Dear Parents,
From class assemblies to Year 2 scooter training to the Year 5 participation in Young Voices at the O2, there have been a number of different activities over the past two weeks. I have also managed to take a lesson in every Year 3 and Year 4 class recently. It is great to see how the children are progressing with their learning and to have some teaching into my schedule.
You will have seen the communication about the forthcoming strike on Wednesday 1st February; we will let you know if anything changes as soon as we can.
Year 5 Young voices at the O2 - Tuesday 23rd January.
The children in Year 5 enjoyed a wonderful day of rehearsals and an evening performance of 'Young Voices' on Tuesday evening this week. It was my first live experience of the event and the benefits for the children were considerable. I had to wait until the 'Trolls megamix' to show my true knowledge of the songs, but the children had learnt numerous songs from different genres. Whilst not only singing, they enjoyed performances by well-established acts including Beatbox Collective and Urban Strides dance. Thank you to all the staff who gave up their day and evening for the children.
Ella: I really enjoyed when all the Urban Strides dancers came on stage for the interactive part. Even though there were 9,099 of us, we could all join in and learn some moves!
Tala: I really enjoyed the violinist Anna Phoebe coming in. She could play so many different genres on her violin. She was unique compared to classic violinists.
Yehonatan: I really enjoyed the encore of the Nile Rogers songs as finally the giant disco ball lit up and covered us all in lights. I had been watching the ball throughout and it hadn’t yet been used! It was a great end to the concert.
Quiz Club
There is a new club being run at school by Ms Sroka, our enrichment lead. It is called 'Quiz Club' and children learn and test their general knowledge in informal quizzes each week through videos from an outside company. In their teams children have to collaborate and then select their answer. All children in KS2, regardless of whether they are in the club, will get the opportunity to take a quiz to represent Sheen Mount in an inter-school competition in general knowledge. Each team has to have a representative from Years 3, 4, 5 and 6 which encourages excellent communication and collaborative learning skills between children from different year groups.
Three Year 6 children's opinion-
Ben: We learn something new every time we go there. I’ve enjoyed learning about sports. There was a joke at the end that the quiz master does-they are bad jokes!
Lia: I enjoy how it builds your cooperation skills. Each time there is a question, everyone is in a team and we discuss our opinions of the answer and then we have to agree, which one we go for. I enjoy learning the history facts.
Ayla: It's fun and exciting, even if you don’t know the answer, you can listen to the conversation and then guess if you need to. I learnt about a part of the knee called a patella.
Children's Mental Health Week-message from Mrs Teeling
Children's Mental Health Week will take place from 6th February and this year's theme is Let's Connect. People thrive in communities and this connection is vital for our wellbeing. At school, we will be taking part in fun activities such as a flash mob dance and taskmaster challenges which encourage children to connect with others in healthy, rewarding and meaningful ways. Additionally, Little Tweaks are offering online mindfulness sessions starting on Monday 6th of February free of charge to all Sheen Mount families.
PE kit-trousers/shorts
With the cold weather, children may wear tracksuit bottoms/leggings to school as part of their PE kit. We seem to have various different colours and styles being worn at the moment. They need to be navy, black or dark grey and can only have one small motif written on them. There shouldn't be patterns or words down the legs. Thank you for your help with this and we expect this to be the case across the school from after half-term.
We are looking at a different colour for the school PE shorts because I have noticed the difficulty with white, plus it has been raised by parents. There will be a period of either colour being worn, so parents will not be expected to instantly purchase something new.
Books
Over £500 of the money raised for purchasing new books for the classrooms via the Winter Ball has been spent. Half of it for classroom books and half of it for the SPARK! books. Thank you to all of you who have contributed.
Toilet upgrades-recommendations
We are looking to upgrade the downstairs toilets in the main part of the school, used by four year groups. We are looking for recommendations for companies to quote for the work. Please email info@sheenmount.richmond.sch.uk if you have any suggestions.
'After-school meltdowns'
Mrs Jeffery, our SENCO, recommended this article to be shared as it provides some useful advice and reflection.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/articles/z863cxs
Online Safety for Parents evening presentation
I have arranged for Peter Cowley, AFCs lead Adviser for Online Services and Safety, to give an online parent presentation to parents on Wednesday 8th March at 7.30pm. The link for the presentation will be emailed directly, rather than being available publicly on the newsletter. This will be a presentation just for Sheen Mount parents, together with an opportunity to ask questions.
We will continue to offer a range of parent presentations through the academic year.
English as an Additional Language (EAL) coffee morning
We would like to invite any parents for whom English is not their native language to a coffee morning. There will be a short presentation and the opportunity to answer any questions, but mostly it will be a time to connect with other parents. This event will be on Thursday 16th March at 9am. The event will last for around an hour, but the networking part will be the last 30 minutes, so it will be possible to leave earlier. With our ever-growing diverse community, we hope as many as possible will be able to attend this.
Parent forum
We had high attendance at the parent forum last Friday and we will bring you the minutes of this next week.
PSA
Thanks to PSA and the amazing amount of money raised last term.
Information around the MUGA and wildlife project will be brought to you tomorrow. We have had a child-led naming and poster competition. The name of the project from now on is 'Forest, Field and Fun'.
The Quiz night will be on Friday 24th February with information being sent and tickets on sale from Monday. Teams of 8, with a 7.30pm start.
Have a great weekend.
Tom Holmes - Headteacher
Maria O'Brien - Deputy Headteacher
