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Sheen Mount Newsletter

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Thursday 12th September 2024

Dear Parents,

I hope you are well. We have greatly enjoyed the first week back at school; welcoming our reception children, seeing the new classes in Year 3 and Year 5, starting our assemblies and being very pleased that the children have settled into the new school year seamlessly. A warm welcome to any new staff, children and families at the school; we look forward to working alongside you throughout the time your children are at the school. 

Parent engagement events

All the dates were sent out at the end of last term and all the Google Meet links will be sent via Arbor.

The 'Headteacher Vision' will involve a summary and achievements from last year and aspects we are now focusing on this year. There will also be plenty of opportunities to ask questions at the end. 

It and the secondary school presentation slides will be sent out afterwards along with a recording of the meeting - however, we will turn the recording off before the Q & A at the end. 

 

PSA Annual meeting - online 

Wednesday 18th September 8pm (more details below)

Secondary school admissions presentation - online

Wednesday 25th September 8pm

'Headteacher vision' presentation - online 

Wednesday 2nd October 8pm 

 

House points

We have launched our new houses - with children in the same colour as last year and continuing to be in the same as their siblings. 

Blue - Willow

Green - Oak

Red - Maple

Yellow - Palm

The three biggest focuses are:

- Raising the profile of the point system in the school and having consistency, allowing all staff to give out house points but only one at a time. Therefore, allowing children to feel further motivated to earn them. 

- Allowing children to know their aggregate scores across the academic year and working towards awards - 25 bronze award, 50 silver award and 100 gold award (they can continue to collect them after this point). 

- Providing more collegiality within school

Any member of staff can now give a house point - they can be given for any aspects in the classroom or areas such as kindness, manners and helpfulness. One area where the children won't see them, is in their books - otherwise we will see success/failure based on whether they have a house point. However, staff may give them for effort or application during the lesson at any point. 

In essence, children will now have an overall way of knowing their total throughout the academic year. Each week in KS2 assemblies, the weekly winner is announced and again we will keep those aggregate totals. In KS1, the children will be told of those totals once a term. 

 

Fundraising initiative for Cancer research by four parents in honour of Katharine West-Vile 

Please see below a challenge four parents are taking part in this weekend; we wish them all the best with the challenge. 

https://www.justgiving.com/page/aoife-kate-katie-verity 

Sheen Mount app

Please see attached a reminder of the Sheen Mount app and the benefits to the school. You can now order the new PE t-shirts via the app - although we have been told that 'Oak' (Green) are in short supply until October. 

Scooters and Bikes

We are a bit short of space at the moment with Christchurch Road entrance being closed. Please try and take them home and please do not put them in the staff bike storage area which is around by the swimming pool.

There are over ten staff who enthusiastically cycle to school and they need a covered area for their bike after their commute. 

Key behaviour focuses for the children 

Please see attached. We introduced the children to these key points last term as a summary and to simplify our expectations.  If poor choices have been made, they frequently fall into these categories. You may wish to use the same language outside of school. 

Uniform and PE kits

Please see below some reminders for uniform and PE kits

- School shoes must be all black - they can be trainers, but must be all black.

- Socks on uniform days are either plain white, grey or black with no branding on them

- Hair tied back for all children who have it longer than shoulder-length

- PE kit - black shorts, PE t-shirts (previous or new ones for this year only), hoodies only being worn on PE days. Tracksuit bottoms to be green, navy or black without branded items on them

If there are sports clubs before or after school, school uniform should not be worn at the club. They will need to bring school uniform in, to change into. Equally, if sports kit is worn, school uniform still needs to be brought in!

Ground works - cage and tape

You may have noticed that the 'cage' is currently blocked off and there is some tape near the reception areas. This is all due to a large branch falling down from the magnificent cedar tree in the corner just before term started. We are awaiting the all clear from an arboriculturist before allowing the children to play there.

Curriculum year group bulletins for the Autumn term

These will be sent out over the next few days to each year group and then put on the website. The bulletins for the spring and summer term are sent out at the end of the previous term. 

Toilets update

Good progress is being made with the toilets. As you can see, the clear out has happened. Some repairs are now being made to the walls, before all the new units and plumbing are installed.

A major part of the project is also the ventilation and ensuring that is effective in the future. By only having cubicles in the boys toilets we hope this will improve the situation as well as a new ventilation system. 

I was walking with a year group around this area this week and they did report to me that the 'smell had gone', which is a relief! 

We are hoping for them to be finished before half term. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Olympics poster values 'what can we learn'

Please see attached a poster we shared with the staff on INSET day and the children in our first assemblies of the term. 

 

School events

Year 5/6 Hampton School football tournament

From Mr Brown:

After a keep ball warm up, a few tactical ideas were shared and a small attack v defence game took place. The teams then headed their separate ways.

Year 5 were in a larger group with shorter game times and the Year 6s were in a smaller group with slightly longer game times. The Year 5s had some wins and losses throughout the day, finishing mid-way in their group. 

Both teams had wins and losses and many had smiles on their faces throughout the day. The Year 6s played some brilliant football in every game. They were caught off guard in game 1, after taking the lead, but were consistent for the next 2 games, showing great movement and interchanging of positions, fluidity and some excellent finishes. 

Overall, we were all happy and managed to get runners-up medals. Hopefully the start of a successful year for sports!

 

Year 4 have their curriculum lacrosse sessions with an outside coach starting this week and Year 5 will have cricket lessons with an outside coach from next week. 

 

Richmond Young Writers Competition

Young writers https://artsrichmond.org.uk/arts-richmond-events 

Arts Richmond Young Writers' Festival is open to all young people who either live or attend school/clubs in the Borough of Richmond upon Thames. It is a chance to demonstrate writing skills of any form: stories,descriptive writing, poems, playlets, lyrics for songs - whatever the imagination can devise.

Entries are judged in four age groups with prizes for all winning entries. 

 

PSA

Please see an attachment of the various events coming up over the course of the year. 

The most significant open PSA meeting is taking place next Wednesday. However, due to my own child care commitments, this meeting is now going to have be online at 8pm. We look forward to seeing you all then. 

The link for this meeting and the other upcoming meetings will be sent via Arbor.

There is another cycle ride in the planning! Details will come later, but Lands End to Sheen Mount from Friday 27th June is in the planning - there is hopefully going to be a two or three day option. At this stage the aim is that the money raised will enhance both playground spaces with the aim of raising £100,000. More details will be provided before the end of this term. 

 

Have a good weekend

Best wishes 

Tom Holmes - Headteacher

 

Maria O'Brien - Deputy Headteacher

 

Reception

10 Sep 2024
Starting our Sheen Mount Journey
What a lovely start to Reception! 
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Year 1

11 Sep 2024
First week in Year 1!
Year 1 have had a brilliant first week and the children are settling in to new routines! This week we have done our first carousel of activities. In science we have been labelling parts of the body. We drew ourselves and then labelled them. We have also made skeletons using straws and collaged a...
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Year 2

12 Sep 2024
Welcome back!
Year 2 have settled amazingly well into school life and the new year group. This week we have begun our new text in literacy "The day the crayons quit" and we have been writing a character description for one of the crayons. In maths we have been revising partitioning and breaking up...
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Year 3

11 Sep 2024
Stonehenge
Year 3 have made a great start to the new year and are getting used to the new routines. They have already shown fabulous maths skills and are preparing themselves for their first piece of writing in their new English books. They have begun to learn about prehistory in our topic for the half term; T...
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Year 4

12 Sep 2024
What a wonderful start!
Year 4 have hit the ground running.  We are so proud of how they have started the year, taking on lots of new responsibilities and tackling new topics.  In maths, we have been revisiting place value and in English we have made an excellent, exciting, brilliant start on writing about...
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Year 5

11 Sep 2024
We have lift off!
After undertaking rigorous astronaut training, Y5 have well and truly embarked on the next phase of their educational journey. We kicked off with a tour of our solar system in science and have been checking our astronomical place values in maths - not forgetting that the Romans had their own...
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Year 6

11 Sep 2024
Glad to be back
The Year 6 children have made a fantastic start to their final year at Sheen Mount and all of their teachers have been really impressed with their focus, energy and enthusiasm. 
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School Diary

Yr 2 Meet the Teacher
8:50am – 9:50am
12
September
OWLS and 4S swimming
All Day
From 09 Sep and on Monday each week until 25 Nov except for 28 Oct and for 04 Nov
16
September
DOVES and 4C swimming
All Day
From 10 Sep and on Tuesday each week until 26 Nov except for 22 Oct, 29 Oct, and for 05 Nov
17
September
Yr 3 Meet the Teacher
8:30am – 9:30am
17
September
4BH and ROBINS swimming
All Day
From 11 Sep and on Wednesday each week until 27 Nov except for 23 Oct, 30 Oct, and for 06 Nov
18
September