Dear parents and carers
I hope you had a good half-term. A very busy Autumn 2 is underway and a full newsletter is below. It started on the INSET day as we joined colleagues from four other local primary schools with a keynote speaker focusing on resilience and well-being.
We look ahead to this half-term, which leads us all the way to Christmas; always a special and enjoyable time in a primary school.
SCHOOL FUND REMINDER
REMINDERS PLEASE
Attendance
Please can I remind parents of the importance of attendance, particularly at the end of terms. On the Friday before the half-term break, our overall school attendance was 86% when it is normally 97 to 98%. This is very disappointing and whilst there was some sickness around, clearly this was not the case for all children. Some classes had eight children missing for their harvest assembly, which then has a knock-on effect on all the other children and the school as a whole.
There was also a stream of parents coming at various different times in the afternoon to collect their children – this causes significant disruption for our staff, and we sometimes have only one person on the front desk at this period as staff need to eat their lunch.
Therefore, at all times, if you need to collect after lunch, please do so at the following times:
1.15pm R/KS1
1.45pm KS2
If there are different circumstances, please email the office on info@ and they can let you know whether it would be possible to collect at a different time to the above.
You must email in advance if you are planning to do this and clearly state the reason you want to collect your child.
Thank you for your help with this logistical matter.
I am sure you are aware, but the term dates for the next two academic years are on the website –
https://www.sheenmount.richmond.sch.uk/page/?title=Term+and+Key+Dates&pid=29
Playing on school equipment before/after school
Children are not allowed on the equipment before or after school due to our insurance not covering the times when staff are not supervising. We do need your help in enforcing this and we are noticing parents frequently stand next to their children whilst they play on different things – even with the signs saying not to. In particular, at the moment, is the use of the new Activity Trail in the main playground. Please keep your children off ALL equipment before and after school.
Dogs on site
No dogs are allowed on site, at any time, and that includes being inside the gates and being tied towards the end of the blue gate path. This is for everyone's safety and protection and includes when you are dropping off or picking up your children from clubs or JAG.
Children in Need - Friday 14th November
A reminder that this event is tomorrow and children can wear one item of clothing or accessory that is spotty or yellow – or possibly even both!
The link to donate is here-https://www.justgiving.com/page/sheen-mount-primary-school-24?utm_medium=FR&utm_source=CL
We will bring you the dates for the rest of the charity days in the next newsletter, once the school council have decided.
Emails going into junk
An email was sent out regarding this. We have set up a secondary screening process whereby we receive more notifications during the day if anything has been sent to junk and can then release it into our email. This is a short-term solution so that we do not miss any significant communication, whilst IT attempts to find a more permanent solution.
Harvest collection
Many thanks for all your donations during the harvest assemblies. They were successfully collected by the Richmond Vineyard Community project in the half-term break.
Ewa Hay, who volunteers her time in our woodland area and runs our gardening club, donated celery grown on the school grounds to the Soup Kitchen in Richmond.
Playground works opening
The children have been enjoying this facility since the beginning of the new half-term. 
We opened it with a group of the fundraising cyclists before school. Thank you again for all the community's support in this project and we are delighted to have delivered it so soon after the fundraising. We now turn our attention to the surface of the ball court.
If anyone has any spare/old pots, pans, ladles etc for the kitchen/exploration centre, please bring them to the office.
Parents evening and sharing our learning
We hope you enjoyed these events and they play a significant part in your child's education.
Open morning
The last open morning for prospective parents for this academic year is on Thursday 20th November if you know anyone who may be interested in attedning – please see the link here – click here . Please be assured, if you are able to fill in the form, then you have a place. Please arrive at 9am for a 9.15am start.
Book Fair from Miss Breckon our English lead
We are delighted to be hosting the Travelling Books book fair again this year. It will be available to visit on Monday 17th November, Tuesday 18th November, Wednesday 19th November and Thursday 20th November, bringing you an unbeatable range of the latest children's books at great prices. The fair will be open after school pick-up from 3:20-4pm outside the school office, or in the hall if it rains. We look forward to seeing you there!
A reminder, the school gets a share of the sales to spend on books-usually around 50–60%.
Ambassadors-English with Miss Breckon
Our English ambassadors are: Ela, Jessa, Rudy, Julia and Elle.
We look forward to many exciting things happening all over the school in English this year. We are really happy to be joining the SPARK Book Awards again this year, so the whole school can join together and talk about their love of books. To help everyone to have access to books at playtimes, we have purchased new outdoor reading sheds that children can use during break and lunchtime. These will be filled with brand-new books very soon! Next week, we will be hosting the Travelling Book Fair, and we would love you to come and buy books so we can raise money for the school. We wanted to be English ambassadors because we want to share our love for English with younger children and encourage them to read more often. We think English is an important part of school life and beyond because it helps you in every area of your life.
Later this year, we hope that we will be inviting authors to the school to inspire us to read books from a range of authors. We will also run some writing competitions, which will be posted on Google Classroom for you to enter – look out for those! As English ambassadors, we encourage you to make sure that you are reading enough, which is about 8 to 15 minutes a day or more! Reading helps with vocabulary, punctuation and spelling as well as helping you to become more imaginative. We look forward to bringing you lots of things to do with English this year. Happy reading!
Therapy dog – from Mrs Jeffery (SENCO/Assistant Headteacher)
We are pleased to welcome Benjie and his owner Quentin to Sheen Mount. Benjie is a Therapy Dog, registered with Pets as Therapy; he is a Spaniel, a cross of a Springer Spaniel and a Cocker Spaniel commonly described as a 'Sprocker'. Benjie is seven years old and has lived with Quentin and his wife since he was four or five months old. He will be visiting Sheen Mount on Wednesday afternoons and is looking forward to meeting as many children as possible. 
Mrs Jeffery is overseeing the timetable and currently groups and individuals from Year 6 are reading to him. In addition to coming to Sheen Mount, Benjie also visits old people’s homes and a psychiatric hospital.
School events
Anti-Bullying week
All year groups have had an activity around this during the week as well as a focus in assemblies. Some of the activities included-
Reception having a focus on KINDNESS so reading stories about being kind. Linking it to the feelings of the colour monster.
Reading The Invisible Boy and discussing how small acts of kindness can make a big difference to everyone. Linking this into the the theme of 'power for good' as the book is all about inclusion and kindness.
Using a story to help us learn how to spot bullying and what to do when you spot any bullying type behaviour. We also analysed the story to try to understand why the bully might be choosing this unacceptable behaviour.
In UKS2 we have focused on the importance of not being a silent bystander and how speaking up to help somebody else is a positive thing and not 'snitching'.
Sport
Girls Football-Borough tournament WINNERS TODAY!
The girls had their 32-team borough tournament today. They won all 8 of their two pool groups without conceding a goal.
Progressing to the semi-finals, where they won 3-0. The final was a very tough, tense affair, but a last-minute goal gave us overall victory, 1-0! An enormous well done to the team and Mr Brown- it was a privilege to join them and the parental support for the final stages over in Teddington.
League fixture
They played a league fixture against St Elizabeths this week and secured a comfortable 10-1 victory-well done to the team.
Today they have been playing in the borough girls tournament on the St Mary's University pitches.
Myself and parents have the ability to track the results through an app, and it has been an exciting day.
Table tennis
In a first for Sheen Mount, four boys represented the school at a table tennis competition. This is off the back of our thriving Wednesday after school club with Darius Knight, and he also runs a Saturday morning club on the school premises.
The boys went to New Malden in the regional finals and amazingly finished in second place (by only 1 point) and have qualified for the Area finals in January. We look forward to following their progress, especially as all the team are all in Year 5.
Cross Country
16 boys from across KS2 attended the St Paul's cross-country event. In another first for the school, we had four children from each year group representing the school in the same event. There were over 30 children in each race and the distances varied from 1.8km to 2.2km. Well done to all the team for representing the school and special congratulations to Dylan (Y3) for finishing first and Jorge (Y4) for finishing second in their races.
We look forward to your Year 5/6 Girls and Boys teams taking part in the borough event next Friday at Bushy Park.
Trip to Twickenham
A group of children from Year 5/6 had the opportunity to attend the England v Fiji match on Saturday. They enjoyed an action-packed game.
Thank you to Mr Brown and Miss Stannell for giving up their time to join me for this school trip.
Pupil Parliament from Olivia and Devarsh in Year 6.
On Friday we went to Richmond Pupil Parliament to present a speech in front of lots of other children. The theme of the speech was on whether children under 14 should be allowed to have smartphones. There were more than 50 children there and Olivia came in the top ten. All of the people there voted for the top ten and those ten people did their speech in front of the mayor of Richmond and before we had to say our speech to the Mayor we had lunch. The day was spent listening to speeches and voting for the best. It was a very enjoyable day.
In UKS2 we have focused on the importance of not being a silent bystander and how speaking up to help somebody else is a positive thing and not 'snitching'.
Community news
The choir are singing at Milestone Green for the East Sheen Christmas Shopping evening.
Christ Church music events
Please see the attachment for a range of concerts at Christ Church. As you will see from the information, the lunchtime concerts are free, and we hope to take some of our KS2 musicians over to enjoy these concerts.
https://www.christchurcheastsheen.org.uk/music-and-choir/
Richmond Young Writers competition
A reminder of this competition for you to enter externally from school. The deadline is the 5th December.
https://artsrichmond.org.uk/arts-richmond-events
Have a good weekend
Should you wish to contact me directly, please do so on headteacher@sheenmount.richmond.sch.uk
Tom Holmes - Headteacher
