Newsletter

Newsletters are emailed out to parents and carers every week on a Friday. If you do not already receive you can read it here or have it emailed by contacting the office on: office@hollypark.barnetmail.net

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This week’s newsletter:

More About Our New Catering Company

Caterlink is an independently owned company. They are education catering specialists. Caterlink has a variety of quality marks including – Green Kitchen Standard, the Soil Association Organic Standard, Food for Life Catering Mark, Red Tractor Meat Standard. Caterlink offers 95% fresh food prepared on site and a Food For Life Silver Standard meal every day. As far as possible they use locally sourced foods. There will be 3 choices of main meal every day including a vegetarian option and a jacket potato and topping option. There will be a salad bar and home baked breads. There will be a dessert option every day including fruit and yoghurt. There will also be milk and water on offer every day. We will be moving away from the green flight trays we have at present, to separate plates and bowls from Y1 to Year 6. The new company are also keen to maximize pupil engagement so will also support the school curriculum by offering cookery sessions for children, food projects, competitions, healthy eating and wellbeing activities and fund raising activities – they will do one event per term. They will come into assemblies and talk about food. The company will also run taster events for parents. They will also ask for regular feedback about the meals from the pupils. Caterlink will of course cater for allergies and we will need parents of children with allergies to fill in a new form for their child.

Project Britain Day – Tuesday 23rd April

We will be celebrating British Values on Tuesday 23rd April – this is our first day back after the Easter holiday. We will be learning about a variety of British customs and traditions. We will also be learning more about British Values, Traditions, Iconic British Landmarks, famous people and British Events. We would like the children to come to school dressed as a famous Briton – artists, inventors, engineers, politicians, scientist, sports personality etc. They need to wear a label with the name of the person they are dressed as. We thought we would give you lots of advance notice.

Dogs in School

It seems that Holly Park is a bit of a trail blazer with Poppy our school dog. At a recent conference, educationalist Sir Anthony Seldon spoke about the need to improve young people’s sense of well-being. He commented that every school should have a dog or another pet to reduce stress. He told the conference, held at the Westminster Academy in West London, that it was no longer possible for schools to focus solely on academic achievement without thinking about the emotional well-being of pupils. Sir Anthony suggested a low-tech approach to reducing anxiety was the soothing presence of animals such as dogs. He commented that the quickest and biggest hit that can be made to improve mental health in schools and to make them feel safe for children, is to have at least one dog in every single school in the country. He said that because children can relate to animals when they are hurt and anxious and sad in a way that they can’t always with human beings…. the evidence is very clear that it works, and every single school – primary, secondary, special – should have dogs. Education Secretary Damian Hinds also said that more schools seem to have “well-being dogs” and “the pets can really help”. He commented that it wasn’t around when he was at school. He said that first he was a bit surprised, but actually it’s a great thing. He commented that for the children it can be really uplifting, particularly those that have different ways of expressing themselves and coming out of themselves – and the dogs can really help.

An article in the Times newspaper last week also featured dogs in school and commented that well-being animals in school can really make for happier more focused pupils. It pointed out that research has shown that having a dog in school has profound and measurable outcomes. Recent research in Australia has shown that dogs in school can reduce stress, increase attachment responses and increase trust. It increased pupil motivation, helped those with emotional needs and led to increases in attendance.

Keeping Britain Tidy

Well done to those who went to Coppetts Wood and supported Mrs Casey with clearing the area of so much rubbish. It was a great community activity to undertake. As a school we use the woods for our Forest School – so we would like it to be free of litter. They filled 46 bags of rubbish in a few hours. I would urge parents to really talk to their children about why littering is a really bad thing to do – how it makes an area look awful, dirty, smelly and very unattractive – how it encourages vermin – and is also not safe for wildlife and dogs who could eat it. I would like to think that Holly Parkers would not throw their litter on the floor.

Goodbye

I am writing to let you know that Alison Montgomery Heath (formerly Cooper) has decided to resign at the end of this term to pursue a career as a play therapist. Alison has been a member of staff at Holly Park for 20 years. I would like to thank Alison on behalf of myself and on behalf of the previous head teachers she has worked with, for her work at the school over the many years she has been here. Alison has been a Higher Level Teaching Assistant at the school and has been very involved supporting children with English as an additional language. I wish Alison much success as she begins a new career and sets up her own play therapy business. Alison will always be very welcome as a visitor. As we say – ‘Once a Holly Parker always a Holly Parker.’

Y4 Football Tournament

On Wednesday last week 6 boys and 2 girls took part in the Barnet East Year 4 football tournament. The standard of football was very high and Holly Park were in quite a tough group. The team managed 2 hard fought draws and 2 losses to finish third in the group but unfortunately this was not enough to progress to the knockout rounds. The whole team played really well and behaved impeccably.

Inter School Cross Country Competition

On Tuesday 19th April Holly Park took part in the Second Cross Country meet of the season. In very muddy conditions there were some excellent performances, with Amarion claiming a silver medal in the Year 5 race. When the points had been tallied, Holly Park after both events came second in the borough out of the 37 schools competing. Well done to all our fantastic runners and to Mr Bourne and Mr Carini

Meet 1&2 Team Scores

1st Akiva 358
2nd Holly Park 447
3rd Brookland 577

Music News

CHAMBER CHOIR (Years 5&6 Barnabas Choir): final Chamber Choir session of the term: April 2nd. Next term’s dates for Chamber Choir: 23rd April; 14th May; 4th June. Barnabas Choir (Years 3, 4 & 5) 25th June.
Diary dates: Infant Choir Concert: Tuesday 30th April, 6:30 p.m. (No after-school Infant Choir sessions next term.) Chamber Choir will be performing at the Barnet Schools’ Music Festival – held at the Artsdepot Theatre, North Finchley – on Tuesday 18th June (7 – 9 p.m.) Barnabas Choir (Years 3, 4 &5) summer concert will be held at school on Wednesday 10th July, 7 p.m. HOLLY PARK MUSIC BLOG This contains many of the songs we are learning in our choirs. It may be accessed via the school website (Music and Choirs: Holly Park Music Blog).

Holly Park Words of the Week

Despair – the complete loss or absence of hope.
Demolish –pull or knock down (a building). Overwhelmingly defeat
Despise –feel contempt or a deep repugnance for
Digest – breakdown food in the body or take time to understand the information

Holly Park Online Community Noticeboard

We now have a Community Noticeboard on our school website under the ‘Contact’ heading. This is for parents and friends of the school to advertise their businesses/events. For example if you make birthday cakes, do nails, are a decorator etc. The following rules will apply: Items will be listed alphabetically to avoid any favouritism eg C for cake making, P for Piano lessons. There is a disclaimer at the top of the page saying that inclusion on the page does not mean the service is endorsed by the school in any way. The cost to advertise will be £10 per term paid to Mrs Hassan. We no longer distribute leaflets for companies advertising holiday clubs, tennis lessons etc as this is not very eco friendly. However the company can email the school office a leaflet and for £10 can advertise on this page.

Here is this week’s newsletter:Newsletter 29.3.19