Friday 17 April 2026

I hope you all had a wonderful break over the Easter Holiday. It has been great to have the children back in school this week, full of energy and ready to continue learning together.

The week started on Monday with an INSET (In Service Training) Day for the staff. We met for various training and planning activities, including first aid, new ideas for the teaching of reading, strategies for adapting lessons to suit the needs of all children and plans for continuing to develop the learning skills of the Jupiter School Community. This was a really helpful day for us as we discussed how to keep everyone at school safe and to have the very best learning opportunities - I hope you all enjoyed the extra day’s holiday!

It has been wonderful to chat to the children about their time off and to hear their plans for the term ahead. We gathered together on Tuesday for a whole school assembly and continued to learn together about being happy and safe in the playground. This week’s theme was about ‘Talking it Out’ when we have disagreements. I am sure you agree that this is a hard skill but, once again, our Drama Club came up with some wonderful ideas and we will continue to consider this theme in classes.

On Wednesday it was a pleasure to meet with our Parent Forum. Thank you to those parents who attended and also for those who forwarded comments and questions. It is so helpful for us to work in partnership in this way, for the benefit of the children.

We had the honour of welcoming several visitors this week. On Wednesday we hosted Julie Jones, the Danes Educational Trust Interim CEO, and on Thursday we had a visit from Anne Peck, Director of Education Services (Primary and Early Years) at Herts for Learning. It is always such a pleasure to show people around our wonderful school, to see such hard working and engaged children. Well done everyone!

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend and we look forward to seeing you next week.

Mr. Robinson

Headteacher

Upcoming dates

Monday 20 April

Summer clubs start

Tuesday 21 April

Reception school trip to Aldenham Country Park

Wednesday 22 April

Year 5 Trip to Warner Brother Studio

Tuesday 28 April

No Clubs- Staff training

Attendance

At Danes Educational Trust, we believe that regular attendance is vital to support high-quality teaching and learning. Learners cannot reach their full potential unless they attend school consistently.

Reception | Hedgehogs

Weekly attendance: 78.8%

Attendance YTD: 87.1%

Reception | Rabbits

Weekly attendance: 98.9%

Attendance YTD: 92.8%

Year 1 | Deers

Weekly attendance: 93.3%

Attendance YTD: 93.6%

Year 1 | Foxes

Weekly attendance: 97.5%

Attendance YTD: 94.8%

Year 2 | Owls

Weekly attendance: 98.1%

Attendance YTD: 92.6%

Year 2 | Puffins

Weekly attendance: 95.7%

Attendance YTD: 96.2%

Year 3 | Ducks

Weekly attendance: 92.6%

Attendance YTD: 94.8%

Year 3 | Swans

Weekly attendance: 93.1%

Attendance YTD: 90.9%

Year 4 | Kingfishers

Weekly attendance: 97.5%

Attendance YTD: 94.4%

Year 4 | Woodpeckers

Weekly attendance: 95.1%

Attendance YTD: 93.6%

Year 5 | Otters

Weekly attendance: 86.3%

Attendance YTD: 93.5%

Year 5 | Pine Marten

Weekly attendance: 90%

Attendance YTD: 92.3%

Year 6 | Eagles

Weekly attendance: 97.1%

Attendance YTD: 96.1%

Year 6 | Wildcats

Weekly attendance: 92%

Attendance YTD: 95.3%

Awards and celebrations

We are so proud of these students for earning the Values Award, being recognized as Star Learner, and becoming the Timetable Champion! Your hard work, positive mindset, and commitment to learning shine through in all that you do. Keep it up ! You’re setting a fantastic example for others, and we’re excited to see all the amazing things you’ll achieve next!

Reception | Hedgehogs

Values awards: Kayden

Star Learner: William

Reception | Rabbits

Values awards: Isla

Star Learner: Askan

Year 1 | Deers

Values awards: Zayd

Star Learner: Elijah

Year 1 | Foxes

Values awards: Isabel

Star Learner: Aaron

Year 2 | Puffins

Values awards:

Star Learner:

Year 2 | Owls

Values awards: Rudi

Star Learner: Keira

Year 3 | Ducks

Values awards: Oakley

Star Learner: Elijah

Timetables champions: Alexis

Year 3 | Swans

Values awards: Emily

Star Learner: Callum

Timetables champions: Boris

Year 4 | Woodpeckers

Values awards: Niyah

Star Learner: Liam

Timetables champions: Anaya

Year 4 | Kingfishers

Values awards: Neil

Star Learner: Felicity

Timetables champions: James

Year 5 | Pine Martens

Values awards: Patrick

Star Learner: Freddie

Timetables champions: Callum

Otters

Values awards: Jessica

Star Learner: Methuka

Timetables champions: Hannah

Year 6 | Wildcats

Values awards: Olly

Star Learner: Ivy

Timetables champions: Richard

Year 6 | Eagles

Values awards: Ambra

Star Learner: Jacob

Timetables champions: Marmik

House points

Huge congratulations to Venus, our very first winners of the Summer term!

It was an incredible race to the finish, with only a few points separating our house, proving that every single effort counts. We are so proud of the dedication you’ve shown already. Keep that momentum going, stay inspired, and keep earning those tokens. The next victory could be yours!

Jupiter

Points this week: 35

Total points this term: 35

Saturn

Points this week: 34

Total points this term: 34

Venus

Points this week: 47

Total points this term: 47

Mercury

Points this week: 32

Total points this term: 32

Learning this week

This week in Reception

This week in Reception we have been busy sharing what we already know about our new topic, ‘Growth and Change’. In Literacy, we have used the text, ‘Jasper’s Beanstalk’ and have written labels and captions for a beanstalk. The children also planted their own beans, we will be watching to see which of them grow over the next couple of weeks. In Maths, we have been identifying 5 and then seeing larger numbers as ‘5 and some more’. This has helped us to understand the composition of numbers i.e. 7 is made of 5 and 2 more.

Please remember we have our Reception Trip on Tuesday to Aldenham Country Park. We are really excited and look forward to offering the children a fantastic visit.

This week in Year 1

This week in Year One we have been introduced to our new text ‘The Storm Whale’. We started with using pictures as clues to work out what the book is about. We then moved onto developing our understanding of vocabulary within the story and we delved deeper into understanding the character Noi. In Maths, we have continued our multiplication and division unit by being introduced to the term ‘array’. We have been using rows and columns to make our own arrays. We enjoyed labelling the parts of the body in Science within our ‘Human Body’ unit. This will help us with future investigations. In History, we continued learning about ‘The Great Fire of London’. We looked at how different types of evidence help us understand events that have happened in the past.

This week in Year 2

This week in Year Two we have been reminding ourselves about how to make sure all our sentences have our “sentence essentials”, and practising using our commas to write some brilliant shopping lists! In Maths, we have been learning about halves and quarters and showed great team work using the resources to help us - well done Year 2. In Science, we have planted our seeds in our “cress head” pots ready to watch them sprout shoots and roots, so keep an eye out for these in our classroom windows. I wonder if you can spot any other seeds or sprouting plants as you walk to school?

This week in Year 3

This week in Year Three we have begun to introduce our new text ‘Elf Street’, the children have been focusing on using expanded noun phrases and similes to describe a setting. In maths we have continued our work with fractions, adding and subtracting and finding a whole. In art we looked at Roger Morris and created 3D sculptures out 2D card. In science we began looking at light and shadows and understanding that if we have no light we can not see.

This week in Year 4

This week in Year Four, it’s been an action-packed week in Year 4! We mastered tenths in Maths and brought characters to life in Literacy by pairing expressive verbs with descriptive adverbs. We also turned into mini-scientists to explore the digestive system, learning exactly how our bodies process food. Ask your child if they can name the functions we discovered! Well done Year 4!

This week in Year 5

This week in Year Five we have shown great enthusiasm for our learning. We have been learning about area and perimeter in Maths and life cycles in Science. We enjoyed our forest school session, practising our fire starting skills while in Art we are working on developing portraits using continuous lines and words. In English we created posters or wrote letters to encourage people to think about how we can cause less pollution in our oceans, which links to our new text ‘This morning I met a whale’. A great start to the summer term!

This week in Year 6

This week in Year Six we continued looking at statistics. We built upon our previous knowledge to tackle pie charts, specifically focusing on how to interpret and calculate data using percentages. We also introduced the concept of the mean where we worked together to practise finding the average of various data sets using the formula.

In Literacy, we started our new unit on Letters of Complaint. We began the week by identifying the specific features needed to make a complaint effective.

Jupiter PTA

We are proud to have a dedicated and enthusiastic team of parent teacher association (PTA) at our school. The PTA plays a vital role in bringing together families , staff and the wider community to support and enhance the education experience of all our children. Through fundraising events, volunteer support, and community initiatives, the PTA helps provide valuable resources, enrich learning opportunities, and create a positive, inclusive environment for everyone. We welcome all parents and carers to get involved, whether by joining the committee, helping at events, or sharing ideas every contribution makes a difference!

PTA Events and website link

School News

The Importance of Good Attendance

Every moment in the classroom is a building block for your child’s future. When children are in school every day, they don’t just keep up with their lessons; they strengthen their friendships, grow in confidence and settle into the routines that help them feel secure.

Even missing just one or two days a month can create gaps in learning that are hard to bridge later on. We want every child to have the best possible start, so let’s work together to make every school day count.

It would be great to see every class’s attendance improve - let’s see if we can get the attendance of every class to be over 95% next week.

Please read the attached NHS Is my child too ill for school? as a guide for unwell children and whether or not they could be in school.

Thank you for your continued support in helping our pupils arrive on time and ready to learn!

Keeping Your Children Safe Online - What Parents Need to Know About WhatsApp and Group Chats

This week we are sharing two parent guides about WhatsApp and Group Chats. We are aware that lots of our older children have access to WhatsApp, even though this has an age restriction of 13+. The group chats that your children may be involved with can become unkind and then this is brought into school as it carries on.

Please do take the time to read through these two parent guides, as they both have some really great information that you may not be aware of. As a parent, it is really important that we are better informed about all the features of these apps, so that we are better prepared to protect our children online.

Important: Nut-Free School Reminder

To keep all our children safe, please remember that we are a nut-free school. We have several students with severe, life-threatening allergies, and even small traces of nuts can be dangerous.

Please ensure that all packed lunches and snacks are free from:

Peanuts and tree nuts
Spreads like Nutella, chocolate spread or peanut butter
Cereal bars or biscuits containing nuts

Thank you for your cooperation in keeping our school community safe for everyone.

Summer Clubs

Due to new availability we are able to offer Board games and Rounders Club to Year 4 as well as Year 5 and Year 6.

Booking is now reopened on Arbor and will remain open until Monday 10am

The updated list of clubs and their availability is attached. If your child is interested in joining, please send us an email to secure a spot.