Dear Parents/Carers, 

As we come to the end of the Spring Term, it certainly feels like we’ve experienced every season in one week—sunshine, hailstones and freezing winds! Despite this, our school has remained full of life, energy and warmth, with children continuing to thrive and enjoy their learning.

We had a fantastic time at our recent Easter Fun event. It was wonderful to see so many children and families coming together to enjoy the activities and celebrate the season as a school community. We would also like to extend our thanks to the Play Place team for their continued support in making this such a memorable experience for our children year after year.

We are also delighted to share that our ‘Good Attendance’ Disco was a great success. This event recognised the children who have demonstrated excellent attendance this term. The hall was full of excitement as children enjoyed dancing and celebrating together—such a well-deserved reward.

This week, pupils also took part in important RNLI workshops, helping them to learn about water safety and how to keep themselves safe in different environments. These sessions are an important part of developing pupils’ awareness beyond the classroom.

We are incredibly proud to introduce our new Peer Mediators. These pupils stood out during the application process for their empathy, maturity and strong listening skills. In their role, they will support their peers in resolving minor conflicts and help ensure that everyone feels heard and supported on the playground. We look forward to seeing the positive impact they will have across the school.

Thank you, as always, for your continued support throughout this term. We wish all our families a restful and enjoyable break and look forward to welcoming the children back next term on Monday 13th April 2026.

Mrs Lloyd & the Forest Academy Team

We are really excited to share some work we have been doing as part of the Junior Leadership Team (JLT).

Some of us were keen to run lunchtime clubs for other pupils. We didn’t just come up with ideas, we planned the clubs, created a week-by-week curriculum, and even helped to market them so other children would be interested in joining.

We then presented our ideas to Mrs Lloyd, and we are proud to say that our proposal was successfully approved!

From next term, we will be running four pupil-led lunchtime clubs:

• Handwriting

• Computing

• Chess

• Eco-Warriors

The clubs will take place from 12:30–1:00pm in the dinner hall, with a special table for each club.

We are really looking forward to leading these sessions and helping other children learn new skills. It’s a great opportunity for us to take on responsibility and make a positive difference in our school.

This week in reception, the children had a fun and engaging week! They wrote fascinating facts about different planets, using adjectives like "huge," "massive," and "gigantic" to describe them. Their sentences were clear and well-structured, with correct finger spaces and full stops. 

In maths, the children practiced number doubles to 10. Confidently, they used the counters and placed them onto the ladybird template to find number doubles. They are now confident at recalling number bonds to 10. 

During circle time, the children talked about what makes them happy and sad. They confidently shared their feelings and listened to their peers, showing excellent communication skills and empathy for one another.

In knowledge and understanding of the world, the children discussed the weather changes and learned that Spring is a time for growing plants. They were excited to plant their cress seeds and will observe the changes as they grow. The children are looking forward to seeing how their seeds change over time and making connections between the weather and the growth.

Elm class have had a busy end to the Spring term. In maths this week, we have been learning all about capacity and have used our estimation skills to guess the amount of full cups of water it would take to fill different containers, as well as discussing whether the capacity was greater than, less than or equal to.

First person, second person and third person was a focus for us in English this week. We looked at the different pronouns we use that determine the person that we are writing in, such as I or we for first and he, she, they for third. The children wrote some amazing sentences proving a great knowledge on the matter.

Year 2 had an exciting opportunity to be lead within multiskills by ten Year 3 children. The children enjoyed rotating through an assortment of activities such as throwing bean bags at a target and dodgeball.

In maths, the children used Cuisenaire rods to represent fractions such as mixed numbers, proper fractions and improper fractions. They added fractions using these and explained how they applied their understanding the practical resources to help them. They are now learning how to convert improper fractions to mixed numbers and mixed numbers to improper fractions using Cuisenaire rods.

They children had the opportunity to learn about safety rules when swimming in the sea. They learnt about different types of flags and what they mean in terms of swimming and safety. The red and yellow flag indicates it is safe to swim, whereas the black and white flag indicate a surfing area and swimming is not allowed, the red flag indicates it is not safe to swim and lastly, no inflatables flag indicates off shore currents too strong for swimming and swimmers could possibly be carried away to sea by the wind. They enjoyed learning about all the safety rules and the actions to take save themselves and others when the need be.

As we bring this half term to a close, it is wonderful to reflect on what has been a busy and productive fortnight in Year 6. In mathematics, we have been developing analytical thinking and precision through a range of data and geometry-focused tasks. The children began by translating shapes across all four quadrants before moving on to interpreting and drawing bar charts. This learning extended into exploring dual bar charts to compare data sets and reading line graphs to understand changes over time. Additionally, the class investigated pie charts to identify proportions and make meaningful comparisons. It has been particularly impressive to see pupils beginning to justify their reasoning using formal mathematical vocabulary—a key skill as they prepare for secondary school.

Our English lessons have been equally rich in creativity and atmosphere as the children crafted third-person narratives. Using the story Alma as inspiration, the pupils immersed themselves in a mysterious and eerie tone to create their own versions of the tale, thoughtfully innovating the endings. Throughout this process, we encouraged the use of carefully chosen vocabulary to create tension, varied sentence structures for impact, and "show-not-tell" techniques for characterisation. The results have been impressive, with many pupils producing vivid, thoughtfully structured writing that shows real progress in their unique authorial voices.

To support this creative work, our reading sessions have focused on a variety of texts to develop key comprehension skills ahead of the upcoming KS2 SATs. The children have been working hard on inference by reading between the lines and justifying ideas with evidence, as well as refining their retrieval skills to locate information efficiently. We have also explored word meanings in context and practised reading fluency to build expression and accuracy. 

Science took a hands-on turn this fortnight as we celebrated British Science Week. Our classroom was transformed into a hub of innovation and teamwork as the children took on the role of engineers to design and construct paper boats. Working in teams, pupils were challenged to create the strongest and most buoyant designs possible, testing them by seeing how many marbles they could hold before sinking. This required careful problem-solving and resilience through trial and improvement. There was a real buzz of excitement as boats were tested and redesigned, and it was wonderful to see such pride and determination on display during the final tests.

Finally, in history, we have been exploring the impact of World War II on Croydon to understand how our local area was affected during this significant period. The children have learned about the experiences of local residents during the Blitz and how daily life changed on the home front. For example, pupils were particularly interested to discover that Croydon Airport was heavily targeted, leading to significant damage to local homes and infrastructure. This localised study has truly brought history to life, allowing the pupils to make meaningful connections between major past events and the community they live in today.

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