Key Dates
Monday 12th July
Reception workshop in school: Pirates
Tuesday 13th July
Year 6 visit Albany Outdoors
Wednesday 14th July
Year 6 Macbeth performance (to be filmed)
Friday 16th July
Year 1 workshop in school: Wild Animals
Monday 19th July
Pupil Reports home for children in Nursery, Reception, Year 1 & Year 2
Tuesday 20th July
Pupil Reports home for children in Year 3 to Year 6
Wednesday 21st July
NURSERY CLOSED
Class changeover day — the children spend the afternoon in their new class for September
Year 6 Leavers' Party in school, 5:30 – 7:00 pm
Thursday 22nd July
Year 6 Leavers' Assemblies
Friday 23rd July — last day of term & mufti (non-uniform) day
NURSERY CLOSES AT 11:45 am
SCHOOL CLOSES AT 1:30 pm Staggered dismissal times will be in place (see below)
Monday 26th July – Tuesday 31st August
SUMMER HOLIDAY
Wednesday 1st September
Start of the autumn term — INSET Day — children are not in school
Thursday 2nd September
Children return to school
Reminders
After School Clubs
Next week is the last week for most after school clubs for this term. Monday clubs (Just 4 Kicks Infant Football, Technokids and Magpie Makes Sewing) will have their final sessions on Monday 19th July.
Attachments
Year Group Newsletters
Academy Consultation Meetings
Dismissal arrangements
On Friday 23rd July, school will close early. To manage footfall on the school site, collection times will be staggered as follows:
1:25 pm — Year 1 & Year 4
1:30 pm — Year 5 & Reception
1:35 pm — Year 3 & Year 2
1:40 pm — Year 6
If your child is attending Tree Tops on this day, don’t forget the session will run from the end of the school day and end promptly at 4:30 pm.
Class Assemblies
Class assemblies for Reception, Year 1, Year 2, Year 3 and Year 4 are all available for you to watch on the Google Classroom. Year 5’s assembly will be based on their current geography topic Trade & Enterprise and will be filmed next week as part of the finale event, a trading session!
Congratulations to Mrs Manzambi, Bluebell class teacher, on the birth of a baby boy. Mum and baby are both doing very well!
Academy Consultation
There will be two information sessions next week regarding the proposal for Fern Hill to convert to academy status, at 9:30 am on Monday 12th July and 7:00 pm on Tuesday 13th July. The sessions will be hosted using Google Meet and Mr Scott will be joined by Susan Dean, Chair of Fern Hill’s Governing Body, and Graham Willett, Chair of Kingston Educational Trust. You can find out more about this, including how to join a meeting, on the school website here and in the letter attached below.
Thank you!
Thank you very much to all our families who took the time to give us their views about Fern Hill and their child’s experience here. 257 of you completed the annual Parent & Carer Survey and we are very grateful for your feedback. Reception and Year 5 both received the greatest number of responses and will have their very own mufti day and class treat before the end of term! Next term, we'll share how your feedback forms a key part of the school development and improvement plan.
After school clubs & Tree Tops for the autumn term
Subject to any changes in government restrictions, we are planning to return to our usual full range of after school clubs, with something for everyone including sport, art and crafts, singing and music, science, computing, chess, and languages. We are finalising the calendar now and plan to open go live with bookings next Thursday 15th July. You will receive an email via ParentPay with all the details.
Next term, Tree Tops will have an increased capacity and a more flexible booking system via ParentPay. The way we process childcare vouchers is changing so if you don’t already use them but plan to in the future, please email us as soon as possible at: treetops@fernhill.rbksch.org to let us know so we can guide you through the new process.
Bags of Kindness
“Year 2 have been learning about Africa and focussing on Kenya. As some of you will know, Fern Hill supports 'The Lunchbowl Network', a charity which provides meals, education and other vital resources to children who live in Kibera, a shanty town just outside Nairobi. In Design & Technology the children have designed African style bags and they will be using their sewing skills to add fastenings and decorations next week. The Year 2 children have decided they would like to support the charity so we will be asking parents and carers for a small donation when we send home the bags they are making."
— Miss Duffy, Class Teacher
Last week, our writer in residence, Cath Howe, gave an assembly to children in Year 5 and 6 based around her new book, ‘How to be Me’. Unfortunately, we weren’t able to run an author book signing event after school as we would usually do but we have been able to order books at a reduced price from the publisher and will arrange for Cath to dedicate and sign them before the end of term.
If you would like to order a copy of ‘How to be Me’, please complete and submit this order form by Tuesday 13th July. The book is priced at £5.00 and payment will need to be made via ParentPay. Your signed book(s) will be available before the end of term. The book is suitable for children from Year 3 up.
About Cath Howe
Cath Howe is an author and teacher working in London, writing for, and working with, Key Stage 2 primary age children. She runs workshops in schools on everything to do with writing and performing including Fern Hill’s performing arts festival, Fern Speak. We are very lucky at Fern Hill to have Cath as our very own Writer in Residence!
Cath’s first two books were published in 2012 by Pearson for their Bug Club series: ‘The Curse of the Highwayman’ and ‘The Highwayman’s Revenge’. Since then, she has written more books for the Pearson Bug Club, a vibrant collection of drama scripts and poetry for primary schools and drama festivals called ‘Let’s Perform’, and two highly acclaimed children’s fiction book, ‘Ella on the Outside’ and ‘Not My Fault’.
About the book, 'How to be Me’'
Lucas is all alone.
Since his mum died, Lucas and his dad don't seem to understand each other at all. And Lucas is dreading the summer drama club that his dad has signed him up for. But the people Lucas meets at the club force him to open up and start talking. Can his new-found friends teach Lucas how to be himself?
A beautiful, moving story of family, friendship and self-discovery.
Plant sale next week
Our Gardening Club has worked so hard this term and the children have grown lots of lovely tomato plants to raise money to buy tools and other resources to help maintain the gardens and vegetable patches. The plants will be available to pick up on Tuesday 13th July after school, just inside the main entrance to school on the Richmond Road. Unfortunately the children won’t be able to be there to help sell the plants and we don’t want to encourage too big a crowd but there will be an honesty box for you to contribute to — all donations are very welcome!
TEAM POINTS
The overall winner this week is COOMBE
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Kingston
161
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Coombe
163
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Richmond
66
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Hampton
146
PSA News & Events
Uniform Sale
We will be running a second hand uniform sale on Wednesday 21st July and would welcome any pre-loved items, particularly in smaller sizes to fit children in Reception, Year 1 and Year 2. Please bring any donations to school on Monday 21st July when we will be on site to collect them. Thank you. We also need lots of volunteers to help at the sale. If you are available on Wednesday 23rd July, and can spare an hour or two, please let us know by email at: fernhillpsa@gmail.com.
Annual General Meeting
We are holding the PSA AGM next Thursday 15th July via Zoom and we’d love you to be there. We’ll be discussing the exciting ideas we have planned for the Autumn Term and reviewing the volunteer roles available for the next school year. The PSA and it's fundraising activities for the school only exist because parents, carers and teachers volunteer their time to run events or take a more formal role; none of which take a huge amount of your time, but do hugely benefit the children. Please get involved!
Topic: FernHill PSA meeting invite 1
Time: Jul 15, 2021 20:00 London
Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81197761170?pwd=UGVhREZKay9tQlRFQXdpR2VEV1BVQT09
Meeting ID: 811 9776 1170 |Passcode: 0x3YZ7
As Zoom is limited to 45 minutes, if we need further time, please use this link to rejoin the meeting:
Topic: FernHill PSA meeting invite 2
Time: Jul 15, 2021 20:45 London
Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85805678673?pwd=MjNxTUhac21EZVc5VXdPR0FwNjduUT09
Meeting ID: 858 0567 8673 | Passcode: 1aU4rx
Inspiration 