Dear Parents and Carers 09/12/2021
The Times league table
The top state primary schools table was published in The Times at the weekend, the eagle-eyed amongst you may have spotted that Holy Trinity featured in third place in Richmond and 125th in the whole country.
Christmas Fair
We were so grateful for the dry, bright weather on Saturday which made our outdoor Christmas Fair so special – and no doubt boosted the mulled wine sales! Thank you so much to our wonderful PTA who organised the event and to the huge team of volunteer helpers who made the event possible.
Key Stage 1 Nativities
We felt very blessed to be able to hold our Key Stage 1 nativities in school this week. Anybody who had been feeling lacklustre about Christmas up until that point would certainly have left feeling very different. We were so proud of the children’s performances as they explained how the Christmas Story is celebrated in different countries and cultures around the world. Thank you for your generous donations in the collection – so far we have raised approximately £250 for The Children’s Society.
Early Years Nativity
We are very much looking forward to hosting our Early Years Nativity performances on Tuesday next week. Please do a lateral flow test before attending to ensure you do not have COVID and wear a facemask (unless exempt) throughout the performance. As we will be keeping the hall well ventilated, you may want to wear something warm too.
Junior Carol Service
We are looking forward to seeing you wrapped up warm at 2.30 on Monday afternoon for our open air carol service at school. The gates will be opened at 2pm and mulled wine and mince pies will be on sale from then to add to the festive feel. We will let you know by 12 noon on Monday if the weather looks like it will prevent this from taking place though clearly a torrential downpour at 2.30 would equally put a halt to proceedings.
Christmas jumpers and hats
Just a couple of reminders……it is Christmas jumper day tomorrow in aid of Save the Children (£1 donation per child) and children can wear Christmas hats (which can be homemade) for the Christmas lunch next Wednesday. Full uniform should be worn – these aren’t mufti days.
Christingle Oranges
Next Thursday, we will be making Christingles and having short Christingle services in the afternoon. We will be sending home collection envelopes to collect for the Children’s Society (who provide the candles and tape) prior to this and would ask that you return the envelope, ideally with a contribution to this charity, and an orange by Thursday – we will provide all the other things needed to complete the Christingles.
Reception Class
Mr Aylward will be leaving Reception Class when we break up for Christmas. We have reduced the usual notice time to enable him to explore the possibility of a long overdue trip to his family in South Africa and to further pursue his interest in Forest Schools. We are very pleased that Mr Aylward will continue to come into school to lead our Forest School days across school next year. We wish Mr Aylward all the very best but are pleased he will still remain part of our school community.
End of term.
A reminder that we finish at 2.15pm next Friday 17th December. Nursery parents have received their own communication from Miss Lockey.
Values Champions
Reception: Isabella and Alex for showing our value of love.
Years 1-6: For showing the values of Aspiration, love and community – Haya, Natalia, Kaylee, Ian, Amana, Jamie, Hazel & Matias. Years 3-6 will be announced tomorrow so will be included in next week’s newsletter
House Points: This will be announced tomorrow so will be included in next week’s newsletter
Attendance: Overall 90.05%; Eagles 97.69%
Birthday Books
Thank you to Zac Gillan-Thomas in Kingfisher Class and Abby Choo in Giraffe Class for their birthday books. I hope you both had a brilliant birthday.
Spark! Richmond and Kingston Children’s Book Awards
Next term, Holy Trinity are proud to announce that we will once again be taking part in Spark! Children’s Book Awards. The awards were a great success last year, with children from Holy Trinity reading and then voting on their favourite books.
The Spark website (www.sparkbookawards.co.uk) has a list of all the fantastic new titles that have been submitted and they will be announcing the 12 titles from each age category to make it onto the awards shortlist. If your child is looking for some reading inspiration this Christmas then it is a great place to start! Do ask your child to let Mr Auton or Mrs Campbell know their views on any title which they manage to read. You can keep up-to-date with each new title being added to the shortlist (the 12 Books of Christmas!) via the Spark Twitter handle: @sparkbookaward
The Spark Awards are an independent set of awards supported by both Richmond and Kingston Boroughs and in particular by Achieving for Children, which oversees education in the two boroughs and who are providing time and resources to the project, but it is largely funded by the schools themselves. They are constantly looking for additional funding that will ensure that more of the most disadvantaged pupils in our Borough get the opportunity to take part in these awards and can access the books. If you are able to make a donation in order to help them achieve this aim then you can find more details on their Just Giving page