Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest, if we do not give up. Galatians 6:9
A message from the Head
As part of our Christian value Perseverance, we have been exploring the importance of doing our best at all times, persevering even when the going gets tough, and understanding that continued effort brings its rewards. We continue to celebrate our children's successes in different ways in school, and especially on Fridays in our collective worship.
What extreme weather we have had over the past fortnight! Please do continue to pay attention to the forecasts and send your children into school in the appropriate clothing.
I am sure that you will all now be aware of the extension to the current COVID-19 measures announced by the Government last week. Please make sure that you have read the letter that was sent out on Tuesday evening and is also posted in the Virtual office. It contains some important information.
As a result of the Government announcement, it is a great shame that PSA will not be able to hold the popular summer social events. Not only are these events a great deal of fun and enjoyment for families, but it also brings in much needed revenue for PSA. I do hope that when these events are possible again, you will all be able to fully support them.
Staff changes
After 20 years of working with children at St John’s Mrs Libby Jaquest (our Nursery teacher) will be retiring. A number of her pupils have returned to St John’s as parents themselves! We thank her for her many years of dedication to our school family.
Miss Katie Channer will be returning to Thailand to complete her teaching stint abroad. She will be very sorely missed, but we wish her all the very best and we hope to hear from her in the future.
Miss Lauren Clegg is also leaving us at the end of this term to pursue other projects in Social Media. We will all be sorry to see her go and wish her all the best.
Miss Caroline Palmer-Hall will be leaving at the end of the academic year. She has been a valued member of our school family and we wish her all the best in her future endeavours.
If you would like to contribute to leaving gifts for these staff please put it in a named envelope and send it into the school office.
Keep going we can do it!
Please donate and share. This will be created by WeAreSkyHigh. A mosaic will also also be produced by a local artist, Philippa Adams, to commemorate our school's birthday. Our children will be involved in these projects. Can you please support us in raising £4000 towards these projects. Please donate to our JustGiving Crowdfunding Page, and help us share this link on your social media platforms
Our wonderful mosaic to commemorate our school's birthday, produced by a local artist Philippa Adams along with all the students at St John's, is now complete and in place on the wall of Bluebridge House.
Birthday week timetable
Monday 5th July: Sports Day (in school) followed by a picnic lunch
Tuesday 6th July: Victorian Day: Victorian farm, Victorian fancy dress, design a t-shirt activity
Weds 7th July: Church service blessing the new mosaic
Thursday 8th July: Time capsule, virtual interviews with school alumni
Friday 9th July: Carnival day with magic shows and procession to Bedelsford School and back
Two air raid shelters and allotments
Read about John Pridmore's St John's memories from his years at the school during 1945 - 1951
Another unearthed Album
Mrs Singh has discovered another old photograph album featuring images from across the years at StJohn's. See the images here
OWL & Forest School News
We're taking part in RHS Hampton Court Palace Garden Festival!
We are excited to announce that OWL have been asked to be involved in the RHS Hampton Court Palace Garden Festival. We will be taking part with 7 like minded community groups in The Community Brain's 'Crop-Ups' garden as part of the Community Allotments category. You can read all about what the children have been growing and designing here
Woodland Warriors - Holiday Club
Our holiday club is filling up fast - all the booking details can be found here
Danceathon
The children and staff did a brilliant job dancing to raise funds for our partner school in Malawi. The final total is a brilliant £2,723.08! This is the most ever raised by a partnership school ever since they have been running (since 2008). This will make an incredible difference to M’khalapadzuwa School in Malawi. Thank you all again.
Updates from our class teachers
Reception
We have been very busy in Hubble class recently. One of the children asked if we could make lemonade and so we squeezed lemons and added sugar and enjoyed some lovely homemade lemonade. We have also been learning about halves and quarters and we used this concept when making our Fathers day biscuits. We divided the icing we had rolled out into halves or quarters and then decorated it. We wrote a label to tell our Dads and Granddads' how much we love them. We even used some fruit and vegetables to cut in halves and quarters and the best bit was we got to eat them! Keeping on the Maths theme we learnt the names and properties of some 3D shapes and some children even found some of those shapes at home too. We are now busy making props to make a garden for the fairies in the playground.
Year 1
We have been learning about the Wright brothers and the first aeroplane flight. We had fun being detectives looking at different sources to find out about their thrilling adventures. It is part of our History topic on Explorers. We looked at different sources to find out what happened with the first flight. We looked at the telegram the brothers sent to their father, a diary extract, a photograph that was taken that day of the aeroplane at Kitty Hawk, and a newspaper report.
In DT we looked at the red arrows and Concorde to help us design our own paper aeroplanes. We had a competition to see which one flew the furthest.
In geography we have been learning about the Artic and the various amazing animals living there.
Year 2
Brilliant Byron Class continue to be working very hard in all areas of their learning! They have even welcomed new members to the class -three caterpillars!
They have started to look at the work of the artist Anni Albers. The weaving is coming on beautifully!
Year 3
Year 3 have been exploring fractions in maths and we used Lego to build mini fraction walls. Our new geography topic ‘The UK’ has led us to look at the different counties making up the UK.
Year 4
This term class 4 are learning about playscripts. We have been looking at the features of playscripts and watching different plays as well as acting out different roles. We have acted out the traditional story of Goldilocks and Three bears and watched A Midsummer Night's dream. We have also been acting out a play called Just like us which is set in classroom during second world war.
Year 5
The chairs in Year 5 went on strike last week. They have had enough of Class 5 pupils swinging on them, kicking them and spilling food on them. The chairs wrote each Class 5 child a letter to express how upset and annoyed they were. This sparked some incredibly passionate persuasive writing as each Class 5 child had to convince the rest of the class they could have their chair back.
In maths, Class 5 are investigating ‘shape and space’. They have been making angles with their bodies and understanding similarities and differences in the exterior and interior angles of regular and irregular shapes.
Class 5’s Rounders’ tournament earlier last week became very heated and ended with a draw! Watch this space as a tie breaker will be happening this week (weather permitting!)…
Year 6
Class six have been getting to grips with algebra this week, and found that it is not as hard as they thought it was going to be. They have also been putting the finishing touches on their volcano power points which they will be presenting in the near future. They have also been learning about dichotomous keys and are going to be constructing their own shortly. Busy busy!
Transition arrangements 2021-2022
In preparation for the new school year the children will have the opportunity next week to meet their new teacher and spend time in their new classroom. Teachers will introduce their autumn theme and set out their expectations. The teachers for next year and their transition mornings are as follows:
Year 1: Mrs H Keaney (Wednesday and Thursday)
Year 2: Ms M Brierley (Wednesday and Thursday)
Year 3: Ms N Wilson (Wednesday and Thursday)
Year 4: Ms C Campbell (Wednesday and Thursday)
Year 5: Ms N Quartey- Papafio (Monday and Tuesday)
Year 6: Mr G Redhead (Wednesday and Thursday)
The Early Years have a separate arrangement which is already in progress.
Kingston postcard competition
Congratulations to Charlie, Jake and Oscar from Year 2 who have had their art work of Kingston recognized by Kingston Tour Guides. Their work has been turned into postcards for visitors to the town. Fabulous news for the boys, Class 2 and St. John's - well done!
School Street
Last night at the Kingston Neighbourhood Committee meeting approval was given to go ahead with the trial school street scheme on Portland Road. Fantastic news!
We will update staff and parents with information before the end of the school year, as they are proposing to start the scheme on 20th September 2021.
The link to the report is below:
Summer Reading Challenge
The national summer reading challenge will be arriving online and in your local public library this summer. The challenge will be launching in Kingston on 10th July and will be open to all children aged 4-12. This year’s theme is “World Wide Heroes” and will be focusing on making a positive difference to the local environment. For more information, please visit the Summer Reading Challenge website: www.summerreadingchallenge.org.uk
National Book Tokens
Help us win £5,000 of National Book Tokens for our school library - and if your entry is picked, get £100 for yourself! Just enter the competition online, it only takes a minute: https://www.nationalbooktokens.com/schools
The FUEL summer holiday activity and food programme
This summer, Achieving for Children is putting on the biggest programme of activity and food programmes seen across Kingston and Richmond. From multi activity day camps, to forest school, and dance groups, there is sure to be something for everyone. With places available for all children, and FREE places available for those in receipt of benefits-related free school meals, search “FUEL achieving for children” for more information. Further information and how to book your place will be available in the coming weeks.
For more information please visit http://www.kr.afcinfo.org.uk/FUEL2021
Lost property
Please see below the attached images of recent lost property items we currently have in the school office. Please do contact us if any of the items belong to your child. If they are not claimed by the end of Friday 2nd July they will be donated to charity.
Please note that none of these items have names on - can we request that you name all your child's clothing and belongings so if they are lost we can return them to you quickly. If using My Nametags, be sure to use our unique code 28469 at the checkout to help us raise funds for our PSA My Nametags.
Thank you.
REMINDERS:
Sports day on 5th July
A reminder that children must wear t-shirts in the colour of their House and bring a named water bottle.
Don't forget your t-shirt!
Could every child please bring in a plain white t-shirt by Friday 2nd July. They will use them to create their own designs during our birthday celebration week.
Class pages on the website
We hope you are enjoying the new school website. Don't forget to check your child's class page for latest photos and updates of what they are doing in school.
Reporting absences
A reminder that if your child is unwell or will be absent from school for any reason, please inform the school office before 8.30am. You can call, email or contact us through School Comms. Thank you.
Reading Records
Please don't forget to sign your child's reading diary every week. Thank you.
Bikes
Bikes in school - we are still asking parents not to bring these to school yet unless you have been given explicit permission to do so. Our playground is still quite tight due to keeping bubbles separate. Thank you for you support.
Litter outside school
Please help keep our school tidy and make sure we keep the area outside school litter free.
Dates for your Diary
1st July 6pm: Virtual new parents evening for nursery and reception starters
5th July: Sports day
5th-9th July: 150th Anniversary celebrations
Wednesday 7th July: Hollyfield Secondary School induction day for year 6 pupils
Wednesday 21st July: Nursery last day of term
Thursday 22nd July: School last day of term at 2pm
Term dates have been updated and more diary dates can be found on our website here
St John's Foodbank
Thank you to all who still donate to St John’s Foodbank through generous monetary and item donations. Those that use this facility are extremely grateful for this continued support. This outreach goes to our local community and as far out as Croydon. Please remember we are happy to support anyone you know that is in need. You can approach staff discretely or send a message at any point. We hope to run this till the end of the school year. A big thanks goes to Paul Hemmings, our Site Manager, for running this.
House points
House points are regularly updated and are displayed on the front page of the website as well as on each individual class page.
Birthday books
As part of our healthy eating status, we discourage the sending in of sweets and cakes to celebrate birthdays. If you would like to celebrate your child's birthday you can purchase a book for the school library. We will add a citation inside the front cover.
Brite Box
Please help support this wonderful charity who support many families across the borough of Kingston-upon-Thames.
COVID-19
DO NOT SEND YOUR CHILD TO SCHOOL IF THEY SHOW ANY OF THE COVID SYMPTOMS OR ARE UNWELL.
Surge testing in Kingston
Cases of COVID-19 in Kingston have been rising sharply. This is linked to a broader national increase seen in the Delta variant (formerly widely referred to as the ‘Indian variant’). We need to act now to stop the spread, and keep our borough safe. Visit www.kingston.gov.uk/surge for more information.
All staff at St John’s took part in the Kingston’s Surge Test last week. I am pleased that we were and are able to keep all class bubbles open. With an increasing number of school bubble class closures locally we need you to help us continue to stay safe and open by:
Not sending your child in if they are unwell or if anyone in your household has Coronavirus symptoms. Current research is showing that the most common symptoms with this variant are headaches, sore throat, runny nose, cough and fever. Please be alert to these symptoms. If in doubt, get a test
Participating in twice weekly testing using rapid home testing kits(these are available to collect from the school office and to order from here): Order coronavirus CCOVID-19) rapid lateral flow tests
Following the guidance for staggered drop off and collections for your child; keeping to your time window and wearing a mask/face covering. Please avoid crowds or any congregating.
Follow the Hands, Face, Space, Fresh Air guidance
If you are 18 and above book your Covid Vaccination now
Keeping all of us safe
The National Domestic Abuse Helpline Continues to operate 24 hours a day including bank holidays & weekends 0808 2000 247
Crimestoppers have launched a campaign encouraging the public to report concerns about family, friends and colleagues who may be experiencing Domestic Abuse while self-isolating.
Please find here an excellent Safeguarding Handbook for primary schools by the Kingston and Richmond Safeguarding Team. Safeguarding—In Safe hands