Dear Parents,
Well, we've arrived at the final newsletter of the academic year. We have just one week to go including two nights of the Year 6 Production, the Year 6 Leavers' Assembly and finally a whole school assembly on the last day of term. This will culminate in the infamous 'Sheen Mount Tunnel' where the whole school creates a tunnel for our Year 6s and any staff leaving, to weave their way through!
Thank you to the all the staff for their work this year, and I am sure you will join me in wishing them a restful summer holiday.
Thank you to all of you, the parent body, as well. We continue to reflect and review and strive to do the very best for your children. We appreciate all you do to support us in achieving this.
I wish you all a very enjoyable summer break and for our Year 6s moving on we wish you all the best and look forward to you visiting Sheen Mount in the near future.
On the positive as well, I see this afternoon the teaching unions and the Government have announced a joint statement around funding and wage increases. Hopefully this provides stability moving forwards.
End of the Summer Term and beginning of September 2023
A reminder that next Friday 21st July, we have an earlier finish. Reception and KS1 finish at 2pm and KS2 at 2.10pm.
Then as the new academic year begins, we have Inset days on Monday 4th and Tuesday 5th September.
Term then starts on Wednesday 6th September at the usual time. School gates open at 8.35am and classroom doors at 8.45am with everything closing at 8.55am.
Staffing news
Congratulations to Miss Pickett who is getting married on the 29th July. She will be Mrs Chevassut from September- she will share with her class the correct pronunciation!
Reports
A reminder that annual reports written by the class teachers are coming out today and tomorrow. There is a Google form to feedback any comments to the class teachers. I know they appreciate any comments, we do ensure they are shared with each class teacher.
We also hope you share these reports with your children. It is important for them to know what they have done well during this academic year both inside and outside the classroom. Equally, there are four targets for them for next year to work on and it is useful if they know what their targets are.
School Events
Battle of the Books
From Mrs Sparkes Year 4 teacher - thank you for preparing and taking the children.
On Wednesday, eight fantastic readers from Year 4 took part in the highly competitive 'Battle of the Books' at St. James's School in Twickenham.
All year they have been studying seven different books, including Arrival and Roald Dahl's, Boy. They had to know tiny details such as which pictures were on which pages. The children excelled in the quiz round coming 2nd, they put on a humorous piece of drama, again placing second and created a fantastic piece of art in the last round, placing third. Overall, Sheen Mount came 2nd out of 10 schools! What an amazing achievement and a reflection of all their hard work. We are very proud of them.
Library Book Returns
A request for all library books to be returned please. Children should bring them in and then return them to the library or give them to their class teacher.
Summer Fair
Thank you to all those who helped organise the summer fair. It was an excellent community event with the Orchard having a lovely feel with all the stalls and games and then all the food and inflatables in the main playground.
Approximately £12,000 was raised - what an amazing achievement, thank you!
Fundraising for Forest, Field, Fun
Unbelievably, we have now reached our target of £120,000! Thank you to all those who contributed to this in any way, through donating or volunteering.
Unfortunately, at this moment it appears the planning is not going to be approved in time for works to happen over the summer. It was always going to be tight to get the fundraising and planning to coincide with each other. We will discuss with the installer to see what time frames we can manage the project in. It will happen and we will bring you news of this as soon as possible.
Parent presentations
Please see the link from the website to the slides from the two parent workshops on positive behaviour-thank you to Mrs Jeffery for arranging these. We will continue to add to these as more parent workshops occur.
https://www.sheenmount.richmond.sch.uk/page/?title=Parent+Workshops&pid=138
Parking
Another reminder please to be respectful to our immediate community. The cars turning and stopping either on Christchurch or West Temple Sheen could cause a serious accident at any time; the tragic incident at the school in Wimbledon last week allows us to reflect on how these events can occur. Please park in the multiple free places and walk for a few minutes.
Sports Day results and request for the last day of term Sheen common social event
We hope you enjoyed the new format of Sports Day last week, with the rotations giving everyone a chance to compete in various jumping and throwing events, before class sprints and team year group relays. Well done to the R/KS1 children as the temperature rose quickly throughout the morning.
Whilst, we were requesting to use the toilets by the changing rooms, we received some feedback I wanted to pass on. The traditional last day of term water fights up the common leave the members of the Cricket Club having to do extensive tidying up - particularly of the water balloons. Please ensure you support your community and pick up any rubbish before you leave. This event is not connected to the school, but it nearly meant we weren't granted use of the facilities for our Sports Day.
Following the Blue Team's publicised victory in the KS2 Sports Day, Green Team were the winners of KS1 sports day. The final scores for both sports days are below. Well done to the Green team- a precious 3 point win!
Green Team - 12 867 points
Blue Team - 12 864 points
Red Team - 12 510 points
Yellow Team - 11 941 points
Chair of Governors' letter
Please see attached the end of term letter from the school's Chair of Governors, Justine Hebert. She is stepping down after her role as chair and we thank her for her substantial commitment to this voluntary role and her lengthy service. We also thank Kathryn Higgins, who has also been a long serving and committed governor. Our Clerk to the Governing Board is also moving on to a full time role and we thank Sarah Bellingham for her time commitment. We are currently recruiting for this role and the advert link is here-
https://www.eteach.com/job/clerk-to-governing-board-1355890
Uniform Reminders and Black PE Shorts
Black shorts - Children may wear black shorts or legging shorts for PE. As many children will still have white shorts that fit, these are also acceptable to wear for the next academic year. They do not have to be bought from the online shop, but they are available there - https://www.stitchdesign.co.uk/uniform/Sheen_Mount_Primary_School_SW14_7RT/pe-shorts
A reminder of a few other key items for September-these are not new, just reminders:
-Hair which is shoulder-length or longer needs to be tied back for boys and girls
-Nail varnish should not be worn at school
-Children may wear all black trainers as school shoes that do not have any other colours or markings/branding on. Other types of trainers can only be worn on PE days.
Dance competition
Six Sheen Mount students represented England in the Dance World Cup in Braga, Portugal on Monday 3rd July. The international dance competition involves thousands of dancers from over 50 countries.
Alona (3MW), Bea (6AD), Effie (4H), Ela (Robins), Jasper (4S), and Lois (3F) all dance with MV Academy, a performing arts school based in East Sheen, and were competing in the Junior Contemporary and Mini Lyrical categories, in large groups of 19 and 13 respectively.
The Minis team (ages 7-9) won gold with their routine based on the story from the film ‘Titanic’ beating 8 other entries from countries including Portugal, Spain and Israel.
The Juniors (ages 8-14) came 10th out of 17 in a tough category against teams from Turkey, Italy, Taiwan, Portugal, Germany and Scotland, who came first.
Library Summer Events
The Richmond Summer Reading Challenge is taking place as always. All the information is her e- https://www.richmond.gov.uk/summer_reading_challenge
They also have free e-copies of some of the latest releases for 7-11 year olds, or you can use it as a recommended reading list.
https://www.richmond.gov.uk/media/19301/front_to_back_reading_list.pdf
Have a good weekend and a summer break.
Tom Holmes - Headteacher
Maria O'Brien - Deputy Headteacher
