Dear Parents and Carers,

We’ve had another proud and purposeful week at Forest Academy, full of leadership, learning and community spirit.

This week, our newly elected Junior Leadership Team (JLT) and School Council members proudly received their badges in assembly. These pupils have been chosen by their peers to represent their classes and lead on important decisions across the school. We are incredibly proud of the thoughtful and responsible way they are already approaching their new roles. Their first official meeting will take place on Monday, where they will also be signing their Code of Conduct contracts.

On Wednesday, Forest Academy was honoured to host the termly Croydon Headteachers’ Breakfast, welcoming primary headteachers from across the borough. Our pupil representatives warmly greeted guests on arrival. The visiting headteachers were highly complimentary of both our children and the learning environment – a testament to the culture of respect, ambition and kindness that runs through our school community.

On Thursday, we also welcomed the Mental Health Support Team cluster meeting, where discussions focused on developing future workshops to support children and their families with mental health and wellbeing. We look forward to working in partnership to bring these opportunities to our community.

A reminder that Parents’ Evening will take place on Tuesday 14th October and Thursday 16th October. This is a valuable opportunity to speak with your child’s class teacher about how they have settled into the new academic year. Bookings are now open via Arbor.

Finally, a reminder that Monday is Beat the Bell – we look forward to seeing everyone arriving promptly and ready for learning. Let’s aim for 100% of the school through the gates before the bell rings at 8:45am!

As always, thank you for your ongoing support. We are incredibly proud of all our children and the way they represent Forest Academy each and every day.

Warm regards,
Mrs Lloyd & the Forest Academy Team

The children have been creating self-portraits using a range of techniques. They were able to combine different materials and include drawing in their portraits along with the other materials they stuck on.  Adding labels to the facial features of their self-portraits helped them to explain their features. 

The letters (graphemes) and sounds (phonemes) they have been learning are g, o, c, k, ck, e, u and r. Writing their own name has been a skill the children have been working on. The children have been looking at the story of The Three Little Pigs and acting out the story using masks for the different characters. 

After reading the story of Jack and the Beanstalk, the children have been creating a farm to help retell the story. Reading Jack and the Beanstalk also inspired the children to plant some bean seeds in the garden and some in pots in the classroom, so they could watch them grow. 

In maths, the children have been comparing amounts. They have been deciding which amount is bigger and which one is smaller. `

Elm class had another busy week. We began our second core text, 'Izzy Gizmo', a clever and curious little girl who loves to invent, even though her inventions do not always go right. The introduction of the new text made us think about times when we have tried to do something new and it has not gone as planned the first time. We discussed the core value of resilience and how we should not give up and that we have all felt that feeling of satisfaction when it has gone right eventually. The children sequenced pictures into the correct chronological order from the text and then wrote descriptive sentences to describe the scene.

In maths, we looked at comparing objects, using less than, greater than and equal to, and we compared amounts as well as objects.

The seven continents of the world were our focus in geography this week. We learnt a song to help us to recall the continents. We then labelled them correctly on a map and coloured them in the colours from the song to further help us to remember them.

In science, we continued our topic of materials and their properties. We looked at paper towels, rubber gloves, rubber bands, bean bags and baskets. We discussed whether the items were rigid or flexible, soft or hard and investigated their properties and purposes. Later on,  we discussed what the objects' purposes are.

This week in English, the children have listened to speeches made by Martin Luther King Junior about the toxic political atmosphere at the time that heightened segregation, discrimination and suffering for African Americans. They listened to a second speech made by a 15 year old Swedish girl in 2019, who brought to the attention of the cry of our home, planet Earth, as a direct result of total disregard to heed to climate change and its devastating consequences. The children compared and contracted the two speeches and identified the key themes and features of a speech. 

In maths, the children have learnt how to round numbers to the nearest 10, 100 and moving on to rounding numbers to the nearest 1,000. They understand that the closer the number is to 10 and 100, they round to the closer 10 or 100 number, but if the tens number has five ones, it means it is half way or midpoint of two tens numbers so, it must be rounded tens number forward of the midpoint. This also applies when rounding numbers to the nearest 100.

In science, the children identified different ways to classify animals. This week, they learnt one way of classifying animals is by their characteristics. They identified different classification groups and sorted different animals into the groups and explained why an animal is in a particular group.

Rowan class should be so proud of themselves, they have been working so hard. In English we've dived deeper into the brilliant and thought-provoking novel, Pig Heart Boy. The discussions have been fantastic, and it’s been great to see the children so engaged. We've been channeling our inner authors, first by writing dialogue to bring characters to life, and more recently, by crafting our own narratives to create vivid settings and characters. We’re pretty sure we have some future best-selling authors in our midst!

Our maths brains have been getting a serious workout! We've been tackling multiplication, starting with multiplying three-digit numbers by one-digit numbers, and then bravely moving on to two-digit multipliers! We have been using the short multiplication method to solve these, and then applying our skills to some tricky word problems. We have now moved on to short division, focusing on the trusty 'bus stop' method. It has been wonderful to see the children's perseverance and how well they have been doing.

In science, things got really ‘hearty’! We’ve been on a fascinating journey exploring the circulatory system. We thoroughly enjoyed gaining a further insight into the heart, especially when we got hands-on and dissected a lamb's heart. It was a truly memorable (and slightly squishy) experience that helped us understand all the chambers and valves we’d been learning about. Don’t worry, all hands were washed thoroughly afterwards!

Our geography lessons have been much closer to home as we’ve been investigating our local area. We've been poring over maps, becoming experts in using coordinates to pinpoint locations. We’ve also been putting on our detective hats to consider how population growth has changed the physical and human landscape around us, and even taken a trip back in time by looking at how transport in our area has evolved.

• Medication and Paperwork: Any medication or completed paperwork should be handed in directly to the school office. Please do not give these items to class staff.

• Club Spaces Still Available: There are still a few spaces available in some of our extra-curricular clubs. If you’re interested, please speak to a member of staff in the school office.

• Trip and Club Consent: Please ensure that all consent for trips and clubs is submitted via the Arbor app. Messages or emails do not count as formal consent and will not be accepted.

• Parents’ Evening Appointments: Parents' Evening appointments are available to book via the Arbor app. Please double-check the times, as they may vary across the two days. If you need help with the booking process, feel free to pop into the school office with your device and we’ll be happy to assist you.

• Arbor App Support: If you are having any issues accessing the Arbor app, please bring your device to the school office and we will do our best to support you.

• Term Dates: Don’t forget – all term dates are included in each newsletter and are also available on our school website for easy reference.

• Water Bottles: To help reduce the number of reminders sent, please ensure your child brings a named water bottle to school every day.

If you have concerns about a child (or their families) welfare, contact Croydon Council’s Single Point of Contact (SPOC) 

Telephone: 020 8726 6400 

Out of hours: 020 8726 6400 (ask for out of hours team) 

Email: childreferrals@croydon.gov.uk 

Office Hours: Monday – Friday 9:00 – 16:00 

If you think a child is at risk of immediate harm telephone 999