Dear Parents and Carers,

We have reached the final week of the term, and it has been a truly wonderful end to the calendar year.

A huge thank you to everyone who joined us for our festive performances this week. We had a fantastic turnout, and the atmosphere was incredibly positive. The children worked so hard on their concerts, and it was a joy to see them perform with such confidence and festive spirit.

On Tuesday, the children enjoyed a delicious Christmas dinner together. We would like to extend our thanks to our catering partners, Chartwells, for providing such a lovely festive meal and for all their hard work in the kitchen to make the day special for the pupils.

Today, we have sent home several important communications in our letter directory. This includes details about an exciting dress-up day in the Spring term to mark the relaunch of Times Tables Rock Stars (TTRS), as well as our clubs offer for next term. Some year groups have also received individual letters specific to their upcoming learning, so please do take the time to read through everything carefully. Lastly, an attendance has been sent about attendance updates and also reminding parents about our new late policy and procedures, including fining for potential late picks after school.

Don't forget for Reception parents, our Parents in to Read session will be on the first Tuesday back (6th January) at 9am.

Finally, I would like to wish you all a very happy and restful festive break. We hope you have a wonderful time with your families and a very Happy New Year!

We look forward to seeing everyone back at school on Monday, 5th January.

Iman Atwal

Headteacher

This week, we did not have a values assembly due to our performances. However, this term we have been focusing on the value of Respect.

So over the break, ask your child:

• Are they showing respect?

• What can we do to show kindness to each other?

• Why is respect important?

Dear Parents and Carers,

We know the winter and holiday season can be challenging for many families. Please find below a list of local support services, community offers and emergency help available in Croydon and the wider area, over the Christmas and New Year period — including food support, activities for children, and financial help.

Free Holiday Activities & Meals for Children

If your child receives benefits-related free school meals, they may be eligible for free holiday clubs with nutritious meals and activities during the Christmas holidays through the Holiday Activities & Food (HAF) Programme.

More information & bookings:

https://www.croydon.gov.uk/holiday-activities-and-food 

Household Support & Financial Assistance

Croydon Council offers the Household Support Fund (HSF) — a one-off grant that can help with essentials like food vouchers, energy top-ups and bills if you are struggling.

Apply or find out more:

https://www.croydon.gov.uk/get-help-rising-cost-living/help-households

Further Support and Advice

We understand that it can be hard to talk to someone about the difficulties that you and your family may be facing. People often try to sort things out themselves or hope that their worries will go away and do not seek help until the situation has become very difficult. Whatever your circumstances, we would encourage you to seek advice before things become more difficult. There is no shame in seeking support - the organisations listed, will help with sensitivity and confidentiality. Just click on the link which will take you to a page containing website and contact details of a number of organisations to go to if you need help or advice, both locally and nationally:

Money & Debt - advice, information and resources to help you manage your money.

Food - list of local free or low-cost food schemes including a link for low-cost recipes ideas..

Energy Support - information about local and regional schemes to help you reduce your fuel bills

Housing - advice on homelessness, private renting and eviction. Includes a directory of Warm Spaces in Croydon.

Health and Wellbeing - support for mental health, including help with a mental health crisis or emergency

Families - parenting advice and support. Also includes details for clothes and hygiene banks.

Support and Advice Groups - support for individuals in their time of need including victims of Domestic Abuse and Sexual violence.

Emergency & Crisis Support

If you need urgent help (e.g., domestic abuse support, mental health crisis), please contact appropriate emergency or helpline services such as:

• 999 for emergencies

• National Domestic Abuse Helpline (24/7): 0808 2000 247

(These contacts are not Croydon-specific but available UK-wide).

Nest

⭐ A Truly Magical Christmas Performance!⭐ 

This week has been absolutely amazing as we wrapped up our festive activities!

We want to send a huge thank you to all our families who attended our special Christmas singing performance. The children were absolute stars! Their enthusiasm and beautiful singing filled the room with holiday cheer. We are so incredibly proud of how fantastic they all did, remembering the actions and singing their hearts out. It was a perfect celebration of the term's hard work and joy.

In addition to our musical showcase, the children had a wonderful time with a festive craft activity - making their very own Christmas stockings! This was a great opportunity for the children to practice their fine motor and hand eye coordination. The children carefully looked through catalogues and cut out pictures of their favourite toys to decorate their stockings.

As this wonderful term comes to a close, we wish all our families a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

We hope you have a restful and joyous holiday season filled with special memories.

We will see you in the New year on the 7th of January 2026.

Saplings

This week in Saplings, we have been enjoying the last week of term through creativity, celebration and our wonderful Festive concert! On Monday the children performed wonderfully to their families and friends through song and dance, celebrating Christmas and the festivities. The children have also enjoyed getting creative with Christmas crafts such as making their own wreaths, Christmas card making and practicing their gift wrapping skills in our junk modelling corner.

The children enjoyed celebrating together at their christmas parties enjoying home made snacks, games and activities with their friends.

In Numeracy, we have been exploring patterns we can see around us, such as on our wrapping paper, through sounds and music and how we can make our own patterns using objects around the classroom. 

Have a wonderful winter break everyone!

Reception

In Literacy, we have been learning about respect. We have had discussions about how we show respect to our friends, family and the wider community. The children gave really nice examples of showing respect such as saying please and thank you, tidying up when you make a mess.

In Maths, we have been looking at what a stopping number is (the number that you stop counting at). This helps the children to understand that the last number we counted is the total amount. We have also been looking at the number 0, the children now understand that 0 means there is nothing. 

Getting ready for Christmas. The children have been working very hard on making their Christmas cards which they have thoroughly enjoyed. We have also had daily singing practice to prepare for our Winter performance!

It was also so lovely to sit down with the children for Christmas dinner, they showed excellent table manners and enjoyed their festive lunch.

This has been a wonderful term full of lots of fun and learning. We hope you have a restful break, see you all in the New Year!

Year 1

This week, the Year 1 children have been very busy preparing for their Christmas concert, enjoying a festive Christmas lunch, and taking part in a fun class party. Alongside all the excitement, the children continued to work hard and completed their final pieces of work before the holiday season.

In Science, the children have been observing and recording the weather daily. They wrote about what they noticed during their observations and discussed changes in the weather.

In Maths, the children explored the number line. They estimated and explained where different numbers belong on the number line, developing their understanding of number order and position.

We are very proud of their enthusiasm, effort and positive attitudes during this busy and joyful time.

Year 2

What a busy and exciting week we’ve had in Year 2!

In Maths, we focused on comparing number sentences and solving missing number problems. The children used their knowledge of addition and subtraction to explain their thinking and choose the correct answers with growing confidence.

In English, we explored descriptive vocabulary using our senses. The children listened carefully to sounds, looked closely at illustrations, and touched different objects such as a cold window and a wooden floor. Using these experiences, they generated key vocabulary and created poems about The Dark, making great use of repeated lines.

In PSHE, we learned about the different food groups. The children created their own healthy plates, thinking about the five main groups: carbohydrates, protein, dairy, and the importance of fruit and vegetables.

What a busy and exciting week we’ve had in Year 2!

Alongside all of this, we spent time practising for our Christmas concert, and we hope you really enjoyed the performance!

Thank you for your continued support. We wish you a wonderful Christmas and look forward to seeing you in the New Year. Y2 Team

Year 3

As the Autumn term concludes, we want to express our sincere gratitude and thanks for your unwavering support, which has helped make this term such a great success for our Year 3 children. We have enjoyed many highlights, starting with our fantastic community events, including the festive Christmas Jumper Day, Winter warmer nights, the highly engaging Reading with Parents Day and our celebrated World Book Day. Your participation in these events truly enhances our classroom environment and strengthens the connection between home and school, bringing smiles and excitement to the children's faces. Academically, the children have demonstrated impressive growth across all subjects.

In English, they mastered the features of non-fiction writing by successfully planning and creating a detailed newspaper article, incorporating elements like engaging headlines and detailed captions. They also showcased their creative talents by making some beautiful picture frames.

Our Geography lessons, have been equally successful, focusing on the natural world where children gained a clear understanding of the features of a river and how a river finds its source.

Furthermore, a major focus in Maths has been the confident mastery of the 3, 4 and 8 times tables. To ensure this understanding is deeply embedded, the children have been rigorously using precise mathematical vocabulary such as inverse, grouping, lots of, sharing, divide, division, dividend and divisor.

Your continuous support at home is visible in the confidence and success the children show every day.

We wish you and your family a restful and joyous holiday break and look forward to welcoming the children back for another productive term in the New Year.

Year 4

What a busy and exciting term it has been in Year 4!

Our children have worked incredibly hard across all areas of the curriculum and have much to be proud of.

In English, the children published a descriptive narrative, carefully written in their very best handwriting. There was a strong focus on presentation and the accuracy of letter formation, and the final pieces were of a very high standard. These wonderful pieces of work were proudly displayed in our school display for everyone to admire.

In Maths, the children have been consolidating all of their learning from this term. They have been applying and transferring their knowledge to solve a range of mathematical problems, demonstrating confidence, resilience, and a growing independence in their thinking.

Our learning in Geography, has seen the children exploring carbon footprints and developing an understanding of how our actions impact the future of our planet. They have been learning about the importance of protecting and preserving the environment and considering ways we can all make more sustainable choices.

The week ended on a high note with our Christmas festivities and the christmas concert. The children worked extremely hard practising their Christmas songs and performed confidently in front of an audience. Their enthusiasm and effort truly shone through, making it a joyful celebration for all. As we come to the end of the first term, we would like to commend all our learners for their hard work, commitment, and positive attitudes. We look forward to welcoming them back in 2026, ready to continue their learning journey with enthusiasm and confidence.

We would like to wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Year 5

In Maths this week, the children continued their journey through fractions by learning how to compare and order them. They discovered that carefully checking the values of both the numerator and denominator is vital for accuracy. Building on their prior knowledge, the children used equivalent fractions to find common denominators, allowing them to order sets of fractions with confidence. To conclude the week, they began adding fractions with the same denominator.

Our English lessons, focused on the publishing phase of our newspaper reports. The children took great pride in their work, meticulously checking their grammar and spelling before transferring their final drafts into a formal newspaper format. A key focus was presentation; the children worked hard to use their best cursive handwriting, ensuring every letter was formed and joined correctly.

As the festive season approaches, the beginning of the week was dedicated to rehearsals for the Christmas concert. These efforts culminated in a fantastic performance on Wednesday afternoon. The children thoroughly enjoyed sharing their songs with the audience, and the entire event was a wonderful success.

The Year 5 team would like to extend a heartfelt thank you to all parents and carers for your continued support throughout this term.

We wish you a very Merry Christmas and a restful, happy break.

Year 6

This week in Maths, Year 6 focused on decimal operations, specifically tackling both multiplication and division of decimals by integers. The children successfully applied their strong understanding of related multiplication and division facts to complete fluency and reasoning questions. It was excellent to see the students use their written methods to structure their working out, demonstrating quick and accurate recall of their times tables to support their calculations.

This week marked the successful conclusion of our biography writing unit. Year 6 focused on finalising their chosen Civil Rights British leader's story, presenting their work neatly and structuring it clearly using subheadings. They expertly applied a range of high-level grammatical features, including semicolons, dashes, and fronted adverbials, to add sophistication and fluency to their writing. The unit concluded with the creation of a powerful, thought-provoking question, designed to leave the reader thinking deeply about the leader's impact in the final paragraph. By the end, the children could confidently identify the features of a biography and articulate the enduring importance of their subject's work.

To conclude this successful Autumn term, we want to extend our deepest gratitude to all parents and carers for your incredible support. This term has been filled with countless highlights, including our fantastic Sharing Assembly, where Year 6 proudly showcased their scientific knowledge on the circulatory system, our joyous KS2 Christmas Singing Assembly, our festive Christmas Jumper Day, and the truly memorable Winter Warmer Night, where so many children turned up to enjoy the Christmas festivities with us. Your enthusiasm and support make all these events possible and enjoyable. As a team, we continue to thank you for your unwavering support and dedication to your children's learning. We look forward with excitement to the New Year and all the adventures it will bring.

Our Year 6 team wishes you all a wonderfully relaxing Christmas holiday, a well-deserved break, and a beautiful, prosperous New Year.

We are using in-app messages to communicate with parents through the app - please could parents ensure they are able to log-in and Arbor is set up to accept these messages - they should be visible in the Communications section of the portal.

Parents who have the app should enable Push Notifications - this will alert you through the app that a message has arrived.

Over 90% of our parents have logged into Arbor - if you are having difficulty, please talk to the office who can help.

Check your Child's Data

Please log in to Arbor and check your child's/children's details are correct - and let us know if not. You can also request changes directly through the app which will take place once we have seen them - if we have questions, we will get in touch. Or you can let the office know directly.

It is important we have the correct data for all our families.

Please remember to check Arbor - either the Parent Portal (at https://login.arbor.sc/) or the parent app (available from the App Store or Google Play).

Parents who log in can:

* see their child's attendance

* log consent for local trips and those further afield

* pay for trips and book and pay for clubs

* receive In-App messages - and message the school

* book parent consultations

* see their child's details and request changes to ensure they are completely up to date

If you have more than one child at the school, they should be visible via a drop-down so you only need to login once.

To set up your account, you need the email you use for school communications and the date of birth of one of your children. Follow the Forgotten Password link on either the app or the website.

If you need support with logging in, please talk to the office team who will be glad to help.