Newsletter - 24th October 2024
As our first half term comes to an end, we have much to celebrate here at FPIS. We have had such a happy and busy few weeks, but I am sure that the children (and grown ups!) are now very much looking forward to the half term break.
We were delighted to welcome Wayne Dixon to lead our Harvest Assembly earlier this month, giving us all the opportunity think about those who may not always have enough food to eat everyday. We also were so grateful to receive so many donations of food items to pass on to FoodShare Maidenhead - please read on for more details...
I have been impressed recently by the number of children remembering that we walk around our school site, rather than ride on scooters and bikes - thank you to those parents who are helping to remind their children about this too! If your child is bringing their bike or scooter to school, please use the scooter pods just outside Bumblebee classroom entrance if you are leaving them on site during the school day. We cannot take responsibility for bikes and scooters that are left outside on the driveway by our main entrance gate. It is great to see so many more families walking, scooting and cycling to school!
The next half of our Autumn term is looking to be just as busy as this one, so please keep checking our diary dates for events in school. Information about booking a meeting with your child's class teacher for our Autumn Term Parents' Meetings has been sent out this week. Dates for our Christmas Performances and other festive events in school are also in the school diary as well.
We hope that you have a restful and enjoyable holiday and we look forward to welcoming everyone back on Monday 4th November :)
With very best wishes
Jane Indge
Head of School
Here is a brief look at what's going to be happening in school during the next few weeks...
Thursday 24th October - Term Ends
Monday 28th October - Friday 1st November - Half term holiday
Monday 4th November - Term Starts
Monday 4th November - Parents' Meetings booking system opens @8:00 am
Wednesday 6th November - James Campbell - Author Visit
Friday 8th November - Parents' Meetings booking system closes @4:00 pm
Monday 11th November - Flu Vaccines (All year groups)
Monday 11th November - Autumn Term Parents' Meetings: 3:40 pm - 7:00 pm
Wednesday 13th November - Autumn Term Parents' Meetings: 3:40 pm - 7:00 pm
Thursday 14th November - Children in Need (non-uniform day)
Friday 15th November - INSET day (school closed)
Tuesday 19th November - Year 2 visit to Oaken Grove Park - weather permitting
Friday 22nd November - Non-uniform day (FPSA Christmas Fair)
Saturday 30th November - FPSA Christmas Fair: 11:30 am - 2:30 pm
For those who don't already know, 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 Silver Birch Class who had an overall attendance 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.
Silver Birch 98.3%
Bumblebee 98.0%
Caterpillar 97.9%
Beech 96.1%
Oak 95.9%
Willow 95.6%
Dragonfly 95.3%
Hazel 94.0%
Holly 92.3%
We held a very special assembly to celebrate this year's Harvest. We were joined by Wayne Dixon and his colleague Beth Gomm from Christian Connections in School who led the assembly. He captivatingly retold the story of the five loaves and two fishes from the Bible which highlights the importance of sharing. The children joined in enthusiastically with the story! Wayne was very excited to see all of the different foods that had been kindly donated throughout the week. We look forward to welcoming Wayne and Beth back to our school soon.
We were proud to support our local foodbank again this year as part of our learning about Harvest. We are very thankful for all of your generous donations which we know will be gratefully received by Foodshare Maidenhead and all those who use their much needed service. Thank you!
As previously mentioned, Parentkind – the charity that supports school PTAs - have teamed up with Asda, who is making millions of pounds available to donate to primary schools across the UK through their ‘Cashpot for Schools’ initiative – all you have to do is, opt in through the Asda Rewards app, choose our primary school and shop and scan in store or shop online at Asda.com, between 2nd September and 30th November 2024
Asda will donate 0.5% of the value of your shop to our Primary school. Also, every time somebody opts in, Asda will give an additional £1 to the school Cashpot. Plus, it doesn’t stop there – Asda are also giving £50 to every school to get them started.
Between 2nd September and 30th November 2024, every time customers shop with Asda using their Rewards app, they can choose a primary school to receive a percentage of their spend. And that’s not all — every time a customer chooses FPIS, Asda will donate £1 to our school’s Cashpot, plus a further £50 when the first customer shops.
Thank you in advance for your support!
In Early Years we had a brilliant Busy Learning Afternoon. It was great to see so many different family members coming along to join in with the fun and showing their support. The Bumblebees, Caterpillars and Dragonflies took such pride in sharing their first school classroom with their families. They created a self-portrait collage which is now up on the wall in the hall for everyone to see. We were super impressed with how much care and detail the children put into their self-portraits to make them unique! Just a reminder that all information shared from the session can be found on Seesaw and on our school website.
Our next Christmas themed Busy Learning Afternoon is scheduled for: Thursday 28th November 2024 2pm-3pm. Come along to find out more! Thank you again for your continued support.
In Early Years we launched our 'Me and My Family' project with a giant game of 'Guess Who?'
Our Bumblebees, Caterpillars and Dragonflies all disguised themselves using their choice of dressing up items ready for a real life 'Guess Who' game! We took photographs of everybody and put the printed photographs around the Early Years rooms for the children to find! All of the children had great fun trying to recognise themselves and 'had a go' at explaining how they knew it was them! They also spotted their friends and even their teachers who also joined in with the fun!
With the help of the friendly dinosaur Pantosaurus, this term our Early Years children have been discussing the NSPCC’s Underwear Rule, using the ‘PANTS’ acrostic:
Privates are private
Always remember your body belongs to you
No means no
Talk about secrets that upset you
Speak up, someone can help
If you would like to know more about the NSPCC’s campaign and see how you can help keep your child safe in partnership with our school, more information can be found at:
https://www.nspcc.org.uk/keeping-children-safe/support-for-parents/pants-underwear-rule/
Wow! What a busy first half term our Bumblebees, Caterpillars and Dragonflies have had! We have been continuing with our project 'Me and My Family' and the children have been talking about what makes our families unique and special!
We have been focusing on the story 'We're Going on a Bear Hunt' by Michael Rosen and the children have made their very own story map of the Bear Hunt which they have stuck in their scrapbooks! They were able to retell the story using their own story map, some amazing actions and excellent expression! The children also had the opportunity to create their own small world of the Bear Hunt story, using a range of different materials to support the key language in the story. The children have also been using the Tales Toolkit model to create some of their own creative stories! They have been using the visual cues: Character, Setting, Problem and Solution to make sure that it is a super story! Some children have even 'had a go' at retelling their stories to the class!
During project time, we have been learning about homes! The children discussed what their house looks like and if it was similar or different to their friends. They had the chance to create a model of their home using their own choice of construction materials. Some children built their home independently whereas others decided to work as a team. They challenged themselves to create windows, doors, a roof and some children even gave their home a number or name! We are so impressed by our brilliant builders!
The children have been inspired by our top 20 book 'Walter's Wonderful Web' by Tim Hopgood and they have been exploring the different shapes. The Bumblebees, Caterpillars and Dragonflies have been extremely excited by our FPIS Costa Coffee shop! They have been writing menu's, exploring money, price, exploring their senses, turn taking and working as a team to make sure their coffee shop provides the very best service! Following this, the children were incredibly happy to have their very own autumnal hot chocolate altogether in the woodlands to celebrate their first term at school! We are SO proud of them all.
The children had their first Inspirational Artist afternoon where the children explored a range of mixed media and created their own masterpieces that have been displayed in their special spaces. Look out for these when you visit for parents evening after half term!
The Key Stage 1 children had a fantastic day launching our 'Super-Duper Heroes!' projects with our superhero dress-up day for our Brilliant Beginning. It was great to see a fantastic range of superheroes and we loved coming together in the hall for a very special superhero performance! It was a fantastic opportunity for our Key Stage 1 children to perform their School Responsibilities and Values poems to each other.
It was a great way to launch our new projects and inspired some brilliant learning!
In Key Stage 1 we had two brilliant Busy Learning afternoons for both Year 1 and 2. It was great to see so many different family members supporting us! The Key Stage 1 children loved sharing their new classrooms and learning opportunities with their grown-ups. Just a reminder that all information shared from the two sessions can be found via the School App.
Our next Busy Learning Afternoons are scheduled for:
Year 2: Wednesday 5th February 2025 at 2.00-3.00pm - Spelling Focus.
Year 1: Thursday 6th February 2025 at 2.00-3.00pm - Maths Focus.
Thank you for your continued support!
Our 'Speak out. Stay safe' Assembly this term helped our Year 1 and 2 children to understand that they always have a right to feel safe, and that they can speak to a safe adult or Childline if they ever need help or support.
If you would like to know more about the Speak out. Stay safe. programme activities for home, please visit:
https://www.nspcc.org.uk/keeping-children-safe/support-for-parents/safety/activities-safety-kids/
In Year 1 we have had a busy few weeks solving some veggie related crimes! We were in our classrooms when suddenly we heard “Quick, help! A crime has been committed! We need to get to the hall as quickly as possible!”. We hurried into the hall to discover that there were some vegetables who needed our help! We became detectives and tried to help Supertato solve the crime. Evil Pea had come to FPI and caused some trouble! We have been busy retelling the story of Supertato and creating some fantastic story maps to help us!
We have been busy exploring tuned and untuned instruments. We have had the opportunity to play tambourines, rhythm sticks, hand drums and shakers. We then got to experiment with glockenspiels, bells, triangles, and cymbals to hear the different notes that could be made. We have had so much fun exploring all the different sounds that can be made with both tuned and untuned instruments.
We have also been looking at the work of Andy Goldsworthy and exploring the patterns he creates using natural materials. We identified the shape, colour and repeating patterns in his work and during Outdoor Learning, we have used Andy Goldsworthy as inspiration to create our own masterpieces using natural materials found in the woodland and learning garden.
We have been working on our paired reading which is a key part of our Phonics programme too. We find a comfortable spot in the classroom and read our new book with a partner. One person points whilst the other one reads and then we swap roles. It is great for developing our confidence to try and read new texts together.
In maths we have been continuing our work on place value by thinking deeply about the numbers 0-10 and how they relate to one another. We have been working out one more and one less than a number and giving reasons to prove how we know we are correct! We have learnt the mathematical symbols > (greater than), < (less than) and = (equal to) in order to compare numbers. Throughout this half term we have also been busy learning the names of the most common 2D and 3D shapes as well as explaining how we know which shape it is.
What a busy Autumn term it has been in Year 2! We have loved being superheroes, particularly during our superhero dress up day! We have been authors, illustrators and poets and we have been so proud of the wonderful range of writing he have prodcued. This has included; becoming comic strip authors thinking about a problem which our superheroes needed to solve. They were fantastic with a range of creative and imaginative ideas! We have also loved looking at the story 'Supertato: Veggies in the Valley of Doom'. We have thought about the processes an author needs to go through to write a successful story which includes; creating story mountains, boxing up our story and writing drafts. This helped us to rewrite the Supertato story thinking carefully about where we could use a range of descriptive language such as expanded noun phrases.
We have also been busy thinking about the purposes and suitability of different materials and have been using this knowledge in different ways. One of our Lanyard Challenges over the past few weeks has been to explore different materials and select an appropriate one to design and make our own superhero objects. We have created a range of brilliant objects thinking carefully about which material would best suit its purpose. We also tested this knowledge when we learnt about the Jewish Festival of Sukkot. As part of this learning, we worked in teams to create our own Sukkah shelters using different materials and tested them against some strong winds (a hairdryer!!) to see which shelters could survive! It was a tense and exciting moment testing our shelters!
On Thursday 3rd October, Holly Class attended the Active 60 Festival at Altwood School organised by the Ascot and Maidenhead School Sport Partnership. This was a great opportunity for the whole class to go on an agility adventure, inspired by the Chief Medical Officers recommendation that all children complete 60 active minutes every day (30 of which are in school) and aiming to get all young people active and enjoying being active! The children participated in a mix of activities which included running, jumping and throwing skills which all link to the ABC of physical literacy - agility, balance and co-ordination.
Holly Class were fantastic role models for our school and had a great afternoon!
We are delighted to have Year 6 librarians from FPJS running lunchtime library sessions for our Year 2 children again this year. Our children are really enjoying having the opportunity to spend extra time in the library - and the Year 6 children have been excellent role models for our younger ones. Thank you to Mrs Clark for helping to organise these sessions - it's great to see our Junior and Infant children working together!
Our Year 1 and 2 have been enjoying playing with the new sports equipment we have recently purchased for Courtyard Club.
We were able to buy the new equipment thanks to funds raised through our Sports 4 Schools event in July.
Meet our new School Council Team for 2024/2025! After finding out about how important having a School Council Team is at FPIS, every class had a vote to elect our new School Councillors for this academic year. Every School Councillor proudly received their new badge and our new representatives were introduced to the whole of FPIS.
Our School Councillors have been busy already helping to look at some new equipment that we could invest in for the school. We listened to each others thoughts and opinions about what we liked and disliked and things that would be good additions to enhance our outdoor learning areas!
Welcome to our Eco Team 2024-2025! We are very excited to introduce to you our ambassadors that will help us look after our school environment. We have already had brilliant ideas put forward by our eager team and have a super new project that we are all really excited about!
At FPIS we are going to be growing our own wheat to make flour, so that next harvest we will be able to bake our own bread! This is a really ambitious project and have already made a start, getting our hands dirty and sowing our seeds.
We look forward to sharing with you everything we get up to!
Top Eco Tip: Now is the time to enjoy being outdoors and spotting any signs of Autumn!
In nurture, we have had a very creative few weeks including making some lovely stained glass window pictures for our side door, autumn trees using our fingers to paint red, orange, yellow and brown leaves and finally for our autumn board, hedgehogs and squirrels made with tissue paper.
We have been lucky enough to have some beautiful sunny afternoons and have taken the opportunity to go on an autumn scavenger hunt!
We'd like to wish all of our children and families a lovely half term.
In our FS sessions we have created 'woodland creatures' using clay and natural materials such as leaves, twigs and pine cones gathered from the woodland area and around our school site. If you happen to pop into our school office at any time, you'll see them on display!
As well as using the palm drill, we have been learning how to use a hand drill to make holes in wood too. We have also used the ball pein hammer to carefully hit nails through bottle caps into wood slices.
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.
Daisy has been doing some fantastic gymnastics and received a medal for "doing some backflips on the gymnastics beam". Well done!
Noah received his Level 2 swimming certificate for "swimming in the deep end". Well done, Noah!
Florence has started kickboxing and proudly received her first belt. Well done, Florence!
"I got my belt for learning my 1 and 2 and my guard stand" Said Harriet. She proudly demonstrated this for her teachers. Well done, Harriett!
Hanna proudly brought all her medals for "great saving during football practice". Well done, Hanna!
Well done, Florence for receiving a medal for excellent swimming!
Congratulations to Esme who received her 'Happy camper' Rainbows badge. "I had to put up a tent and take it down again!"
Well done to Willa who is proudly sharing her 'Get creative' badge from Squirrels. "I drew lots of pictures." Congratulations Willa!
Sebby and Seamus worked hard at their rugby tournament and were both awarded with medals. What amazing team work boys- well done!
Poppy has been an awesome athlete by working hard to learn new moves in gymnastics. Great work, Poppy!
Seamus has been an awesome athlete with his swimming lessons and has swam over 200m!
Freddie took part in a rugby tournament in Windsor and was awarded with a medal. Great work, Freddie!
Holden got two football medals for "scoring lots of goals and being very good at football". He also received a medal for listening to the rules at tennis. Well done!
Joel received a medal at rugby for playing well in the match at Windsor. He also received a badge during fencing for "listening and being kind". Well done!
Congratulations to Flora who received her swimming medal!
Congratulations to Joseph who is proudly sharing his certificate for achieving Chief Scout's Acorn Award!
Well done to Esme who received a swimming medal for fantastic swimming!
Congratulations to Liyana who was awarded a swimming medal for, "Being good and kicking my legs." Well done!
Well done to Harry who received his football medal for, "Kicking a goal, trying hard and my big smile!" Congratulations!
Summer was super excited to share her swimming medal which was awarded by Tom Dean!
Aariya was very pleased with her swimming medal from Tom Dean! She was proud of share it in celebration assembly!
Well done to Joshua who has been awarded his Tom Dean swimming medal. "I am now in Stage 3 for swimming. I do back stroke and maybe near the end I'll do butterfly!" Great job Joshua!
Congratulations to Benjamin who is proudly sharing his Tom Dean swimming medal. "I had to swim the whole length on my back, it was two metres."
Sia is proudly sharing her swimming medal she has been awarded. "I had to pass onto the next level by improving my breast stroke." Well done Sia!
Well done to Henry, who proudly shared his football medal in assembly! Henry has shown excellent enthusiasm and detirmination with his football and we could not be more proud!
Sammy was so excited to share his medal with us which he was awarded by Olympian, Tom Dean!
Congratulations to Lola, who received this medal from Tom Dean for excellent swimming! What a superstar!
Congratulations to Frank who is proudly sharing a badge he was awarded at Fencing Club. "I had to do really good fencing." Well done Frank we are super proud of you!
Well done to Maisie who has been awarded a Gymnastics certificate. "It was really hard to get this! I had to do a good back tuck." Great job Maisie!
Well done Emmy for completing the first stage of your maths program! Great work!
Congratulations to Aaron for receiving this medal for his excellent football! ''I made really good passes and helped my team win!'' Well done, Aaron!
Hannah received this medal for coming 2nd in her age group for the South Central Orienteering Championships! Well done Hannah, what an amazing effort!
Many congratulations to Pegasus house team for having the most house points awarded for this half term - an impressive 650 overall. Well done everyone - a great team effort! :)
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.
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.
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.
Early Years Tea Party (28th September)
The annual tea party for Early Years families returned at the end of last month and the event was helped by the lovely weather allowing parents and children to be outside. In the hall we had a pop up play village, 2nd hand uniform sales and refreshments with cakes. A follow up driveway cake sale helped the event raise over £250 for the Infants school.
Mr T's Quiz Night (18th October)
The FPSA quiz night was back last Friday and there was a very good turnout with 115 tickets sold and 22 teams entered. The music round finished with a fine rendition of the 1971 John Denver hit, 'Take Me Home, Country Roads'. History was made as a Juniors staff team ('Is your name on it?') won the quiz!
The FPSA would like to say a big thank you to everyone who came and supported this event, Charlotte Young, Tess Slater and Steve Craig for running the bar and the staff at Palmieri's for providing us with the lovely food.
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
Copas Farm Shop
Copas Farms have a PTA cashback scheme. Please visit www.copasfarmshop.co.uk and they will donate 5% of the order value to the FPSA. Ideal for your Christmas turkey!
Please use the following code: FPJS24PTA.
Dates for your Diary:
Happy Bags - Friday 29th November
Our next collection of unwanted clothes etc. is on the morning of the 29th November. Filled bags can be dropped off by the Infants entrance.
Christmas Fair - Saturday 30th November (11.30am - 2.30pm)
The Christmas Fair is back at the very end of November. We be running the usual Silent Auction and this time the raffle will be online! Christmas Fair letters detailing how you can help will be going out after half term.
The stall volunteer list can be found here: https://volunteersignup.org/RFCFW
A huge thank you to everyone who signed up to have an Oakwood Estates agents board outside their house advertising the upcoming fair, we had just under 80 households which will raise ~£450.
Junior School Discos - Thursday 18th December
DJs Sawle and King are back playing the tunes for the Juniors to boogie. As usual, the years 3 & 4 disco is first (4-5pm) followed by the years 5 & 6 disco (5.15 - 6.30pm).
Tickets will be on sale in November via our pta-events platform.