Weekly News - Friday 11th September 2020

Our first full school week has been a resounding success! Well done to all our new Ducklings and Nursery children, parents and staff. All of the children seem so happy and settled, learning new routines and making new friends. Mrs. Drummond was welcomed into the Ducklings garden this afternoon (socially distanced of course!) and enjoyed meeting the newest, youngest members of the school community. It is a credit to the staff and parents that the children are already so comfortable in their new surroundings.

Sadly, the PA will be unable to run their usual 'Welcome Event' for new joiners and their families this year. However, we hope that all new families have now made contact with their PA class rep and feel welcomed by the parent body. Please do not hesitate to contact us if you have any questions at all.

Art

This week we have launched our official St. Helen's College Art Instagram account. Please follow us to see examples of the lovely artwork being produced around the school! Just go to Instagram and follow St. Helen's College Art. 

Mrs. Pruce has also introduced 'Artist of the Week' at Upper School. The 'Artist of the Week' will be announced every Friday in assembly.

If you do have a budding young artist, you might be interested to know that Mini Monets Art Club are soon re-opening their doors to run children's art classes once more. You can find full details here.

Language Teaching

We have reviewed some areas of our curriculum for this academic year and have made some adjustments to our languages teaching programme. Pupils in Years 4, 5 and 6 will now focus on French as the main language, with Latin being introduced at Year 5 and continued into Year 6.

We hope to be able to offer a Spanish Club to those pupils who would like to continue with Spanish beyond Year 3 and further details of co-curricular clubs will be shared in due course.

Pupils lower down the school will continue to be taught Spanish up to the end of Year 3.

Mr. Aguiar, our Spanish teacher, is absent from school but we are delighted that Mrs. Rance will be teaching Spanish to the children in his absence.

Year 6 Senior Team

We are delighted to announce our new Year 6 pupil leadership team for this academic year.

Head Girl - Jena J
Head Boy - Zail T

Deputy Head Girl - Maya T
Deputy Head Boy - Samir H

Congratulations to all of the other Year 6 pupils who stood for the positions - it was an incredibly difficult decision as they all were strong candidates and superb ambassadors of the school. Hustings and voting will take place next week for the positions of House Captains and Sports Captains.

Autumn Term Welfare Newsletter

Please take the time to read the Autumn Term newsletter from Mrs. Wilcock, the school Welfare Officer. This contains important information about medication, asthma, flu vaccinations and more.

Raising Emotionally Strong Children - Parental EQ App

We would like to draw your attention to this new app which has been recently developed and launched by a group of experts, drawing from the fields of child development, behaviour psychology and clinical psychology. As parents, we all need as much help as possible and ultimately we all want to be the best parents possible to enable our children to flourish. This app has been designed to help parents be more self-aware, confident and connected with their children.  Do take a look at the app and if you decide to download it we would love to hear your feedback. Please follow this link for further information: https://parentaleq.com/

Upper School Arrivals and Pick Ups

Thank you to all parents for adhering to the dedicated arrival time. We would like to remind all Upper School parents that children in Years 4-6 must not be dropped off prior to 8.15 a.m., unless they are with a younger sibling.

Weather

Next week we are due to have unusually hot weather. Please ensure that your child/ren come to school with sun cream applied prior to arrival and that they have their sun hats.

School Photos

Individual pupil photographs will be taken by Tempest on: 

Monday 21st September (Ducklings)
Tuesday 22nd September (Nursery, Reception and Year 1)
Friday 25th September (Years 2-6)

Please ensure that your child attends school looking smart in their full school uniform on the day of their photograph. 

We are sorry that, due to COVID restrictions, it will not be possible for sibling photographs to be taken at school this year.