Newsletters

Dear parents and carers

I hope you are well. It is a very busy time of year with all the events mentioned below and rehearsals aplenty as we head towards our six performances for Christmas and the end of term. 

Our sporting teams are on an amazing roll at the moment; the cross-country team followed the girls' football team in becoming borough champions. Then our Y3/4 basketball team won their regional tournament yesterday. 

We are also very much looking forward to one of the highlights of the year for the community, which is the Christmas Fair on Saturday 6th December from 11- 3pm. The staff raffle prizes will be on sale next Thursday and Friday. 

SCHOOL FUND REMINDER

Christmas Fair poster winners

Smartphones

Thank you for your support regarding our announcement about no smart phones being allowed on site for children from September 2026. I spoke to the Y5/6 children today to explain why and answer any questions they might have. 

There are lots of resources out there to support parents with online content and controls and I recommend the LGFL resources. Again, there is a lot of content here, so I would take the information in bite-size chunks rather than all at once-https://parentsafe.lgfl.net/

Office Front Door

As notified on email, there is a new way to come through the front door – please follow the instructions next to the keypad. This has been created so that there are separate ways of contacting the school and JAG.

Maths Curriculum Morning for current parents – Thursday 29th January 2026 9.00-10.30am.

Following our successful science and English Curriculum Mornings over the past two years, it is the turn of maths this year. 

The morning will include seeing maths in action in the classrooms, talking to some children and then a presentation from our maths lead, Mrs Humphreys and the chance for Q&A at the end. 

Please sign up here if you would like to attend:

 Google form - Maths Curriculum Morning

Reminders

Christmas Gift Bags - DEADLINE EXTENSION!  These will now not be collected until next week, so you have another weekend and until Tuesday 2nd December to put some small gifts together. A reminder of the information is in the attachment below. 

Parent Governor Elections

The deadline to vote is Monday 1st December. The box is by the office. 

Swimming Attendance

It feels a shame to mention this, considering we are incredibly fortunate to have our own pool, but some children's attendance at swimming is poor. To be clear, if a child is well enough to be in school, they are well enough to swim. Taking part is not an option, this is part of the national curriculum and therefore there is no opt-out. The only exceptions are for ear infections and when taking certain antibiotics and these requests must be made in writing to the office. 

Climate Action Plan

The school now has a climate Action Plan, and it is shared as an attachment here and is on the website under policies. We also have a sustainability committee which is made up of myself, the Deputy Headteacher, School Business Manager, geography lead and two teaching assistants. 

Collections/Donations at the end of term concerts

As usual, we will be collecting in the church at the end of the Y3/4 concert and the Y5/6 concert. This money is split between the church and another charity. This year we have decided to give this money to our focused charity - East Africa School Support. This will be a cash or card collection for both charities.

If you are in Years R to 2, your Christmas performance is in the school hall, the collection will just be for our focus charity and the link is here or with cash on the day- https://www.justgiving.com/page/sheen-mount-primary-school-25?utm_medium=FR&utm_source=CL 

Please do not be surprised to see the QR codes encouraging you to sign up to the school fund at school performances – it is the perfect time to sign up as you wait for a performance! It is always mentioned at the top of the newsletter. 

Christmas Jumper Day

This will be held on Thursday 18th December, which is also Christmas Lunch day. Our charity this year will be our focus one, East Africa School Support. The link is here- https://www.justgiving.com/page/sheen-mount-primary-school-25?utm_medium=FR&utm_source=CL

As always, there is no need to buy a new jumper if you do not have one, creative additions to another jumper are very much welcome! 

East Africa Children's project- https://www.eacpcharity.com/

Children in Need Collection

We raised £1,096 for children in need, which was just over our target amount of £1,000 so thank you. 

Reading sheds

Thanks to PSA funding and free donations we have managed to open one in each playground for break/lunchtime. We also benefited from applying for some funding from the Barnes Literary Association to help fund the books. 

Ambassadors - Art

This week is the turn of the Art Ambassadors. Our Art Ambassadors for this year are Athea, Rufus, Jack, Pia and Ozgur in 6B and Lisha in 6S.

They would like to share with you their roles and responsibilities for this academic year. Our Art Ambassadors are responsible for promoting a love of art in school.

They will share some of their own artwork in our Key Stage Assemblies and be responsible for listening to and sharing any feedback from children within the school with Mrs Wigmore. Not only this, our ambassadors will also keep our “Art Masterpiece” frames up-to-date each half-term with the latest, amazing artwork that is happening throughout the school. We hope that next time you are in school that you can admire these pieces and enjoy them as much as we do.

School Events

Accent Catering Workshop for Year 4

Y4 enjoyed an excellent free workshop from our caterers last week. The theme was 'micro farms' and the children learnt all about food waste, the environment and they made a delicious salad.

Choir singing at Sheen light up

I joined Mrs Adams and the choir on Friday after school as they opened the choir performances at the Sheen Christmas shopping event. Despite having to deal with low-flying planes and local traffic, they did extremely well. To such an extent, that when they were singing about Santa coming to town, he arrived just at that moment!

Sport

Cross-country - BOROUGH CHAMPIONS!

30 schools and 175 children in each race, meant the borough cross-country event was a very competitive event. 6 boys and 6 girls competed for the school and the girls finished 3rd overall and the boys 7th, which then gave us an overall position of first place!

We had strong individual placings of 4th and 15th place in the girls' competition and a 13th place in the boys', but the overall team performance was incredibly strong. 

Basketball

The Y3/4 team had an amazing morning at Christ's in the Richmond Knights Basketball tournament. They played 4 group games winning them all, which sent them into the final. The game finished on 2-2 and went to golden buzzer, where the team secured a great victory! 

Netball

The netball team continued their strong league campaign with a convincing 16-6 victory over Barnes. 

Girls football

Below is the girls' football team enjoying their doughnut and hot chocolate treat with myself and Mr Brown.

Quizclub-from those in the team

On the 19th November we entered two teams for the area heats for the General Knowledge inter-school Quiz Championship 2025 – 2026. All children in KS2 carried out a general knowledge quiz in their classrooms. The top scorers from each year group made it into the teams. Each team was made up of a child from Year 3, 4 5 and 6.

The online quiz lasted 1 hour and we competed against 21 other teams.  We are delighted to announce that our two teams came 18th and 1st. Some of the questions were really tricky but we worked well together and are proud of our result. Our Team 1 who came first, have been invited to the National Finals at Oxford University. 

Team 1: Lyla, Attis, Jonah, Daisy

Team 2: Phoebe, Percy, Florian, Samuel

Daisy: It was so much fun. Everyone had a huge smile on their faces the entire time. When we won, we all got out of our chairs and celebrated. 

Phoebe: I liked how every round it showed us the scores. This made me motivated to win and get a higher score. 

Healthy Snacks at Breaktime

A reminder of the wording from our website around this

If your child is bringing in a snack for breaktime :

The food provided should be simple and easily eaten 

Please select from fruit, peeled vegetables or dried fruit 

Community Events

Christmas Performance at Sheen Mount

Please see below an event that is being hosted at the school and by Sheen Mount parents.

Tower House Independent School Evening - January 22nd
Please see the attached event run by Tower House around Independent secondary school admissions – they have over 30 schools attending. 

Have a good weekend.

Should you wish to contact me directly, please do so on headteacher@sheenmount.richmond.sch.uk

Tom Holmes - Headteacher