Dear Parents and Carers,
I hope that you all enjoyed the Easter celebrations at the end of last term and, of course, the Easter break. It was great to see many of you process down Hornsey High Street with us on Donkey Day, enjoying the spectacle and the joy of the occasion.
Easter at St Mary’s in the Ham & High
Did you see the article in the Ham & High about our Easter celebrations? If you haven’t, please take a look, especially if you have never been to our Donkey Day! Ham & High Easter at St Mary’s
A busy start to the Summer term
Our enrichment curriculum kicked in as soon as the summer term started with trips and visitors into school. Every year we welcome the London Fire Brigade into school to do a workshop with the children on fire safety in the home. This is always focussed on Year 2 and Year 5 so that as the children move up the school they would have met with the LFB team twice, learning about what they can do to keep themselves and others safe.
On Monday morning the Year 4 classes had an early start as they headed off to London Zoo and what a day it was! The sun was shining and they saw lots of different animals, learning about the many different animal habitats in line with their current topic. A big thank you to the parent volunteers that supported on this trip enabling it to happen. Some of the highlights were seeing some baby gorillas and the penguins and Roman, Scarlet class spider enthusiast, said, “My favourite part was walking through the spider enclosure because I got to get up close to some different spiders” while Carmen in Scarlet Class said, “I really enjoyed the gorillas because we learnt new facts like how dominant males have a silver back.” Y4 to London Zoo
Have you been to the Natural History Museum before? The children in Year 6 visited the museum this week to further learn about evolution and adaptation. They looked at fossils and had some really interesting discussions in the workshop that even had the adults joining in. Y6 to Natural History Museum
Reception had a wonderful field trip Alexandra Palace to Wild in the Park where they met artist Laura Fox and had a brilliant day building dens and bridges and discovering plants and wildlife. Reception Go Wild!
Crimson Class Assembly
We were treated to a great assembly on Thursday by Crimson Class who showed off their learning in geography around natural disasters and science, animals and their habitats. As well as referring to their learning and the animals that they saw at the zoo, they also linked it to animals more locally, at Priory Park! Did you know there were animal predators in Priory Park? Who do you think might eat the worms? If you want to find out more, ask some of the children in Crimson Class who shared lots of knowledge and also treated us to some songs linked to their learning. Well done Crimson class and thank you to the parents that came along to watch and support their children.
Impressive Rainforest Exhibition by Year 5
If you didn’t make it up to Year 5 this week, then you missed out! Year 5 were showing off their learning in what appears to be one of their favourite topics so far. They exhibited their books and displayed work for all to see with some authentic forest sounds and props to help visitors feel the same love and excitement around the topic that they had. The purpose for this wonderful exhibition, and the cake sale they had, was to raise some money to buy an acre of rainforest in order to help save it from deforestation. As we know from Year 4’s learning, the rainforest is an important habitat for animals and so it is fantastic that Year 5 are trying to be ‘active global citizens’ trying to make a difference to the planet. They successfully raised enough money to go ahead and you can see some of their lovely work here Y5 Rainforest Exhibition
Top Tips for Healthier Digital Habits as a Family
We know that it’s a difficult time for families as we are realising the negative impact of having a smart phone and trying to navigate how to mitigate this, particularly if your children already have smart phones. This useful poster was shared with us and we wanted to share it with everyone as it has simple tips on what we can all do, parents and children to make our digital habits more healthy. Please take a look here Top Tips for Healthier Digital Habits
International Evening on Monday 19th May 5.30pm to 7.30pm
International evening is a celebration of our similarities and differences, demonstrated through traditional dress and food that we all get to share. Every other year we invite families, children and staff to show off their cultural creativity with performances of song, dance and drama, however on the years in between we focus on the food and dress. An addition to this is traditional games! Can you share any traditional games? Can you cook some delicious food to share? Please see the poster for more details of how you can get involved. We look forward to seeing you at our international evening.
When I Grow Up Day – Wednesday 21st May
We would still like to find volunteers for our When I Grow Up Day.
Please see the letter that was emailed for all the details and have a think how you could help. It doesn’t even have to be your current job – it could be the best job you ever had (or the worst at a push…!) or a job you did when you were younger, that led to what you do now. We would also love to have any ex-St Mary’s pupils come along to talk about what they did after they left secondary school, or grandparents to talk about their work history.
Best wishes
Jane O’Brien
Headteacher
