Dear Parents and Carers,

Welcome back to a new term! We hope you all had a wonderful and restful half-term break and are ready for the exciting weeks ahead.

Today, we are holding our Community Iftar Event. This is a special opportunity for our school community to come together, and we hope to see as many of you there as possible to share in this celebration.

Looking ahead to next week, we have a very busy and exciting World Book Day schedule! To kick things off, we are holding a Book Swap on Tuesday. If you have any books at home in good condition that you would like to donate, please bring them to the main office. Then, on Wednesday at 8:20 AM, we invite you to join us for 'Books and Breakfast'—a lovely chance to share a story with your child before the school day begins. This all leads up to our main World Book Day celebration on Thursday, where children are invited to come to school in their dress-up costumes.

Finally, please check the letter directory this week for important updates. There are key letters specifically for children in Apple, Pear, and Beech classes.

We hope you all have a lovely weekend.

Iman Atwal

Headteacher

This week, we introduced our new value of the term: Resilience. This is where you keep going even when it may be hard, including being able to “bounce back" from tough times, mistakes, or sad feelings.

To introduce this value, we took part in an assembly about Ramandan and why this is celebrated. As part of the celebrations, muslims fast during sunlight which requires resilience. We then spoke about how we can show resilience ourselves.

Ask you child:

• What have you found hard?

• How can you keep on going when it is hard?

• How can you show resilience when trying something new?

🧡Wellbeing Focus: Settling Back & Feeling Secure

Returning to school after the February half-term break can feel exciting, tiring, or a little overwhelming for children. This week, our focus is on helping children settle back into routines, feel safe, and reconnect with school life.

🌱Early Years (EYFS)

Young children feel most secure through predictable routines, warm interactions, and reassurance.

You could try:

Spending a few minutes each day checking in about feelings (“How was your first morning back?”).

Offering comfort, cuddles, or calm reassurance if children seem tired or anxious.

Keeping morning and bedtime routines gentle but consistent.

Sharing simple praise for small achievements, like putting on shoes or packing a bag.

🌻Key Stage 1 (Years 1–2)

Children at this age benefit from gentle structure, positive reinforcement, and opportunities to reconnect.

You could try:

Asking questions about friendships or their favourite moments from the half term.

Celebrating small successes, such as remembering new routines or completing tasks.

Encouraging outdoor play or movement to release energy and reset.

Talking positively about school and learning, reassuring them that it’s normal to need time to adjust.

🌟Key Stage 2 (Years 3–6)

Older children may need a balance of autonomy, reassurance, and connection.

You could try:

Creating relaxed opportunities to talk, such as during walks, meals, or bedtime.

Supporting children to manage homework, routines, and screen time gradually.

Encouraging reflection on personal successes from before the break.

Listening to worries without immediately trying to “fix” them, and reassuring that settling in takes time.

🧠Gentle Reminder

Every child will adjust at their own pace. Small, supportive moments — both at home and school — can help children feel safe, confident, and ready to learn.

Nest

It has been a pleasure to welcome the children back after the half-term break; they have settled back into The Nest routines with great confidence and are accessing all areas of learning with wonderful independence. This week, we introduced our new core text, 'The Three Little Pigs', which has sparked a great deal of excitement. The children have been listening to the story with fantastic focus and have enjoyed answering simple questions about the characters. To bring the tale to life, we have been busy making character puppets. This was a brilliant way for the children to practice their fine motor skills as they carefully used scissors to cut out their chosen pictures. While they worked, it was lovely to hear them narrating their play and discussing the story, which provided a natural boost to their communication and language development.

In addition to our literacy work, the children had a wonderful hands-on sensory experience with pancake making. There was a real sense of fascination as they took turns mixing the ingredients, observing closely as the individual components transformed into a smooth batter. The highlight, of course, was snack time! The children thoroughly enjoyed tasting the plain pancakes, with many of our enthusiastic young chefs even asking for a second helping. It has been a fantastic start to the new term, and we are looking forward to more adventures in learning next week.

Saplings

This week in Saplings, we have been exploring Chinese New Year! The children have enjoyed learning about the different animals that took part in the race to decide the order of the animals, and we created our own race where the children held up images of each animal and raced across the field outside. They have explored the different foods such as noodles and using chopsticks, as well as looking at the different celebrations such as giving gifts and the New Years dragon parade.

In Numeracy, we have been looking at positional language, such as above, below, in front of and behind. The children have enjoyed using picture cards at circle time to recreate the positional languages for themselves.

In Phonics, we have been exploring the sound ‘K’, using picture cards and songs to learn the sound.

Reception

We hope you all had a restful and enjoyable half term break. The children have returned full of enthusiasm and are ready for another exciting half term of learning. Here’s a snapshot of what we’ve been exploring in class recently.

In Literacy, the children have been learning all about space. We have been exploring the eight planets and discussing our place in the universe using our core text, ‘Here We Are’. The children have enjoyed sharing their ideas, learning new vocabulary, and talking about the world around them. Most of the children enjoyed painting and drawing the different planets.

In Phonics, the children have been revisiting Phase 3 sounds, helping to secure their recognition and pronunciation. They have been using their phonics knowledge to write simple captions through dictation, showing growing confidence in hearing sounds and representing them in writing. Our handwriting practice continues, with children learning to form upper case letters correctly. We are focusing on good pencil grip, posture, and careful letter formation.

In Maths, the children have been learning about the composition of numbers 6–8. They have explored different ways numbers can be made, including subitising (recognising quantities without counting), using practical resources and visual representations. Thank you, as always, for your continued support. 

Please feel free to ask if you have any questions about your child’s learning. We’re looking forward to another fun and productive half term together! 😊

Year 1

Welcome back! We hope you enjoyed a good break. The children have returned refreshed and ready for another term of learning.

In English, we started our new core text, 'Beegu'. We immersed ourselves in the story, discussing and ordering the events, and re-telling the story. We also thought how Beegu felt at different points in the story. We did some hot-seating asking Beegu how she felt and why, and the teacher acted in role as Beegu. The children used the conjunction but to compare Beegu’s feelings to other characters in the story. We also introduced superlatives to the children and wrote sentences using these. Eg. Beegu was the saddest alien in the world.

In Maths, we learnt about length and height. We compared objects using the terms longer than, shorter than and taller than. Then we measured items using different units such as hands, books, pencils. Finally, we introduced measuring in centimetres. They learnt that centimetres can be written as cms. Children were shown how to use a ruler to measure making sure they started at 0 (not the end of the ruler). There was lots of practical work using a ruler to measure items in the classroom. They also answered questions looking at a picture where the ruler was next to an object.

In PSHE, we discussed what we can put into our body, (food, drink ) onto our body, (eg. shampoo, soap, sun-tan lotion) what we should not put into or onto the body eg. (small plastic items, toys, anything we are not sure what it is eg. things in unlabelled bottles) and what we can do with adult supervision (eg. medicines) We discussed that medicines are a drug that help us when we are ill, or can prevent us becoming ill, such as the injection.

Please remember to send children into school with their reading book every day so we can use them in school. Thank you.

Year 2

We have had a fantastic start back this week in Year 2 and the children have returned with great enthusiasm and focus. We are very proud of how quickly they have settled back into their learning routines.

In Maths, we have been focusing on the 5 and 10 times tables, as well as identifying odd and even numbers. The children have also been learning to divide by 10. We have been using practical manipulatives and concrete resources to help consolidate understanding and develop confidence with these key skills. It has been wonderful to see the children explaining their reasoning and spotting patterns in numbers.

This week in English, we have begun our new text, 'The Story of Frog Belly Rat Bone' by Timothy Basil Ering. The children have thoroughly enjoyed exploring the story so far.

We have been:

• Building a rich word bank of descriptive vocabulary to describe the setting

• Writing sentences using subordinating conjunctions (such as when, because, if and that)

• Writing in the third person

• Writing in the past tense

These skills will support the children as they begin to develop their own pieces of writing inspired by the text.

In PSHE, we have been learning about road safety. The children discussed ways to stay safe near roads and created informative posters to help educate others about how to keep safe. They showed great maturity and understanding during these important discussions.

Thank you for your continued support at home. We look forward to another exciting week of learning ahead!

As we dive into the world of persuasive writing, students are mastering the art of influence—learning to use imperative verbs, rhetorical questions, and emotive language to win over their audience. Inspired by our core text, 'The Lorax,' the children had deep discussions about environmental issues, crafting powerful sentences that combine technical facts with heartfelt appeals. From perfecting the use of fronted adverbials to addressing the reader directly as "you," they are building a sophisticated toolkit to ensure their voices are not just heard, but felt. We can’t wait to see how their final letters evolve as they transform from budding writers into persuasive advocates for a better world.

In our History lesson, the children learnt about the relative lengths of the 3 periods of the Stone Age - the Paleolithic, Mesolithic and the Neolithic. They were surprised to find out that the Paleolithic is nearly 100 times longer than all periods of history since, all the way up to the modern day.

Year 4

Year 4 have begun their exciting journey into fractions! We’ve been learning to recognise proper and improper fractions, compare them, and place them on a number line. Using fraction walls and other hands-on resources has really helped us master these concepts. Our times tables scores are steadily improving — well done, everyone! Please continue to practise at home using TT Rockstars and MTC check online and aim to learn the times tables by heart.

We also really enjoyed our Reading Morning. A huge thank-you to the parents and carers who joined us — your support is greatly appreciated. Please remember to read at home for at least 20 minutes every day to keep building those reading skills.

In Geography, we started exploring the differences between the UK and Greece. We also learned how to use four-figure grid references to identify locations on a map.

In English, we’ve been investigating both structural and figurative language features in poetry. We explored haiku, limerick, and free verse poems, and even drafted our own poems inspired by Zeus, the father of all the Greek gods.

In Design and Technology, we began by investigating the Greek temple, the Parthenon, and researching its various architectural features. Over the next few weeks, we will be designing and creating our own model of the Parthenon — we can’t wait to see how they turn out!

It’s been a fun-filled first week back after half term — full of learning and creativity!

Have a great weekend, everyone! The Year 4 Team

In History, the children have embarked on an insightful journey into the Windrush generation, tracing their profound impact on British society across four pivotal eras. We began by examining the post-war landscape, exploring why people from the Caribbean were invited to help rebuild the UK, followed by the landmark arrival of the Empire Windrush in 1948. The class also engaged in mature discussions regarding the challenges faced by these communities, specifically the Notting Hill Riots, before concluding with the significance of the Human Rights Act in protecting equality.

Year 6

This term, we’ve been gripped by our class text, the suspense novel 'Alma'. The children haven’t just been reading; they’ve been acting like psychological experts! We’ve been learning how to decipher micro-expressions—those tiny facial clues that show if a character is scared, lying, or excited. To help the children write more sophisticated stories. Instead of just saying a character is "scared," they are now using these subtle clues to build tension and move their narratives forward in a much more "grown-up" way.

In Maths, we’ve moved on to Function Machines, where we look at how numbers change as they pass through different rules (Input ➔ Rule ➔ Output). We’ve noticed that the secret ingredient to correctly solving this is times table fluency. When the children know their tables by heart, they can master these complex "machines" much faster. Any extra practice at the breakfast table really does make a massive difference

In History, the children have been fascinated to learn that history didn’t just happen in textbooks—it happened right here on our doorsteps! We are continuing our WWII study with a focus on The Croydon Blitz.

We’ve been exploring:

Our Local Area: How Croydon’s location -Aerodrome Airport- made it a key target during the war.

Inspiring stories of how our local community pulled together, shared rations, and looked after one another to survive the raids.

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.