Furze Platt Junior School

What an emotional end to the year it has been! The last few weeks have been absolutely jam packed with lots of trips, transition, Y6 production, Oscars ceremony and of course the Y6 Leavers' assembly today. We could not be more proud of our Y6 leavers. They have been such a credit to the school throughout their time at FPJS- such a hard-working, passionate and simply lovely group of children who really do deserve all the best in all things to come. They leave us after producing one of the best Y6 productions we have ever seen, a set of excellent SATS results showing excellent progress from their starting points when they came into the school during covid times. It is always hard to say goodbye to 90 children, but we know they are set up well for their next step in education.

We also want to say a huge thank you to all the staff at FPJS. It has been a very productive and hard-working year- we started the year with lots of new staff and they are now fully embedded in the FPJS way. Behind the scenes, staff have been working very hard on updating our curriculum this year and am proud to say we have made excellent strides forward with embedding fantastic learning opportunities across all areas of curriculum. It is sad to say goodbye to some key members of staff but we wish them all the best for the future.

Also a huge thank you to the FPSA who have done a fantastic job of continuing to raise additional funds which provide the icing on the cake for our pupils. Our library is up to date and looking wonderful and we have even more exciting plans coming up thanks to the money raised from all the FPSA events this year including an additional netball court being installed and a new room for music and mindfulness..

Finally thank you so much to the supportive attitude of parents! Your feedback has been invaluable to continue the make FPJS the outstanding school that it is and we really do appreciate every message of thanks- it helps us keep going!

Enjoy a wonderful summer everyone! Goodbye to all the families who have reached the end of their journey with us and see you in September to everyone else!

Mike Wallace Anna Clark Louise Axford

Executive Head Head of School Chair of Governors

End of year staff film

Enjoy our creation we shared with the children at the end of the Leavers assembly. Thanks to Joe Lutteman for his brilliant work at putting this together!

End of term staff film 23

Well-being at FPJS

Over the summer term, we have been using Brilliant Schools assembly resources to help teach the children how to look after their own wellbeing and mental health.

Children have been challenged to complete Random Acts of Kindness at home and in school - including secret challenges - and we have focused on kindness and how our emotions, thoughts, choices and behaviour are all inter twinned.

From September, our staff leads for mental health and wellbeing, will be building regular assembly and class lesson slots in to our calendar to focus on our wellbeing. More information will come through the year, including how you can get involved at home too!

Dates for your diary- September 2023

Monday 4th September Inset Day 1
Tuesday 5th September Inset Day 2
Wednesday 6th September- All children return to school. Please arrive on the school playground from 8.35am and no later than 8.50am
Weds 13th September: Meet the teacher event Y5: 5.30-6.30/ Y6: 6.30-7.30pm
Thurs 14th September: Meet the teacher event Y3: 5.30-6.30/Y4: 6.30-7.30pm

Staff Update

We would like to send our best wishes to Miss Edwards, who is getting married in August to her fiance, Rob. We wish her a super wedding day and can't wait to see the photos! Miss Edwards will return in September as Mrs Dean.

We are also excited to welcome new TA's to our FPJS team: Mrs Zanib and Mrs Mulé will be joining Y4, Mrs Saurabh and Mrs Vanstone will be joining our Y3 team, and Mrs Belfrage will be joining our Y5 team. We also welcome Mrs O'Neill to FPJS who will be supporting in the Everest Centre.

Our new classes and staff for September are as follows:

Y6 Production "Porridge"

Well done to our Y6 children who performed brilliantly for their production of Porridge- both casts put on the show of their lives on Tues 11th and Thurs 13th July and received a rapturous applause from the audience. Thank you to the Y6 staff who worked so hard with the children to put on such an outstanding performance not to mention the many hours spend on creating props, scenery and costumes. We are very lucky to have such passionate and dedicated teachers who know how to put on a show! We are sure that some children will go on to achieve great things in the theatre world! Further photos will be sent via seesaw to Y6 parents.

Head Students Update- Y6 Business project

This term at FPJS, Year 6 the year 6’s have been learning about how to run a business. We started by learning about business in maths about annual salaries and taxes. Multiple groups set up stalls and made products to sell. Each group started with ten pounds to buy products to sell. Groups also made things out of paper and cardboard. At the end of the selling, all groups counted up their money and gave the score to the teacher. We raised over £1000 a huge amount to -give to charity! The charity of choice was Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy UK which is a charity particularly close to Mrs White's heart. Everyone who bought something in one of the many stalls has helped raise this total higher. The overall total that each group made was taxed £10 plus anything rented from the school ( Tables,paper advertising posters etc). We would like give a thank you to everyone who helped raised the overall total by buying an item from a stall. Well done to the year 6’s for this fantastic project.

Written by Headstudents- Toby, Will & Aaradhya

Hexagon Choir Performance

On Tuesday, 27th June, our fantastic choir of 64 performers from Y3-6 had the amazing opportunity to perform at The Hexagon, Reading in a concert entitled, "The show must go on!". The concert featured many popular songs from the west-end theatre and from film, such as "Doh-Rei-Me" and "This is me!" All of the performers demonstrated such passion and enthusiasm for singing and were a real credit to the school. Thanks to all the staff involved in the rehearsals and support on the day, particularly Miss Morales who has given up lots of extra time to make this a special moment for our young singers. What a wonderful evening of entertainment it was- genuinely brought a tear to my eye!

Mrs Clark

Guitar concert

Well done to all our FPJS guitarists who have been practising hard all year with and put on a great end of year concert last week. Mr Hastings, guitar teacher for many years, was thrilled with the quality of the children's performance. They played a range of tunes, finishing with the popular "Banana Splits". Special mention to Lucas and Eduardo who played solos in the concert and have both acheived Grade 4 already! Brilliant work guitarists and a huge thank you to Mr Hastings!

Everest Pupils Celebrate Community & Mental Health Awareness

On Friday 30th June, some of our Everest Centre pupils attended this years' Inclusion Event at Manor Green School. Local schools from across the community were brought together to highlight Mental Health Awareness.The children sang and danced using Makaton to the song 'Treat People with Kindness' by Harry Styles. This was to celebrate how we stand together as a community to help address mental health issues and raise awareness.

Quick Links

Curriculum

Lunch Menu

Term Dates 23-24

Well-being

Calendar

Thanks to...

Our thanks to Mrs Young, an FPPF parent, for submitting a successful bid to Centrica on our behalf for funding for sports equipment. We now have lots of new and exciting equipment for the children to use at break and lunchtime in September. Thank you so much!

Website including housepoints update

Stars Of The Week

Star of the week Newsletter 16 19th July

Well done to all our stars this week!

Our stars are chosen from following the values of the school: Passion, Well-being and respect.

We also chose children who have made exceptional effort in their work or attitude to learning.

House Points Winners 2023

Well done to the Romans who won the overall housepoints winners this year! They have had an amazing year, having also won the sports day cup for the first time in many years!

Class Progress prizes (Y3-5)

Well done to all of the pupils pictured above who won the class progress prizes for this year:

TT Rock stars Update & Spelling Shed Top 10

As you are aware, Times Tables rock stars are very important at FPJS. We regularly celebrate those who have the fastest scores, who have made the progress or have won the weekly "battle of the bands" competition. This week's update shows the children who have made it to the hall of fame of the 10 fastest children in the school, with their lightning speed times, and the top ten children across the school who have made the most progress since September. Well done to the whole school for their involvement this year- all of the children's efforts have ensured we are in the top 10 of nearby schools- finishing in 4th place!

Well done to our current Spelling shed pupils who top the charts with their scores!

Year Group Updates

Year 3 final farewell!

Y3 roman day and copas' farm

On Monday 3rd July Year 3 had a visit from 'History off the page' who created a true Roman experience for us. The children discussed Boudicca and how the Romans defeated her as well as making their own jewellery, purses, charms and ink scrolls. The children also had a feast as well as acting out playscripts and becoming Roman soldiers. We had a truly magnificent day!

On Tuesday 11th July, we went to Copas' farm to fruit pick. The children picked strawberries and raspberries as well as escaping the maize maze! The children had a wonderful time and then walked back to school which was very tiring but also good fun.

I cannot believe that we are at the end of Year 3 and what a wonderful year it has been! I could not have asked for a better cohort of children in my first year at FPJS. You are all such kind, courteous and considerate children and I have thoroughly enjoyed working with you all. Even though I will miss you in Year 3, I am so proud of all you have achieved and will still see you each day on the playground or around school.

In the past few weeks, we have continued to work on statistics in maths where we looked at tally charts, bar graphs and pictograms. We then looked at what these showed us and what we could find out from the data.

In English, we have been writing playscripts. The children looked at the story 'Escape from Pompeii' and wrote part of the scene focusing on speech and stage directions.

In History we have looked at Romans and the story of Boudicca as well as comparing the Romans and the Celts.

As part of our DT topic we cut the fruit we had collected and used this to create our own fruit salads.

In RE we have continued to look at Sikhism and how this is celebrated. The children also looked at the 5 K's and what each of these items represent.

What a wonderful final few weeks we have had Year 3 and I wish you all the best of luck in Year 4. Well done and keep up the hard work.

Have a fantastic summer holiday!

Mrs Barry- Y3 Team Leader

Year 4 final farewell

Prime VR at fpjs

On Thursday 6th July, year 4 had an exciting visit from a virtual reality company to support their geography learning.

The children were able to explore South America and the Amazon Rainforest and see first hand how amazing these parts of the world are.

The children were able to look at the different layers of the rainforest, as well as some of the wildlife they may encounter including an Amazonian Tarantula!

It was a really exciting day and one I'm sure the children will remember for a long time!

How is it possible that another year has come to an end?! What a wonderful year it has been. The changes and growth that we have seen in you all since September have been incredible and it has been a pleasure to watch you all mature and learn so much - we are so very proud of each and every one of you.

Hopefully you have had a chance to read some of our refelctions on our time in year 4 on Seesaw. It has been a lovely end to the year to see the children thinking back on their time in year 4 and seeing all that they have achieved. They really are amazing pieces of writing and show just how proud the children are of themselves and how proud we should be of them, too.

We have used the last few weeks of term to cover our statistics unit in maths. We have been drawing and reading a range of graphs and charts including pictograms, bar charts and line graphs.

We finished off our term with a fabulous VR Workshop linked with our geography unit on the Amazon Rainforest and Brazil. It was a great immersive experience and we learnt so much. We were also lucky enough to have Norden Farm deliver a kite making workshop for us; see the pictures to see our final creations!

Well done year 4, it has been such a joy teaching you this year and we wish you every success in year 5. Have a great summer!

Mrs Barbosa, Y4 Team Leader

Year 5 final farewell

Y5 cadbury world trip

On Wednesday 28th June, Year 5 children visited Cadbury World, Birmingham for their school trip.

Once there, they learned all about the production of chocolate and how Cadbury World came to be. They also had a Mayan workshop where the children learnt about the Mayans and the history of cocoa beans. Did you know that the earliest record of chocolate was over 2,000 years ago in Central America's rainforests? The tropical conditions provided the ideal climate for cocoa trees.

Overall, the children impressed us with how much they had remembered from their history lessons last term. They were able to tell the Cadbury World guide a lot of information. It was such a great day and we hope the children were able to tell you all about it, not just what was in the gift shop!

A special thank you to the parents who came with us and helped on the trip, we really appreciate it.

It's always a bitter-sweet time of the year when we get to July. We are sad that we are leaving one another but we do look forward to seeing you all after the holidays when you join Year 6.
We can't believe how much you have all grown up over the year. When the teachers look back at old pictures taken in the autumn term, we are surprised to see how much you have changed and matured.

We have had a very busy end of the year with our trip to Cadbury World and bread making at FPSS (pictured) and lots of other learning opportunities in between.

In maths, we have finished our geometry unit and the children can now reflect shapes using lines of symmetry, move shapes and read coordinates.

In writing, the children impressed us with their FPJS Summer Fair reports which have been sent off to the Maidenhead Advertiser. We look forward to hearing what they think and if we have any budding journalists!

Across the wider curriculum, we have been busy learning about breads from around the world. They have tasted a variety of bread and last week we went to the Senior School to make doughballs. It was a great success and all children managed to come away with their creations.

Well done Year 5, I hope you have enjoyed learning this year as much as we have have enjoyed teaching you! Have a wonderful summer and we will see you from across the courtyard in September!

Miss Edwards, Y5 Team Leader

Year 6 final farewell!

Here we are - our final newsletter. This year really has flown by and Year 6 have managed to squeeze in so many fun and memorable moments. From Rhos y Gwaliau to our show stopping end of year production 'Porridge'. The last two weeks, we have seen our Year 6's confidence soar on stage and they have continued to work together as one fantastic team during the business project to raise money for a very special cause.

In the last couple of days, the fun continued and the children had the opportunity to showcase their media skills during the 'Oscars Ceremony'. The hall was transformed with gold decorations, photo backdrops and even a selection of drinks and snacks. As a year group, we watched all of the videos and celebrated each others' hard work. Finally, we presented awards for various categories. We have also made our Giacometti sculptures which were based on abstract elongated figures.

All of the staff have been blown away by how hard Year 6 have worked right up to the end and we know they are ready to take on secondary school as confident, resilient and hard-working pupils. They have been a fantastic year group and we know they will all go on to achieve and succeed in anything they put their minds to. Well done Year 6. Have a brilliant summer, you deserve it!

Miss Morales, Y6 Team Leader

Year 6 Awards

Well done to all our Y6 pupils who gained special recognition for their outstanding achievements or amazing progress! Not shown below is Eduardo Lacciarini who also gained an achievement for maths.

Books for the summer- GET AHEAD FOR NEXT YEAR

We absolutely love books at Furze Platt Junior School! We love reading for pleasure and we encourage all our children to love books as much as we do. Our teachers are constantly on the lookout for new and exciting reads and we regularly update our library with current reads.

If you are struggling for ideas for your children, here are a brilliant list of recommended. Remember, you can often get these books from the library. Children love to browse and look through books too - so it is a great summer activity to get into! Try the library challenge too for an added incentive:

This year's theme is Ready, Set, Read!- you can find out more at your local library.

Year 3 reads

Year 4 reads

Year 5 reads

Year 6 reads

Sports Updates

Furze Platt have had a brilliant year with PE and competitions have been an important part of this with 274 pupils attending 32 events. For those of you who have not managed to get out and take part, you will definitely have the opportunity in 20223/24 as all year 4 and 6's are ensured this. This summer, we were very lucky to qualify for county finals in three different sports; footgolf, cricket and two teams for quadkids. Please read the separate reports for each one.

Thank you to everyone who has supported with PE this year!

Mrs Tisshaw- PE coordinator

PE CLASS Star of the Year

Well done to the following children who were chosen for class PE star of the year:

Sports Day 2023

What a fantastic day we had at our annual FPJS sports day! Well done to Romans, who won this year. The final results looked like this:

SPORTS DAY RECORD-Breakers!

Here is the full list of all the children that managed to break our school records during our school sports day. All of these children will receive a medal for their amazing achievements!

Track Records:

Obstacle 60m: Celine P Y4: 25.16 seconds

Long Jump: William G Y6: 217cm

Y6 Sprint 80m: Alice G: 10.98 seconds

Y4 Sprint 60m: Aidan H: 9.51 seconds

Y4 Sprint 60m: Freya T: 8.76 seconds

Y3 Sprint 60m: Josh P: 9.57 seconds

Y3 Sprint 60m: Megan B: 10.20 seconds

Hurdles 60m: Katie E Y6: 9.58 seconds

Hurdles 50m: Bea F Y4: 9.01 seconds

Skipping 50m: Selin S Y4: 10.92 seconds

Egg & Spoon 40m: Aidan H Y4: 13.21 seconds

Atalanta 40m: Millie G Y4: 20.86seconds

Relay 80m boys: Normans team- William G, William B, Daniel F & Eduardo L- 54.25 seconds

Relay 80m girls: Katie E, Phoebe S, Varsha V, Muntaha R- 55.74 seconds

Field Records:

Ball Throw: Max B Y6 41.00m

Y3/4 Dynamos Cricket

On Thursday 29th July, children from year 3 and 4 went down to Braywick Leisure Centre to take part in the mixed 3/4 dynamos cricket tournament for the Berkshire School Games. After the welcoming ceremony and very exciting warm up, the children went and took part in 6 different cricket based activities, against 5 other schools, and had to score as many points for their school as possible. It was a really close result but... FPJS came a mighty 2nd! They were all so pleased with their silver medals and their teamwork really did make the dream work! Well done year 3 and 4! Miss Brewerton

QUADKIDS final

We have competed against other county schools in athletics with sportshall, placed second overall, but this was different as a howler throw can be a game changer! The weather was good and it was great to see all our children giving their absolute best. Our B team came 17th and our A team came 4th overall. William G performed the furthest jump of the day at 220cm, Max was 2nd in howler, Alice G 2nd in girls sprint and Katie was 4th girl overall out of 85! PB's were broken by Thomas, Bessie, Albert, Eduardo in 600m, Megan, Varsha, Imogen and Will B in long jump, Theo, Evie, Zoe and Dylan in Howler and Harry, Hannah, Patryk in sprints. As Kimberley was injured in sprints, she was unable to beat her PB. Our A team total was 1703, narrowly missing bronze to Holyport who scored 1716 points. Well done to all pupils involved as it was brilliant to see you all supporting each other in the events and celebrating such excellent efforts. Also thank you to parents Divya and Julie for helping support the team.

Mrs Tisshaw

Footgolf finals

On Thursday 29th June, Furze Platt Junior School had the honour of representing the Borough in the annual Berkshire School Games. After winning the Foot golf competition, on Thursday 22nd June at Courthouse school, Furze Platt took part in the County finals.

This was an extremely competitive event and the team worked together to complete a skills based session and seven holes of foot golf which involved kicking the football to a post in the least amount of shots. After 2 hours of competition, the final results were announced: Furze Platt were placed 4th in the County.

Well done to all the team, who once again showed the Furze Platt values as well as having a fun time. A special thank you must go to all the Furze Platt parents for transporting their children to and from these events, we really appreciate your continued support.

Many thanks

Mrs Winter

FPJS Kurling event

On the final Friday of the year, we had our 7th annual New Age Kurling competition. Some pupils who had not taken part in a competition during the year - mostly from year 3 or 5 - were invited. We usually venture across to the senior school, but this year we decided to stay home and split the 48 pupils into 2 smaller events of 24. In the morning it was 4, 5 and 6’s and the afternoon, year 3.

It is a great game, similar to ice curling, that relies on shooting skills, control and a little bit of luck. The children hugely enjoyed themselves, and lots showed very competitive play. There were certificates awarded to all and medals for 1st to 3rd places.

Lots of staff were involved with managing teams, several of our work experience year 10's did laminating, and scoring judges were ex-pupil Edward L and George B.

Thank you to all these people for making it so successful

Mrs Tisshaw and Mrs Winter

FPSA Update

Last Friday, the Infants hall was filled with over 80 year two children boogieing away to pop songs played by DJ Dexter. A couple of confetti cannons at the end added to the fun with the event raising ~£600.

The FPSA also helped out at both evening performances of the year 6 play by selling refreshments during the interval and beforehand too.

The FPSA would like to thank all parents, carers, teachers and children who have supported all of our events in the 2022/2023 academic year. This includes our recent summer fair which has after all raised over £10,000!

We have a busy autumn & winter planned with the annual Early Years Tea Party, Mr T's Quiz Night, Junior Discos and of course the Christmas Fair.

See you in September!

FPSA