Newsletter - 19th December 2025

Festive Celebrations at FPIS !

Our last few weeks this term have been filled with Christmas events and celebrations, which you can read all about below. This time of year is so magical for our young children and it is so lovely to be part of all their excitement and wonder. During the lead up to the festive period our children have participated in some very exciting and memorable experiences in school. They have worked together to master new songs, actions and words for performances, been busy learning and have had lots of fun too.

A big thank you to Mr Thompson for welcoming everyone into school this morning with a selection of Christmas songs played on his cornet. We were also lucky enough to have an encore at the end of our special assembly this morning.

Thank you for your help and support in making this term such a successful and happy one for our children. We are very proud of how hard they have worked and how much they have achieved so far. We are all excited to see what 2026 brings!

On behalf of the staff team, a huge thank you also to you all for your kind words, Christmas cards and gifts. They have been much appreicated by us all.

Wishing you a very Merry Christmas and we look forward to welcoming our children and families back to school in the New Year!

With very best wishes

Jane Indge

Head of School

The Furze Platt Primary Federation's Epic Countdown To Christmas!

WOW! What a spectacular close to the term!

We didn't just meander up to the holidays, we had our very own, completely epic feast of events and celebrations across our two schools.

Just look at what we packed in:

An incredible Christmas Fair (a huge shout-out to the FPSA and all our amazing volunteers!)
Three dazzling pantos!
Seven super festive, funny and heart-melting Nativities!
Six fabulously decorated trees!
Two guitar concerts by our talented guitarists!
Two delicious Christmas lunches!
90 Early Years children singing their little hearts out!
Countless festive assemblies, carols on the playground, a visit to St Peter's Church, a Carol Concert and performances by both FPIS and FPJS choirs.
Plus, Christmas Jumper Day, a special visit from Father Christmas to our FPIS children, and adornments galore!

Honestly, I'm not sure even the real Father Christmas has as much festive fun as we do!

This has been another truly action-packed term, with the children enjoying so many wonderful trips, activities, and events. Looking back over the past two terms fills me with incredible joy and pride! The passion our students show is shining through in the amazing work and enthusiasm they bring every single day.

Finally, I have to take a moment to say a massive, heartfelt thank you to all of our staff! They are the engine that makes FPJS and FPIS such special places to be. Their dedication ensures that our children have a wonderful experience—a brilliant mix of academic excellence and the nurturing support they need to truly flourish.

That just leaves me to wish you all a relaxing, enjoyable, and safe break!

Thank you all for your incredible support this year. Merry Christmas, everyone! We can’t wait to see you all in the New Year

Mike Wallace

Executive Headteacher

Quick Links

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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 19th December - Term ends: school finishes at 1:30 pm

Monday 22nd December - Friday 2nd January - school closed

Monday 5th January - INSET day (school closed)

Tuesday 6th January - Spring Term begins

Friday 9th January - Year 1 Brilliant Beginning! Dress-up Day (Emergency!)

Monday 19th January - Early Years Brilliant Beginning! Dress-up Day (All About Animals)

Wednesday 4th February - Year 2 Busy Learning Afternoon: 2:00 - 3:00 pm

Thursday 5th February - Year 1 Busy Learning Afternoon: 2:00 - 3:00 pm

Friday 6th February - NSPCC Number Day

Friday 6th February - Early Years Busy Learning Afternoon: 2:00 - 3:00 pm

Thursday 12th February - Dance Festival (Oak Class)

Friday 13th February - Term ends

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 holidays in Caterpillar Class who had a brilliant attendance figure of 98.7%! 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.

Our latest attendance figures

Caterpillar 98.7%

Silver Birch 98.3%

Bumblebee 98.0%

Beech 97.7%

Hazel 97.4%

Dragonfly 94.7%

Holly 93.7%

Oak 89.7%

Willow 81.7%

FPIS SEND Signpost

Produced by SEND Voices

Early Years Busy Learning Afternoon

On the 28th of November we were excited to welcome our Early Years parents and carers to our Christmas Workshop and Busy Learning afternoon. Following an 'Early Reading, Writing and Phonics' presentation in the hall our parents joined their children in their classrooms to make Christmas decorations. Our Bumblebees, Caterpillars and Dragonflies had a wonderful time threading beads onto pipe cleaners to make candy cane decorations, decorating their own baubles for the school Christmas trees and some children even created colourful paperchains to decorate the classroom! Thank you to everyone who attended, it was a fantastic start to our Christmas celebrations! :)

Early Years Christmas Performance

Last Friday our Bumblebees, Caterpillars and Dragonflies performed their Christmas concert to their parents, carers and lots of grandparents too! They looked wonderful dressed as Christmas trees, Santa's down a chimney and Reindeers which they had created for the show. The children entertained us all with their big, brave singing voices and lovely dances! It was so lovely to see how confident our Early Years children have become already. Well done Early Years, you put on a fabulous show and we are all incredibly proud of you all!

Early Years

Our Bumblebees, Caterpillars and Dragonflies have been super busy having lots of fun with their learning linked to their project, 'Me and My Family.'

We had a special visit from dentist Dr. Kohli and her assistant, who came into school to talk to the children about oral hygiene, healthy foods and how to keep our teeth healthy. The children then had great fun in our dental role-play area, taking turns as dentists and patients, making notes and booking appointments, with some children even 'performing' some very serious (and very pretend!) “surgery,” with lots of giggles and dramatic reactions! We have also been exploring our non-fiction Dentist books, using the contents page to help us find information about the Dentist! The children were thrilled to take home their toothbrush timer, toothbrush and toothpaste and we have loved seeing so many of the children taking on the two-minute timer challenge on Seesaw! Keep up the great brushing!

We have had some extra visitors in Early Years since the 1st December...our mischievous classroom elves have been up to no good this week causing lots of excitement in the classroom! His cheeky antics have inspired the children to write their own letters to the elf, sharing questions, ideas and even wish lists! It has been a lovely way to encourage early writing skills during the festive season.

Following on with the festivities, the children had the opportunity to decorate the school Christmas tree with the decorations they made during their busy learning session. We encouraged the children to space the decorations out evenly across the tree. They have loved admiring the Christmas tree when going into the hall and are proud of their efforts.

To wrap up the year, the children had their final balance-ability session last week and what fantastic progress they have all made! Ben and his team were amazed by the progress that the children have made. Their co-ordination, confidence and core strength has grown so much over the term. We are excited to keep building on these skills using our school balance bikes! The children were thrilled to take home their well-earnt certificates. Well done Early Years!

We are looking forward to starting our new project 'All About Animals' next year! To launch our next Project we are asking our Early Years children to dress up as their favourite animal on Monday 19th January!

We need your help!

If you have any spare tins or boxes (in different sizes) left over from Christmas, we’d love to upcycle them for our Early Years woodlands project!

'I'm Gonna Shine!': Key Stage 1 Christmas Production

We are all extremely proud of the Key Stage One Children who performed not once but four times!

Our play this year was titled: 'I'm Gonna Shine!' and each and every child certainly did shine!

The year 1 children performed their songs and actions beautifully and the year 2 children learnt their lines and performed with passion and bravery.

A big shout out to all of the KS1 staff who helped to put on such a super show!

Also a huge thank you to all of you who came to support us, cheering and clapping and laughing at the fabulous Jester jokes! :-)

Didn't they all do well?! Thank you to everyone who came to watch us and support us.

Year 2 Golf Workshop

Our Year 2 children have enjoyed two golf workshops this term run by Winter Hill Golf Club.

As part of these workshops they have been practising the skills needed to be confident golfers. This included practising their pitch and putt skills and further developing their hand and eye coordination.

Thanks so much to Luke for two exciting sessions!

A very festive and fun Christmas Lunch for all!

The children had a lovely Christmas Lunch with their friends this week. As a very special treat, all the staff helped to serve the children - and everyone enjoyed a jolly sing-a-long to the Christmas songs that were playing!

Christmas Assembly

We were very pleased to welcome back Beth Gomm from Christian Connections in Schools (CCiS) for a special assembly on Thursday. We learned about some interesting Christmas traditions in other countries, talked about the things that help us have a perfect Christmas and also learnt about the importance of Christmas for Christians.

Father Christmas visits FPIS!

During our Whole School Assembly on Wednesday everyone was surprised and thrilled to see Father Christmas, who arrived with presents for all of the children. He also had his 'good' list to hand - which he revealed had a number of staff names on it (much to their delight/relief!!) After praising our children for all their hard work this term, Father Christmas was also keen to check that there would be carrots left out on Christmas Eve for Rudolph (as well as something nice to eat for himself as well!) Just before he left, the children delighted Father Christmas by singing 'I'm Gonna Shine!' and 'We wish you a Merry Christmas' from their recent performances. What a very special moment for all!

Our thanks to Mr Wratten (husband of Mrs Wratten, our FPPF Business Manager), the FPSA and both Mr Dearnaley and Mr Dearnaley for their help with this event.

A festive performance from our FPIS Choir

Our Year 2 FPIS choir put on an wonderfully festive performance for our Schoolreader volunteers when they popped into school last week. They were so pleased to listen to the children sing their Christmassy songs with such passion and enthusiasm. Our thanks to Miss Mahoney for organising and leading the choir. We are looking forward to hearing the choir perform again soon. :)

FPJS Christmas Guitar Concert

It was a pleasure, as always, to welcome Mr Hastings and the FPJS guitarists for a very special festive concert last Friday. The junior school children played a wonderful selection of Christmassy tunes and we all thoroughly enjoyed their performance.

FPPF supports Save the Children Christmas Jumper Day 2025!

We were very proud to wear our festive jumpers last Friday to support Save the Children once again. Our Christmas Jumper Day 2024 has already raised £644 across both schools!

A huge thank you to all those who have helped us to raise this impressive amount - and if you haven't had a chance to make a donation yet, our fundraising page is still available:

https://christmas.savethechildren.org.uk/fundraising/CJD250000579?utm_medium=FA&utm_source=CL

The Royal British Legion Poppy Appeal - Fundraising Update

The Royal British Legion have recently been in touch to let us know how much we raised for the Poppy Appeal last month - and the grand total was a tremendous £344.55!

Thank you to everyone who help raised this sum of money. We are extremely proud to support this charity each year which will help them continue their vital welfare and benevolent work.

Eco Team

We can’t believe it’s already the end of our first term as Eco Representatives! We have so many exciting ideas for how we want to look after our school environment next year.

Our Eco Representatives have been putting up new recycling posters around the school to encourage everyone to recycle the right things. Did you know that 80% of discarded household waste could be recycled and repurposed into new items? We were also amazed to learn that recycling just one glass bottle can save enough energy to power a laptop for half an hour!

By increasing the volume of materials we recycle as a school community, we can make a meaningful contribution and reduce our Schools Carbon Footprint.

Top Eco Tip: Over the Christmas break, take a moment to look at what you’re throwing away. Can any of these items be recycled?

We need your help!

If you have any spare tins boxes (in different sizes) left over from Christmas, we’d love to upcycle them for our Early Years woodlands project!

School Council

Fundraising Fun for Trunks Across the Thames!

Last week, our wonderful School Council led a series of exciting fundraising events to support Trunks Across the Thames, which is helping raise money for the Thames Hospice. The children were enthusiastic, generous, and full of smiles as they took part in two specially themed games: “Guess the Elephant” and “How Many Elephants in the Christmas Stocking?”

Both games were a big hit, with children eagerly making their guesses and cheering each other on. It was lovely to see everyone getting involved and showing such kindness and community spirit. Thanks to the brilliant efforts of our pupils—and the support of families and staff—we helped raise money for an important cause while having lots of fun along the way!

The winner of 'Guess the Elephant's name' is...

Avii Lehmann Laszlo

The winner of 'How Many Elephants in the Christmas stocking' is...

Theo Dixon

Congratulations to both of the winners!!

Nurture Group

In nurture the children have recently created some lovely stained glass effect pictures for the side door as well as making lots of colourful paper chains to hang up on the walls.

Our season board in the room has changed from Autumn to Winter and the children have made lovely holly and robin decorations to hang up.

As a nice treat last week, we all decorated biscuits with icing sugar and sprinkles as well as making marshmallow crispy cakes together. Finally we made some reindeer food and watched a film.

The nurture team (Mrs Barker, Mrs Kose and Mr Thompson) would like to wish all the children and families a happy Christmas and we look forward to seeing everyone in 2026.

Forest School

During our Forest School sessions over the past few weeks, we have been busy making Christmas decorations using natural and recycled materials.

We made robin red-breast tree decorations using fir cones. After painting a bright red tummy and face onto the cone, the children added a yellow beak and black eyes to make a very cute festive decoration indeed!

We also made Christmas trees by weaving green wool around recycled cardboard shapes, then adding leaves and greenery to make the branches.

Awesome Achievements!

Congratulations to Summer who is proudly displaying her gymnastics medals! "I got a bronze medal for my forward routine on the floor." Well done!

Well done to Freya who received this super award from her gymnastics! Keep it up Freya, we are so proud of you!

Well done to Holly for receiving these certificates for Gymnast of the week! We are so proud of you Holly, keep it up!

Congratulations to Ella for being gymnast of the week and completing a term at street dance! Well done Ella, what a superstar!

Congratulations Willa for your Little Samurai grading certicate and getting your orange tag!

Well done Isla for completing Stage 4 in swimming!

Well done Theo for your certficate in sailing!

Congratulations to Mia for getting your Level 1 Rainbow Swimming Award!

Orla is proudly sharing her medals she was awarded in gymnastics. "I entered a competition and got these medals." Well done superstar!

Well done to Orla who has been awarded a certificate from her gymnastics club. "I had to do good cartwheels and handstands." Great job!

Congratulations to Emmy who is proudly sharing her certificate she was awarded in her drama club. "I was Cinderella in our show and was really brave. I even got to wear a tiara!!" Super job!

Congratulations to James who is proudly wearing his football medal and sharing his swimming certificate! Well done James!

Well done to Koa who is proudly wearing his football medal! "It is so much fun!"

Jack received a medal for taking part and helping his team during football. He also got his Level 3 swimming certificate. Well done!

Tori received a medal for taking part and trying her best at football. Well done!

House Points

Monoceros win the house cup!

Very well done to our yellow house team, Monoceros, who earned the most house points overall during this half term. A really great effort from everyone!

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 19th December.pdf

SuperPoWeR Awards

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

Super-PoWeR Awards 19th December.pptx.pdf

Book Bingo!

Every week, during our Head of School Assembly, a bingo ball is selected from our special red bag. The bingo balls are numbered 1 - 30. Each child in Year 1 and 2 with the corresponding register number to the ball chosen will have the opportunity to bring their Maths book and Project scrapbook to share with Miss Dexter, Miss Edmondson, 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 updates

Christmas Fair (6th December)

The Christmas Fair was back at the beginning of December. We are incredibly grateful to everyone who donated something for the fair, whether that was cakes, tombola gifts, 2nd hand uniform, secrets room gifts or nearly new books, toys & games. We are especially grateful to everyone who donated an hour of their time (or more!) to help out on a stall. That includes new Willow class teacher, Miss Blackall who did all 3 hours at the fair on 3 different stalls, incredible! Please note that we aware of the congestion and issues at the Secrets Room so will look to tweak for next year.

Well done to Fergus from Beech class who won the giant doggy who whose name was....Fergus! Beech did the double as George won the £100 by successfully choosing Bingo (#40) on the 100 Board. Kinlow from Willow class won the Speed Stacking Infants trophy.

The fair has raised ~£7,500 profit, money that will be shared between the Infants and the Juniors.

Tesco Stronger Starts - Every Little Blue Token Helps!

Next time you shop at Tesco, please don't forget to ask for a blue token or two and pop them in the middle box (FPSA). We could win £1,500!

Please take a look at the following video involving none other than British Olympic Champion, Jessica Ennis-Hill.

https://strongerstarts.tesco.com/video/a0434bce-c535-4b59-a8f6-237cb13eab6d

The following stores have voting boxes for you to place the blue tokens into:

Tesco Express, Furze Platt (closest to FPIS & FPJS)
Tesco Express, Maidenhead Bath Road (next to Majestic Wine)
Tesco Express, Maidenhead High Street
Tesco Superstore, Taplow (Bishops Centre)
Tesco Express, Slough
Tesco Express, Burnham

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 including water bottles and lunchboxes as well as uniform.

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 link: https://www.windsorandmaidenheadcommunitylottery.co.uk/support/furze-platt-schools-association

Copas Farms - Turkey Cashback Scheme

Copas Farms based locally in Cookham, are once again supporting the FPSA. For every order placed with them using the code FPJS24PTA, we will receive 5% of the order value.

Date for your Diary:

Murder Mystery Event - Friday 27th February 2026

Tickets are on sale for our very first ever 'Murder Mystery' event which takes place at the end of February next year. The Juniors hall will be turned into an old library in a 'Death at Dinner Club' performance from Moonstone Murder Mysteries company.

Tickets available at https://fpsa.charityhive.co.uk/tickets/1/murder-mystery-evening.