Weekly News - Friday 5th March

World Book Day

What an amazing day we had yesterday, celebrating World Book Day 2021.

Children from Ducklings to Year 6 dressed up in special clothes to represent our theme of 'magical worlds', and enjoyed thinking about their favourite books and characters.

The children from Ducklings to Year 2 were treated to a wonderful virtual visit from author Emily Gravett. She showed us all around her studio, which included her cute dog Dilys! It was amazing to see how she creates her illustrations, beginning with pencils and paints and then using computers and scanners. We were fascinated to listen to her funny stories and discover how she became such a successful author and illustrator. We also had fun taking part in many book related activities such as a book scavenger hunt and filming our book reviews!

At Upper School, a special assembly led by Mr. Roche told us all about the benefits and joys of reading. We were lucky to have a virtual author visit from Ross Welford. Speaking to the children in Years 3-6, he demonstrated his love of magic and walked the children through writing the first chapter of their very own novel. We hope that they feel inspired to carry on and complete their books!

As part of this special day, children in all year groups were challenged to create their own 'reading den' - a special place, decorated however they like, that they can use anytime for reading. Research shows that reading helps to reduce stress levels, so even a few minutes a day spent in these special places will be a great benefit! The children adopted this task enthusiastically (assisted at home by their parents, we are sure!). You can see some photographs of their wonderful reading dens on the Galleries page.

Don't forget that our virtual book fair is still running until the end of today. You and your children can enjoy browsing a wonderful selection of children’s books in the comfort of your own home and raise money for the school at the same time if you make purchases! 20% of sales will be donated to the school so that we can buy more books for our library and classrooms. The books have been carefully selected to ensure that you can choose from the most recent and most popular titles of the highest quality, as well as some much-loved classics. All you need to do is click this link and get shopping!
https://chilternbookshops.co.uk/primary-school-book-fair/
All orders will be delivered direct to the school (unless you select to collect them from Chorleywood or Gerrards Cross Bookshops).
Happy browsing, happy shopping and many thanks indeed for your support in encouraging your child with their reading and supporting the school's library resources!

A SAFE Return to School

We are all looking forward so much to coming together fully, in person, as a community again from Monday. Ahead of the return to school, we would like to set the children a little challenge, to design an A4 poster relating to our SAFE acronym:

S - stay a sensible/good/2m distance from each other

A- always wash our hands correctly and when we need to

F - free to talk with the adults about how we are feeling

E - enjoy each day together

Pupils should bring their designs to school on Monday and the best designs will be laminated and displayed around the school. Happy creating!

Our school Risk Assessment for Full School Re-Opening has been updated for the return to school on 8th March, and is available for all parents to read on the School Documents page of this website here. It will be updated weekly, with the first review taking place on Monday 8th March.

Wellerman Video

Thank you so much to the children who, inspired by our assembly with the fabulous Radio 1 DJ Chris Stark, have contributed to our school Wellerman video. Mrs. Fawbert had quite a task to put the video together, with so many different instruments being played and people singing and doing actions! She was extremely proud of everyone who contributed. You can see the finished video here.

Miss Joiner

We know that parents will wish to join us in wishing our Owls Reception teacher Miss Joiner well as she embarks on her maternity leave, a little earlier than planned due to the Covid situation. We would like to thank Miss Joiner for all her work with Owls this year in such challenging circumstances, and we wish her well with the rest of her pregnancy. Take care, Miss Joiner, and we will look forward to seeing you back in school with your new addition in due course!

Road Safety Assembly - Petition Success!

Well done to our amazing Junior Road Safety Officers, who gave a confident, informative presentation in assembly on Monday to report back on the action already taken by the local council following the petition that they organised to improved safety around the crossing on Long Lane.

Our school petition asked the council to consider replacing the existing zebra crossing with a pelican crossing. This option is being investigated but, in order to improve safety at the crossing immediately, the council have already installed very, very bright 'zebrites' at the crossing to deter vehicles from travelling too fast towards the crossing.

Representatives from the London Borough of Hillingdon STARS team joined us for this special assembly and were so impressed with the presentation and with the ongoing St. Helen's College commitment to road safety.

Free Asthma Workshops for Parents

Hillingdon Health are running a free asthma workshop for parents on Friday 26th March, from 2 - 3 p.m. This workshop, run by a qualified asthma nurse, will cover inhaler techniques, common triggers, asthma myths and what to do if your child is having an asthma attack. Full details, including how to sign up, can be found by following this link.

Guess The Place

Congratulations to all those who correctly guessed this week's places.

The Lower School place was the Globe Theatre, famous for William Shakespeare's plays, and the following people guessed correctly:

Nursery: Phoebe, Sikhya.

Reception: Dev, Arup.

Year 1: Amara, Millie, Alyssa, Aakash, Shayla, Yuvraj, Armaan, Rania, Riyan, Rohaym.

Year 2: Simar, Evie, Alexia, Aaran, Diya.

The Upper School place was the Albert Docks in Liverpool and the following people guessed correctly:

Year 3: Raiden, Joseph, Aleyna, Grace, Sean, Verity, Tiya, Sarab, Penelope, Hana.

Year 4: Oliver, Myla, Yousra, Karan, Marvin, Dylan, Inaya, Dominic, Xavier, Eshvani, Annie.

Year 5: Riddhi, Natalia, Anokhi, Deven, Diyan, Charlotte, Anjika, Oliver.

Year 6: Zail, Samir.

EasyFundraising for St. Helen's College

If you are not already raising funds for St. Helen's College Development Fund when you shop online, please do consider signing up! It is completely free to you and the school's development fund will receive donations whenever you shop online at many, many retailers. 

To sign up, just click the link below to create your account and then download the EasyFundraising app to your mobile phone and/or tablet, and/or allow EasyFundraising to add the donation reminder to any desktop computers you use. Then simply use the app or the online reminder to raise money when you shop online. Many parents and staff are already doing this and, although each donation seems small, if we all remember to use EasyFundraising we will be able to raise a meaningful amount for the Development Fund. We are hoping, gradually, to build a meaningful enough fund that we can then use both to support our school and to support charitable educational projects in less developed countries. 

https://www.easyfundraising.org.uk/causes/sthelencoldevfund/?invite=NX24VZ&referral-campaign=c2s

Many, many thanks to those parents are already signed up and to those who will sign up now! Please don't forget, in particular, to use EasyFundraising for those big ticket items, like hotel/holiday/flight bookings or when you are switching insurance suppliers.