CCI Newsletter 3rd - 7th November 2025

Cheam Common Infants' Academy

Weekly Newsletter

Monday 3rd - Friday 7th November 2025

Cheam Common Infants' Academy: Balmoral Road, Worcester Park, KT4 8SS

Email: ccioffice@leoacademytrust.co.uk https://www.cheamcommoninfants.com/

Message from the Principal

Welcome back! I hope you all had a good half term. Despite feeling short, the break was truly beneficial for everyone. The children have returned to school rested and eager for the new half term, and it's been wonderful to see how quickly they've settled back into their routine.

This week has been a very 'sparkly' affair. The children have been creating fireworks pictures, and I fully expect our carpets to sparkle with glitter from now until Christmas.

The Year One children had a fun-filled Friday, arriving at school dressed as toys, showcasing some fantastic costumes and several dazzling, disco-ready outfits. This served as an engaging introduction to their learning for the half term, where they will be exploring toys from the past and comparing them to the toys children play with today.

The disco was a huge success, and a massive thank you goes to the Friends for organising another successful fundraising event. The new fencing in the Reception area looks wonderful and enhances the natural environment we are cultivating for our youngest learners.

I am looking forward to seeing many of you at the parent consultations next week, where we will also have the book fair. This is a fantastic opportunity to purchase new books, and for every purchase made, the school receives rewards that we can exchange for books for your children. This not only supplements our library but also allows me to acquire new reads for the classrooms. It has been a pleasure to see so many of the Reception children enjoying the newly furnished reading areas, and it would be great to be able to buy some more age-appropriate non-fiction books for these spaces.

Mrs Hughes

Parent Workshops

Seesaw Workshop Slides

Phonics Workshop Slides

Phonics: Yellow Group and Beyond Slides

*NEW* Reception Curriculum Meeting Slides

Coming Soon

Date TBC: English as an Additional Language - how to support your child

School Updates

🦙 Alpaca Visit 🦙

Friday 21st November

We are delighted to announce that we will be visited by alpacas later this month. Mortimer Alpacas will be bringing two alpacas to school for the morning, for our children to meet, stroke and take photos with. We hope that this will be a fun learning break for children!

A massive thank you goes to the Friends of Cheam Common, who are funding this opportunity for our children.

EYFS and Year 1 will be visited on Friday 21st November, with KS2 being visited on Thursday 20th November.

🪁 Year 1: Victorian Toy Workshop 🪁

Thursday 20th November

Next half term for our history learning, the children will be learning all about the world of toys and the role that they play in entertaining us, educating us, and stimulating our imagination. As historians, they will be finding out about the ways in which toys have changed over time. To enhance their learning we would like the children to participate in an interactive Victorian drama workshop. After learning some well-known Victorian parlour games, the children will have the opportunity to handle and examine a large selection of wooden, tin and cloth replica toys, to discover how they work and how they are made. Thus bringing their learning to life! The cost of this workshop is £4.50 per child. We would be grateful if you could make this payment via your Arbor account by 6th November, under the trip section. Please note that refunds cannot be made if your child is absent on the day. If you have difficulty in affording the above amount, please come and see us privately.

👂Year 1: Routine Hearing Screening 👂

Please note that we will not be offering free routine hearing screenings in Year 1 this year.

If you are worried about your child's hearing, you can book a free hearing test at Boots. Click here for more information.

🧦 Odd Socks Day 🧦

Monday 10th November

On Monday 10th November 2025, we will be celebrating and taking part in Odd Socks Day! We are looking forward to seeing all of your colourful socks next week as 'Odd Socks Day' marks the start of Anti-Bullying Week.

Odd Socks Day is designed to be fun, however the main focus is to raise awareness of Anti Bullying Week and it is an opportunity to encourage people and children to express themselves whilst expressing their individuality and what makes us all unique!

All you have to do to take part is wear odd socks to school on Monday, November 10th! Please note that children must still wear their full school uniform; only the socks should be mismatched.

🧸 Children in Need 🧸

Friday 14th November

On Friday 14th November, we are celebrating Children in Need! Your child can wear MUFTI if they’d like and are encouraged to wear clothes that are yellow, colourful, spotty or Pudsey-themed. If you would like to donate then one option is to support our Just Giving Page to support this charity. We would encourage a donation of £1 per child, however this is not required.

This year, the official theme for Children in Need is "Challenge Yourself to 25." We're encouraging all participating children to take on a sponsored challenge and complete it 25 times—whether that's walking 25km over the course of the week, reading 25 books, or even baking 25 tasty cupcakes! To celebrate their efforts, we would love to include your child's challenge and achievement in our school newsletter or to their class, so please feel free to send in photographs/ videos! (Please note, taking part in the challenge or sharing the achievement for the newsletter is completely optional).

🏥 Christmas Pyjama Campaign 🏥

As we quickly approach the festive season, we have decided to run our pyjama fundraiser again, similarly to last year . Our chosen charity for the festive season is ‘Children’s Hospital Pyjamas’. This amazing charity donates brand new pairs of pyjamas to poorly children in hospital over the Christmas period. The charity’s vision is to ‘spread love through comfort during the Christmas season’ to children who unfortunately have to spend their Christmas holidays in hospital. In line with the LEO outcomes, we aim to encourage healthy and active learners who care about our world and we feel this would be a great way for our students to give back to our local community.

If you would like to help us support this charity, we are asking for either donations of brand new pyjamas or money that will go towards buying new pyjamas.

Due to the location of our school, we have decided that we will be donating our pyjamas to our local hospitals. We are donating to:

- St George’s Hospital (Tooting)

- Kingston Hospital (Kingston Upon Thames)

To confirm, we are only able to accept BRAND NEW pyjamas due to the vulnerability of the children who will be receiving the pyjamas. Unfortunately second hand pyjamas are not accepted. The pyjamas can be any size ranging from baby sizes - 10 years old. Alternatively, monetary donations are also welcomed and will be used to purchase new pyjamas to go towards our donations.

The deadline for all donations is Friday 5th December. Please hand pyjamas into the school office or to your child's classroom.

To raise more money for these causes, we invite all children to wear pyjamas or onesies to school on Friday 21st November.

Breakfast and After School Club: How to change, book or update

Please email cciwac@leoacademytrust.co.uk or phone 07739360621.

Email communication

If you are emailing in with a message about your child, please include their name and class (ideally in the subject line). Collectively, this will save our office staff a huge amount of time.

Sutton School Nurse details

School Nurse leaflet 5-11.pdf

Important Information: School Place Applications for September 2026

Crucial information for parents regarding applications for both Reception and Year 3 Junior school places for September 2026. If you have already submitted your application or this does not relate to you, please ignore.

It is imperative that you submit an application, as current Nursery and Year 2 children do not automatically receive a place.

Key Information & Resources:

Application Deadline: The national deadline for both Reception and Year 3 is 15th January 2026.

Where to Apply:

For both Reception and Year 3 Junior School Places: You must complete the application for the Local Authority (LA) you pay your council tax to, regardless of where your preferred schools are located. If your LA is not the London Borough of Sutton, please refer to your own LA's admissions section.

London Borough of Sutton Rec Guidance Booklet: Primary School guidance booklet (for reception applications).

London Borough of Sutton Junior Guidance Booklet: Junior school guidance booklet (for Year 3 applications).

Primary Reception Key Dates

Junior School Key Dates

Online Application System: https://www.eadmissions.org.uk/

Video Guide: A video with screenshots to walk you through the online application process is available on YouTube.

Upcoming School Open Days

Local schools will be holding open days throughout the autumn term.

CCI open day dates are advertised on our website: https://www.cheamcommoninfants.com/720/admissions.

Please sign up for a specific tour time using the Google Form link provided on that webpage.

We look forward to welcoming you!

Important Information: Nursery Applications

Academic Year 2026/2027

Crucial information for parents apply for the Nursery for September 2026, January and April 2027 intake. If you have already submitted your application or this does not relate to you, please ignore.

It is imperative that you submit an application, directly to the school.

Key Information & Resources:

Application Deadline: The deadline is 15th January 2026 (no later than 3.30pm)

Nursery Application Form 2026/2027

CCIA Starting Nursery Guidance 2026/2027

Nursery Admissions Policy 2026/2027

Labelled belongings

It would be appreciated if all children's belongings were labelled clearly with their name, especially jumpers, coats and water bottles.

Family Support Worker - referral form

If you would like to explore ways that our Family Support Worker could support your family, please complete this Google Form.

Remembrance Day poppies

Children can bring in their money and buy poppies when they are brought around to be sold. Some teachers may collect in money and keep this in their desks for safekeeping.

After half-term we will be selling poppies and some other ‘poppy related’ products (rulers, rubbers, sharpeners, bracelets, wristbands and pencils), as shown below, to raise money for the British Legion. These will be on sale from Tuesday 4th November 2025 until Tuesday 11th November 2025.

The poppies will also be on sale at break time and lunch time throughout the week and this will be managed by our School Council members. Although it is a donation for the poppies, the recommended amount is a £1 donation and £1.50 for snapbands.

When should my child come back to school?

My child is unwell (1).pdf

Universal Breakfast Club

Occupational Therapy Workshop

School lunches

Here are the lunch options for next week.

You can see Autumn Term options here.

National School Meals Week!

10th to 14th November - it's National School Meals Week! If you haven't tasted our fantastic school meals yet, make this the week you do!

Weekly School and Sporting News Stories

Early Years

Nursery

We had a fantastic week back to school. We enjoyed singing Nursery Rhymes and engaging in imaginative play inspired by our favourite rhymes such as "Twinkle, Twinkle", "Incy Wincy Spider", "Five Currant Buns" and "Humpty Dumpty". We learned all about Bonfire Night and we made pictures of fireworks, using a variety of media.

Reception

Reception have had a lovely first week back. We’ve been reading We’re Going On A Bear Hunt and have had great fun acting out the story with puppets and props for the different settings. We then drew the Bear character and tried to write a description. We have also learnt about the tradition of Bonfire Night and Guy Fawkes. Lots of us talked about celebrating this by watching fireworks! We made fireworks themed artwork and did some writing about things associated with Bonfire Night. In maths, we have been practising our 1:1 correspondence and saying one number for each item.

Year 1

It has been an exciting first week back. The children loved dressing up as Toy to launch our History learning about toys from the past to the present. Wow, some of their costumes were brilliant! They were fascinated to find out that lego first was made 90 years ago and they explored a variety of present toys.

In English, the children have begun their new book ‘Lost in the toy museum’ and enjoyed drawing and writing a character description about ‘Bunting’ an old toy cat. In Maths, the children systematically made ways of making five and they are all very confident in different ways to make 5.

In D.T, the children learnt about structures that are natural and manufactured. We were very impressed at how many could name different solid, shell and combined structures and they used this knowledge on Seesaw to sort different structures. It has been a busy four days ending the week seeing them dance around with their friends at the disco was a delight.

Year 2

Year 2 kicked off the new half term with a fantastic 'Local Area Walk'! They honed their geography fieldwork skills by analyzing local streets, searching for landmarks, and identifying differences between residential and main roads. It was wonderful to hear them articulating their learning and using critical thinking. Huge thanks to the parents who assisted us, we couldn't have done it without your support!"

In English, we explored non-chronological reports by reading about nocturnal animals. The children identified key features like subheadings, diagrams, and topic language while learning some amazing animal facts!

Financial Literacy was great fun as we explored life before money was invented. We played a bartering game, which helped the children explore the relative value of different items and make some interesting decisions!

We took a big step in Maths, practising addition and subtraction, focusing on adding or subtracting one-digit numbers that cross the ten boundary. We worked practically using Dienes and tens and ones frames, and the children explained their understanding using stem sentences. Amazing work Year 2, a super start to the new half term!

Birthday celebrations

Polite reminder...

As you know, we are a healthy school and therefore ask if your child would like to celebrate their birthday, they donate a book to a library instead of bringing treats. This also ensures there are no concerns over allergies.

We will share any photos of children and their birthday books here every week!

Frankie (Nursery)

Gunav (Reception)

⭐️ School Achievements ⭐️

🐝 Weekly 3 Bees Certificate 🐝

⭐️ Star of the Week ⭐️

This week's Explorer Value is 'Open-minded'.

🐝 Nursery 🐝

Cygnets - Emily B

Ducklings - Leo

🐝 Reception 🐝

Badgers - Triya

Foxes - Ayla

Hedgehogs - Harvey

Squirrels - Jean

⭐️ Nursery ⭐️

Cygnets - Benji

Ducklings - Zarina

⭐️ Reception ⭐️

Badgers - Edward

Foxes - Niya

Hedgehogs - Joel

Squirrels - Tion

🐝 Year 1 🐝

Finches - Amelie

Robins - Jack

Sparrows - Amelia

Wrens - Milo

🐝 Year 2 🐝

Eagles - Rudy

Falcons - Alexandra

Kestrels - Isabella

Owls - Millie J

⭐️ Year 1 ⭐️

Finches - Isabelle

Robins - Adelyn

Sparrows - Leon

Wrens - Gabrielle

⭐️ Year 2 ⭐️

Eagles - Leo

Falcons - Sophia

Kestrels - Ilyas

Owls - Gummy

Out of school achievements

If you would like to share your child's achievements outside of school with us, we'd love to hear them! Please complete this short form to tell us all about it!

Wilf (Reception)

During half term, Wilf ran a 2km night run in the dark with his family. He was very fast and brave, even though it was pitch black!

Vianna (Year 1)

Vianna received a gold medal for being the Star of the Term at her gymnastics club. Well done!

Hannah (Year 2)

Hannah won her first dancing medal with her sister, Edna, at a dance competition in Surrey during the term break!

Louis (Year 1)

After just 4 lessons, Louis got his first swimming certificate . Red award. Demonstrating three meters swimming , water safety and holding his breath under water.

Autumn 2 Curriculum Newsletters and Home Learning

Click on the links below to read our curriculum newsletters. On these, you can find out the topics that your children will be learning about, as well as information about home learning, PE days and general reminders for their year group.

Reception Year 1 Year 2

Important information

Communication

To help us assist you more efficiently when you email the school office, we kindly request that you include your child's class along with their name in your correspondence.

While we know all our students very well, having the class information readily available helps us to quickly identify your child and address your queries without any delay or guesswork.

For example, please consider writing: "Regarding [Child's Full Name], [Class, e.g., Year R - Squirrels]" in the subject line or at the beginning of your email.

Your cooperation in this matter is greatly appreciated and will help us continue to provide the best possible support to you and your children.

Thank you for your understanding.

Moving address

If you have moved address, it is imperative that you inform the school office as soon as you have moved. It is a requirement that the school has up to date details particularly in case of an emergency.

Please email the school office ccioffice@leoacademytrust.co.uk if your details need updating. Alternatively you can update them using the Arbor App.

Reporting Attendance

We ask that you use one of the google forms below to report absence.

Request for Exceptional Absence form in advance for future appointments and exception absence.

Cheam Common Infants' Absence Form for sickness and same day medical appointments.

They are also available to complete on our website using the parent tab.

We do not authorise holidays during term time. If your child is going to be off school due to an exceptional circumstance, then please complete this form:

You can also log same-day absences for your children directly through the Parent Portal or Arbor App. Simply navigate to the Attendance section, click "Log Absence," and fill in the details. You can adjust the start and end times if it is not a full-day absence. Once submitted, school staff will review and either approve or reject the request. You will see approved absences in the Attendance tab.

Please note, this feature is only for same-day absences; for any extended or future absences, please continue to complete and submit the request for exceptional absence. We will also continue to use the same day absence google form. If you need to change an unapproved absence request, you will need to delete it and create a new one, as editing is not possible. Once an absence is approved, it cannot be deleted through the app, so you will need to contact the school for any further modifications

Autumn Term Dates

Please find below all the key dates and times for the Autumn Term.

PTA events are shown in this colour. Please see below for more details.

New dates

2025 - 2026 Term dates

Monday 10th November: Odd Socks Day

Friday 14th November: Children in Need

Thursday 20th November: Year 1 Victorian Toy Workshop

Friday 21st November: Alpaca Visit

Friday 21st November: Pyjama Day

Friday 21st November: Bingo Night

Monday 8th December: Badgers and Foxes Christmas Performance (2pm)

Tuesday 9th December: Squirrels and Hedgehogs Christmas Performance (2pm)

Wednesday 10th December: Nursery Christmas Performance (9:15am)

Thursday 11th December: Rocksteady Concert (9:30am)

Thursday 11th December: Christmas Jumper Day

Thursday 11th December: Christmas Lunch

Friday 12th December: SEND Coffee Morning

Friday 12th December: Elf Run

Tuesday 16th December: Year 1 Christmas Performance

Wednesday 17th December: Year 2 Christmas Performance

Friends of Cheam Common - Updates

The Friends of Cheam Common now has Facebook group, where you can follow any updates on upcoming events or how you can get involved.

Fencing

A massive thank you to everyone who has supported the Friends of Cheam Common events over the last year or so. We are delighted to announce that we have been able to fund the brand-new fencing across our Reception outdoor area and around the Year 6 garden, ensuring better privacy for our children.

Secondhand Uniform

A gentle reminder, please only donate the items listed below.

Logo jumper

Logo cardigan

Logo fleece

Logo waterproof jacket

Logo PE tshirt

Logo polo shirts

Junior PE black quarter zip top

Ties

Red PE shorts

Please do not donate, shirts, or grey uniform items; we have very limited storage space and we can’t store those items currently. We will let you know when we are able to accept these items again.

Thank you so much for supporting the second hand uniform sale on Friday. We are delighted that good quality school uniform can be reused and help families.

Going forward, we need to reduce the uniform service that we offer unfortunately. We will no longer be taking uniform email requests for the foreseeable future. The uniform service has expanded immensely with donations and requests over the past year. Whilst it has been absolutely wonderful to offer this service to the school community; sadly, we don't have the volunteers to sustain the huge amount of time this service requires.

However, we are very happy to still offer a termly uniform sale, where we'll have plenty of uniform on offer to stock up for the term ahead.

Please leave donations at either the Infants’ or Junior’s office.

We hope you understand the decision we've had to take, and we thank you, as always, for your continued support.

SEND & Inclusion Updates

Click the image above for further information!

Keeping Safe Online

DIGI Safe - Keeping Children Safe Online

LGFL have launched a wonderfully informative and practical website full of resources to help keep children safe online. With videos, informative guides and top tips, there is lots to explore to help keep your child safe whilst online. To visit, click here.

Family Support