Newsletter - 2nd December 2022
There has been a sense of excitement throughout our school as Christmas events and preparations for our festive perfomances have got underway this week. The children were delighted to attend the production of Aladdin at FPJS on Monday (Oh yes they were!) It was a great way to launch the festive season. Read more below!
With so much going on in school, we really don't want our families to miss out on anything, so please take a look below for information on how to subscribe to our school calendar - and get diary dates downloaded straight to your personal calendar on your device.
Showing respect for our wider community is part of our school values and as such we are always looking at ways in which to support and become more involved with individuals and organisations in our local area. Therefore, we feel very proud and privileged to be working with the team at St Mark's Care Home on an exciting new joint venture to develop close links between us both. Our first event was a 'play date' for some of our Year 2 children and a number of the residents at the care home. Please take a look below for more about this, plus some wonderful, heart-warming photos...
Have a lovely weekend and hope to see you at our Christmas Fair tomorrow!
Jane Indge
Head of School
Here is a brief look at what's going to be happening in school during the next few weeks...
Saturday 3rd December: 11:30 am - 2:30 pm - FPSA Christmas Fair
Monday 5th December - Christmas Assembly with Emma, Children's Minister, St Peters Church
Friday 9th December - Christmas Jumper Day (Save the Children)
Friday 9th December - Reindeer visit in school
Friday 9th December @ 2:00 pm - Early Years Christmas Performance (all welcome)
Monday 12th December @ 9:30 am and 2:00 pm - KS1 Christmas Performance (Please note: younger children and babies are very welcome to attend the 9:30 am performance. The 2:00 pm performance is for adults ONLY)
Tuesday 13th December @ 9:30 am and 2:00 pm - KS1 Christmas Performance (Please note: both the 9:30 am and 2:00 pm performances are for adults ONLY)
Wednesday 14th December - Children's Christmas Lunch
Wednesday 14th December - Christmas post boxes close
Thursday 15th December - FPJS Christmas Guitar Concert
Friday 16th December - Children's Christmas Parties (Non-uniform)
Friday 16th December - Term ends
Did you know a feature of the school’s website allows you to subscribe to events from the school calendar so that they download into your own personal calendar on your mobile phone, tablet or computer?
All you need to do is visit the calendar on the school website and click the 'Subscribe to this calendar’ link. You can then choose from three options: to add to your default calendar (for example, on an iPhone it will go to the iPhone calendar); to add it to your Google calendar; or input it to your calendar programme of choice.
Things to know:
If the school edits its calendar, the updates will appear automatically in your calendar (the time that this takes to happen will depend on your calendar programme).
You cannot edit the events in the school calendar.
You can name the calendar and choose how often to receive updates (we recommend you set this to as often as possible).
You can unsubscribe via your own calendar at any time.
If you have any questions or feedback, please contact the school office.
FPIS Fundraising update...
Thanks to the very generous donations from our FPIS families, we have completely smashed our fundraising target for Children in Need this year. Following our SPOTacular events in school and our 'Getting spotted in your spots' challenge via Seesaw, our fundraising page received a staggering
£706
of donations in total.
Thank you all for your amazing support :)
This week, SAM - our School Attendance Mascot, was presented to Dragonfly Class for their brilliant 98.3% attendance overall. Well done!
Please refer to the table shown for the latest school attendance figures for each class. Our school attendance target is: 97%
Dragonfly 98.3%
Hazel 96.8%
Silver Birch 96.0%
Beech 95.9%
Holly 95.7%
Willow 93.8%
Caterpillar 93.5%
Oak 93.1%
Bumble Bee 92.1%
The Information, Advice and Support Service hold regular meetings for parents and carers. Below is a list of their upcoming events.
In Early Years we have been continuing to learn about how to stay healthy and we were lucky to have a visit from Doctor Rachal Crane. Our Bumblebees, Caterpillars and Dragonflies had the opportunity to explore resources, ask questions and learn all about their bodies. Some of the children were able to wear a special apron that showed where our internal organs are!
Last week we focussed our learning on how to keep our teeth healthy. We started the week with a visit from the dentist Mrs Kohli and Miss Louch. Our Early Years children learnt about why it is important to keep our teeth healthy, how to brush them and for how long. Mrs Kohli showed them foods and drinks that help to keep our teeth heathy and those that do not! During the week we learnt lots of songs and shared new stories all about oral health and the children worked together to build a giant mouth with milk bottles. The adults helped them to name the gums, crown, enamel, root, mouth and lips. All of our Early Years children took home a toothbrush, toothpaste and a tooth timer for our Toothbrushing Challenge. The children are receiving a Tooth Brushing Expert sticker for sharing a picture of them brushing their teeth for two minutes. Keep sending the photographs to Seesaw as they are excited to share it with their friends.
This week we have been sharing the story Goldilocks and the Three Bears. We have retold the story through oral storytelling and the children have created their own story maps. We discussed healthy breakfasts, experimented with oats and learnt all about size, mass and capacity.
On Tuesday we held our Busy Learning Afternoon. We started with an information session about Phonics, Early Reading and Writing and how to support your child at home. Slides from the session have been sent to all Early Years parents and can be found on our website and if you need any further information please talk to your child's class teacher or Miss Hare.
Following this, parents and carers were able to spend some time in the classroom where they worked with their children to create some wonderful Christmas decorations for our Christmas tree. Thank you to all that attended, the children we thrilled to share this occasion with you.
It's been a team effort with our Christmas Tree this year. Once again the tree itself has been supplied by Thames Valley Landscapes, who also very kindly made a contribution towards the cost. Thank you!
Our thanks also to our site team for putting the tree up and arranging the lights for us.
Our Early Years team, with help from our Bumblebees, Caterpillars and Dragonflies have done a great job of dressing our Christmas tree with the beautiful decorations created during our Busy Learning Afternoon. Well done, everyone!
Our final job was, of course, to switch the lights on. Whilst everyone was gathered in the hall this afternoon for our Celebration Assembly, Mrs Indge led a very enthusiastic countdown from 10 and Mr Vogel kindly assisted with switching the lights on - to the children's delight!
Our Year 1 children had a fabulous time on their trip to Windsor Castle and this was reflected during Busy Learning activities.
We have created various aspects of the castle we had seen, adding details, like the guards defending The Keep and the King’s Standard flying high, as the King was in residence. We have confidently drawn on our experiences of our trip to share what we had learnt with our friends and teachers.
We have also been very busy in Outdoor Learning looking at root vegetables and using our cutting skills to dice and cube. We were very excited to use our vegetables to make our own delicious vegetable soup. We used our five senses to look at the different colours of the soup, the sound of it bubbling, the amazing smell of it cooking, the feel of all the vegetables mixing, when stirring with the spoon and of course, the delicious taste of the soup! We loved warming ourselves up drinking our soup while sitting in an outdoor classroom.
We have also been experimenting building a den in the Outdoor Learning area with Mr Thompson and have had fun using equipment from the mud kitchen as we have role-played camping in the Woodlands.
Finally, as we begin to prepare for our Christmas performance (which we can't wait to share with you!) we have been learning all about the Christmas story and have been acting this out in our role play area.
In Year 2 we have been busy finishing our Super-Duper Heroes project and bringing all of our Sticky Knowledge together. Following our recent visit to Oaken Grove Park we have designed and created our own memorials to Sir Nicholas Winton, who we have been greatly inspired by for demonstrating his bravery, courage and kindness towards others. We also have been investigating geographical features and have put our Sticky Knowledge to good use by making our own representations of the world. Our investigations into the properties of clay have enabled us to create our own sculptures based on our School Values.
During our preparations for Christmas we have been reading and sequencing the Christmas Story. This knowledge is supporting us in our rehearsals for our forthcoming Christmas Performances, which we are very much looking forward to sharing with you.
This term in maths we have explored different representations and strategies for adding and subtracting. We have been investigating the properties of 2D and 3D shapes as well as naming common shapes, ensuring we use the correct mathematical vocabulary to describe each one. We have also been busy making different patterns.
In our Mastering Number sessions we have been pulling apart different numbers to ten and seeing how this knowledge helps us when we are working with numbers up to 100 (and beyond!). We have also been spotting patterns and trying to think about generalisations, such as if we add an odd and and even number together we always get an odd number.
WOW! What an exciting day we had on our trip to Windsor Castle. We got on the coach first thing in the morning after register. We loved being high up and seeing the different countryside views on our way to the castle.
When we got there, we luckily did not have to join the queue and got to go through a separate entrance just for school trips. We dropped our lunch bags off in the Learning Centre then we were off to explore the grounds.
We visited St. George’s Chapel and got to see the plaque for Queen Elizabeth II and were very impressed by all the colours we could see on the stained-glass windows. We saw one of the guards just outside the chapel and got to see his winter uniform. Some of us were lucky to see him give us a display as he marched up and down while completing his duties.
We showed respect as we walked through the State Rooms looking at all the different pieces of armour and weapons and identified the changes that have occurred in uniform through the ages. We also got to participate in a workshop all about castles. The man who spoke to us was so funny and he got some of us up to pretend to be soldiers. He also showed us pictures of how Windsor Castle has changed through time.
We had lunch in the learning centre and even though the weather was a bit wet, it was a fun day for all. We were all so tired on the coach trip back to school but we learnt so much and had an amazing time!
On Monday we all visited the Junior School to see an amazing performance of Aladdin! We were treated to a retelling of the story as well as lots of songs that we joined in with. Our children sat and listened beautifully, well done everyone!
Yesterday a group of our Year 2 children went to visit some of the residents who live in St. Mark's Care Home. It was a fantastic opportunity for us to further develop our relationships with members of our local community. The children made some Christmas decorations with the residents including wreaths made out of different hand prints, it was great fun to take it in turns with some of the residents drawing around each others hands. We now have two beautiful wreaths, one displayed in St. Mark's Care Home and one displayed in our school.
We are very excited to be welcoming some of the residents to one of our Christmas performances in school and even gave them a sneak peak of some of our songs!
The children were fantastic role models and we even received an email saying:
"Dear Furze Platt Infant School
The joy and happiness that you gave our Residents this morning was a beautiful activity to be part of.
Every Child lived up to the vision and values of your school.
Thank you so much, you are all Superstars and we look forward to seeing you soon."
Well done to everyone involved, it was a wonderful experience and we are excited to see how our relationship can evolve!
Our School Councillors have been busy making posters this week to help advertise our Christmas Fair! We have put our eye-catching posters in our classrooms for everybody to see. We're hoping our posters will invite more people to join the fun!
The red kite is a very agile bird and it can stay in the air for hours at a time. Red kites possess excellent eyesight and hunt from the air by circling over open ground or fields, keeping an eye out for prey. Red kites are now specially protected. They were once common, but persecution drove them almost to extinction in Britain. Following reintroductions of red kites from Europe in the 1980s, the numbers have slowly been increasing.
Did you know? The wingspan of red kites can reach up to 170 cm. Considering
this large wingspan, the kites are very light birds, weighing no more
than 0.9-1.3 kg!
In nurture, we have been out in the woodland area exploring and looking for Autumn leaves.
We have continued looking at superheroes, in particular real life superheroes and we talked about all the different real superheroes that we might meet.
This week were very excited to receive some lovely new wooden jigsaws, the children have had so much fun playing with them.
Finally, we have been thinking about winter and started by making robins and holly ready for our winter display in the nurture room.
Edwin is proudly displaying his latest swimming certificate for completing Stage 2. He had 13 challenges to do. Congratulations we are very proud of you! :)
Ben was awarded a medal in football for some great defensive play and saving his team from having a goal scored with his quick kicking skills!
Oona was awarded her Yellow tag at Kick boxing for showing the correct techniques in her grading. Well done Oona!
Lucy received a certificate for super swimming and blowing great bubbles into the water. Well done Lucy!
Edith was very proud to show us her certificate and badge she received at Rainbows for making her Rainbow promise. She confidently read the Rainbow promise to the rest of the school during Celebration Assembly. Well done, Edith! Definitely an awesome achievement!
Lily made her Rainbow Promise last night. She was very brave and made her promise in front of all the rest of the Rainbows and parents. She is now a full member of her Rainbow group.Well done Lily and have fun!
Isla has her red belt and certificate from some amazing work at kickboxing. What a brilliant sports superstar she is!
Deekshana has been listening, concentrating and trying her hardest at her art club sessions this term and has some amazing work she is very proud of.
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.
The FPSA Quiz Night was held on Friday 18th November at the Junior School and was attended by ~120 people split into 22 separate teams. As well as 3 picture rounds, there were 5 rounds of questions covering Current Affairs, General Knowledge and TV themes, along with a Connections round and a music round. Congratulations to the 'Kiss my penguin' team who were overall winners. Both the Infants and Juniors teachers teams came joint 7th with the Infants TAs coming in 5th place.
Assuming matched-funding comes in, the event will have raised nearly £3,000. Thank you to everyone who came and supported the event.
Dates for your diary:
Saturday 3rd December - Christmas Fair, 11.30am - 2.30pm
We look forward to seeing you at the fair tomorrow! Please bring some loose change as only certain stalls have card readers. The entrance to the fair is at the Infant school entrance with plenty of stalls and refreshments over at the Juniors (accessed via EY and past the bus).
There are still a few slots available if you can spare 1 hour of your time please: https://volunteersignup.org/LJQHB
Final fund-raising event of the year:
Friday 9th December - Junior School Discos
Years 3 & 4 disco is 4-5pm and Years 5 & 6 disco is 5.15pm-6.30pm.
Tickets are available at www.pta-events.co.uk/fpsa
RBWM are inviting you to share your views on the Royal Borough’s current leisure services to see if what they are giving you is what you want and need.
Please see below for more details:
The online Royal Borough More Active Survey will help us better understand your exercise habits and if you can easily access local sports and wellbeing facilities. The survey is designed so that your responses are anonymous and will take only ten minutes to complete.
Your feedback is crucial to pinpoint any barriers preventing you from being more physically active and using local leisure centres, and other facilities such as green spaces, to help us consider solutions to overcome these. We’re also keen to hear from those of you who don’t currently use our leisure services to understand why.
We’ll use the survey’s findings, along with feedback from focus groups as well as stakeholders, to inform the Royal Borough’s future leisure provision which is due to discussed in the spring.
The survey can be found here: https://tinyurl.com/RoyalBoroughMoreActiveSurvey and closes at midnight on Wed 14 December 2022.
Please do also share this email and the link with anyone who wishes to add their views.
Public-access computers are available at all local libraries, where staff will be happy to help you get online if needed. If paper copies of the survey are required instead, these are also available from libraries on request.