Dear Parents/Carers,

Thank you to everyone who attended the Macmillan Coffee morning today and for all of the kind donations.  All of the lovely cakes shared and of course Mrs Slater's famous cupcakes went down a treat!

On Sunday, Year 5&6 will be heading off to PGL, Liddington. They will be accompanied by myself and Mrs Redman and we will return late Wednesday afternoon. Between Monday and Wednesday, Mrs Curtis and Ms Baltera will be running the school office. Mrs Curtis (SENDCo) and Miss Carty (Lower School Senior Teacher) will be the designated members of the Senior Leadership Team on site during the trip. 

As during this time we have reduced numbers of children on site, we politely ask all children to come through the main gate Monday-Wednesday next week. The Junior entrance will be closed for drop off until Thursday. From Thursday onwards, drop off arrangements will return to usual.

Further to my email earlier this week, next Thursday is the school census day. Our catering provider have a change to the menu for this day with the hope as many children as possible have a school dinner on this day. Numbers of children having a school dinner on this day directly impacts the funding we receive for the Universal Infant Free School Meals for the next financial year. As a small school, it is particularly important for us. Thank you in advance for support with this.

Have a good weekend and I look forward to being back in school when we return from PGL!

Kind regards,

Mr M. Beach

Headteacher

📩Communication sent out this week

• Panto Letter (please click here to access the letter)

• Y5/6 Meet the Teacher Meeting Information & Slides

🪧Important Notices for next week

• As Year 5&6 will be at PGL Sunday-Wednesday, we will have reduced numbers of children on site,. Therefore, we politely ask all children to come through the main gate Monday-Wednesday next week. The Junior entrance will be closed for drop off until Thursday. From Thursday onwards, drop off arrangements will return to usual.

• From Sunday, Year 5&6 will be heading off to PGL, Liddington. They will be accompanied by myself and Mrs Redman and we will return late Wednesday afternoon. Between Monday and Wednesday, Mrs Curtis and Ms Baltera will be running the school office. Mrs Curtis (SENDCo) and Miss Carty (Lower School Senior Teacher) will be the designated members of the Senior Leadership Team on site during the trip. 

🗓️Things happening next week:

• Monday - Y5/6 at PGL

• Tuesday - Y5/6 at PGL

• Wednesday - Y5/6 Return from PGL PM

• Thursday - Y3/4 Forest School PM

• Friday - Parent Cafe @Church

Whole school attendance this week: 97%

Overall attendance so far this year: 95.6%

Class Attendance this week:

• Hedgehogs: 98%

• Squirrels: 97%

• Badgers 99%

• Owls: 95.8%

We have had an unacceptable number of lates this week. Please ensure you leave plenty of time to arrive at school by 8:45. Being 10-15 minutes late each day equates to approximately 1 hour of learning missed per week and more than 6 full school days a year. 

All absences must be reported to the school either by leaving an absence message (Option 1) or emailing Mrs Redman (Office and Pastoral Manager) via absence@greatgaddesden.herts.sch.uk

For appointments, we ask where possible that these are not during the school day. If this is not avoidable, please kindly share the relevant information for this appointment in order for us to be able to authorise this.

Please note: in line with the statutory guidance from the Department for Education which is reflected in our attendance policy, we are unable to authorise term time holiday. For safeguarding reasons, we must be notified in advance in writing if you plan to take your child out during term time.

Guidance: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/working-together-to-improve-school-attendance 

Year 1 & 2 had their first Forest School session of the year this week.  They enjoyed playing in the mud kitchen, den building, using tools for digging and we also experimented with dying material using berries foraged from the wild.  We used blackberries, sloes and elderberries. 

Well done to Freya and Ike who were awarded the Forest School award by Mrs De for their hard work and team work at Forest School over the last couple of weeks.

This week we hear from Badger Class (Year 3 and 4) who have had a very busy start to the Autumn term!

English

We are reading a text called ‘Tar Beach’ by Faith Ringgold. The story takes place in 1939  on the rooftop of a Harlem apartment building in New York City, which the family calls Tar Beach.  The book explores the themes of family, hope and liberation.  The text has inspired us to write letters of persuasion, to use noun phrases to describe settings and to write dialogue using inverted commas. We have also explored the features of playscripts and had a go at writing our own.  During this unit we have listened to jazz music by famous artists at the time including Duke Ellington and Louis Armstrong!

Maths

Our current unit of work is ‘Place Value’ . We have built numbers using hundreds, tens and ones equipment, partitioned numbers and used part-whole models to represent numbers.  We have learnt how to find 1, 10 and 100 more than a number and rounded numbers to the nearest 10, 100 and 1000.  We have also compared and ordered numbers.

History

During the Autumn term, the focus for our history lessons is ‘The Stone Age’  . We started  by looking at a timeline to help us understand where in history this age took place.  We used the terms Paleolithic to describe the early Stone Age (500,000BC - 8000BC), Mesolithic to describe the middle Stone Age ) 8000BC - 4000BC) and Neolithic to describe the late Stone Age (4000BC - 2500BC)  We discussed what the term ‘hunter-gatherer’ means and went out for a walk around the village to see what it is possible to gather from the wild.  The children have also used pastels and chalks to recreate Stone Age cave paintings.

Science 

In our Science lessons we are learning about ‘Rocks, Fossils and Soils’ . We have started by naming and identifying different types of rock and describing their properties.  We will be moving on to find out how fossils and soil are formed and carrying out some experiments to test the absorbency of different soils.

Reminder from Beat School Uniform:

Next week is the last week for parents to order their midlayers for £15.00.

From October 1st they will go up to £18.99

The midlayer will be compulsory for all children (Year 1-6) to wear on PE days from January.

Next week is Week 2 of the menu below:

Star Learners

The following children were chosen for being persistent in their learning and working really hard:

• Hedgehog Class - Summer

• Squirrels -  Freddie

• Badgers- Thomas

• Owls - Lowri

Value Ambassadors

The following children were nominated for living out this month's value 'Responsibility':

• Hedgehog Class - Oliver

• Squirrels -  Freya

• Badgers- Olivia

• Owls - Alys

Outside Achievments

Well done to Emma for completing her first dance show and being awarded a trophy!

Well done to Ellie who has completed Level 1&2 for trampolining!

Missions Ambassador

Well done to William who has been really kind and caring towards the younger children.

House Points

Prospective Parent Tours have begun for September 2027 Nursery & Reception places. 

If you know of any families looking for a Reception or Nursery place, please let them know and share the School Office contact details

Tel: 01442 255734            Email: admin@greatgaddesden.herts.sch.uk

Please click the buttons below for more information including our admissions arrangments and prospectus. Applications can be made online from 2nd November 2026 via Hertfordshire County Council's website.  A supplementary information form must also be completed and retured to the school office. Copes are available on our website or a paper copy can be provided by the school office.

Our annual Harvest Service will be taking place on 22nd October at 2pm. This year we will be collecting for The Salvation Army's food bank. We politely ask for donations to come into school w.c 19th October. Below is a list of tems The Salvation Army are in need of. Thank you in advance for your support and generosity. 

SEND/Inclusion 

External Clubs

Year 6 Secondary School Visit Information