Nash Mills CofE Primary School

School News

Friday 8th May 2026

Tag Rugby

On Wednesday morning, Year 3 took part in a tag rugby tournament followed by Year 4 in the afternoon. Both classes displayed brilliant effort, teamwork and sportsmanship as they played a series of matches against other local primary schools.

We lost a few, drew some and won plenty of our games! Great talent was showcased as tries were scored and tag belts were grabbed - it was exciting to watch. We are so proud of all our students for the way they all participated, included each other and cheered each other on.

"It was really enjoyable! And I managed to score 10 tries!" exclaimed Arthur.

Cyber Police Sessions

On Wednesday, Y5 and Y6 had a visit from Chen Tsui of the Hertfordshire Constabulary's Cyber Crime Team. She spoke to us about how to keep safe on the internet and helped us to look out for signs for when people try to "phish" our personal information. "We should never give out our personal details online as we don't know who is asking as we don't know them. We learned that if a deal on a game looks too good to be true, it probably is!" - Pyper Y5

Following the pupil session, there were also sessions run for parents and, after school, for our staff about the changing nature of cyber crime and how we can keep ourselves and our children safe. A huge thank you to the parents who were able to attend. We hope you found the session a useful reminder.

Please see below for some websites that may be of interest to you on this topic.

Star of the Week!

Nursery

Lyra

For learning all our new phonic sounds and trying hard

to form letters. Well Done!

Reception

Lucio

For being more focused, much calmer in the classroom and

showing fantastic focus. Your effort and attitude

have been amazing - keep it up!

Year 1

Olivia

For trying really hard with her writing and

using her phonics sounds.

Year 2

Mia

For working more independently and producing

higher-quality, well presented work.

Year 3

Teona

For consistently trying in all lessons, embedding all our school

values and always having a huge smile!

I am so proud of you!

Year 4

Jack

For his brilliant participation in class life and his amazing commitment

to persevere even when things are tricky!

Year 5

For his focus, enthusiasm and determination to do his

best - he never gives up, you are amazing!

Year 6

Charlotte

For showing politeness and kindness to both her peers and staff, and

also for giving up her time to run clubs for younger children.

Walk to School Week is coming 18th-22nd May!

We’re excited to take part in Walk to School Week — a great chance to build healthy habits, cut congestion, and help create cleaner air around our school. Walking or wheeling to school boosts children’s physical and mental wellbeing, helps them arrive alert and ready to learn and supports a greener environment.

How you can get involved:

Encourage your child to walk or wheel to school as often as possible.
If you can’t walk the whole way, try a Park and Stride — park a short distance away and walk the rest.

Let’s step into a healthier, greener week together - your support is always appreciated!

Times Tables Rockstars and Numbots!

This week's TTRS leader board is for improvement in accuracy over the last 7 days, this stat shows the improvement in getting more correct answers more often. Well done to our leaders!

Our Numbots leader board reflects the number of coins earned while playing over the last week. Our leaders amassed a total of 8,022 coins between them, that's an average of 1,146 coins per day! Well done to all of our leaders.

Mr Shane

Leader board this week

1st - Lana (Y2)

2nd - Constantine (Y1)

3rd - Beau H (Y2)

Leader board this week

1st - Lachlan (Y4)

2nd - Austin (Y4)

3rd - Jamie (Y3)

Building Works

We would like to share with you some changes that will be taking place in school in the coming weeks. As you will be aware, as a school, we have been successful in recent years in obtaining funding to maintain our aging buildings and to ensure that our school is ready for the future. In the coming weeks, we have two large projects which will be starting in school, both of which will run through into the summer holidays.

Our old school building needs some upkeep to the original flint stone walling to ensure that it remains watertight and structurally sound. Scaffolding will be erected next weekend for work to begin on this. This project will have very little impact on the rest of our work in school.

However, a much larger project starting soon will be the replacement of the roof on the Year 1 and 2 building. This has been a long-awaited piece of work and, due to the way that the original roof was made, is going to be a much larger project. For this work, a temporary roof will be constructed over the building and some of the playground will be fenced off to house equipment and materials.

Unfortunately, this work will also mean that the Year 1 and 2 classes will have to move out of their rooms for the second half of the summer term. To tie in with other plans, which were originally scheduled for September, we have decided to make a number of changes at the same time. Although we know that this will be difficult for some pupils, it will drastically reduce disruption further down the line and will help us to ensure that all spaces are ready for September. Teachers will begin preparing the children who will be affected. From half term, some classes will be housed in different places. These are:

Year 4 will be permanently moving to the library in the Old School. Longer term, this will enable much closer working with the Year 3 class and better use of the building.
Year 6 will be permanently moving to the current Year 4 classroom.
Year 2 will be temporarily moving into the current Year 6 classroom. Parents will be able to drop off and collect from the new garden area.

When the building work begins properly, Year 1 will be temporarily moving into the Dining Room until the summer holidays, however this will not happen from half term.

We hope that the building work will be largely complete by the end of the summer holidays and in September, Year 1 and 2 will be able to return to their usual classrooms.

Please do bear with us whilst these changes happen. We will do our best to prepare the children for any changes as early as we can.

Attendance

It has been another excellent week for attendance across the school, with every class achieving above 95%—a fantastic whole-school effort. Year 2 take the top spot with an outstanding 98.7%, closely followed by Reception on 97.7% and Year 4 on 97.5%. Strong attendance was also seen in Year 5 (96.7%), Year 3 and Nursery (both 96.5%). Well done to Year 6 (95.8%) and Year 1 (95%) for maintaining solid attendance too.

Each year, the government sets a target for overall school attendance. Ours is 96.1%, however at the moment, our total is at 95.7% - we hope you will help us to achieve this target by the end of the year, with continued excellent attendance in the coming weeks.

Thank you to all families for your continued support in ensuring children are in school every day and ready to learn—this consistency makes a real difference!

SEN Coffee Morning – Focus: Emotional Regulation and Big Feelings

We would like to invite parents and carers to our upcoming SEN Coffee Morning on Thursday 22nd May.

The focus of this session will be “Emotional Regulation and Big Feelings”. Over tea and coffee, parents will be able to work with Mrs Nicholls to explore why some children can find it difficult to manage worries, frustration, change or overwhelming feelings, and share practical strategies that may help at home and in school.

There will also be time for questions and a chance to suggest topics for future parent sessions.

Best Bedtime Reads!

As you know, reading regularly at home with your children is incredibly important. A good bedtime story is not only helpful in maintaining a strong routine in the evening, it also helps children to develop their imagination and vocabulary.

Each week, we will ask our staff what their current recommendations are for the best bedtime reads. We hope that it provides you with some ideas!

Mr Winter's suggestion... Penguin by Polly Dunbar

A favourite in our house used to be Penguin, by Polly Dunbar. This story is about a journey which captures how frustrating it can be when your friends don't always think the same way as you! It has fantastic pictures which make it especially engaging for younger children. A charming book!

Please click here to read the latest parent newsletter from the Developing Specialist Provision Locally Team in Dacorum.

Upcoming Dates

11th May - Y6 SATS Week

11th May - Governor meeting - Resources Committee and Full Governing Body

18th May - Reception Coffee Morning

19th May - World Diversity Day - special lunch menu

19th May - Y6 Trip to Snow Centre

19th May - Y6 Residential Parent Meeting 2.45pm

20th May - Y4 trip to Hampton Court Palace

25th-29th May - Half term

1st-19th June - Whole School Swimming

4th June - Y2 trip to London

8th June - Y4 Multiplication Check week

9th June - Y1 Class Worship

10th June - Y3 trip to Verulamium

10th June - Y5 Residential Parent Meeting 2.45pm

15th June - Y1 Phonics Check week

16th June - Nursery Coffee Morning

18th June - Reception to Ruislip Lido

19th June - PTA Thank you Sale

22nd - 26th June - Y6 Residential Trip

23rd & 30th June - Opera Project in school

23rd June - Y2 Class Worship

25th June - Reception Coffee Morning

30th June - Y3 Class Worship

1st-3rd July - Y5 Residential Trip

1st July - Governors Resource Meeting

6th-8th July - Sports Week

7th July - Reports sent home

7th July - Y4 Class Worship

7th July - Y4 trip to Electric Umbrella at the Cathedral

8th July - Sports Day - 11am EYFS, 12pm rest of school

9th July - New class transition day

10th July - PTA summer disco

13th July - Art week

13th July - Music Concert 2pm

13th July - Full Governing Body Meeting

14th July - Y1 RAF Trip

15th&16th July - Y5&6 Production

17th July - Y6 Leavers Party

20th July - Whole School Church Service

21st July - Leavers' Assembly and last day of term. School closes for the summer at 1.30pm

22nd &23rd July - INSET Days

Good Shepherd Booking

Good Shepherd Club—to book spaces at Breakfast or After School Club, please visit

http://www.goodshepherdclubs.co.uk/

Logging Absences

Thank you to those who have now managed to log child absences on Arbor. It has really helped the office, meaning that we know where all of the children are more quickly in the morning. If The instructions on how to do this are set out below.

If your child is unwell, Hertfordshire Attendance team require that the nature of the illness is recorded, so please include this in your message (cough, cold, temperature, vomiting etc.). Please note that any absence requests for future dates will still need to made through the school office. In line with our attendance and safeguarding policies, a reminder to report your child's absence every morning, by 8.30am, until your child is well enough to return to school.

Step 1 -Click on Quick Actions button and then click Attendance followed by the green Log Absence button (top right).

Step 2 - Enter the absence details. If your child will be absent all day, there is no need to edit the start and end times that will automatically appear. If your child is ill, please ensure that you enter the nature of the illness and then press the green Log Absence button.

Step 3 - Once you have logged the absence, the school office will 'accept' it. Approved absences then appear in the Attendance tab of the Arbor App. It is not possible to edit an absence once it has been approved, so if you have any queries, please email the school office who will be able to help.

Pupil Premium

Did you know that your child may be able to receive additional support in school in addition to free school meals, if you qualify for certain benefits?

If you receive any of the following, your child may well be eligible for the Pupil Premium. This provides them with free school meals throughout their time at school, but also a range of additional things in school to help with their learning and engagement. If your child might be eligible, please visit the following site (https://www.hertfordshire.gov.uk/ufs/HCWH.eb?ebd=0&ebz=1_1717745705707) or speak to the school office who will be happy to help.

Income Support
Income-based Jobseekers Allowance
Income-related Employment and Support Allowance
Support under Part VI of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999
The guaranteed element of State Pension Credit
Child Tax Credit (as long as you’re not also entitled to Working Tax Credit and you don't get more than £16,190 a year)
Working Tax Credit run-on (paid for 4 weeks after you stop qualifying for Working Tax Credit)
Universal Credit (with annual earned income of no more than £7,400 after tax and not including any benefits you get).

The application process only takes a few minutes and we are more than happy to provide support if it is needed.

Clothing Bank

Thank you for your donations towards our clothing bank. If you have any old clothes following clear-outs, please drop things in. The clothing bank is emptied regularly so should be ready for more donations.

The school carpark is open between 7am and 6pm on weekdays. Members of the local community are more than welcome to use it too so please spread the word!

Nursery Admissions - September 2026

Please share with friends and family that applications to come and join our wonderful Nursery for the next academic year are about to close! Our Nursery pupils love coming into school each day to enjoy all of our fantastic facilities and benefit from the care of our dedicated Nursery staff who create a friendly, safe and stimulating learning environment.

In September 2026, we shall be admitting children born between 1st September 2022 and 31st August 2023 and are pleased to share that we offer either:

15-hour morning provision from 8.50am-11.50am

For working families in receipt of 30-hours government funding, daily provision from 8.50am-2.50pm, with the option to extend the day to 3.15pm for an additional cost of £12.50 per week.

Please do encourage family and friends with Nursery-aged pupils to come and see us.

Final Thought

Today in worship, we talked about the 100th birthday of Sir David Attenborough and we paused to reflect on a life spent not just exploring the world, but caring deeply for it.

David Attenborough has shown us the beauty of our planet and the wonder of its wildlife. More importantly, he has reminded us that we share this world with others—people, animals and future generations. His work is a powerful example of selflessness: using your voice and your life to make a difference for others, even when it may not benefit you directly.

In school, we often talk about kindness towards one another. This week, we extend that idea further—how can we be kind to our world? Small actions, like reducing waste, caring for our environment or helping others, are ways we can live out this value each day.

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