Newsletter

Key Information About Our School – How does the school make parents aware of what their child will learn during the year?

The school sends out a termly year group curriculum newsletter to parents explaining what will be taught in every subject for that term. These are also on the year group page of the website. The Spring term letter has been emailed home this week. There are also detailed learning organisers on each year group page which explains learning from the previous term. The school has a curriculum section on the school website. Every subject has its own page with information about what is taught and how it is taught. The school runs curriculum meetings or workshops to explain more about a variety of curriculum areas so that parents have a better idea about what is taught and how it is taught E,g Nursery – The EYFS Curriculum Reception – The EYFS curriculum and phonics Year 1 – Phonics Year 2 – SPAG and maths. Expectations for the national tests. Year 3,4,5 – 3 workshops a year. One per term on a different subject. Year 6 – expectations for the national tests and sex and relationship education

Nursery Places

If your child has turned three or turns three between December and the end of March 2026 – we do take an Easter intake in our Nursery and there are spaces for the summer term. If you feel that your child is entitled to a nursery place in the summer term – please contact either Miss Hounslow in the school office or Miss Mornington in nursery.

Our National Charity this Term

This term we will be supporting a national Charity called ‘Spread your wings’ which is a charity that supports children with Angelman Syndrome. Angelman Syndrome (AS) is a rare neurogenetic condition affecting around 1 in 15,000 people, about 500,000 in the world. It affects the nervous system causing severe physical and learning disabilities, little or no speech and issues with movement and balance. A person with Angelman will have near normal life expectancy, but they will require support throughout their life. AS is caused by one of several different types of disruptions of a region of Chromosome 15, all involving a single gene, UBE3A. AS or Angelman Syndrome, was given its name by a British paediatrician, Harry Angelman. He first identified it in 1965. Initially, little was known of the disorder and few other cases were identified. Spread your wings is a charity close to our school community as Alex who runs Non Stop Action has a son with Angelman’s Syndrome. We will let you know shortly what we will be doing as a school to support this charity this term.

Thank You

Thank you so very much to those of you who donated to buy a book for our library via Parent Pay. We have managed to provide a wide range of wonderful new books for the shelves—the children will benefit enormously.

Who Are The Subject Leaders?

We thought that it would be interesting and useful for you to know who our curriculum subject leaders are. In a primary school every teacher has to be in charge of a subject.

Mr Carini & Mr Turner – Computing
Miss Mountford – Writing
Ms Sampson – Reading
Mrs Mir – Maths
Mrs Walton – Phonics
Ms Echanove – Spanish
Mr Llewellyn – Art
Mrs Nichols – RE
Mrs Mehtar – PHSE
Miss Wood -EYFS and SEND
Mrs Zane – Design Technology
Miss Yiannaki & Mr Bourne – PE
Mrs Thomas – Pupil Premium & LAC
Mrs Fitzpatrick – Geography
Miss Halil – Music

Young Carers

We are committed to ensuring that all students get the support they need to have a positive school experience, are happy in school and can achieve their full potential. We know that for some students, factors outside of school can have a big impact on this, particularly if there is someone in their family or a friend who is ill, disabled, or has a mental health problem or an addiction. We think in every class there could be as many as 2 children who are helping to support someone because of one of these factors – we call these students young carers. Children can be young carers for lots of different reasons:

They might be providing physical support to a parent with a physical illness such as fibromyalgia or ME,
They might be helping a parent with a disability
They may help look after a sibling with special needs or a disability
They may help look after a grandparent who lives in the home and needs extra care
They may provide some emotional support for parents who are recently separated or divorced
They may provide some emotional support for a parent with anxiety
They may help provide emotional support at times for a sibling with special needs who becomes dysregulated and upset
They may provide both physical or emotional support for siblings or parents with mental health concerns.

There are many categories of young carers – many you may not have thought about. It could be that they are worrying at home about a family member with an illness eg cancer. They may need to do more things for themselves for some of the reasons above – more so than other pupils of their age. Some young carers might be doing lots of caring, others just a small amount but are impacted by a situation at home. There is absolutely no stigma to being a young carer and in fact there are lots of benefits. There is lots of support available for young carers and their families should they need it – both inside and outside of school. If you think that any of the above applies to your child, and that they might possibly be a young carer then please contact Mrs Thomas. Even if you feel your child or family are doing really well and don’t need any support, we find that it’s better for us to be aware and have them on our radar as potential young carers.

We can complete all of the necessary paperwork to sign children up with Barnet Young Carers where they would be eligible for:

FREE swimming and discounted sessions within Better Gyms in the Barnet and surrounding areas.
A one on one mentoring programme which gives them the opportunity to meet with a qualified mentor
FREE activities in school holidays e.g theme park trips, theatre trips, arts and crafts courses, kayaking courses and much more.
Group mentoring sessions
Possible future tuition sessions

Homework

A reminder as we are approaching half term that Children at Holly Park will be rewarded each half term for doing their homework. Children in KS1 and Year 3 will receive house points for doing their homework. At the end of each half term children in KS2 who have done the majority of their homework that needs to be handed in each week will receive Golden Time. Golden Time will be done in year groups. Golden Time for homework will be 15 minutes and will be extra playtime, Amazon Climber, ball area. Children who have not done the vast majority of homework that needs to be handed in will not participate in Golden Time.

Attendance

Whole school attendance for the last week was 95% Well done to Year 4 Sycamore Class with the best attendance at 99%.

Dates

Friday 30th January Parent meeting – Character Education via Zoom 9.30am
Monday 2nd February Annual House Challenge
Wednesday 4th February Meeting for Y4 parents about the Y5 residential 2026
Thursday 12th February Cross Country
Friday 14th February End of Half term at 3.30pm

There is a facility to translate this newsletter and the whole school website at the bottom of the website home page.