Dear Parents and Carers,

What a really amazing day our Christmas Fair was to be part of. A huge thank you to our amazing PTA and so many members of our community who gave up so much time and resource to create such a special day.

🕯️ Lighting the Way: Our First Week of Advent! ✝️

What a wonderfully special start we’ve had to the season of Advent here at school! Advent is an exciting and important time in the Church year. It means “coming,” and it’s when we get ready to celebrate the very best birthday of all—the birth of Jesus Christ. The first Sunday of Advent was all about Hope. Last Friday we lit the first candle on our Advent wreath, reminding us that Jesus brings hope and light to a dark world. This Friday, we lit the second purple candle, which represents Peace. We have been talking in collective worship and class about how we can be peacemakers, both in the classroom and at home, and how Jesus brings true peace to the world.  Let’s keep preparing our hearts and minds over the coming weeks as we continue our journey toward Christmas!

Have a wonderful weekend.

Best wishes,

Mr George

Fallow Class Forest School

Trips, visits and events

Fallow class had a fabulous (and very wet) forest morning on Monday. They returned to class covered in mud from head to toe having worked as a team to build fences, rivers and ponds; they swung from ropes, climbed trees and created various types of birdfeeders. Forest School is such a special part of our students’ learning – we are so fortunate to have the outdoor space and resources we do to facilitate this.

Year 3 Stone Age Day

Year 3 had a fantastic Stone Age day! We loved seeing their creative hunter-gatherer costumes. We were busy this morning examining Stone Age artefacts, listening to a story around a ‘campfire’ in the classroom and creating Stone Age survival guides. The children have all taken home an arrowhead necklace as a keepsake from the day. This afternoon, we got creative and the children built amazing Stone Age dioramas, complete with LED campfires.

Teach Rex Experience

On Tuesday, our school had a truly thrilling day as the fantastic team from Teach Rex transported us back to the Jurassic period! They introduced us to Jem, an impressive 4-meter-long juvenile T-Rex, for an exciting meet-and-greet. The day was packed with palpable excitement and a wealth of fascinating facts. The children learned extensively about the Tyrannosaurus Rex’s powerful bite and extraordinary sense of smell, while also correcting common misconceptions, such as the likelihood that T-Rexes had feathers and were not particularly fast runners.

Our younger students in Nursery, Reception, and KS1 were also treated to an extra workshop involving some baby dinosaurs. Highlights of the day included learning how to dodge a T-Rex, the bravery of tickling a baby dino’s chin, and the hilarious moment Mr. Hambling nearly ended up as a dinosaur’s dinner! The infectious excitement, encouraged by presenters Sam and Olly, carried on throughout the school, with children spontaneously digging for fossils in our Forest School Area and searching for Roger, the mysterious hidden dinosaur. Finally, six pupils were selected to take part in the Teach Rex podcast, filmed in the afternoon, and we look forward to sharing these video clips with you soon.

Wonderful news!

We are so pleased to be able to announce the birth of Eva, a lovely daughter for Miss Ashby! Eva was born on 2 December, and both mum and baby are doing very well! We are overjoyed to share in Miss Ashby’s wonderful news, which makes December even more wonderful!

Mr George’s Weekly Song Time in Nursery

Every Thursday afternoon Mr George visits Rainbow class for ‘Song time’. This is a wonderful way for him to get to know our youngest children and such a fantastic opportunity for them to broaden their repertoire of songs and develop sound discrimination using and enjoying a wider range of musical instruments.

 

A Match Report from Monday’s Football written by Apollo (Year 5)

We are pleased to report that the game was a success! We were very strong in attack from the beginning of the game. Flynn, our captain for this match, scored in the 4th minute. By lifting his leg, he scored with a good finish. This lifted the spirit of our team! But St Stevens was resilient and would not give up…

For the rest of the first half, St. Stevens mounted a lot of attacks. But what was keeping us in the game was Tom, our goalie. A big thank you to him! Every time we tried to move the ball forward, they tackled us. They played short passes in between us trying to get a shot away. Luckily, our defence helped us hang on. Our efforts to double our lead did not work out. At half time we were one nil up … somehow.

In the second half we knew we had to up our game. We started better and it looked as if St. Stevens had dropped in quality. Trying to skip past their midfield was hard and we put a lot of pressure on them, but they kept strong.

Finally, our effort paid off. Oli managed to intercept a pass from the goalie and BAM! The ball was in the back of the goal. The ball had curled in, the goalkeeper managed a small touch, but it did not affect the shot. A beautiful goal from a long distance out.

At the end, we selected our ‘player of the match’. Mr Callaghan suggested Tom. After that the team chose our ‘player of the match’, the result was that Tom had received the most votes. We probably would have lost 3-1 without him. A result we are happy about. Both goals were great, Flynn’s to give us the lead and Oli’s to seal the win.

Notices and Requests

 Nursery applications

If your child was born between 01/09/2022 and 31/08/2023 and you are interested in them joining our wonderful nursery next September, please email lprendergast@htprimary.com for an application form, or download one from our website.  We have a nursery tour at 9.15am on 14th January; please contact the office if you would like to book a space on this date.  Please also spread the word amongst your friends and family who may be interested.  You can find more information on our website: https://holytrinityschool.org.uk/nursery/

HT Cycle to Paris June 2026

On the 26th and 27th of June, a group of parents and teachers will be riding from London to Paris. This is a charity ride, with the money raised going to Skylarks and to the school. We will need to know how many riders we have by February. The last ride in 2024 was really successful and a lot of fun. Please let Mr. Thomson know if you are interested. He will provide more information. Cycling information

Celebrations!

 Our Values Champions

Congratulations to Noah, Annika, Myroslav, Olive, Magnolia, Ryker, Christopher, Josephine, Lorenzo, Sarah, Orla, Zoe, Jessica, Zyana, William, Ben, Caterina, Lexi, Patrick, Bodhi, Niam, Grace, Ching Yeung, Ishmael, Hania, Isabelle, Fran,

P.E Star   

Congratulations to Tabby in Fallow class!

Music Star   

Congratulations to Betsy in Ladybird class!

House Point Champions

Congratulations to this week’s winner: Seacole

Attendance

90.70% overall: Well done to this week’s winners, Dragonfly with 98.67%.

Safeguarding

A reminder that children must have working lights on their bikes and be wearing helmets even when leaving school at normal time. At this time of year, it is getting dark by the time we dismiss the students and it has been brought to our attention that HT children are cycling without lights.

Mr George, Miss Brunt & Mrs Allard can be contacted at the school using their emails (which are on the school website), or you can use our new safeguarding email which is: safeguarding@htprimary.com . Our Safeguarding Governors are Francis Neal and Helen Taylor, and they can be contacted via email using the links on the school website, linked here.

Dates for your Diary

10th December                – KS1 Nativity 9.00am

11th December                – EYFS Nativity 9.00am

16th December                – KS2 Carol Concert at Holy Trinity Church 6pm

17th December                – Christmas Lunch and Christmas Jumper Day

19th December                – End of term – 2.15pm

 

PTA Event Dates

 12th December – Christmas Movie Night

6th February – Disco KS1 4.15 – 5.30,    KS2 5.45 – 7.30

26^th February – Sponsored Bounce

13th March – Movie night

20th March – Chocolate Bingo

15th May – Movie Night

12th June – HT in the Park

4th July – Summer Fair

Community Events and Initiatives

A Kind Opportunity from a Wonderful Parent:

Lego Club

Everyone loves making things with Lego! Design and build amazing creations and take part in fun Lego challenges. We will provide the Lego, so children just need to bring ideas and enthusiasm. Lego Club is great way to meet new friends, share tips and show off building skills.

Children must be accompanied by a parent or caregiver. Open to children of all ages. Free drop-in event.

Castelnau Library:

• Date: ThirdSaturday of the month (starting 17 January 2026)
• Time:11am to 12 noon
• Location:Castelnau Library
• Price:Free, no booking required