Early Years children! :)

Year 1 Busy Learning Afternoon!

Year 1 were very excited to show their grown up's how we are all amazing mathematicians during our Busy Learning afternoon! Maths was the focus, following a presentation about our mastery curriculum and what maths looks like in Year 1 at FPIS. It was wonderful to see the children showing their parents and carers how to use some of our classroom resources like rekenrek's and tens frames. The grown up's go to meet 'Tiny' and find out about his catchphrase '3 ways is a clever day!' as the children showed off their marvellous maths skills. Thank you to everyone who came along and got hands on with maths!

Year 1 RNLI Visit

Year 1 were very fortunate to have a visit from Mary who came into school to talk to the Year 1 children about the invaluable work that the RNLI do. We learnt that the busiest lifeboat station is at Tower on the River Thames in London. We also found out that the type of boat that is launched is dependent upon the water and weather conditions. Mary also talked about the importance of staying safe around water. She showed us all of the different flags and warning signs that can be found at the beach or near a river. We have been busy writing about the work of the RNLI and the HM Coastguard. A big "thank you" to Mary for telling us all about the amazing work that the RNLI do and giving us some really important top tips on how to stay safe in and around water!

Year 1 PCSO Visit

Last week our local PCSO visited Year 1 from Thames Valley Police. Lorraine came to visit Year 1 and told us about the important role of the police in our community and the many different things that they do to help keep us safe. We were amazed at the many different hats that police officers wear, depending upon the type of duty that they are on. We loved learning all about the special equipment that the police use for different things and finding out what Lorraine gets up to as part of her job! We loved having the opportunity to try on the many different hats and even a police vest, which we discovered was SO heavy! Lorraine also brought along a police car and we were VERY excited to be shown inside the car and even see the flashing lights! This in turn led to some fantastic writing about the important role of the police and how they keep us safe. Thank you to Lorraine for such an informative and memorable morning!

Year 1

We have been busy learning about the artist Laurie Hastings and how she uses different types of lines to create her sea inspired art work. Firstly, we explored lines and patterns and studied some of Laurie Hastings work to see how she incorporated these into her paintings. We then designed our own seascapes and learnt how to copy our designs onto styrofoam. We used the styrofoam as a template in order to make a print of our original design. It was a real 'WOW!' moment when our prints were revealed for the first time. We are very proud of our final results!

As musicians we have experimented with the sounds that different untuned instruments make in order to create our own soundscape based on an emergency scene from a picture. We had lots of fun exploring which instrument might represent which sound.

We have also been busy transforming our donated boxes into emergency vehicles! Following on from our Sticky Knowledge about axles and wheels our challenge was to create a vehicle that moved. We spent time designing, building and evaluating our models to ensure they were the best they could be!

In maths we have been learning how to write the numbers 11-20 in words. We have also been exploring capacity and volume and working hard on understanding the difference. We have been investigating this by using different units such as paperclips, scrunched up paper, cubes and water. This has enabled us to use lots of comparative vocabulary and involved us having lots of fun with different resources! We then looked at mass, using the balance scales to measure the mass of different classroom objects and comparing their weight.

Year 2 Busy Learning Afternoon

Thank you so much to everyone who came and supported our Spelling themed Busy Learning Afternoon. It was a great opportunity to introduce you all to our ELS Spelling programme. We hope that you found the breakdown of the spelling rules covered in Year 2 helpful and insightful. The children loved sharing their spelling knowledge with you!

Year 2

We have continued to be authors over the last few weeks, writing some exciting dragon stories. We have also been thinking carefully about including descriptive words and phrases such as adjectives, expanded noun phrases and similes. We also acted out some possible scenarios as part of the planning process and created some art work to support us. We have also been thinking about our new acronym A VAN to help us think about the exciting vocabulary we can include in our writing. Ask us if we have remembered A VAN.

As part of our Inventor Sticky Knowledge we finally put all of our skills and ideas into practice and created our very own dragon stew. We all helped to prepare the ingredients (tomatoes being the trickiest to cut!!), cook and taste the stew. We certainly have some budding chefs!

We finished our focus on warm and cold colours thinking carefully about creating our very own Fire and Ice collages using a range of colours and materials. Some amazing masterpieces were created! We have also been exploring the techniques used by artist Leonid Afremov and have been creating our own paintings using palette knives and oil paints. It has been great to explore a different technqiue and medium to create some beautiful pieces of artwork.

In PE as well as continuing to enjoy our weekly Cricket sessions, we also created our own dragon dance to mark Lunar New Year after watching a video clip of some amazing dragon dancers! We had lots of fun trying to recreate some of their moves in time to some traditional music. We were lucky enough to be able to use a dragon from China which was kindly donated by Mrs Parkinson. Thank you so much, as it made our dragon dance sessions even more special!

During maths we have been learning about multiplication and division and finding different ways to show our learning. We have also been looking at doubles and halves and how these are linked to multiplication and division.

School Council

Our School Council team have been helping us to launch a new event called the 'Big Chick Knit' a campaign to help raise money for the Alexander Devine children's hospice, a local charity that provides specialist care and support to poorly children across Berkshire. Our School Council team are getting ready to host an egg collection where we are asking people to donate a chocolate creme egg! These chocolate eggs will then be placed inside a handmade knitted chick ready to sell in a few weeks time. More information about this event will be sent out via a parent letter so please keep an eye out to find out more!

Eco Team

This month, our Eco Club team took a walk through our school and were lucky enough to spot some beautiful bird nests! It was amazing to see the different homes the birds had built and discuss how the nests were made and why certain trees may have been chosen!

The Eco team have also been involved in picking out a selection of new bird feeders to put up around the school! After much discussion about the different shapes, sizes and types of feeders, they have settled on a ‘squirrel-proof design’ that can hold a family of birds! We are excited to see what new feathered friends they bring to the school and hope you are too!

Nurture Group

In nurture, the children have had a great few weeks. In line with the year 2 topic of Fire, Fire!, we have been making dragon faces. We painted bubble wrap and printed it onto coloured card to give a scaly effect, then added dragon face details.

2025 Chinese New Year, the year of the snake, we plaited coloured card and added snake heads, to make a springy fun Chinese snake.

In our final week before half term, the children made sandwiches. They buttered their bread and chose either jam or marmite, once made the children got to enjoy their delicious sandwich.

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.

Congratulations to Emmy for completing the next stage in her Cubie maths app! Well done!

Well done to Orla who can now do the back paddle for 5 metres! Many congratulations!

Well done Alexandra for gaining her 15 metre backstroke certificate. Keep it up!

Well done to Jaiven for receiving not 1 but 3 medals for his particiapation in his football team. Keep up your great work Jaiven!

Congratulations to Isabelle for her amazing work at her Flips Class.

Well done to Seamus for gaining a super trophy for his team work in his football team. Seamus gained this trophy for helping his teammate when he had fallen and hurt himself.

Congratulations to Maisie for gaining another gymnastics certificate for her amazing backflips.

Congratulations to Lilly who is proudly sharing her Gymnastics Award. "I did great cartwheels and I did a big present at the end." Great job Lilly!

Well done to Bella who is proudly sharing not one but two Gymnastics award. "I did an aerial and a handstand bridge split." Well done superstar!

Sophia received this badge for her amazing snow plough turns! Well done Sophia!

Ellie got this badge from Rainbows for being a Special Helper! Well Done Ellie!

Naomie received this amazing certificate from her gymnastics club for doing super handstands and cartwheels too! Well done Naomie!

Well done to Sophie who is proudly sharing her Swimming Award! "I swam 25 metres using back crawl." Great job!

Congratulations to Effie who has been awarded a certificate in swimming. "I had to do a whole good lesson of Level 2 without making too many mistakes. I did good froggy arms and legs as well." Great job superstar!

Congratulations to Ella for completing a half marathon! She joined her mum and sister and we are super proud of her! Well done Ella!

Well done to Airah for coming 3rd in her annual Mosque assessments. What a great achievement! We are so proud of you.

Congratulations to Matthew who is proudly sharing his medal he was awarded during his after school football club. "I got this for being a good team mate and being a team player."

Congratulations to Eva for swimming 5 meters. What an achievement!

Cailin received a beautiful pin for trying really hard when skiing. She even tackled some black, red and blue slopes. well done!

Oskar is very proud of his JumpStart Jonny certificate which he worked very hard to get. Well done, Oskar!

House Points

Pegasus win the house cup!

Many congratulations to our blue house team, Pegasus, for gaining the most house points overall this half term. A grand total of 710 points - which is very impressive indeed! Well done to everyone for a super team effort! :)

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.

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.

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, Miss Aggarwal 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

Quiz Night - Oakwood Boards Sponsorship update

Thank you to everyone who signed up to have an Oakwood Estates board outside their house advertising the upcoming quiz night. We had 40 households sign up in the end which will mean an extra £250 raised for both schools. Boards will go up ~Friday 7th March.

Infants pond area enhancement using FPSA funds

We hope lots of you have noticed the lovely new pond sign on the fence next to the pond (see pictures). This was a nice small example of what FPSA funds can sometimes be used for to enhance the schools.

Disco Night - Friday 28th February (8pm-11pm)

Calling all parents (and friends) to the dancefloor, the disco night is back and tickets are on sale! DJ Dee (parent of year 1 and year 4 boys) will be bringing her incredible deck to play the music. Tickets are just £10 so come and have a boogie whilst helping to raise money for both schools. Feel free to invite your friends and family too.

Buy your tickets here: www.pta-events.co.uk/fpsa

Quiz Night - Friday 21st March (8pm-11pm)

Mr T's Quiz Night is back again! Get your team together, book the babysitter and start brushing up on your general knowledge. There will be picture rounds, a music round, a brand new round and more including 'Play your cards right' bonus game. Prizes for top 3 teams as well as a prize for best team name.

The quiz starts at 8pm but doors open at 7pm. There is a licensed bar serving real ale, wine, Prosecco and soft drinks. Tickets include lovely food from Palmieri's.

AGM - Wednesday 2nd April

Come along to our annual AGM to hear how much money was raised in 2024 from our fundraising events. Both heads of school will be present to update how money was spent over the last 12 months as well as share their wish lists for the next year. A great chance to meet the FPSA team and talk to Mrs Indge, Mrs Clark and Mr Wallace directly.

Year 2 Quiz - Friday 2nd May (3.15-5pm)

The year 2 quiz is back for all pupils from Hazel, Holly and Willow classes. Mr Thompson is the quiz master testing out the children's general knowledge in a fun quiz in the hall.

Bingo Night - Friday 9th May

Eyes down for a full house! Our very first bingo night for the grown ups will take place in May at the Juniors hall. As well as traditional bingo games there will be some music bingo games too with lots of prizes to be won. A licensed bar will be available. It should be a fun night!

Summer Fair - Saturday 28th June

The summer fair is back! Lots of fun for all the family. Please save the date for our biggest event of the year.

Personalised name label stickers

We have an updated discount code for buying school uniform labels and labels for water bottles etc. from the 'Easy2Name' company. Simply order from the following site: https://www.easy2name.com/stickeasy, quote code 'FR-FPIS-72' and not only will you will get free delivery, the FPSA will receive 20% of the order value. These labels will help the schools return mislaid uniform and will help cut down on the lost property.

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

Useful Information for Parents and Families

Windsor Rocks Feb 25 Half Term Newsletter.pdf

Girls Cricket A5 2025.pdf

Quiz night with QR code.pdf

2728_0.14_Festival_Poster_School_Discount_A3_2025_DIGITAL (1).pdf

feb and Easter 2025 Camp advert.pdf

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