Dear Parents and Carers,
Kate led this week’s Senior Leadership assembly on International Mother Language Day. Article 30 in the Convention of the Rights of the Chid states that: if you come from a minority group, because of your race, religion or language, you have the right to enjoy your own culture, practise your own religion, and use your own language. During the assembly, we celebrated a number of languages spoken in the school. Some of our Year 6s greeted us in their mother tongue and told us something about themselves in that language. We shared a story about Selwa, a 12 year old girl who moved from Morocco to Spain. We also discussed what a gift it is to be able to speak more than one language.
In Wednesday’s assembly for Reception and Year 1, we shared the book Jabiri Jumps by Gaia Cornwall about a boy who overcomes his fear and is brave enough to jump off the diving board into the swimming pool.
Building on from this week’s Senior Leadership assembly, during the last week of the Spring term, we will be holding a whole school International Week. Each class will have a focus country which will lead their learning for the week. There will be activities throughout the week where children can learn about other countries and cultures. On Friday 31st March, we would like to invite children to wear colours of a flag that represents their heritage, or (if they would like) a national dress/outfit.
We would love for our whole school community to be involved in the week. There are a number of ways that you as parents and carers can get involved:
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Throughout this half term, children will be focusing on global music in their music sessions. There will be short performances where the children will showcase what they have learnt during the week for parents to come and watch. More details about timings will follow soon.
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International café: We would like to hold an international café on Friday 31st March where children can try food from around the world. For this, we would like to ask for any parents who feel they could to prepare some food from a country from around the world to let us know, so we can talk further about how this would work.
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Parent pop ins: We would love to have parent visitors to share or teach something about your culture or heritage. This could be a bit around another language, a craft activity, sharing photos or any other activity that would support children’s understanding of a country’s culture or heritage.
If you are able to be involved or would like to talk further regarding being involved in either the international café or the parent pop ins, please let us know via info@kilmorie.lewisham.sch.uk
This is a great opportunity to learn about different countries, celebrate our school’s diverse community and end the term on a high!
This week, on Shrove Tuesday Chartwells served up a delicious selection of tasty pancakes which were enjoyed enormously! Our next themed lunch will be on Friday 10th March for World Book Day. More information here.
Celebrating World Book Day reminds us how lives are changed through a love of books and reading. As we have such a busy term, we will be celebrating World Book Day at the end of our science week on Friday 10th March. We are inviting children who would like to dress up, to come to school in either their pyjamas signifying a time to read or as their favourite book character. We are also asking families to send in photos of their child reading in a funny / silly / adventurous place. We will create a gallery so that we can share with each other all the places we like to read! The children will be taking part in activities during the day too.
Last night we hosted a workshop for parents/carers of children in years 5 & 6 keeping children safe within the online world. Whilst a lot of information was shared it was also good to discuss ways to support. Unfortunately, it was not designed to be recorded and whilst I will upload the slides, much of the content was designed to be developed through discussion. However, Athena, which is a service in Lewisham that works with people who are experiencing gender-based violence including staying safe online, have extended their staying safe online provision to young people. They will be hosting a whole school workshop in the summer term.
‘Show Racism the Red Card’ school competition - the competition aims to encourage people to think about racism and produce their own work about this serious issue. Young people are welcome to produce work in any medium – artwork, creative writing, song, film and T-Shirt designs. Entries for the competition should be handed into the office marked for the attention of Kate McAuliffe by Wednesday 1st March. More details available here.
I wanted to say a big thank you to Radek who came in to school over the half term to repair the roof on our reading shed to stop it leaking. Also, thank you to Monika and Kathryn from Friends of Kilmorie, for kindly tidying the lost property shed regularly and helping lay it out at the end of term so it was easy for you to look through. If something is missing, please have a look in the shed, just inside the main gate.
Calling any Morris or Maypole dancers in our school community... I met with the Friends of Kilmorie this week, to plan the Early Years Garden Party. It was suggested that it would be good to have some music and entertainment and as we are holding it in the middle of May, Maypole dancing / Morris dancing were suggested. We are hoping to get the children to showcase some African drumming they are learning too. If you are a Morris dancer, part of a maypole dancing group or know of someone who is, and would like to take part, please can you email info@kilmorie.lewisham.sch.uk
Please can I remind all parents / carers that children should not play on / with any equipment in the EYFS or main playground after being collected, we are not insured against injury or damage outside school hours. Thank you for your support and co-operation with this.
Just a quick reminder that it is parents evening next week, we look forward to seeing you then. If you have not already done so, please book your appointment within your child’s Teams account or if requiring a virtual / telephone meeting, contact your child’s class teacher.
Have a lovely weekend
Kind regards
Julie
