Key Dates
Tuesday 16th May
Year 6 Circus Skills workshop in school
Wednesday 17th May
Year 6 magistrates visit in school
Thursday 18th May
Foxglove class parent assembly at 9:00 am in the Large Hall
Friday 19th May
Year 5 visit to Hampton Court Palace
PSA Special General Meeting at 9:00 am in the Small Hall
PSA school uniform sale at 3:00 pm
Tuesday 23rd & Wednesday 24th May
Class photographs in school
Year 6 parents' School Journey meeting at 8:50 am in the Large Hall
Thursday 25th May
Cornflower class parent assembly at 9:00 am in the Large Hall
Nursery visit to the Kingston Community Garden
Friday 26th May
HOME LEARNING SHOWCASE
PSA Dads' Breakfast at 7:45 am
Reception cake sale at 3:15 pm
Monday 29th May - Friday 2nd June
HALF TERM HOLIDAY
Monday 5th June
CHILDREN RETURN TO SCHOOL
Tuesday 6th - Thursday 8th June
Year 6 visits to the Kingston Liberal Synagogue
Thursday 8th June
Ash class parent assembly at 9:00 am in the Large Hall
Friday 9th June
Sports Day at YMCA Hawker Centre
Tuesday 13th June
Reception visit to Chessington Zoo
Wednesday 14th June
Year 2 African Dance & Drumming workshop in school
Thursday 15th June
Sunflower class parent assembly at 9:00 am in the Large Hall
Reminders
Class photographs
Class photographs (and the Year 6 Leavers' photograph) will be taken on Tuesday 23rd and Wednesday 24th May. The photographs will be available to purchase after the half-term break. If you do not wish your child to be included in the photographs, please email the school office at: office@fernhillprimary.org by Friday 19th May.
After school clubs
The term dates for lunchtime and after school clubs are published on the website here. Currently, the following catch-up clubs will run to make up for missed sessions: Tuesday 18th July - Gardening; Thursday 20th July - TechnoKids Computer Coding; Friday 21st July - Bake with Rana & TechnoKids Computer Coding.
Friday 21st July is the last day of term and clubs will run from 1:30 - 2:30 pm.
Your year group weekly news is published every Friday afternoon on your child's Home Learning Google Classroom. Don't forget the home learning activities for this half-term that are due by Friday 26th May for the Home Learning Showcase.
A HUGE well done to all the children in Year 6 who took their SATs this week. We are very proud of all their hard work and effort and hope they enjoy a well-deserved and relaxing weekend. We are looking forward to watching them perform their circus skills on Tuesday!
This week's Times Tables Rock Stars class winners are BEECH, CHESTNUT, LIME and ELDER. Well done!
Sports Day - Friday 9th June
We are really looking forward to welcoming all our families to Fern Hill’s Sports Day on Friday 9th June when our whole community can come together to celebrate the children’s achievements. Once again we will be holding Sports Day at the YMCA Hawker Centre on Richmond Road. Today, you will have received a letter via ParentPay with all the details of day. A copy of the letter is linked here.
If you have a child in Years 3, 4, 5 or 6, please complete the collection arrangements form linked here by Wednesday 24th May to let us know whether we will be dismissing them from the Hawker Centre or from school. Please note that children will NOT be permitted to walk home alone from the Hawker Centre.
All children will need a packed lunch on the day and should wear school PE kit with a t-shirt representing their Fern Hill House colour - please see the letter for further information.
Our Careers Fair is planned for the afternoon of Thursday 22nd June. We hope to showcase a varied range of careers and would welcome volunteers from our parent community at the Fair, to talk to the children about the jobs that they do. If you can help, please let us know by completing this linked form - thank you. You can find all the details in the letter linked here.
Author Visit & Book Signing
On Tuesday 20th of June, acclaimed author and former Fern Hill teacher, Cath Howe, will be visiting our pupils to speak about her latest books: 'My Life on Fire' and 'Call the Puffins'.
'Call the Puffins' is the first book in a delightful new series about puffins and teamwork - for readers aged 5+. Welcome to the island of Egg where a group of young puffins are training to join a search and rescue team. Meet Muffin who is following in her dad's footsteps and anxious not to let him down. Meet Tiny whose eyesight is a challenge which won't stop him for long. And meet Forti who seems so over-confident but is really desperate to impress. Along with their fellow recruits, the puffins must work together to help all the birds on the island.
'My Life on Fire' is a tense, page-turning story that sensitively deals with themes of family upheaval and kleptomania. Ren’s family loses their home in a fire. They’re living with her grandmother now and things are a bit tense. Ren lost her collection of things, her clothes; her brother lost his little bear and is inconsolable. So Ren starts replacing things with other people’s possessions. They’ve got loads of stuff, after all. But she gets caught and has to strike a terrifying deal to avoid detection…
Regency Bookshop in Surbiton is supplying us with copies of Cath's books at a discounted rate. Copies of 'Call the Puffins' and 'My Life on Fire' are available for purchase via ParentPay for £5.59 and £6.09 respectively. The books will be delivered to school and signed by Cath Howe on the day of her visit. All payments must be made by Monday 5th June at the latest.
Book of the Week
‘The Kingdom Over the Sea’ by Zohra Nabi
When Yara’s mum dies, she leaves a strange set of instructions behind that lead Yara away from the home she’s always known in England to a parallel realm across the sea and the city of Zehaira.
In Zehaira, Yara discovers that the person she was supposed to find has been banished and the city itself has been torn apart by a power struggle between sorcerers and alchemists. Zara must journey into the wilderness to join up with the outcast sorcerers and find out who she really is.
‘The Kingdom Over the Sea is a lyrical and spellbinding story of friendship, found family and finding your feet in a dazzling new world. Zohra Nabi is a marvellous storyteller and, after that cliffhanger ending, I hope book 2 isn’t too far away!
~ Mrs Rouillard, School Librarian
Cath Howe Book Launch
It was lovely to see some current and former Fern Hill pupils last Thursday night at the launch of Cath Howe's latest book ‘My Life on Fire’ - a wonderfully warm and empathetic story about a girl who loses everything in a house fire.
We're looking forward to welcoming Cath back to Fern Hill on the 20th of June for her assembly and book signing.
TEAM POINTS
The overall winner this week is COOMBE
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Kingston
224
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Coombe
249
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Richmond
218
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Hampton
243
PSA News & Events
Friday 19th May - Special General Meeting
You will have seen from recent messages that the PSA needs your help to update! Next Friday 19th May we will be holding a Special General Meeting after drop off in the Small Hall.
We need at least 30 people (not from the same family) to attend this meeting to vote to approve the new PSA constitution. This will be the only item on the agenda, so the meeting will be very quick (a maximum of 20 minutes). If you can attend, please let us know via this linked form.
We will be approving our new constitution, which is the document setting out how we run the PSA as a registered charity. We are going to use a ParentKind model document - ParentKind are a membership association for PSA organisations across the UK. A copy of this model document is available here, but the key message is that this new constitution will help us to run the PSA more easily, with less strict requirements around attendance at meetings etc. while also complying the legal requirements of the Charity Commission. We are really grateful for your time! Hopefully, we will not have to do this again for many years. Thank you.
Friday 19th May - Pre-loved Uniform and Sports Kit sale - Donations needed!
After school next Friday we will be holding a pre-loved uniform sale. Please bring in any donations on Wednesday 17th May and leave them on the trolley outside main reception. We would be grateful for Fern Hill branded sweatshirts and cardigans, school ties, and PE kit. We will also be selling any unwanted sports kit, so if you have football boots, shin pads, hockey sticks, gymnastic leotards or any other children's sports items to donate, please bring them in on Wednesday.
We need a few more volunteers to help sell at this event - set up is from 2:30 pm and the sale will end at 3:45 pm, but if you can only spare half an hour between those times, that is great too! Thank you!
Dads Breakfast - Friday 26th May - Can you volunteer?
We will be holding a breakfast for our dads and male carers to enjoy with their children, before school on Friday 26th May. We need some willing mums/female carers to help set up and serve. If you can help please let your Class Rep know or tell us on the PSA WhatsApp group. Set up is from 7:00 am, and servers should arrive at 7:30 am. The event runs until 8:45 am. Thank you.
Inspiration 