Dear Parents/Carers, 

Welcome to the second half of the autumn term. I hope that you all had a restful and enjoyable half-term break. We are pleased to share this half term’s Curriculum Newsletters , which outline the key learning and topics your child will be exploring in class. These also provide useful suggestions on how you can support learning at home. Please do take a moment to read through the newsletter for your child’s year group—your engagement makes a real difference.

Poppy Appeal

The 2025 Poppy Appeal campaign has now launched. Poppies are worn as a show of support for the Armed Forces community. The poppy is a well-known and well-established symbol, one that carries a wealth of history and meaning with it. Wearing a poppy is still a very personal choice, reflecting individual experiences and personal memories. It is never compulsory but is greatly appreciated by those who it is intended to support. You can pay tribute by making a donation in return for a poppy from the school office. 

Class Assemblies
Class assemblies commence next week with Year 5 on Wednesday 12th November at 8.55am. Please take note of the dates below which can also be found on the class curriculum newsletters:

• Wednesday 12th November:  Year 5 sharing assembly @ 8:55am

• Friday 5th December: Year 3 sharing assembly @ 8:55am

• Wednesday 10th December: Year 2 sharing assembly @ 8:55am

• Thursday 11th December: Reception Christmas production- time tbc

• Monday 15th December: Year 1 Christmas production- time tbc

• Thursday 15th January 2026: Year 4 sharing assembly @ 8:55am

• Thursday 22nd January 2026: Year 6 sharing assembly @ 8:55am

Anti-Bullying Week
Anti-Bullying Week 2025 will take place from Monday 10th - Friday 14th November, with the theme: Power for Good. Odd Socks Day is taking place on Monday 10th November, with adults and children being encouraged to wear odd socks to celebrate what makes us all unique.

Wishing you a lovely weekend.

Mrs Lloyd & the Forest Academy Team

We’ve had a fantastic start of the term in Year 1, full of imagination, exploration, and curiosity!

In English, we’ve begun our new topic on fairy tales, and our core text is the much-loved story 'Little Red Riding Hood'. The children have been enjoying retelling the story in their own words, sequencing the main events, and discussing the characters — especially the Big Bad Wolf! We’ve also been thinking about how the story might change if we set it somewhere new or gave it a different ending. It’s been wonderful to see such creative ideas and confident storytelling. 

In maths, we are learning about the part–whole model, which helps us understand how numbers can be split and combined in different ways. The children have been using objects, pictures, and number sentences to explore how the parts make a whole. This work is building a strong foundation for addition and subtraction later on. 

In geography, we’ve been turning into little explorers as we study the map of England. The children are learning to identify where we live and to locate important cities, rivers, and landmarks. They’ve enjoyed using maps and atlases to find out more about our country and talk about places they may have visited. 

It’s been a busy and exciting week, and we are so proud of the enthusiasm and teamwork the children have shown in all their learning. Well done, Year 1 — keep up the brilliant work! 

Welcome back to a busy and exciting Autumn 2 term in Year 3! The children have dived straight into their new learning, showing great enthusiasm across all subjects.

This term, our English work is centered around the core text, 'Until I Met Dudley'. This brilliant book is helping us explore the features of explanation texts. The children have been "hired" as Machine Detectives! Using their brilliant imaginations, they've been coming up with creative and hilarious explanations for how everyday appliances work. For instance, you might hear a detailed account of how toast is made by tiny dragons living inside the toasters! This inventive approach is helping them understand the mechanics of explaining a process clearly before we move on to writing more conventional non-fiction explanations.

In maths, we are refining our skills in addition and subtraction by focusing on the column method. The children are working incredibly hard to master this crucial skill, particularly developing their understanding and accuracy when they need to exchange and regroup (sometimes known as borrowing or carrying). Practicing this at home is always a great help!

We have switched focus from history to geography this term. To kick things off, the children have been distinguishing between human and physical features in the environment. We've then taken our learning internationally! The children have been busy exploring and comparing the geographical features of both the UK and Egypt, linking us to our history lessons from last half term.

Year 5 had a fantastic and busy start to the new half term, diving into new topics across the curriculum. 

In English, they were introduced to their new core text, 'Boy in the Tower' by Polly Ho-Yen. The children read the first two chapters and immediately began making insightful predictions about what might happen next. Bringing the 'tower' theme to life, they then collaborated in teams to design and construct free-standing towers using Dienes blocks—a great exercise in teamwork and engineering! This week also saw the children expanding their writing toolkit by generating a rich bank of descriptive vocabulary, including nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs, specifically focused on describing eerie, abandoned buildings. 

In maths, the focus was on number properties as they explored and investigated prime, square, and cube numbers. Computing introduced an exciting visual topic as the children learned how shapes are fundamental to creating images on a computer screen, starting their journey into vector drawing by manipulating a variety of 2D shapes. 

Meanwhile, our French lessons took a meteorological turn as the children mastered phrases for describing the weather. In PE, they honed their skills in striking and fielding by playing a game of rounders. Finally, the whole class has been working incredibly hard, dedicating time to practising for their upcoming class assembly, which includes learning a special class song!

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