Newsletter

Food Bank Aid’s ‘Healthy Smile Campaign’

This half term, our school will be taking part in Food Bank Aid’s ‘Healthy Smile Campaign, helping to support families who are unable to afford basic dental care. How you can help: We are inviting families to donate toothpaste and toothbrushes to help fill the dental care gap for children and adults using local food banks. There will be a basket in the foyer between Monday 23rd February and Friday 20th March for any donations of toothpaste and toothbrushes. Every donation helps families take care of healthy smiles – thank you so much for your support.

Debate

Pupils from Year 6 presented the whole of KS2 with a debate this week. This was following a unit of work they had been doing in class about persuasive argument. The motion was: This house believes that we need less screen time. A very topical issue. Miss Sampson and Tobias chaired the debate. Before the teams presented, the audience was asked to vote. 86 were against this motion, 72 for it and 47 abstained. Each team then made their points for and against the motion. At the end there were questions from staff and children which each team had to answer. The teams gave excellent arguments which had been written in advance and they used powerful vocabulary and language to make their points. There then followed another vote once the audience had heard all of the points. The motion was lost. 108 were against the motion, 82 were for it and 14 abstained. What was excellent was that the team ‘for’ the motion had managed to gain 10 more votes after they had shared their thoughts. Thank you to all of Year 6- teachers and children for the work they had put into this and to Mrs Mehtar who acted as the ‘teller’ collecting the votes and to Mr Bourne – the human calculator!

Extra Bike Racks

We are delighted that we were able to increase the storage space for bikes and scooters over the half term holiday. The racks were provided free of charge from the School Travel Plan – thanks to Mrs Thomas who applied for them. Thanks to Mr Reid and Mr King who built them and fixed them in situ over the break. It is wonderful that so many children travel to school on bicycles and scooters. Now that we have a lot of storage space the playground should look much tidier in that area.

Infant Show

Due to Ramadan and Eid we have made some changes to the originally advertised timings of the Infant Show: Dress rehearsal – Monday 16th March Performance 1 – Tuesday 17th March at 2pm Performance 2 – Wednesday 18th March at 2pm Entrance is by ticket only. The hall can only hold a maximum of 120 seats. There are 120 children in the show. Therefore, each child will be given one ticket per performance.

Just One Tree

I am delighted to tell you that due to our ongoing work on sustainability by taking part in Just One Tree Day over several years and with the parental donations each year, we have become a Planet Hero School.

World Book Day

This year, World Book Day is on Thursday 5th March and we have lots of exciting activities planned! Our Holly Park theme this year is… Magical Creatures and mythical Beasts!

• All children are invited to dress up as their favourite book character from a book of their choice.

• The Holly Park World Book Day Pop-Up Museum will be back! This year we are asking pupils to make (at home) and bring in their own model creation of a mythical beast or creature. They can re-create one that is well-known or invent their own. It could be made from card, paper, clay, material, cake…anything they like! These will be collated in to an exhibition for every class to visit.

• Ms Sampson will be leading a whole school assembly.

• During the day, children will be drawing their own magical creature or mythical beast. Each class will collate these to create a ‘Bestiary’. These will then be made available in the library.

• Pupils will receive their book tokens that can be used to buy special World Book Day books in shops (or £1 off a preferred book).

• If you would like to get involved with further activities at home then there are many suggestions on the World Book Day website: https://www.worldbookday.com

Card Games for Breakfast Club

We would really welcome donations of complete card games for children in breakfast club to use. We are thinking of games such as: normal packs of playing cards, UNO and Top Trumps. If you have any complete sets at home which don’t get used, we would be very grateful. Thank you.

Attendance

Whole school attendance for the last week was 96% Well done to Year 5 Maple Class with the best attendance at 99%.

Dates

Monday 2nd March Times released online for parent consultations
Thursday 5th March World Book Day
Friday 6th March The Holly Park Book Swap
Friday 6th March Y4 Pyjama Party
Monday 9th March First Aid lessons this week
Tuesday 10th March KS1 maths meeting at 9am
Tuesday 10th March KS1 Book Look at 3.45pm
Tuesday 10th March Barnet Dance festival
Wednesday 11th March KS2 Book Look at 3.45pm

Term dates for parents: Term dates

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