Forest Academy Newsletter

12th January 2024

Message from Headteacher

Dear Parents/Carers,

Happy New Year! We hope you had a wonderful break and are ready for an exciting year ahead. We would like to extend our warm wishes to you and your family as we kick off the spring term. We're thrilled to kick off the new year with some exciting learning opportunities planned for the coming months.

Staff spend Monday's inset day receiving further training from Nurture UK as part of our three year journey to become a Nurture UK school. This term's training focused on exploring cognitive, social and emotional development and barriers children may face.

It has been wonderful to welcome the children back to school this week. All the children have settled back into school remarkably well following the Christmas break. Their enthusiasm in the classroom and engagement with their learning has been commendable. We are confident that this positive start will set the tone for a successful term ahead.

Attendance Hub

As you all know, at Forest we hold a deep passion for the importance of attendance, firmly believing that each school day plays a crucial role in a child's development and recognising that every missed day puts a child at a disadvantage. We are proud to share that the Department for Education (DfE) has designated us as one of 18 new attendance hubs - a total of 32 hubs across England. This accolade reflects our unwavering commitment to attendance improvement.

As an attendance hub, we will be supporting a number of schools nationally in improving their pupils' attendance, while continuing to ensure pupil attendance at Forest is the best it's ever been. We extend our heartfelt gratitude to parents and carers for your pivotal role in fostering our positive attendance culture. Your continued support and commitment to ensuring that your child is present at school every day contribute significantly to their overall success. Together, let us continue to uphold the importance of regular attendance for the benefit of all our children.

Universal Free School Meal Extended

The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, has extending funding for Universal Free School Meals for another academic

school year between September 2024 and July 2025. This means that all pupils at Forest Academy will continue to be entitled to a healthy and nutritious school lunch. Your can read the mayor's letter to families here.

Extra-Curricular Clubs

We're also excited to share some great news based on feedback from the recent parents' evening survey. Your input has been invaluable, and we've taken note of your request for more after-school clubs. We are delighted to inform you that we are expanding our offering of after-school clubs to provide more opportunities for your children. The new clubs include a gymnastics, choir, board-game, origami and football clubs provided by Crystal Palace Football Club. Thank you for your feedback, and we hope these additional clubs enhance children's overall school experience.

Wishing you a fantastic start to the spring term!

Mrs. Lloyd

Our core value this half term is curiosity, which is having a strong desire to know or learning something.

To foster curiosity, we encourage our pupils to ask questions, explore new ideas, and embrace a love for learning. Through this core value, we hope to instill a sense of wonder and enthusiasm for discovering the world around them. Let's inspire our children to be inquisitive learners who actively engage with their education, fostering a lifelong passion for knowledge.

Reception - Ash Class

The children in reception have had a fantastic and educational week! It's so lovely to hear about all the exciting things they experienced over the festive holiday.At the beginning of the week, Ranger Stu visited us with animals like lizard, armadillo, and even a tarantula. This allowed them to learn about different habitats and creatures, sparking their curiosity and wonder. By the end of the week, the oral health nurses from the King's Collage provided a valuable opportunity for the children to learn about the importance of brushing their teeth and maintaining good oral hygiene. The puppet show made it an engaging and fun experience.

In literacy, they have started exploring the core text 'Where's the Elephant?' The book provides facts about animals and children will learn new vocabulary. It was wonderful to see that the children confidently identified animals' features and wrote labels using their phonics skills.

In math the focus was on revisiting past concepts of addition and subtraction to 5 to ensure that the children are solidifying their understanding before moving on. Practicing with fingers, objects, number lines, and towers of cubes makes learning interactive and fun.

In understanding of the world, the focus was on habitat exploration. Children compared the outdoor area with the jungle habitat from the book; it was a fantastic way to connect learning to the real world. This helps children to understand similarities and differences, and also encourages them to explore their environment with newfound curiosity.

Year 1 - Cherry Class

Year 1 was officially and warmly welcome to the new year 2024. The children were excited and showed renewed energy to continue with their learning. We started straight away with our new core text, 'The King Who Banned the Dark'. The children predicted what the story would be about using only the front cover. They are eagerly waiting to find out if they predicted correctly and to find out more from the text.

In maths, the children are exploring 3-D shapes by identifying what they are, name them and discuss their properties. The children used plastic 3-D shapes to learn about the number of faces, edges, vertex (vertices), apex of the 3-D shapes they manipulated.

In science, the children made a connection between the seasons in the year here in the UK and the weather conditions in each season. They used their knowledge of the seasons and their respective weather conditions to identify and compare the seasons and the weather conditions in the UK and Australia. They found that both countries have four seasons, however the seasons in Australia occur in different months and the weather conditions are also different. The children concluded that the seasons and the weather conditions in other countries are different from the seasons and weather conditions in the UK. However, they also understood there could be similarities in the seasons and the weather in two different countries.

Year 2 - Elm Class

Happy New Year to all of you! The children have returned to school refreshed and ready to learn after the break. We have been really pleased with how they are applying themselves to this term's learning. We have learned in assembly about the origins of the name January. Has your child asked to research the meanings of the names of the other months?

Well done all the children who have received certificates for their excellent efforts using the Times Tables Rock Stars programme at school and at home. Spending time practicing times tables in this way will really help your child in maths. We will continue to have weekly TT Rock Stars challenges going forward.

This week in maths we have started looking at money and are learning to count out the right coins and notes to match an amount of money.

In English we have started looking at a new book: 'The day the crayons quit'. This book contains letters from the different coloured crayons explaining why they are unhappy. We will be learning how to write letters for different purposes.

In RE we have started to find out more about Islam and we are excited to be going on an educational visit on Wednesday 17th January to Croydon Mosque.

Year 3 - Lime Class

Year 3 have had an amazing start to the year. In English the children have started to explore what makes a good character description. They used Roald Dahl's character description of Miss Trunchbull and the Bloodbottler as inspiration to prepare their own character description of the BFG. Recalling multiplication and division facts for the 4X and 8X was the focus of our maths lessons this week. The children applied their knowledge of equal groups and used concrete as well as pictorial representation to help them answer questions.

Identifying the world’s tropical rainforests was the focus of our geography lesson this week. The children first identified what a rainforest is, they then located different rainforests around the world using google earth. They then discussed the importance of rainforests and where we can find tropical rainforests in relation to the equator. Recalling what we already know about Christianity was the focus of our R.E lesson. The children recapped their prior knowledge of Christianity and identified what parts of Christianity they knew about already. They then completed a fun low stakes quiz to see what they already knew about Christianity and identified the gaps they need to focus on.

Year 4 - Oak Class

Happy New Year! Year 4 have had an amazing start to the year and the first half of the spring term.

The children have been introduced to their new core text in English, called Odysseus. we began by looking into qualities that we feel a hero should possess, such as kindess, bravery and loyalty. We then used our predicting and inferencing skills to guess what we think the text will be about, by only looking at the front cover, and what we could see, what did the cover show us or make us think the book will entail?

In history, we began our new topic 'Ancient Greece'. We looked at several events from the era, researched the dates of those events and put them into chronological order on a time line.

In art, the children have began to explore ancient Greek vessels, and were very interested to learn all their vast amount of uses they had and all the different shapes, sizes and features that they had.

Year 5 - Pine Class

Year 5 have had a wonderful immersive week focussing on our hopes and dreams for the future in PSHE, making links with the main character in our new core text 'The Windrush Child' by Benjamin Zephaniah.

Pupils made further connections in their learning with geography, when learning how to locate and compare islands on the world map, giving 6-figure grid reference points for the Caribbean Islands and locations within the UK.

In science. pupils have been introduced to the topic of 'Earth and Space' which ignited their curiosity without bounds. They thoroughly enjoyed learning about how spherical bodies are formed due to their mass and the force of gravity within them. They loved learning about the forces of natures, and how the simplest of shapes in nature are affected by forces. Pupils engaged in exciting discussions and questioning, inspired to learn more.

In computing, pupils were introduced the the coding programme 'Crumble'. They are excited about further exploring how to attach wires correctly to the microcontroller and LED chip to create a fun 'fairground.'

Year 6 - Rowan Class

Happy New Year! This week Year 6 enjoyed a dental workshop presented by Kings College Hospital. They were reminded when and how to brush their teeth correctly and learnt about the amount of sugar in popular foods and drinks. There were plenty of shocks and all the children agreed they would try to make better snack choices.

In English, the children began reading their new core text 'Goodnight Mister Tom'. They learnt about evacuation and generated vocabulary to describe the thoughts and feelings evacuated children would have had. They also explored the purpose of writing a recount to support them with their letter writing next week.

In maths, the children learnt about the concept of a percentage before moving onto identifying equivalent fractions, decimals and percentages. In science, the children began a new unit on electricity. The children revised what the components of a circuit are called and built a simple circuit. In RE, the children learnt about the key customs followed during Ramadan and Eid-ul-Fitr. In history, the children learnt about the key events leading up to the outbreak of WWII and sequenced them on a timeline.

Attendance

We expect pupils to maintain a high standard of attendance. We want all of our pupils to be able to achieve at their very best and in order to do this, they need to be at school as much as possible so that they don’t miss out on any learning. Attendance is important for more than just attainment. Regular school attendance can facilitate positive peer relationships, which is a protective factor for mental health and wellbeing.

Happy Birthday wishes to:

Sabiha Oak Class

Aleeya Lime Class

Jessie Lime class

Uniform

We would like to remind parents and carers that all children are expected to wear the correct school uniform, including footwear, to school everyday.

As a reminder, the correct uniform consists of:

a teal jumper (no other colours);
plain white shirt or polo shirt;
grey trousers / shorts / skirt / pinafore;
white, black or grey socks
black school shoes (no trainers, boots, sandals or heels)

Girls may choose to wear a blue check dress in the summer months. Long hair should be tied back at all times and hair ties, hairbands and hijabs must be teal, white, black or grey and must be plain.

Jewellery must not be worn other than small studs (no hoops or dangly earrings) and a watch (not a smart watch). Nail varnish is not permitted.

PE kit needs to consist of plain black PE shorts or plain black jogging bottoms; a plain white t-shirt and black plimsolls and no jewellery. PE kits must only be worn on PE days.