No 73 Friday 7th October

Soccer& Multi Sport Coaching leaflet Y3— Y6 Letter to Year 4 regarding the Songfest at St Paul’s School, Barnes

Dear Parents, It was a pleasure to meet with the Class Reps at the Kew College Friends’ coffee morning yesterday and to hear your comments and suggestions for ways to help things run even more smoothly at Kew College. We are constantly seek-ing to improve, and it is very helpful to hear your views and ideas. Many of the points raised referred to congestion at pick-up times, which is clearly a particular issue while we still have the builders in. Because we were required under the terms of our last ISI inspection for provide extra toilet facilities for the Infants, we have had to sacrifice the separate entrance for the Nursery at the front of the school and this inevitably poses further challenges. As soon as the builders have left and the Nursery returns to normal we will take another look at this to see if something more practical can be worked out. There were comments also about parking on our forecourt. As a rule we discourage any parking on the forecourt and any staff cars are moved out onto the road at midday to clear space for you, but we cannot guarantee that there will never be any cars there and so I would urge you to continue to keep a close eye on your children while you are waiting. There was some discussion about cover for absent teachers. If a teacher is absent just for a day or two we will ask other teachers if they are free, or the Teaching Assistants, who know the children and the curriculum extremely well, to take over some of the duties on those days, under supervision of the parallel teacher. Supply teachers brought in from outside often take a couple of days simply getting to know the children and our systems and simply cause more disruption to no advantage. Regarding the mixing of classes: our first experience of this appears to have gone very smoothly and the children seem to have adapted well and to be settled and happy. Indeed there seems to be an extra ‘buzz’ around the place as new friendships are made and new ideas shared. For next summer I am happy to send out the new lists a couple of weeks after the end of the summer term (we need to work on them after the end of term in peace and quiet!) but on the understanding that we will not make any changes to the lists once they are issued. To clarify, you will be asked to name three children, no more and no less, that your child would like to stay with. You will also have the option not to name any. For the move from Nursery to Kindergarten, we will simply draw up the new classes with-out requesting preferences as it is more appropriate at this stage. There were some very helpful suggestions about ways to maintain and update our Reading Lists with the help of par-ents, and this will be followed up in conjunction with Mrs Mogilner and Miss Storrar. The issue of school lunches was raised. At the moment we clearly have no space for a kitchen or dining area. How-ever, as I pointed out, my experience of other schools with state-of-the-art dining facilities still suggests to me than in comparison our children at Kew College develop better table manners by being required to eat in silence for ten minutes before making polite conversation within their classrooms. You also know exactly what they have eaten, since you have provided it yourselves. It is very striking when we take our children out on school outings how much more pleasant they are to share a table with than those from some other schools! The lunch-time bonding of Year 6 children with the younger pupils is also a very important feature of our school. We have just appointed a Maternity Cover Teaching Assistant, Miss Diana Edmunds, to cover Mrs O’Shea in 1B. She has already been in to meet the staff and children and will be starting with us during the course of next week. We are currently in the process of appointing a Maternity Cover teacher for Mrs Barnard and will let you know as soon as the appointment is confirmed. As you know, the two Year 1 classes plan, work and discuss very closely together and continuity will be ensured for all the children in the year group. You can be sure that this is a very important consideration for us. Thank you all very much for your generous donations of produce for our Harvest Festival. Our visitors from the Sal-vation Army attended Junior and Infant Assemblies and were able to tell the children about how the food will be distributed. They are extremely grateful for the donations, and we are grateful to them for reminding us how very fortunate we are in our day-to-day lives. Year 6 returned from a glorious weekend at Hooke Court tired, fairly dirty and very happy, full of tales of the adven-tures they encountered. Many thanks to Mrs Austin, Mr Barlow and Miss Sarah for giving up their weekend (and their sleep!)to accompany the children. I wish you all a very relaxing and happy weekend. Anne Dobell

NOTICES

DIARY DATES

Please fill in a time slot for the Nursery—Year 5 Parents’ Evening.

The forms will be outside the office for the week. All Week

Year 5 field trip to Crane Park Coach leaves at

9.15am

Monday 10th October Form 2M and 2B first half of the register and Year 3 Open Mornings

8.20 – 8.35am

Year 6 Parents’ Evening (Girls) 5.00pm

Tuesday 11th October Form 2M and 2B second half of the register

and Kindergarten Open Mornings 8.20 – 8.35am

Wednesday 12th October

Baroness Greenfield talk to Years 6 and Queens School Year 5 in the Sedum

1.30pm 2.15pm

Form 1M and 1C 1st half of the register and Year 4 Open Mornings

8.20 – 8.35am

Year 6 Parents’ Evening (Boys) 5.00pm

Thursday 13th October Form 1B and 1M Second half of the alphabet Open Morning 8.20 – 8.35am

Friday 14th October Year 2 Cake Sale 8.20am

Perform Drama Workshops for Nursery – Year 2 in the Sedum 9.00am

CALLING ALL CAKE BAKERS Please help by baking as many NUT FREE cakes and biscuits for the KCF Sale on Fri 14 October at 2 pm .

HOME FIRE SAFETY IN THE HOME Following a terrible house fire recently, I have had a communication from the London Fire Brigade asking me to pass on suggestions about how to keep your families safe at home. Here are the key points:

Have a working smoke alarm and test it regularly.

Check electrical appliances regularly.

Never overload plug sockets, and if you notice unusual smells or noises coming from appliances, get them checked by a professional.

Switch off non-essential items when not in use.

Have an escape plan for your family and practise it so that everyone knows what to do.

If there is a fire get out, stay out and call the fire brigade.

Call 999 and do not attempt to tackle the fire yourself.

Do not collect any personal possessions.

Do not go back in for anything.

STOP PRESS! Nursery move The builders assure us that they will be finished by the end of today, although the forecourt will not yet be clear as the skip still needs to be collected. The staff will be working hard to get the Nursery room back into action for Monday morning. Barring any last-minute hitches (which we know can always occur!), the Nursery should be back in operation on Monday and we are look-ing forward to showing off our new facilities. Could parents of children in Nursery therefore please bring their children to the back gate as

usual on Monday. Thank you.

YEAR 6 RESIDENTIAL WEEKEND AT HOOKE COURT Friday morning saw Year 6 traipsing down the road pulling suit-cases on the first leg of their jour-

ney to Hooke Court. The weather was fabulous and what better part of England to be in than the

countryside of Dorset when the sun is shining. The children were thrown into team building exer-

cises straight after lunch and surprised themselves in their abilities to work co-operatively to

solve problems both physical and abstract. In the evening they created beautiful shell boxes

which they will bring home after they have been on display in school. An early start on Saturday

was followed by the “Tribal Kingdom” activity where the children built their own shelters from

wood, delighted each other and the staff with their tribal chants and went on to paint their faces

for an afternoon of more tribal activities and a scavenger hunt which were all thoroughly enjoy-

able. Creeping into the woods in the dark after dinner was a real adventure. The camp fire was

already lit and they sang their hearts out and shared jokes into the late evening. There is nothing

quite as delightful or heart-warming as the laughter of happy children. After a hot chocolate and

a biscuit there was not a sound in the house. They slept like babies and were hard to waken in

the morning! On Sunday after bed stripping, packing and breakfast they made rockets and

watched enthusiastically as these were loaded with explosives and shot 150 meters into the air.

Everyone had a truly wonderful time. The staff would like to e thank all of the boys and girls of

Year 6 for their amazing energy and enthusiasm, their terrific sense of humour and their delight-

ful company last weekend. All of these attributes made the weekend the success that it was.

Congratulations Ptolemy Y3, for training his dog to be able to win first prize in the Chiswick House dog show. Matthew Y3 for being the 'under 11s' winner of the most Park Runs at Bushey Park, he has run the 5Km track 28 times.

On 3rd October, the motion for the debate was ‘This house believes that Celebrities are bad role models for children.’ This motion was carried by 9 votes to 4 with 3 abstentions, showing that our children are not as

influenced by celebrity glitz and glamour as might be expected! Perhaps the most compelling ar-

gument for the motion was the children’s sense of injustice at the vast amounts of money celeb-

rities receive, whilst many indulge in highly inappropriate public behaviours. The most powerful

argument detailed positive celebrity role models, such as David Walliams, who do a great deal

for charity and inspire children to achieve their best.

HEADTEACHER’S COMMENDATION

Congratulations to the following children, who won the award this week:

Clemmie W-J, Margaux C, Ethan M and Molly R in Year 6 for working hard to achieve their targets. Clement in 2B for fantastic story writing.

Joseph S in 4L for kindness and friendship.

Well done, children!

Golden Sentence of the Week winners! Golden Sentence of the Week is an exciting new weekly competition for Years 2 – 6! The best sentences from each year group will be selected and displayed in class, with the winning names published in Kew News. To win, you have to use powerful words and adventurous sentence openers! This week’s winners are:

Congratulations to all our winners!

Year 2: Clement 2B

Year 4: Isabel 4F Zimilia (4L) Joseph (4L) Thomas (4L)

Year 5: Graham (5S) Eliza (5S) Robert (5S) Frederick (5L) Edward (5S) Madeline (5L)

Year 3: Olivia 3S Nerys 3B

Year 6 Huw Georgina

On the 4th October, the Year 4 A team played a match against St James. Thanks to great de-fence from Georgia and Molly, good passing from Heather and the whole team and brilliant shooting from Jessica, we were up 5-0 at half time. After an encouraging talk from Mrs Mayer, we walked back on the pitch. We had the centre pass. Milly passed to Molly. Molly passed to Lauren, who passed to Jessica, who passed to me and I scored! We won 6-0, but still need to work on not obstructing. Well done team! Amelia 4L

Year 4 B team played St. James’s netball team on Tuesday 4th of October. St James’s team got the first centre pass. At half time nobody had scored a goal yet. We had a talk with Mrs Tabor and then got back to the game. In the second half Bella scored two goals. The whis-tle blew and we had won 2-0. Well done B team! Next time I think we need to space out more. Francine 4L