Dear parents and carers,
I hope you are well and had a good half term. With a very short half term coming up, we have hit the ground running this week and there is a lot to pack in across the next five weeks-from World Book Day, to the PSA quiz and school trips. It was great to see the children making the most of our extensive grounds in the sunshine this week-we hope it will return soon!
SCHOOL FUND REMINDER
Sharing our learning/food tasting
A reminder of the email sent earlier in the week. Sharing our Learning is from 2.30-3.30pm on this Friday 27th February. There is also the opportunity to have a taste of future school food items from our caterers, Accent. This event is happening in the main hall. Please come around before going to your children's classes - a reminder that children are not allowed at this food tasting event.
Reading Events and World Book Day from Miss Breckon
A reminder of our sponsored reading event that was initiated at the start of half-term and runs until 16th April. readforgood.org/track-my-read
World Book Day – Thursday 5th March 2026
Although World Book Day falls on Thursday 5th March, we will be celebrating it in school on Friday 6th March. This is because Thursday is Parents’ Evening - and while we love a good costume, we thought it might be slightly distracting discussing your child's progress dressed as wizards, superheroes and other storybook characters!
This year’s theme is “Reading for Pleasure” and encourages children to “Go All In” with reading by connecting books to their own passions, hobbies and interests. This fits perfectly with the National Year of Reading 2026, which we are proud to be taking part in. Together, these national celebrations aim to inspire children to develop a lifelong love of reading and to remind us all that reading should be fun, personal and enjoyable.
To mark the day, children are invited to either:
- Dress up as a character from their favourite book, or
- Bring in a prop or object linked to a favourite book
For example, this could be a wand inspired by Harry Potter, a toy animal linked to a non-fiction book, or an item that represents a much-loved character. We kindly ask that children also bring the book that has inspired their costume or object so they can share it with their class.
Dressing up and sharing favourite books can be a wonderful way to spark conversations about reading, particularly for children who may be more reluctant readers. It helps them express what they enjoy and discover new books through their friends’ recommendations. If you would like some costume inspiration, you can find lots of creative ideas on the official World Book Day website: www.worldbookday.com/families/
We look forward to celebrating reading together and to seeing the many different ways our children choose to “Go All In” with books!
School Events
Three workshops in one day!
It was a busy day on the Wednesday before half-term with three immersive workshops running in the school on one day. Year 3 had Ancient Egypt Day, Year 4 Japan Day and Year 5 a Viking workshop. Thank you the staff for making this happen and more information is written in the year group sections below.
Children's Mental Health Week
Children took part in a range of activities in the week before half-term around supporting their mental health.
Talent show
We once again ended the half-term with a talent show and all the children enjoyed watching an entrant from each KS2 class. Thank you to Mrs Teeling and the Y6 ambassadors for organising the event.
Sport
Our four main teams that compete in the Richmond primary school league fixtures have all made the knock-out stages of the games. Football, Girls Football, Netball and Tag rugby. They were all unbeaten in all matches, which is a fantastic achievement – we await their progress through the knockout stages.
Swimming Gala
Well done to our team of Y4,5&6 swimmers in the borough large schools gala. They came back with medals and ribbons for their efforts.
Cross Borough Brentford Tournament
Following their victory in the borough tournament, the girls were invited to this event at Brentford's training ground and the boys also received an invite. There were two teams from each neighbouring boroughs all competing to win this event. The boys started the day with a victory, but unfortunately that was their high.
The girls, meanwhile, won all their group matches, before winning a semi-final and progressing to the final, where they actually played the other Richmond school they beat in the league tournament. Unfortunately, we were defeated on the dreaded penalties. However..... they have now been invited to be Brentford's representative primary school team at a London-wide tournament at West Ham's training ground on the 10th March.
PSA constitution
There are some proposed amendments to the PSA constitution that we and the PSA committee want to share with you. Please see the attachment and then there is an open online meeting on Monday 23rd March – a link will be sent nearer the time.
Parking on Christchurch Road-blocking drives
A separate email will be sent out next week, detailing this. However, can I please request once again that we respect our neighbours and community and if you ar driving, then you park in the correct places and do not block local residents' drives.
School Street West Temple
Please see the letter attached. The timings have been increased on a trial basis to include the timings within after-school clubs; it will therefore cease at 4.45pm. I do not have the exact date yet, but the signs will change in the near future and then there will be a couple of weeks' grace.
Ambassadors – School Council
This week is the turn of our Year 6 school councillors in their ambassador roles. I meet the school council every other Monday for around 30 minutes. We have two children from each class from year 2 to year 6. We always have two main discussion points – anything to fix/make better around the school and any new ideas. As I say to the council, the worst I can say is no! The children have to represent their classmates' ideas, as well as their own.
Lucky – After we meet with Mr.Holmes, we discuss what we talked about in the meeting to the class and take ideas back for the next meeting.
Isla – In school council we meet up with the headteacher every two weeks. in addition to this, we all discuss our ideas to each other.
Delfina – We talk about things which we could improve about the school. We also take in other people's ideas. We try to make every student enjoy the school and feel safe.
Elodie – In school council we all listen to each other's ideas and write them down in our school council notebooks. We sometimes say what we think is going wrong.
Adam – We talk about what is going well at the school. We take good ideas and sometimes put them into school life, to make the school more fun- like every term a new continent or topic of food for a special day at lunch.
Leo – In addition to all of our thoughts, we raise money for charity to make children around the world have a better life.
Community News
Christ Church concerts
Please see the attached information about the musical recital concerts at Christ church in March.
Good Neighbours volunteering
Please see attached information from Good Neighbours about volunteering opportunities. This is the charity we support at Christmas with gift bags for local elderly people.
Should you wish to contact me directly, please do so on headteacher@sheenmount.richmond.sch.uk
Have a good weekend
Best wishes
Tom Holmes - Headteacher
