Dear parents and carers,
We hope you have had a good week. The children have been busy, as always, with lots of great learning taking place.
We celebrated Children’s Mental Health week this week. The theme this year is ‘This is my place’, which is focussed on children feeling a sense of belonging and helping others to feel like they belong. The key messages shared with the children were: to remember that they belong wherever they feel loved and accepted for who they are – just like at our school; and, that we are all here to help if they don’t feel that way. The children were challenged, this week, to do one of the following challenges:
- Say ‘hello’ to one person they don’t usually talk to.
- Share a toy, a piece of classroom equipment or a turn in a game.
- Invite someone to join their group or conversation.
This week is also National Storytelling Week, which is brilliant because we love sharing stories. On Tuesday, all the classes joined a national event online to explore the magic of storytelling through music with author, storyteller and musician, Annemarie Anang. The children really enjoyed this and have, hopefully, told you all about it.
Listening to stories is crucial for children’s language development and we know that lots of children listen via audiobooks and Tonieboxes etc, which is great. However, sharing a story with another person is also a really powerful experience. It allows for conversation, interaction and checking of understanding. Sharing those bedtime stories together, even just for five minutes, is magical, as well as incredibly valuable.
Next week is the last week before the half-term break. Fox and Hedgehog Classes have their history walk on Monday which we’re looking forward to. We will also be learning a lot about keeping safe online with Safer Internet Day on Tuesday. Mrs Haynes will lead an assembly for us.
It’s been great to see our attendance improving this week as the children recover and return from Chickenpox and some other nasty viruses. Hopefully, we’ll have everybody back next week.
Hope you all have a great weekend.
Best wishes,
John Mortimer
Head of School
