Dear Parents,
I hope you are well. We approach the midpoint of the half term and school life is very busy with trips to Kew Gardens (Y3) and Hampton Court (Y4), science competitions at NPL, Y3 safe walking training and another four night residential trip successfully completed.
Careers Week
The children have had a fantastic time during Careers week. All children from reception to Year 4 have had an assembly and a workshop. The workshops featured three different careers - the vast majority being delivered by our parents.
Year 5 and 6 have then had even more visitors and the week culminates in a careers fair tomorrow. In total, they will have been exposed to at least 10 different careers.
Thank you to all those parents who have volunteered to present this week, with talks on science, fragrances, journalism, medicine, music, politics, advertising, marketing, dance, physiotherapy, finance, architecture, dentistry and garden design (as well as many more!)
Thank you very much to Mrs Sroka, our Enrichment Lead, for all her work in planning and pulling this together.
Moving up Morning and new classes
The new classes will be sent on Friday 28th June. As with class lists in Reception, we cannot send the whole class lists out for GDPR reasons. We are sorry for this, but you will have to make your new WhatsApp groups/associations through giving permission to each other.
Moving up Morning is on Monday 1st July. Children should go to their current classes first, and then we will move them at 9.30am for the rest of the morning.
As per the school policy and for the second year, we will be mixing children at the end of Year 2 from now on. It was very successful with the current Year 3s from September 2023. We will also mix our Year 4s this year as the intention was to mix them two years ago, but we refrained from doing so due to the ramifications of COVID. Parents in both of these year groups were informed a long time ago and filled in the children's choice form at home. Each child can suggest up to five friends from across the year group who they would like to be with, and we guarantee them at least one with many having more.
Thank you to the staff of these year groups who have given up time to create these new classes. As you can imagine, it is a long process that needs many reviews.
Staffing
Mrs Humphreys (née Hopwood) goes on maternity leave tomorrow. We wish her all the best after her very smooth pregnancy period and look forward to hearing news of the birth of her and Jack's child.
Mr Roffey has been lured in by the bright lights of travelling and will be leaving us at the end of this academic year. He is going to continue to teach English whilst travelling. We thank him for his hard work this year and wish him all the best.
We have successfully recruited two new teachers and all this information will be sent on Friday 28th June.
Year 5 trip to the Isle of Wight
The Year 5 children really enjoyed their four-night trip to the Isle of Wight, with the famous microclimate making an appearance (we had far better weather than at Sheen Mount) and the children enjoying a range of day trips from our base in Sandown. New additions to the schedule included a boat trip out to the Needles from Alum Bay and the Aqua Park at Tapnell Park.
Many thanks to all the staff who gave up their time in order for this trip to be successful.
During our residential trips, over 250 children stayed away this year over a total of 10 nights.
Team of Year 6 going to NPL for science quiz
Last week, eight Year 6s were selected to represent Sheen Mount at an inter-school quiz at the National Physical Laboratory in Teddington.
When we arrived, we tried out a series of activities which showed us why we need an accurate measuring system, including trying to order objects by weight using only our hands and not a scale. (We all got the order wrong!) Then we began the quiz. We were split into two teams of four to answer questions on topics including science, famous faces and measurement. All the Year 6 children back at school also competed in the quiz via live video link. 
Next we did the egg drop! Unfortunately we didn't win as it came down to weight but both of our team's eggs made it and had very graceful landings.
Finally, the quiz results were announced. The two teams at NPL came first and second with only half a point between them and one of the teams back at Sheen Mount also won the online quiz! What a result!
Mrs Adams was very proud of the whole team, who not only demonstrated what fantastic science knowledge Sheen Mount children have, but also acted as wonderful role models throughout the day.
Alara and Sadie (Y6)
Cayley Maths challenge-King's School Wimbledon
Yesterday, a team of four Year 5 pupils entered the Cayley’s Challenge at King’s College School. The King’s Cayley Challenge is named after the distinguished King’s mathematician, Arthur Cayley, who was born in Richmond. Tomas, Alexandra, Ryan and Arjun competed against 23 other teams from different schools. Problem solving began as soon as they found their seats and quickly moved on to a fast paced relay followed by a second part where teams worked together on a selection of mixed difficulty problem-solving questions. 
The team should be very proud of themselves for their fantastic teamwork and strategic approach. There was an award ceremony at the end and all participants were presented with a certificate. This is an annual event and the first time we have attended. The children thoroughly enjoyed the event.
This is what they said:
Tomas: “The whole thing was so exciting! The time flew by so fast. We worked really hard and I was so tired afterwards that I fell asleep on the bus.”
Alexandra: “My favourite part was when we worked as a team together and of course the refreshments at the end. I loved the whole atmosphere.”
Ryan: “I liked working together as a team and co-operating on difficult maths questions.”
Arjun: “I loved the grand building and how tricky the questions were.”
PSA Party
It was wonderful to see so many parents and staff enjoying the Platinum party on Friday 7th. With entertainment from our parent body including singing, DJs and of course the dad's Choir, everyone enjoyed the evening. Thank you to the various members of the PSA who organised and ran the bar throughout the evening.
Whole school photo
This successfully took place on Friday 7th June. The photo was split into two and will then be merged to make one photo. We await the final version to share with you.
School governor visits
A crucial part of a governor's role is coming to visit the school and this half term we have visits for SEN, Wellbeing, English, DT and Foreign languages.
Medicines-prescribed and hay fever
A reminder that we can only accept and administer prescribed medicines in school. There are no exceptions to this - apart from Calpol and Piriton, which we have permission for on Arbor.
With Piriton, for hay fever, could we please ask that this is administered in the morning at home. One dosage is normally enough for the day. Otherwise, we are dealing with having to administer this rather than any other medical incidents.
Lost property
There are currently four bags worth of lost property sitting at the end of Y1/2 corridor in the usual unnamed lost property place.
Christ Church-messy church 
Please see the flyer from the church for a regular event after school on a Monday.
Have a good weekend
Best wishes
Tom Holmes - Headteacher
Maria O'Brien - Deputy Headteacher
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