St Mary's Newsletter

“Love one another as I have loved you” (John 15:12)

Dear Parents and Carers,

We’re moving quickly through the term, and October half term holiday is not that far away, thankfully we have lots of things to look forward to.

Welcome to Ilham Ali
We are delighted to welcome Ilham Ali as our new School-Home Support worker. School-Home Support workers act as a vital link between families and the school, offering guidance, signposting to external services, and targeted support for children and parents. Ilham will work with families to overcome barriers to attendance, learning, and well-being. She will be in school on Monday to Wednesday across both Church Lane and Rectory Gardens. Please say hello, when you see her.

New Trainee School Business Manager

Rebecca Greensmith, who many of you will know from working in the front offices at both sites, has become our new trainee School Business Manager – please join us in congratulating her in her new position.

Congratulations to…

Ceylan Rizzo welcomed baby Rayyan, and Sara Solano Vera welcomed baby Alvaro – congratulations to them both and their families.

Harvest Festival
Our Harvest Festival will take place on Wednesday 15th October. This year we are again supporting the Hornsey Food Bank. It’s a wonderful opportunity for our school community to come together and celebrate generosity and kindness. Please bring your donations on the day. Parents and carers are warmly invited to attend the assembly at 9.30am at Rectory Gardens. Please see the poster below for things that they would like to receive.

Bonfire Night Returns!
We are excited to announce that our Bonfire Night celebration is back! Join us on Friday 31st October from 7.30pm to 9.30pm at Rectory Gardens for an evening of fun and spectacular fireworks from Ally Pally. Tickets cost £3.00 and can be purchased from the QR code on the poster below.

Please remember

We are strictly a nut free school. We are also a latex free school. Latex is an airborne allergen and can be found in balloons and rubber bands so these items are strictly prohibited. Please make sure your children as aware.

Priory Park Junior Park Run
Did you know there’s a free 2km run every Sunday at 9.00am for children aged 4–14? Our school has just registered as a parkrun primary, and we will share more information soon on how your children can get involved in this healthy, community activity. If Priory Park isn’t your local park, don’t worry — there are lots of other parks running the parkrun too.

Flu Immunisation
Vaccination UK will be visiting in November to deliver flu immunisations to children from Reception to Year 6, with parental consent. A non-porcine immunisation option is also available. Consent or decline via this link: CONSENT OR DECLINE HERE (available in multiple languages). The easiest way to find our school on the list is by entering the postcode N8 7BU.

Baby Loss Awareness Week
Alexandra Palace will light up pink and blue on Thursday, 9th October 2025 to mark the start of Baby Loss Awareness Week, a time to remember babies who died too soon and to raise awareness of bereavement support. Families and the wider community are invited to take part in local events, including the Baby Loss Tree Walk on Sunday, 12th October, and ribbon displays throughout October at St Andrews Church, N10, and Priory Park, N8. You can find out more about Baby Loss Awareness Week and local events at Baby Loss Awareness Week 2025.

We hope the term continues to be full of learning and community spirit. Thank you for your support, and we look forward to the weeks ahead.

Best wishes,

Jane O’Brien

Headteacher

Important Dates – please make a note

Monday 13th October – Y2 to Holy Innocents Church
Wednesday 15th October – Harvest Festival Assembly – 9.30am @ Rectory Gardens – see poster below & details here Harvest Festival Assembly 2025
Monday 20th October – Y1 to Holy Innocents Church
Tuesday 21st October – Y2 to Tower of London
Saturday 31st October – Bonfire Night at Rectory Gardens 7.30pm to 9.30pm Bonfire Night 31 10 25
Tuesday 11th November – Flu Immunisations for Reception to Year 6 Click here to consent/deny for flu immunisations
Tuesday 18th November – Individual and sibling photos – more details to follow
Friday 5th December – Christmas Fair @ RG 5.30-7.30pm

For Your Information

October Half Term Wild Camp at Highgate Wood School Wild Camp October Half Term
Flu immunisations are coming up this term – please use this link to confirm your child’s place (or reject) and use postcode N8 7BU in location Flu Immunisations
Reminder: Rectory Gardens is a School Street. This means no driving on the road between 8am–9am and 2.45–3.30pm. Let’s keep our children safe, the air clean and prevent you from getting a penalty notice!
Our Toddler & Parent Group on Monday mornings is becoming very popular – if you’d like your under 3 to attend (or know of someone) email lchristou@stmarysn8.co.uk to book a place

Reminders

Please remember to call or email if your child is going to be off school – don’t wait for us to call you!
We are on Instagram – follow us to see our wonderful school @stmarysschooln8 and tell your family to follow us too!
Reminder about unauthorised absences and holidays during term time As you will know from previous correspondence, St Mary’s will be following the Government guidance with regards to fining families when a child has missed 10 or more sessions (5 days) for unauthorised reasons. Children should only be out of school for reasons that have been authorised.
We are strictly a nut-free school – please remember this for packed lunches and party treats
We are a latex-free school – this includes balloons, latex gloves, rubber bands etc

Contact Details

Are your contact details up-to-date?

If you have changed your address, telephone or email address please let us know as soon as possible. Have your personal circumstances changed? Again, please let us know. If you don’t get emails or texts from us then we may need to update your details.

: Y3 Drama

: Y3 Drama

: Nursery show Creation

Class News

Nursery	It was lovely to have some parents come and play with us last week. We hope you enjoyed seeing how well your children are doing and had a chance to meet other parents. Thank you also for the family photos. The children were so happy to share who the people are in their photo and we have made some wonderful family pictures on the back of this. We have been concentrating on the story of the Gingerbread Man. The children had the opportunity to make their own gingerbread men and they are able to tell the story, joining in with the refrain, “Run, run as fast as you can!” The children made an amazing group picture about the creation of the world. As the story was told, they added their own illustrations, such as turtles when we thought about what was created in the sea. As a class, we are trying to remember our nursery rules of ‘Kind hands, kind feet and kind words’. We are thinking a lot about how we can be good friends to each other and how we can look after our nursery.
Reception	In maths, we have been exploring different ways of making and continuing repeating patterns. Children enjoyed making sound patterns, using objects to create patterns and printing with paint. In English, we have been planning and writing the opening, build-up and problem of our story based on ‘The Something’. Children are really enjoying singing the story song and are able to re-tell the story with enthusiasm. In RE, we are continuing our unit on Creation and the children have been sharing their ideas on what natural things are precious to them and what might be precious to God. We are looking forward to our Forest School trip in Alexandra Palace on Thursday. The staff there have advised that it may be muddy underfoot, so please send children in wellies if possible. As part of Understanding the World, we have begun a new science unit on forces, where children have been learning about pushing, pulling, pressing and sucking.
Year 1	Year 1 are continuing to make great progress in their lessons! In English, we have been continuing our work based on the book ‘Old Bear’ by Jane Hissey and have analysed an example piece of writing to look for different features such as adjectives and have begun planning our own letter. In maths, we have started to learn what a part whole model is and how to use it to help us write addition number sentences. In RE, we thought about what questions we would ask God about his creation and discussed how climate change has affected the world. In history, the children enjoyed learning about the differences between old and new toys and had fun sharing some of their oldest toys with each other. In DT, the children evaluated their frog puppets. They discussed what went well, what challenges they faced and the solutions, as well as what they would change if they made it again. In science, the children enjoyed predicting and investigating if different objects would float or sink and why. We continue to practice level 1, 2 and 3 sounds in phonics and have whole class reading sessions where we make predictions about stories based on pictures and the front cover as well as answering questions about what we have read.
Year 2	In English, we’re continuing our journey with the beautifully illustrated story A River by Marc Martin. The children have been learning how to write letters, offering thoughtful warnings and practical advice to the main character as he travels through unfamiliar landscapes. Their creativity and imagination have truly shone through in their writing! In maths, we’ve been sharpening our number skills by working on number bonds up to 10 and 100. This solid foundation is helping us become more confident and flexible with numbers in all areas of maths. In science, we’ve been investigating how exercise affects our bodies. Through fun experiments testing our strength, coordination, and flexibility, the children have become young scientists — exploring how movement helps us stay healthy and strong. As part of our topic work, we are continuing to delve into the Great Fire of London. We’ve been learning about this important historical event through the eyes of Samuel Pepys, discovering what life was like in 1666 and how the fire changed London forever. In RE, we’ve been thinking deeply about our Christian values and learning about marriage. We’ve explored wedding ceremonies from different cultures and religions, noticing the similarities and unique traditions that make each celebration special.
Year 3	In maths, we have been moving forward with our addition and subtraction unit where we have been using place value charts to exchange 10’s when counting through hundreds. We have been working closely with our River of Rain text in English to create information leaflets. We have used role play as news reporters and researched other rivers, waterfalls and volcanoes around the world using Chromebooks and past learning. As we have continued are Rivers unit in geography, (The Thames) we have explored how in particular the docks helped shape London and what now stands where once was one of the busiest docks in Europe. In groups, we acted as nature reporters reporting in natural wonder locations. We used this role play to choose one natural wonder to write about in an information leaflet. Watch out Discovery Channel! (see some photos below)
Year 4	Year 4 have had another exciting week continuing their science work on the digestion system. This week we were conducting experiments to learn more about our teeth, and how different substances can affect the enamel that covers our teeth. We were not allowed to use the children’s real teeth, unfortunately, so we used eggs in their shells instead. We then soaked the eggs for three days. One each in water, coke, Lucozade and vinegar. We learned that coke will leave stains that are really hard to brush off, that Lucozade stains comes off but so does the enamel and that vinegar turns the egg and the enamel into a rubbery substance that popped when brushed. Moral of the lesson is always brush your teeth and don’t drink vinegar.
Year 5	In English, we have begun work on report writing based on the book ‘When We Walked On The Moon’. The focus is on using a formal style and scientific/technical language. We are learning about parenthesis and have begun to use brackets and relative clauses. We have covered addition and subtraction using the column method in maths and are currently looking at fact families and how the inverse can help us identify mistakes. We are all thoroughly enjoying our new reading book ‘Wonder’ and are actually getting excited about what will happen next with each chapter we read!
Year 6	In our English lessons, the children have now completed their flashback narratives based on a text and will begin a new style of writing – newspaper reports. In maths, we have continued our work on the four operations, looking at common factors and multiples. In geography, we have looked further at coastal defences against erosion and the other kinds of land-form which erosion and longshore drift create while in RE this week, we discussed what Jesus meant when he called himself, ‘The resurrection and the life’. On Thursday morning, our children attended the library to meet author, Clare Harlow, author of the ‘Tidemagic’ series.

In the news over the last two weeks…

Y1 Go Back In Time

Year 1 Go Back In Time

Y6 Amethyst Investigate Light

Y3 Emerald Investigate How To Clean Money

Children of the Week – w/e 3 10 25 & 10 10 25

Children of the Week – w/e 23 05 25 & 06 06 25

Y4 Visit the Hindu Mandir

Y5 Go To Space (and beyond)

As we love, we flourish
As we flourish, we aspire
As we aspire, we achieve
Together, we are a family

St Mary's Newsletter

“Love one another as I have loved you” (John 15:12)

Important Dates – please make a note

For Your Information

Reminders

Contact Details

Class News

In the news over the last two weeks…

Y1 Go Back In Time

Y6 Amethyst Investigate Light

Y3 Emerald Investigate How To Clean Money

Children of the Week – w/e 3 10 25 & 10 10 25

Y4 Visit the Hindu Mandir

Y5 Go To Space (and beyond)

Contact Details

Useful Links