The children have also thoroughly enjoyed their recent music workshops, which gave them the opportunity to work creatively and collaboratively. These sessions boosted confidence and teamwork while allowing pupils to express themselves through rhythm and performance.

In English, pupils have produced wonderful examples of descriptive and empathetic writing, drawing readers in through thoughtful word choices and emotional awareness.

Alongside this, they have been busy preparing their Headteacher for the Day campaigns. The effort, creativity, and leadership skills shown in their speeches and ideas have been outstanding, reflecting their growing confidence and readiness for the challenges ahead.

We look forward to another half term of challenging learning, discussions on the big questions in life and using our creative talents to show our understanding.

In the classroom, our science learning focused on forces, where pupils investigated pushes, pulls, gravity, and friction through practical experiments and hands-on activities. In history, we delved into the world of the Ancient Greeks, using artefacts to support our understanding of daily life, culture, and achievements. Handling replica objects helped pupils ask questions, make connections, and develop a deeper appreciation of this fascinating civilisation.

We have also been working hard to improve our writing skills through imaginative storytelling. Pupils wrote exciting stories about an explorer’s adventures in the jungle, focusing on description, action, and building suspense. Later in the half-term, they wrote the ending to a story where they needed to show empathy, thinking carefully about the character’s feelings and experiences to engage the reader.

Year 4 began the half term with a BANG! The Iron Man story was their first English focus this half term. They produced some truly impressive stories that included sound, texture and appearance and more recently they visited Aladdin’s cave for imaginative setting description. In RE, pupils took part in an immersive talk about Sikhism, asking inquisitive and respectful questions that showed real engagement with their learning. It has been a joy to visit lessons across both year groups and hear the children speak enthusiastically about what they have been learning. A huge thank you to our wonderful parent helpers for generously giving their time to support maths and reading interventions across Years 3 and 4, trips and projects!

We would like to draw your attention to the section on absences and to keeping your data up-to-date.

• Criteria 3: ‘Children who are themselves, or whose parent(s) are, actively involved in the worship of the Parish Church in Horsell,’ has been moved to criteria 5.
• The order of the other criteria has changed to reflect this change, and the wording of criteria 6 and 7 has been slightly amended to ensure clarity.

We also have an exciting week ahead, with the PTA Summer Fair this Saturday, OPAL play afternoon next Tuesday and the highly anticipated Year 6 production of "Oliver - with a Twist".   Read on to find out about this, about our chess team success and much more!

Jennifer's talk covered some very compelling evidence using statistics from the past 15 years as to why the introduction of smartphones is detrimental to young people. Themes included an increase in loneliness, depression, anxiety and low self-esteem in children who have had access to devices from an increasingly early age. 

She also provided many reassuring examples of how parents have managed to successfully come up with compromises around tech use with their children and highlighted the expanding market of available phones and other devices with heightened restrictions to the internet.  

The slides from her talk are attached below.

Year 3

Year 4

Year 5

Year 6