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Newsletter - 24th Janaury 2025
Brilliant Beginnings for 2025!
Brilliant Beginnings for 2025!
Wow! We've certainly had a great start to 2025 and the Spring Term! Our children have settled back into school after the holidays and have been busy learning - with some Brilliant Beginnings to our projects for the Spring Term, as you will see when you read on.
We have noticed an increase in the number of children absent from school over the past few weeks with coughs, colds and other minor illnesses. This has impacted quite significantly on our overall attendance figures - the most recent week is published below. We understand that sometimes it can be difficult to know whether your child is too ill to attend school. However, NHS guidance is clear that it’s fine to send them in with a minor cough or common cold, provided they don’t have a temperature. Please take a look below for more guidance on this or click on the following link for more information: https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/is-my-child-too-ill-for-school/
We are delighted that our after school library sessions have continued to be very popular - with lots of children and families enjoying visiting and borrowing books to read and share at home. From next week, we will be opening every day after school - thanks to our fab team of parent volunteers which is very exciting! We will also be launching a new electronic system to alert parents when their child has overdue library books - more information to follow. We are currently in the process of compiling a new wish list of books to make sure our library has a good variety of up-to-date non-fiction texts - particularly those topics relating to our KS1 projects (Emergency! and Fire! Fire!) this term. Equally, we are always very grateful for donations of books for the library - particularly information/non-fiction titles, in good condition. If you do have any books which would be suitable, please send in via the school office. Thank you :)
Have a lovely weekend!
With very best wishes
Jane Indge
Head of School
Quick Links
Quick Links
UKHSA-should-I-keep-my_child_off_school_guidance-A3-poster.pdfDiary dates - coming up soon!
Diary dates - coming up soon!
Here is a brief look at what's going to be happening in school during the next few weeks...
Monday 3rd - Friday 7th February - Children's Mental Health Week
Wednesday 5th February - Year 2 Busy Learning Afternoon: 2:00 - 3:00 pm
Thursday 6th February - Year 1 Busy Learning Afternoon: 2:00 - 3:00 pm
Friday 7th February - NSPCC Number Day
Friday 7th February - Early Years Busy Learning Afternoon: 2:00 - 3:00 pm
Thursday 13th February - Dance Festival (Beech Class)
Friday 14th February - Term ends
Monday 17th - Friday 21st February - Half term holiday (School closed)
Monday 24th February - Term begins
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
School Attendance
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 the next week in Dragonfly Class as they had the highest attendance overall, with a figure of 98.3%! 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.
Dragonfly 98.3%
Hazel 95.0%
Caterpillar 94.6%
Bumblebee 94.5%
Oak 94.5%
Willow 93.9%
Holly 93.5%
Silver Birch 90.3%
Beech 82.6%
FPIS SEND Signpost
FPIS SEND Signpost
Early Years
Early Years
We were excited to welcome back our Early Year's children to some super cold and foggy weather which fitted in perfectly with our focus on 'Winter!' The children explored lots of changes that they could notice during our winter walk around the school. They spotted; spider webs, ice and lots of bare trees, along with lots more winter observations! Our Early Years children were eager to carry out an ice diary. They used a chart to predict and record if the water was 'solid, ice' or 'liquid, water' through a tally chart. It was lovely to see some children have been conducting their own ice experiment at home too - thanks for sharing their experiments on Seesaw!
This week the children have started their new project 'All About Animals'! They have explored the story 'Dear Zoo' through props, actions. The children re-told the story together as a class in sequence using actions and words. Following this, the Bumblebee, Caterpillar and Dragonfly children have created their own story map of 'Dear Zoo' over three days, concentrating on the beginning, middle and end. We were very impressed with their attention to detail as they were carefully drawing the animals.
In Early Years this week we have been discovering more about different animal characteristics. The children have impressed us with their brilliant descriptive language when creating their own What am I? games on paper. They have enjoyed sharing their clues about their animal and guessing each others too!
Our Marvellous Maths Mondays has set our children up for a fun week of exploring maths in a variety of creative ways! Over the past few weeks our children have been exploring ABAB patterns through copying patterns with objects or sounds. We have had a focus on using mathematical language to describe pattern and shape in our environment. The children have been keen to create some animal patterns too!
We have also been learning all about challenges and resilience. Although sometimes things can be tricky (such as doing up our coat zips) our children have been persevering and having a real good go. The children have learnt to always try on their own first, if they cannot do it then to ask a friend and then come and ask a teacher if it is still tricky! They have shown great determination, keep it up. The children have been giving their friends positive post-it notes to encourage them to keep going and "not to give up". It has been lovely to see the children challenging themselves in such a positive way!
Early Years - Our Brilliant Beginning!
Early Years - Our Brilliant Beginning!
Our Early Years children and staff all arrived at school on Monday dressed up as their favourite animal to launch our Brilliant Beginning 'All about Animals'! We were so impressed with all the effort that went into the children's animal costumes! They all looked fabulous and it really was a Brilliant Beginning to our project!
The children were all so excited to learn about different animals. They created their own observational drawings, explored the non-fiction books and we also created a animal dance as a class which we shared with the grown-up's on Seesaw! The children moved their bodies like an animal, thinking about the movements, body posture and the noises that the animal would make!
We are looking forward to lots more animal fun during our project!
Year 1
Year 1
We kicked off our new project, Emergency!, during our Brilliant Beginning week, where we had a blast dressing up as various different emergency workers. We took on roles such as police officers, firefighters, nurses, paramedics, doctors and vets. So far, we have learnt about the crucial role of paramedics and thought about questions we would like to them about their jobs.
In computing, we have been learning how to debug algorithms, starting with a hands-on activity of making jam sandwiches! We quickly realised the significance of following instructions in the right order. We then applied this new skill to debug an algorithm and program a Bee-Bot to move from one point on a map to another.
In DT, we have been investigating how wheels move on axles and designing our own emergency vehicles. We are very excited to start making our vehicles next week!
In maths, we've been working with numbers up to 20, building on our previous knowledge of numbers up to 10. We have been counting forwards and backwards and discovering various ways to represent these numbers using classroom tools, pictures, numerals, and words.
In Outdoor Learning we have been enjoying exploring our outdoor space. We have had fun investigating what new plants and wildlife are living in our school grounds and even had some fun with some maths outside too!
As part of our RE this term our key question is 'Was it always easy for Jesus to show friendship?' Beth visited us to tell us the story of Zacchaeus from The Bible. Many thanks to Beth for helping us to think about our key question and for visiting us. We look forward to her next visit!
Year 2
Year 2
Wow! What a Brilliant Beginning the Year 2 children have had with their Spring project: Fire, Fire!
We had an exciting start as we went outside onto the playground and discovered that there were lots of unusual markings and signs that a dragon had visited our playground! We became dragon detectives examining all of the clues left behind and imagined what sort of dragon it might have been. We have been busy designing our own dragons, thinking carefully about their features and sharing some of the ideas that people have had about dragons in the past and the stories told about them.
We have thought about the many purposes of fire and what fire needs to burn. We have also explored warm and cool colours by creating our own colour wheels and relating this sticky knowledge to thinking about the ingredients for a stew, fit for a dragon!
We also had an exciting Outdoor Learning session and what better way to launch our 'Fire, Fire!' project than toasting crumpets over a fire?! We had a great time toasting the crumpets and having a tea party with butter and jam. It was a perfect snack on a chilly day!
As part of our computing curriculum we have also been retrieving knowledge we learnt in Year 1 about alogirthms and using this to complete a range of challenges with our Blue-Bots.
We have also been enjoying our Friday Cricket sessions run by Berkshire Cricket Foundation. Our cricket coach has been introducing us to a range of fun games to help us with our throwing and catching skills. We are looking forward to practising those skills over the next few weeks.
Finally, we have been busy transforming into authors planning and writing our own stories about a dragon coming into our school.
Pillo Polo - Willow Class
Pillo Polo - Willow Class
On Tuesday Willow Class represented our school at a Pillo Polo Festival. The event, which took place at Furze Platt Senior School, was organised by Ascot and Maidenhead School Sport Partnership. Teams from several local schools within RBWM participated - and our children did a fantastic job in what was their very first experience of Pillo Polo.
Well done to Willow Class for representing our school so beautifully and more importantly for having lots of fun! 😊
What is Pillo Polo?
Pillo Polo is a team game - similar to Hockey, using balls and sticks with large foam heads!
National Fitness Day - 10@10
National Fitness Day - 10@10
As part of National Fitness Day on Wednesday the whole school took part in an online session at 10am to celebrate being fit and physical. Across the nation people joined together to complete 10 of their 60 minutes physical activity which we should be doing to keep active everyday.
A fun time was had by all!
School Council
School Council
This term in our School Council meetings we have been collaborating on how to improve our lunchtimes. We have been focusing on our school responsibility of 'Looking after each other' and are excited to introduce the new role of 'Play Detectives'. This will be a group of school council representatives who will take on important tasks such as tidying up, ensuring that play areas are safe, and supporting each other during playtime. The Play Detectives will help make sure that all children feel included, safe, and looked after, fostering a caring and positive atmosphere during lunchtimes. Children will take on jobs such as making sure all coats, hats and scarves are hung up to ensure our cloakrooms are tidy and safe! We are looking forward to seeing how this initiative will benefit our school community.
Eco Team
Eco Team
We were excited to check on the wheat growing in the Year 1 garden after the holidays! Even with the colder days, the wheat has been growing steadily, and some shoots have already reached an impressive 25cm! We can’t wait to see how much taller they’ll get in the coming weeks.
Since the start of January, we’ve got big plans to help reduce our Carbon Footprint! Our Eco Representatives will be asking their classes how they travel to school, and with this information, we hope to inspire families to make small changes to help the planet. For example, cycling or walking to school, arranging a car share or even parking further away.
Every little step counts, and together, we can make a huge difference!
Nurture Group
Nurture Group
In nurture, the children have had a great start to 2025!
We have been looking at friendships and the importance of sharing and taking turns, we have explored this through role play and board games.
One of our favourite activities is making sandwiches, the children got to choose between marmite or jam and once made they were able to enjoy eating their chosen sandwich.
In line with the year 1 topic of Emergency! we have been learning about people who help us. We have started to make a Police officer and a Doctor, by drawing around one of our children and then adding paint to our picture, it is currently work in progress.
Forest School
Forest School
When planning our Forest School provision at FPIS we created a 3 Year Woodland Management Plan for sustainable use of the woodland area as a Forest School site. One of the action points on the plan is to construct a dead hedge boundary to increase biodiversity within the area - creating new habitats for insects, birds, small mammals and other animals.
This term, with the help of our super site team, we began work on this project during our Forest School sessions. The first part of the process was sawing and cutting wood from the huge piles of branches which were left on site from the tree maintenance work carried out last term. The children learned how to use the bow saw and saw horse to help them cut the wood to a suitable length. Then, we could begin construction!
Our dead hedge is slowly taking shape and we hope that when it is finished it will provide a space and shelter for lots of our woodland creatures :)
Awesome achievements!
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 Emily who enjoyed her first ever gymnastics class and impressed everyone with her skills! Fantastic effort Emily!
Congratulations to Orla who received her football medal for, "My great skills and helping the coaches when someone fell down." Well done Orla!
Congratulations to Nicol for working really hard on her balancing in Gymfinity. She has achieved her Level 1 certificate. Well Done Nicol
Maisie received a trophy from her Gymnastic club for superb gymnastics. She really enjoys going to the club and her favourite move is the one handed cartwheel.
Oliver won this “ Man of the Match” trophy at his football team game. He plays for the Titans team and really enjoys it.
Florence has worked really hard during swimming and has been awarded her Level 3 badge and certificate. Well done!
Daisy received a certificate during gymnastics for doing a backbend into a kickback. well done!
Amelie received a certificate from Little Tanks Drama. She took part in the show of Peter Pan. She felt very proud of herself! Well done Amelie!
Naomie was proud to achieve her 5m swimming certificate and badge! "I love jumping in the pool without armbands!" Well done Naomie, keep it up!
Another well done to Naomie who received a certificate in her ballet class! Great job Naomie!
Navraj was so proud to bring in his certificate for passing his grading at Kung Fu. He is now on a yellow belt. Keep it up Navraj!
Summer has completed her level 1 in swimming! She has been challenging herself to jump into the pool to get ready to receive her level 2 award! "The water in level 2 is SO deep!"
Well done Maisie for your incredible achievements, proudly showing off your Gymnastics award and receiving a certificate for a gymnastics competition where you came first. We are so proud of you well done!
Harriet was so proud to share her first gymnastics award certificate. Well done!
Well done to Sebby who received a badge in Hockey for his excellent tackling. Keep it up!
Well done to Maddie for receiving a medal and certificate in her gymnastics competition. We are so proud of you!
Isabelle proudly showing of her wristband that she received when taking part in the Junior Park Run. Great Job Isabelle!
Congratulations to Lewis who received his football medal for, "Really good listening." Well done Lewis!
Sami won this trophy at his football team game. He managed to score 7 goals. What a great achievement we are so proud of you. Well done!
Well done to Isai who took part in the Maidenhead Pongal Vizha where she performed drama and dance on stage!
Congratulations to Sienna who is proudly sharing her fabulous swimming award. "I had to swim 50 metre backstroke, 50 metre breast stroke, 50 metre freestyle and 50 metre fly with a club record 1st." WOW! Amazing job Sienna, we are all super proud of you!
House Points
House Points
Head of School Awards
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 24th january 2025.pdfSuperPoWeR Awards
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!
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
FPSA update
The FPSA would like to wish a Happy New Year to all of our wonderful parents and carers. We have a busy few months coming up so please save the dates in your diaries.
Happy School Bags - Friday 14th February
Happy School Bags raises money for our schools by turning unwanted clothes etc. into money. The more you clear out, the more money we get! Please deposit all bags (bin bags are fine) to the left of the Infants school gates at drop off.
Disco Night - Friday 28th February (8pm-11pm)
Calling all parents to the dancefloor, the adult disco night is back and tickets are on sale now! DJ Dee will be playing the music at our second disco night at the Juniors. Tickets are just £10.
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.
Look out soon for how you can help raise even more money for this event by signing up to have an Oakwood Estates board outside your house advertising the quiz night.
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.
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
One of our supporters won £250 recently on the lottery!
Useful Information for Parents and Families
Useful Information for Parents and Families
Quiz night with QR code.pdfRainbows Poster.pdfDrop-in childrens chess club A4.pdf
February Half Term-C.pdf'LTP' Dodgeball Community Club - Flyer.pdf
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