Key Dates
Tuesday 10th October
Flu immunisations in school
Friday 13th October
Year 1 visit to London Zoo
PSA Year 5 cake sale
Saturday 14th October
PSA Pumpkin Hunt for Nursery to Year 2 children from 1:30 - 3:30 pm
Monday 16th October
World Food Day - donations for the Kingston Foodbank welcome!
Author visit from Jack Meggit-Phillips
Tuesday 17th October
Year 5 Vikings workshop in school
Year 6 Oak class visit to Ham
Wednesday 18th October
Parents' Evening from 4:00 to 7:00 pm
Thursday 19th October
Parents' Evening from 2:00 to 6:00 pm
SCHOOL CLOSES AT 1:30 PM ON THURSDAY 19TH OCTOBER
Friday 20th October
Home Learning Showcase
Year 3 visit to Butser Ancient Farm
Year 4 Larch & Yew classes visit to the Thames Explorer Trust
Monday 23rd October - Friday 27th October
HALF-TERM BREAK
Monday 30th October – Tuesday 31st October
INSET days — children are not in school
Wednesday 1st November
CHILDREN RETURN TO SCHOOL
Thursday 2nd November
PSA Fireworks Night at 5:45 pm
Friday 3rd November
PSA Year 4 cake sale
Key dates for this school year are published here. Some of these dates are provisional, and all dates are subject to change — please refer to this newsletter and communications via ParentPay for the latest information.
Click here for term dates including INSET days.
Reminders
Flu Immunisations
The deadline for providing consent for your child to have the flu vaccine is Sunday 8th October. Please see this letter for further information and a link to the consent form. The immunisation is available to all children from Reception to Year 6 as a nasal spray or an injectable porcine free vaccine.
Year group weekly news
Year group weekly news is published every Friday afternoon on the Home Learning Google Classroom. Click here for information about how we use the Classroom. Reception and Nursery will be sending their news through ParentPay for the next few weeks as they transition to the Classroom.
On Monday 16th October, to mark World Food Day and support our local community, we will be collecting for the Kingston Foodbank and welcome any donations of non-perishable foods. Click here for a list of items the Foodbank is most in need of right now. Thank you for your support.
Wellbeing
Achieving for Children’s Mental Health Support Team are running two webinars after the half-term break on helping children with friendships and challenging behaviour. These online events are open to all but must be booked in advance. To book, click on the links below.
Helping Children with Friendships - 15th & 17th November
Helping Children with Challenging Behaviour - 6th & 8th December
On Thursday in school, we celebrated National Poetry Day - a celebration on the first Thursday of October every year, to encourage everyone to write, experience and share poetry with family and friends. This year’s theme is Refuge.
You can read some wonderfully inspiring poetry, all based on the theme of Refuge, on the National Poetry Day website. There’s also The Final Year Poetry Competition, open to anyone aged 8 - 11 years old: write a poem about how you can find refuge or a safe place to express yourself in your voice through your writing. At Fern Hill, we are running our own poetry competition too, based on the same theme. Entries should be submitted to Miss Bennett or Mrs Roulliard by Tuesday 14th November. We can’t wait to read them all!
The National Literacy Trust's Words for Life site is a fantastic resource for parents and carers on how to make reading fun for children, including finding the right book and follow-up activities. Reading for pleasure plays an important role in developing keen and confident readers and studies show it improves both academic outcomes and emotional and personal development.
We are becoming an Eco-School!
We are very excited to be joining the Eco-Schools programme this year, and working towards the Eco-Schools Green Flag accreditation. Our first step is the creation of an Eco-Committee, made up of pupils and led by Miss Evans, to raise awareness of environmental issues and make a positive difference by taking a lead on environmental actions and projects in school and the local community. In assembly this week, the children were introduced to the Eco-Schools programme and invited to join the committee by completing a short application form. If your child is interested in taking part but hasn’t brought an application form home, you can download one here. Applications should be returned to class teachers by Friday 13th October.
Parents' Evening
Parents’ Evening will be held on Wednesday 18th October and Thursday 19th October. School will close for children in Reception through to Year 6 at 1:30 pm on Thursday 19th October; Nursery will run as normal until 3:25 pm.
After school clubs on Thursday 19th will run, but at an earlier time, between 1:30 – 2:30 pm. Tree Tops will also run from 1:30 pm to its usual finish of 6:00 pm.
You can now book a 10-minute in-person appointment with your class teacher through our Parents’ Evening System; for further information, please refer to the letter here.
Masquerade Theatre Arts and Mother Nature Science are both running exciting Halloween-themed workshops at school over the half-term break. Further information and details of discounts for Fern Hill pupils are on the website here.
Book of the Week
'The Final Year' by Matt Goodfellow
Yesterday was National Poetry Day, so our book of the week has to be the incredibly powerful and poignant verse novel, ‘The Final Year’, by Matt Goodfellow - author of ‘Let’s Chase Stars Together’, which was shortlisted for the Spark! School Book Awards last year.
Nate thinks he is ready for Year 6 but then he is separated from his best friend; his little brother gets ill, and he can feel the rage monster inside him trying to take over. Fortunately, his new teacher helps him find a way to express himself with words and Nate uses poetry to make sense of what he is feeling.
‘The Final Year’ transports you on an emotional journey through the last year of primary school. I can highly recommend this book for Year 6, in particular. (Warning: it will make you cry!)
Team Points
The overall winner this week is KINGSTON!
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Kingston
272
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Coombe
233
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Richmond
224
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Hampton
227
PSA News & Events
EYFS and KS1 Pumpkin Hunt - tickets still available!
You can book your tickets for the hunt here!
PSA Fireworks Night - Thursday 2nd November 5:45 - 7:00 pm - tickets available next week!
Once again, we are holding our amazing Fireworks Night at school! Further details and a link to purchase tickets will be coming out via ParentPay and PSA comms channels next week so keep a look out!
PSA Meeting - thank you!
Thanks very much to everyone who attended our first meeting of the year on Thursday evening, both virtually and in person. It was great to see so many new faces.
Can you help? Festive Hamper Raffle and Festive Events
We would love to hear from anyone who is interested in helping to organise our Festive Hamper Raffle, which will be held in December. We take donations of luxury items from the school community and fill beautiful hampers to raffle to raise money for the PSA.
We are also looking for volunteers to help at our Festive Magic Party (Friday 1st December) and Festive Discos (Friday 8th December). These are such fun events to organise and run - the entertainment is booked, so your role will be to help decorate the hall and supervise the children.
If you can help, please email us at: fernhillpsa@gmail.com or leave a message on the main PSA WhatsApp group. Thank you!
Inspiration 