Newsletter

Glue Sticks

We are desperate for glue sticks to get us through to the end of the year. If you can donate some 40g glue sticks to your child’s class we will be VERY grateful.

Y6 Careers Fair

Following the success of last year’s Y6 careers fair, we are looking to repeat this again. As part of the work that we are doing across the school about the world of work we would really like to use our parent base to create a kind of careers fair towards the end of the school year. The date will be Thursday 17th July (afternoon) We are looking for approximately 10 parents who would be willing to come in to talk to a small group of children about their job and answer any questions. The session is a round robin of Y6 children in groups of about six, rotating round each parent. Each parent would need to talk to approximately 10 different groups of children for about 10-15 minutes at a time. If you think that you would be able to come and help us with this and talk about your job please contact me on head@hollypark.barnetmail.net

Y5 Secondary Transfer Information

There is a meeting for current Y5 parents on Monday 16th June at 9am about secondary transfer for their children and how the process works. This is now the start of a very important time for Y5 parents and children as they make decisions about the next educational step for their children. If you do not manage to make the meeting – please ensure that you really are fully aware of the process and how it works. It is vital not to miss deadlines.

Diversity Day: Be Yourself Thursday (19th June)

On Thursday 19th June we are having ‘Be Yourself Day’ It’s a day for the children to celebrate and acknowledge the beauty of being themselves and their unique capabilities. It’s also a day to celebrate everyone’s differences. It’s a day to be yourself – the focus is about believing in their dreams, embracing their uniqueness, and inspiring them to use joy and laughter. We are asking the children to come to school that day wearing clothes that celebrate who they are – be it party clothes, a particular colour of clothes, pyjamas, dressing up clothes, sports clothes etc

Books for the Library

Our new library (The Enchanted Forest) has been operational for almost a year now and has been a great success. KS2 change their reading challenge books in there, classes go in there every week and we have a number of lunchtime clubs and open sessions in the library every week. Recently the Senior Leadership Team did some monitoring of staff and pupil voice to find out how well it was going and what more we could do to make it the best it can be.

This is what we found out:

Areas of strength:

This has been a very positive addition to our school
Most year groups visit the library regularly
Children love the library – they find it a comfy and cosy place to be – and they like to relax and read – often sharing books with each other
Children like their teacher to read to them in there
The library is a lovely environment – peaceful and not cluttered
The sign out process for class teachers is easy and straight forward
It has run well for the past year
The lunchtime clubs and open sessions work well and are popular
Information books and graphic novels are very popular
Miss Sampson has worked hard to make it work and to ensure a great selection of book choices

Areas for development:

More seating – cushions/beanbags
More poetry books in the reading challenge
Change the storage of picture books for easier access
More graphic novel books
More non-fiction books for KS2
Easier non-fiction books for KS1
Very simple picture books for EYFS
Consider parent volunteers in the library from 8.45- 9.30 to support reading challenge book changing and tidying shelves

We were very pleased with the feedback. Overall – it has been an excellent initiative from concept – to fundraising – to installation – to current use. Miss Sampson has had great determination to make it work. It has been a welcome addition to our school, has been an effective use of space and has increased and enhanced the love of reading for the children at Holly Park. As you can see, the main points for development were to buy even more books. School budgets are extremely tight and whilst we have allocated some money from our budget to buy more library books – it is not enough to buy what the children would like. We are therefore launching a campaign to ask parents to donate £7.99 on School Money to buy a book. If every parent donated £7.99 for each of their children we would raise approx. £3,000 for Miss Sampson to buy the books that the children would like. We would be VERY grateful for £7.99 donations on School Money. If you would like to buy more than one book (or a grandparent would like to donate £7.99 via yourself) please either call Miss Hounslow in the school office or email her on office@hollypark.barnetmail.net and she can change your amount on School Money. We very much appreciate your contributions as it will be invaluable for our lovely library.

Journalist

There was a journalist outside the school earlier this week trying to get information from parents about a club that has nothing to do with the school. I have been in contact with the Barnet Communications Team about this. There is nothing we can do to stop anyone door stepping on the public thoroughfare. This sort of thing was once a tabloid tactic but even they have stopped this practice because it is unscrupulous. Obviously, it is the prerogative of parents to speak with any journalist if they want to however parents should exercise caution and be clear about the credentials of anyone claiming to be a journalist and how genuine they are. Parents should be careful about speaking to unaccredited journalists and giving away personal details and personal information. Parents should also be aware that information given can be misconstrued and misinterpreted and can lead to all sorts of difficulties.

Attendance

Whole school attendance for the week before half term was 96% Well done to Y5 Maple Class with the best attendance at 99%.

Dates

Monday 9th June – Year 1 Phonics Check week
Monday 9th June – Y5 to the Science Museum
Tuesday 10th June – Barnet Music Festival
Thursday 12th June – Archery sessions for Y2,3,4,5
Friday 13th June – Archery sessions for Y2,3,4,5
Monday 16th June – Secondary transfer meeting Y5 parents at 9.00am
Monday 16th June – All New Reception parents meeting 7pm
Tuesday 17th June – Y4 trip to the Tower of London
Tuesday 17th June – Nursery Open session for new parents 4-5pm
Wednesday 18th June – Coffee morning for Y1 and 2 parents
Wednesday 18th June – Class Photos
Thursday 19th June – Diversity Day – Be Yourself Thursday
Friday 20th June – Y3 Team Building day
Monday 23rd June – The Debate challenge workshop (Y5/6 children)
Tuesday 24th June – Nursery Open session for new parents 4-5pm
Wednesday 25th June – Coffee morning for our Farsi speaking families
Friday 27th June – Copthall Athletics
Saturday 28th June – PTA Summer festival

Save the date – PTA Summer Festival 28th June

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