Dear Parents and Carers,
This week’s senior leader whole school assembly was led by Dennis and was around World Day for Cultural Diversity for Dialogue and Development, (21st May). He spoke about all aspects of diversity, the importance of respecting and celebrating the diversity and cultures of our local and wider communities. Dennis spoke about how it was important to not discriminate a person or group of people with a protected characteristic. He highlighted periods of history where groups of people were discriminated against with tragic results.
The Early Phase (Reception and Year 1) assembly was led by Martha with the focus around making friends with people who are different to you. She read ‘The Smeds and The Smoos’ to support understanding and compassion around differences. The children loved the story and had many questions that followed.
It has been so lovely this year to see classes going on more educational visits as the year has progressed. This week, Jo G and Maria/Simone’s year 3 classes (Elis’ class went last week) went to the Kagyu Samye Dzong London Tibetan Buddhist Meditation Centre and Jo C’s year 6 class to the Migration Museum (Dominic & Nora's classes went last week). These visits play an important part in supporting children to build depth to their classroom learning. Do please take a look at the pictures in our photo gallery. Here is a quote from the year 6 trip:
“It was a really eye-opening trip, and it showed me that the foundations of our country are basically because of migrants. I never really realised that so many of the everyday things we see, or consider British, are because of the hard work of immigrants who had to make their own businesses. The fact that they are now some of the most well-known businesses in the UK, just proves that an idea can grow into something amazing.” Alysa
Zoolab visited year 1: Phil from ZooLab, came to Kilmorie this week bringing a tarantula, a desert gecko, a giant African snail, a corn snake and a cockroach. I popped into Year 1 after the visit and was bombarded with information from the children all about what they had seen. They had learnt about the animals' features and habitats. Some children even got to hold or touch the different animals. You can see some photos here. The children thoroughly enjoyed the sessions and here are some quotes:
- "The Giant snail's poo is the same colour as his food. When he eats carrots it is orange because it comes out straight away." Xander
- "The gecko is nocturnal because the desert is hot." Sophie
We had a very exciting visitor this week to open our Early Year’s outside play area: Damien Egan, Lewisham’s mayor! Other visitors included Rachel the architect, members of NCIL Councillors who supported us with funding, Ashleigh (with her son) who drove this project forward with Benita and Kathryn from FoK (chair during the project). They all received thank you cards from the Reception children. The children spoke to the mayor all about their favourite bits of the new outside play area. Here are some pictures of the opening event.
The Parent Online Safety Workshop was finally able to go ahead last night! Athena delivered their Tech Abuse Workshop, which parents found really informative. Some of the main points included having open conversations with your children; setting digital boundaries with them and creating an environment that means they know they can come and talk to you no matter what. It was also suggested that you familiarise yourself with the different apps and games and ensure you know how to block and report sites if necessary. Unfortunately, Athena is unable to share the slides.
FREE Webinar for Parents many children are now accessing devices within the very first years of life. Sadly, this means that young children are now exposed to many risks associated with using devices, which raises the question: are we doing enough to protect children in the early years, and to help them to form healthy and positive online habits? To support, we have partnered with the Early Years Alliance to offer a 1-hour webinar on Thursday 8th June 10-11am to parents of children aged 0-5 years, about simple steps to take in order to keep children safe when using online devices. Find out more here
Plastic Protest year 4: yesterday I was pulled from my office with the sound of important messages being shared in our playground. Upon investigation, I found it was our Year 4 classes staging a Plastic Protest. Parents and Carers were invited in to watch them as they waved their banners and chanted their songs. This is in support on their work around sustainability and really highlighted how they are embracing the environmental impact of plastic. Have a look at the photos here.
Class Photos – On Friday 9th June and Monday 12th June, David, our school photographer, will be here taking photos, hopefully outside. Please look at the school calendar for full details.
School council met again this week. The conversations were lively – as always. Our Reception and Year 1 council members have been working hard at generating ideas to improve the school experience for children. Our Key Stage 2 children discussed how their ideas could be grouped into different themes and then each theme to be addressed by a year group. The four themes are: the environment and recycling; school equipment; the lunchtime experience; and looking at improving the school curriculum.
School Dinners: I have been working with a group of year 5 children around school dinners. We have been looking at what changes they would like to see and what they can do to make these changes (where applicable) happen. Some of the feedback has already been given to Comfort (our head chef) but it is planned that we, along with Benita will meet with her to discuss how we can work collaboratively going forward. However, before we meet, it was agreed that it is important we have a whole school viewpoint, therefore, the children are designing a short questionnaire to be shared with children (and staff as many of us eat school dinners too). This is a wonderful example of supporting children to feel heard and work together to make positive change.
Staff absence: some of you have been asking about Carole, who works in year 2. She has suffered a bereavement and will be off for the foreseeable future. Please be assured, she will return. I am sure you will join me in passing her our sympathies and giving her space to grieve.
The Lion King Performance: I am sure you will of all heard the wonderful news that Kilmorie’s ‘The Lion King’ performance will be performed at (Catford) Broadway. This is a fabulous opportunity for the school. However, as there was very little flexibility with timings (the performances are at 2pm on each of the dates), we understand this may be difficult for some, but have organised for the performances to be filmed, ensuring no one misses out. To remind they are:
- Tuesday 11th July – for years 2,4 & 6
- Wednesday 12th July for years 1,3 & 5
This is very exciting and am sure you will join me in saying a massive thank you to Rebecca for organising the venue. I believe Rebecca is looking for help with props, set design, make-up and support with chaperoning – if you are able to help, do please complete this form. For more information, visit the letters sent home page.
Wonderfully Wired Brains book – thank you to everyone who donated. This wonderfully positive and informative book about neurodiversity challenges misconceptions and shows how neurodivergent brains work a little differently. Anna has purchased copies of the book, one for every classroom and Nicola and Dennis have copies in their rooms too. A big thank you to Anna, a year 3 and year 6 parent, for setting this up.
You should have received a letter via email yesterday outlining this year’s sports day. You will notice we have moved it to slightly earlier this year to help with the high temperatures we are seeing in July. We have also changed venue to Catford Cyphers this has enabled us to have the whole school take part together. It will be lovely for us to all be together and enjoy this important day. In case you missed the letter and for further details please see here, you can volunteer to help / order your school packed lunch here.
I wish you all a sunny and relaxing half term and I look forward to seeing you all on Monday 5th June.
Kind regards
Julie
