Weekly Update from Mr Meehan

What an exciting and busy week we have had at Christ Church! Events started on Sunday, with some of our Year 6 pupils joining us for the New Malden Remembrance Parade last Sunday. My thanks to Melody and Elsa, who laid the CCNM wreath and also Eiru and Erin, who led the parade with the Mayor’s wreath. 

There has been a bit of a food theme this week at the infants. Our hall on Monday was turned into a pizza making factory, and I know chief dough-maker Mr Burkinshaw enjoyed this. I enjoyed visiting Squirrel class earlier in the week for a jam sandwich! Yes, we were all eating jam sandwiches, because the class had been learning about writing clear and specific instructions, such as ‘spread the jam on one side of the bread carefully with a knife’.  In my visit to nursery, I was also impressed with how many food words the children could name from ‘broccoli’ to ‘banana’ to ‘biscuit’ in some of their role play time.

It was a special day at our juniors on Wednesday, with our celebration of Korean culture. Staff and volunteers of KOWIN UK (Korean’s Women’s International Network UK) led us in a celebration of language, history, dance, art and storytelling, as well as our oldest children trying out some Tae Kwondo.

Of course, additionally, we have been marking Anti-Bullying Week this week, which started with us all showing off our Odd Socks Day on Monday. We are also all-systems-go with our ‘celebrating difference’ poster competition, and the children have until next Friday to get their entries in. Please see email sent earlier in the week for more detail on this.

Add into the mix some of our Year 4s enjoying their ‘Learning to Ride’ sessions and some of our Year 5 and 6 girls becoming finalists in a tournament in Fulham, it certainly has been an eventful week!

Please do come and be part of our Learning Look next week. Your child(ren)’s classroom (all year groups from Reception upwards) is open between 4.30pm - 5.30pm on Thursday evening, and there will be an opportunity to look at your child’s books and discuss their learning. Your child’s teacher will also be in the classroom as well.

We also have some really exciting news for our classrooms! Our lovely PTA have agreed £500 worth of new reading books for each class and, in the coming weeks, teachers and their classes will be choosing some new reading material to refresh our class book corners. This is all part of our current focus on reading for pleasure, that everyone can get involved in. These kind of things come about because of the hard work that the PTA does in fund-raising, which is what our Christmas Fair is all about in a week’s time - see below!

Finally, talking about reading, your junior child today will have received this flyer advertising our forthcoming ‘Giving the Gift of Reading’ evening for our parents with literacy expert, Lindsay Pickton. This is an evening not to miss! You can book using the link on the flyer if you’d like to take advantage of the ‘movie-night’ creche for your child.

Have a great weekend - and maybe enjoy curling up a book with your child on these darker nights!

MS WASATI RECOMMENDS

A Day with No Words by Tiffany Hammond

A lovely book about a nonverbal autistic child written in the first person from a boy’s perspective and his family who emulate his communication style. It shows the reader that the mind is colourful and intelligent, regardless of communication style. In this book, the bond between mother and child is heartwarming as they navigate/interact within a world of verbal communication.

Our School Updates for Parents

PTA Christmas Fair 

This special event is nearly here! Come and join in the fun on the junior site between 1-4pm. More details here.

Last dates for clubs this term 

Please note that the last dates for clubs this term are not all the same week and are as detailed below:

• Infant Dance - Monday 20th November
• Y1 and Y2 Drama - Monday 20th November
• Y3/4 and Y5/6 Chess - Monday 20th November
• Infant Spanish - Monday 20th November
• Junior Girls’ football - Monday 20th November
• Y1/2 Football - Tuesday 21st November
• Y5/6 and Y3/4 Spanish - Tuesday 21st November
• Cooking - Tuesday 21st November
• Good News Club - Tuesday 21st November
• Junior Choir - Tuesday 19th December (NO CHOIR 12TH DECEMBER)
• Y2 Choir - Tuesday 12th December
• Judo - Wednesday 29th November
• Orchestra - Wednesday 29th November
• Gold recorders - Wednesday 29th November
• Bronze recorders - Wednesday 29th November
• Pop and Rock - Wednesday 29th November
• Y5/6 Football - Wednesday 29th November
• Junior Dance - Thursday 23rd November
• Handbells - Thursday 23rd November (Mrs Bond may do an extra one but will let the children know)
• Junior Drama - Thursday 23rd November
• Y3/4 Football - Thursday 23rd November
• Y5/6 Netball - Friday 24th November

Christmas Lunch and Christmas Jumper Day - Wednesday 13th December

Nourish will be providing a Christmas lunch on Wednesday 13th December. Please see the attached menu for your information. It will also be Christmas Jumper Day and children can wear their festive jumpers to school.

Have you given to the Governors’ Fund yet?

Thank you to those parents/carers who are already giving monthly to support our school through our Governors’ Fund. If you have not yet done so, please consider setting up a regular monthly payment.  Any gifts to the Governors' Fund can be Gift-Aided, so any regular donations you make will be worth 25% more to the school. Please look at our flyer regarding our Governors’ Fund which gives you more detail about how this fund has the power to transform our school further and details of how you could be part of it. We know these are challenging times for many of us, but in order to ensure we can make our school the best that it can be, then please do consider carefully what and how you could contribute. In these times of increasingly stretched schools’ funding, we need your help to ensure we have enough resources to keep making wonderful school experiences happening for our children at Christ Church! Thank you.

Road Safety and Parking at both our sites Given both of our sites are situated in and amongst residential roads, it is really important that we are all the best drivers and parkers we can be at drop off and pick up times. Please ensure safe, sensible parking (for example, not blocking half a driveway, mounting the pavement or stopping on the zig-zag yellow lines). For the safety of all our children, please drive carefully in and around the Groves. 

Please can our infant parents also be reminded NOT to park in the staff car park, especially at drop off and pick up times, as this involves cars driving over a very busy pavement at that time, as families walk to school.

Thank you for your cooperation.

Wider Community Updates

Wimbledon Festive Light Trail - 23rd November - 17th December

There is a Wimbledon Festive Light Trail at Cannizaro Park from 23rd November until 17th December. For more details and to buy tickets, please visit their website.

Pokémon Club - Malden Centre

The Malden Centre have informed us that they run a Pokémon club every Saturday morning for children aged 6-14. Please see the attached flyer for details.

Key School Dates 

• Wednesday 22nd November - Reception Tour for Prospective Parents @ 9:30am
• Thursday 23rd November - Learning Look @ 4:30-5:30pm
• Saturday 25th November - PTA Christmas Fair @ 1:00 - 4:00pm
• Monday 27th November - Friday 1st December – Wellbeing Week
• Monday 27th November - Y6 Choir singing at John Lewis @ 10:30am
• Thursday 30th November – Antelope Class Worship @ 2:45pm
• Monday 4th December – Y3 Greek Workshop (pm)
• Tuesday 5th December - Reception 'Try The Train' Trip to Waterloo (am)
• Tuesday 5th December - Y2 - Christmas Journey at Baptist Church
• Tuesday 5th December - Y4/5 Choirs Singing at Christ Church Widows Club (pm)
• Wednesday 6th December - ‘Giving the Gift of Reading’ evening workshop for parents
• Monday 11th – Friday 15th December – Chums Week
• Monday 11th December - Reception Trip to Waitrose and Methodist Church
• Tuesday 12th December - Y5 Science Dome ‘Earth & Beyond’ Show (am)
• Tuesday 12th December - Junior Christmas Production @ 2pm and 6pm
• Wednesday 13th December - Christmas Jumper Day and Christmas Lunch
• Thursday 14th December – Reception Nativity @ 9am
• Tuesday 19th December – Church Service @ 9:45am
• Wednesday 20th December – Term finishes @ 1:05p.m. (infants), 1:20 p.m. (juniors) and Connect 5:15 p.m.
• Thursday 21st December – INSET Day (School closed to pupils)
• Friday 22nd December – Friday 5th January – Christmas Holiday
• Monday 8th January – INSET Day (School closed to pupils)
• Tuesday 9th January – Pupils return to school