Judith Kerr Primary Parent Portal

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Friday 10th October 2024

Dear Families,

It was so wonderful to see all the children's self-portraits displayed in the ground floor hall yesterday - our very own JKPS Portrait Gallery. Thank you to everyone who came along to admire the children's fabulous artwork. If you purchased your child's portrait on the day, please collect it from the office. If you would still like to purchase your child's portrait, please speak to the office team.

In case you missed the Friends email yesterday... Oktoberfest raised an incredible £17,000 for our school! This is a true testament to the strength of our community - thank you again to everyone involved. We are hugely grateful and look forward to sharing with you how this fundraising will be used to support JKPS.

World Mental Health Day: thank you to our Mental Health Lead, Mr Tom, for helping raise awareness of the importance of Mental Health throughout the school yesterday. We loved the snacks and staff shout-outs! The children enjoyed their in-class discussions and doodle time. And thank you to the children and staff who all dressed up in yellow to mark the occasion.

Schönes Wochenende!

Patrick

Key messages:

Reminder on trip/ event contributions: if you have a child in Year 3 or Year 6, please make your contribution via MCAS to their respective Southwark Cathedral Trip (Y3) or Windrush workshop (Y6). Please note that your contributions are essential for us to be able to continue to provide a range of workshops and trips. Do let us know if you need financial support with contributing to trips.

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Lost Property

A note on lost property, with over 400 children all learning to look after their own things, a significant number of items get lost every day. Staff gather these up and put them on the lost property shelves, which are on the left of the main entrance door (outside but under shelter). There is also a lost property box in the Early Years Area. Because of the number of items involved, it isn't always possible to return items to children individually.

The best chance of getting something back is if it is named. Please make sure everything is named, including water bottles, lunch boxes, hats, coats and items of school uniform as well as any items such as books from home.

Items, jumpers and lunchboxes especially, also get left across the school and in the green space - so it can sometimes be a few days before something is found and moved to the shelves. Please regularly check the lost property shelves if you have lost something.

Black History Month

Across the school next week, classes will be celebrating Black History Month and deepening their understanding of the impact of black heritage and culture. We will present some of their learning in next week's newsletter. After half-term, Year 5's will also be presenting their work on Hidden Figures.

Understanding our local context and history is key to our curriculum planning across the year and Year 6's study of Benjamin Zephaniah's Windrush Child is particularly timely, falling within Black History Month.

Here are some further links for ways that you can celebrate Black History Month with your child: https://www.leaplambeth.org.uk/families/learning/fun-activities-for-early-years/black-history-month-activities-at-home

https://www.high-trees.org/black-history-month/

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Safeguarding

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IMPORTANT NOTICE: Please could all parents/carers be vigilant about closing the gate when coming through the school, particularly during school hours or at the start or end of the day. Leaving the gate open presents a significant safeguarding risk.

Today, Years 2 to 6 had an assembly about Young Carers. The assembly explored who young carers are, what they do and what the impact of being a young carer might be.

For more information about young carers, click here.

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Attendance

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Last week was our best attendance yet this year! And 2% up on last year. Whilst we understand that it isn't always possible to reach 100% attendance, we are fully committed to ensuring the highest levels of attendance to ensure we enable every student to meet their potential.

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Meanhwhile in EYFS...

Children enjoyed a visit to the forest area today to collect yellow leaves to create a collaborative piece of artwork (a big yellow leaf heart). They read the story 'Ruby finds a Worry' and had a circle time about feelings and if we have a worry, who could help them if they felt upset and sad. Later we spoke about the feeling of happiness and learnt about 'The Doodle boy' who loves to draw. He creates amazing art work from his doodles. We listened to some classical music, which helped us to relax, and created our own doodle pictures. Here are just a few! We spoke about what makes us happy and some of the responses included "Christmas", "chocolate", "my friends" and "drawing!". Great work EYFS!

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Anthem Community Council

We are looking to expand our Anthem Community Council (ACC). In next week's newsletter we will let you know about how you, or someone you might know, can apply to be part of our ACC and support the development of our school.

We will be looking for a German Champion, a Climate Change and Sustainability Champion and two Community Champions. For more information about our ACC visit https://www.judithkerr.anthemtrust.uk/lgb.

Friends Corner

Coming soon! The famous JKPS pub quiz makes a return on the evening of Tuesday October 22 at 7pm, 🎃Hallowe’en themed and complete with possibly the world’s only parent-focused German/English spelling contest. Tickets are free, but we will raise money through snacks and drinks, and donations towards installing scooter parking. Find out more here

Don’t miss the next Gardening Day on Saturday October 19 from 11-3pm where we’ll be making sure the garden is a perfect place for hibernation 🦔 and mushrooms 🍄.

There will also be a Pre-loved uniform sale on Thursday 24 Oct after school - we are very well stocked for trousers, skirts, pinafore and polo shirts. Please text Claire in advance if you want to reserve anything - 07730 433 519. We’re also looking for about 60 ‘clip hangers’ to help store the trousers, so please have a look at home if you have any to spare.

Two dates for after half term to get in your diary now - The famous Sankt Martin lantern parade on Fri 8 Nov and the Winter Fair on Sat 7 Dec.

And last but not least! A warm welcome to Anna Geldart, y2 parent, who has kindly stepped in to become our new Secretary, replacing the wonderful Liz Holt who is stepping down. Thank you, Liz!

If you have any parent planned events or initiatives in mind, do get in touch at fojkps@gmail.com and we can add them to the Friends’ Calendar. Remember to join our Community WhatsApp channel if you’d like to be able to find the main messages we send out in one easy place. Link to join is here.