Forest Academy Newsletter

Dear Parents/Carers, 

Welcome back to school! We hope you had a fantastic summer with your families. It's been a joyous week as we welcomed all our children back into school for their first full week of the academic year. Their positive attitudes and excitement to see their friends again make it a wonderful start to the new school year.

A special welcome goes out to our new Reception children and their families. We are confident they will have an amazing start to their time at Forest Academy. We look forward to getting to know each of you better and hope that you will feel happy as part of our school community.

Meet the teacher meetings began this week. These meetings are an opportunity to formally introduce you to your child's new year group and the staff working with them. It will also give you insights into the exciting learning journey ahead.

Throughout the year, we encourage open communication between parents and teachers. Your feedback and involvement are vital as we work together to ensure a rewarding and enjoyable school experience for all our children.

Class Curriculum Newsletters for Autumn 1
Autumn One Curriculum Newsletters

Extra-curricular Clubs

I am excited to share our upcoming extra-curricular sports clubs offer for this half term:

Monday
- Gymnastics for years 1 to 3

Tuesday
- Football for years 1 to 3
- Choir for years 1 to 6
- Croydon Youth Hub for year 6

Wednesday
- Basketball for years 3 to 6
- Board Games for years 1 to 4

Thursday
- Multi Skills for years 1 to 3
- Chess for years 4 to 6

Friday
- Football for years 4 to 6
- Timestables for years 3 to 6

These clubs are a fantastic opportunity for our pupils to stay active, learn new skills, and have fun outside of regular class hours. We encourage children to participate and discover their passion for sports. 

Please note that spaces for these clubs are limited, and registration will be on a first-come, first-served basis. If you have any questions or need more information, please don't hesitate to get in touch with us.

Thank you for your ongoing support and partnership. Here's to a fantastic and successful school year ahead!

Mrs. Lloyd and Mrs Dennis 

Reception children have settled really well into their new routines. They have been exploring different activities within the indoor and outdoor provision. The Reception classroom has exciting, stimulating learning areas to develop the children’s imagination, creativity and communication skills. 

This term our role play links to learning about themselves, their family and community, and children are already engaging in them enthusiastically. The core book' It's OK to be different' will help the children develop a sense of community, belonging and what it means to be inclusive. 

Throughout our learning journey, they will show creativity when they decorate numbers in the creative area. Our focus will see children reading, writing, matching and counting numbers and numerals through practical experiences such as number hunts, and number games. Well done Reception!

Year 1 team is pleased to welcome the children into their new classroom to continue their educational journey in Year 1 . The children showed they are ready to listen and work hard to move forward their learning.

This week in English, we recapped upper and lowercase letters, and learnt their names as well as practicing how they are written. We also learnt how to write a simple sentence using a capital letter and a full stop. They learnt that a capital letter is needed for the start of a sentence, the name of a person or persons, places and the letter 'I'. The children rehearsed different sentences to master the skill of good sentence structure.  

In maths, we recapped counting in ones to 100 and practised writing the numerals to 50, but managed to go beyond that. The children also practised writing each digit of the numerals from 0 to 10 in their maths books. They really worked hard to form them properly, but they will continue to practise to be excellent at it. In other maths lessons, they counted and sorted different objects into different groups and gave reasons why or why not a particular object can or cannot be in a group.

In phonics, we were pleased to see all the children beautifully engaged to recap their previous knowledge and move on to more advanced sounds and words. That was possible because all the children came to school on time. Keep it up, Year 1 - Cherry. It was a very successful week and we look forward to more of those!

Elm class have had a fantastic start to the new school year. We started the term off by making our own class charter, allowing us to create a set of rules for our classroom to adhere  to, in order to be ready, respectful and safe. Year 2 have been amazing in practising and perfecting their daily routines, such as moving around the school, lining up in our special number order and transitioning around the classroom, well done all!!

Year 2 have enjoyed learning all about fairy tales, and how we recognise that particular genre. We looked at the features such as, happy endings, mythical beings such as witches or dragons and special settings like castles or gingerbread houses. The children recalled the features and explored different tales that they know.

In maths, we have been looking at place value and different ways to represent tens and ones. The children are able to use a place chart and part whole models to aid their understanding of the value of the digits exposed to them.

Human and physical features were our main focus in geography this week, where we began to look at what a human feature is and how we know that it is and what a physical feature is too.

Materials is our main topic this half term in science, and this week we looked at many different materials and classified them into groups such as metal, plastic, wood and glass.

Year 3 have had a wonderful start to the new year. They have settled incredibly well with the expectations of working to the best of their abilities and completing their work to a high standard. They have been introduced to this term's theme of human rights. They have loved exploring childrens' rights and why they are of significance through staging a 'protest' in aim to uphold them. 

In English, pupils - through oracy games - can recall childrens' rights. They have matched these rights to their freedoms through our core texts and begun writing in grammatically correct sentences to explain which rights are of the greatest significance.

In whole class reading, pupils have been exploring the reading strategies and enjoyed reading chorally, through echo reading and click reading.

In maths, pupils have been looking at varied examples of place value questions, revising their 10 x, 5 x and 2 x tables when finding numbers in sequence. 

Pupils have been introduced to their new RE, history and science topics and look forward to working through their units this term.

Year 4 created a mood board about Jill Pelto's art work. They used a range of watercolours and images to create atmosphere. The Accidental Prime Minister is the book the class are reading this half term. They have been applying their reading skills of predicting, while justifying with evidence and clarifying to develop their understanding of the characters.  The children have been analysing what needs to be in an enlightening character description. As a model text, they looked at a text about Greta Thunberg, a Swedish environmental activist and identified the features of her personality and appearance. In Maths this week the children have been looking at the place value of numbers to 1000. They have been able to place these numbers on a numberline. In science they have been learning how living things survive in an environment in which they are suited.

Pine class have settled into their daily routine really well and have had a fantastic start to Year 5. We began our week by creating our own class charter and what it means to be ready, respectful, and safe within the classroom. We then moved on to discuss what makes a good reader and the types of books they have read during the summer holidays. They then moved on to recommend their favourite summer reads to the rest of the class with detailed explanations. We started reading our core text 'The Boy and the Globe'. The children identified the main themes of the book and made links to the Tudor times where the book is set. Exploring an artist was the focus of our art lesson this week. The children explored the work of Venus Art who specializes in portrait painting. We first looked at Venus’ inspiration, which was Pop Art, an art movement that emerged in the United Kingdom and the United States during the mid- to late-1950s. We looked, in detail, at some of the work of Venus Artist and then moved on to create a mood board.

Year 6 have made a fantastic start to the new academic year. On Tuesday, Corinna from TFL delivered a workshop to the class on how to stay safe on public transport in preparation for the transition to secondary school next year. The children were engaged and asked lots of thoughtful questions about behaviour they have seen on public transport and how to apply for a zip card. In English, the children began exploring their new core text 'Pig Heart Boy' by Malorie Blackman. They began by identifying the different relationships the main character has and how these have impacted on his feelings about his heart condition. They then read a range of monologues, identifying the features so they can write their own monologue next week.

In maths, the children learnt how to read, write, compare and order numbers up to 10,000,000. They also revised how to round numbers to the nearest 10,000. In science, the children learnt about the circulatory system. They were able to identify the parts of the system and explain their function. In art, the children were introduced to Leonardo da Vinci, their inspiration for their art project this half term. They will use his sketched examples of anatomical hearts to create a collage. In RE, the children learnt about the changes that a person will experience in their lifetime and how they are celebrated including naming ceremonies, first day at school and marriage.

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