Dear Parents/Carers, 

It's been wonderful to see the children come in settled and pleased to be back at school, ready for another exciting term ahead!

Ramadan 

A very happy Ramadan to all our families observing this special month. May it be filled with blessings, reflection and joy. Ramadan reminds those observing it of the importance of gratitude, generosity and kindness — values that we can all embrace, regardless of our faith. It is a time that highlights the richness of diversity within our school community and gives us an opportunity to learn from one another’s traditions.

We are delighted to invite families to our very first Community Iftar on Monday 2nd March 2026. This will be an evening of togetherness, reflection and celebration. All faiths and none are warmly welcome. Please register your attendance using the link provided here and refer to the Messages from the Office section below for full details. Thank you to those who have registered. 

An Exciting Term Ahead:

We have a lot planned for this term, and we can't wait to share it with you. Here are some highlights to mark in your diaries:

• World Book Day: Get ready to celebrate World Book Day with us on Thursday 5th March 2026. It's a day where we come together to encourage every child to foster a love of reading and books. There will be plenty of fun activities throughout the day, including inviting children to bring in their favourite books, author workshops, and dressing up as book characters. Remember, children can use their free £1 World Book Day token to purchase special books available in bookshops and supermarkets. Check out this year's book list here: World Book Day Books.

• British Science Week: Following World Book Day, we'll be diving into the exciting world of science during British Science Week. Stay tuned for more details on the engaging activities we have planned to spark curiosity and discovery in our pupils.

Curriculum Highlights

You can explore the curriculum highlights for this half-term in our curriculum newsletter, accessible here.

Finally, you will see below in this newsletter an update by our Junior Leadership Team about a special visit from our local MP, Natasha Irons. We are incredibly proud of how confidently and thoughtfully our pupils represented Forest Academy, particularly as we continue our work as a Department for Education Attendance and Behaviour Hub.

Thank you, as always, for your continued support and partnership.

Mrs Lloyd & the Forest Academy Team

Reception children have been learning facts about the planets in our solar system. They now know that there are 8 planets and that we live on Earth. Using their growing phonics knowledge, they have attempted writing sentences like "Mars is red" and "Jupiter is big." Having explored fascinating facts, they used sounds like 'ear' and 'th' in 'Earth' to write words with digraphs (two letters - one sound) and trigraphs (three letters - one sound).

In maths, the children are developing a strong understanding of numbers and are beginning to grasp the concepts of 'one more' and 'one less'. Through engaging activities and games, they learned how to identify the number before and after a given number. The children’s increasing awareness of ordinality will develop into a general understanding that every whole number is ‘1 more than’ the previous number, and ‘1 less than’ the following number. This will provide depth of understanding of our counting system and support activities such as positioning numbers on scales and number lines.

It has been a fabulous start to Spring 2 in Elm class. We have been busy sequencing and summarising events from our new core text, 'The Frog Belly Rat Bone'. The children entered a dull and messy classroom on Monday morning, all our bright and colourful displays were covered in dull paper, our room represented 'Cementland', where the frog belly rat bone lives. The children discussed how they felt about it all being colourless, messy and full of rubbish. They used adjectives such as shocked, upset, sad and boring.

In maths, we have been counting money in pence, pounds, pounds and pence. The children enjoyed using the money manipulatives to help them with their work.

The life cycle was our focus in science this week. We looked at how some animals reproduce with eggs and others give birth to offspring. We created life cycles for either chickens, dogs, humans or butterflies.

In English this week, the children in Oak class had a great time and fun with two fantastic poets from the Poetry Society. They learned different types and techniques of poems and had a go at tongue twisters. They used the forest environment to create a simple but wonderful poem, which they later performed to the school. The workshop sets the platform for what they will be learning in English and uses their prior knowledge about the Greeks to create wonderful poems depicting Greek mythology and the power of their gods.

Oak class started a new topic in maths - fractions, which can be a bit tricky but, but they used their previous knowledge and embraced the concepts quite well. They had a practical lesson with fractions and investigated parts of a whole, and how many of a particular fraction make another. For example, they identified that there are 3 lots of a quarter in three quarters; 4 lots of one-fifth in four fifths, etc.

In science, they have started learning about sounds, vibration and how sound travels from one point to another. They identified three main sound instruments namely: string, wind and banging or beating. They understood that sound travels as waves caused by vibration through a medium such as solid, liquid or gas. In our next lesson, they will be learning about different parts of the ear and how sound travels into it.

It has been an incredible first week, and the children have returned with a fantastic attitude and a real eagerness to dive back into their learning. We have hit the ground running across all subjects, making for a very productive and exciting few days in the classroom.

In mathematics, we have been focusing on the properties of shapes, specifically mastering how to calculate perimeter and area. The children have progressed from simple quadrilaterals to more complex challenges, including finding the area of triangles and breaking down compound shapes into smaller parts to solve problems. It has been impressive to see them applying their multiplication skills so confidently to these geometric puzzles.

Our English and history lessons have been closely linked this week as we continue our immersive study of World War II. Inspired by our core text, the children have been busy drafting professional information leaflets. These focused on the vital steps families needed to take to evacuate safely during the war, combining historical facts with formal, instructional writing. Their curiosity about the Home Front continues to grow, and their writing showed a wonderful balance of historical accuracy and empathy.

The classroom was full of energy as the children experimented with building their own simple circuits. They worked collaboratively to investigate the flow of power, testing various materials to determine which functioned as effective conductors and which acted as insulators. There were plenty of "lightbulb moments" as they successfully powered up their components and recorded their findings.

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