From the Head
What a joyful start to the new school year we have had together. The children have returned full of energy and enthusiasm, and our first weeks back have been full of purpose and joy.
I am delighted to share that St Olave’s has been named as a finalist in the ISA Innovation in Independent Education Award for our allotment and outdoor learning programme. This recognition means so much to us as a school. Our allotment is not just a patch of soil; it is a living classroom where children dig, plant, harvest and learn the rhythm of the seasons. It’s where science, sustainability, teamwork and wellbeing come alive. To see our children proudly pulling up carrots they have nurtured, or carefully weighing pumpkins for a harvest display, is to witness education at its most meaningful. To have this work recognised nationally is a wonderful affirmation of the value of outdoor learning, and I could not be prouder of Mr Pradic, the staff and children who have helped to grow this project, quite literally, from the ground up.
As if that wasn’t enough excitement for one week, we also launched our Poet in Residence programme with the remarkable Adisa the Verbalizer. From the moment Adisa stepped into our playground, he held us spellbound with his rhythm, wordplay, and sheer joy in the power of language. The children listened, laughed, and joined in with a confidence that was heartening to see so early in the term. This project will run through the term, focusing initially on our Upper School, and will culminate in a showcase performance in January. The skills the children will develop - oracy, self-expression, creativity, and performance - are vital life skills, as well as being hugely enjoyable. I know the impact of Adisa’s work will ripple through our school long after the applause of the final performance has faded.
We also saw the return of Games lessons for the Upper School this week, and what a successful first session it was. There is always something special about the first Games lesson of the year; the children’s sense of excitement as they put on their kit, step onto the field and begin the term’s sporting journey together. Sport at St Olave’s is about much more than winning matches (though we do enjoy celebrating those victories). It is about teamwork, resilience, healthy competition and learning to give your best effort with pride. To see the children embracing these values from the very first whistle was hugely encouraging, and I look forward to following their progress throughout the term.
It has truly been a week that encapsulates the very best of St Olave’s; innovation, creativity, outdoor learning, performance, sport and above all, children who throw themselves wholeheartedly into every opportunity. I could not ask for a better beginning to the year, and I am so grateful to our staff, children and families for the energy, commitment, and support that make our school such a magical place.
I hope you all have a lovely weekend and I look forward to seeing you all next week.
Kind regards, Miss Holloway
The week ahead...
Save the Date
St Olave's Christmas Fayre - Friday 28th November 2025, 3.30-6.30pm
Lunch Menu
Monthly Safeguarding Update
This term, we remind all children and staff that safeguarding is everyone’s responsibility. If your child ever shares a worry with you, please let us know straight away so we can help. Our Designated Safeguarding Lead (DSL) team is always here to listen and act.
This week at St Olave's
Adisa the Verbalizer
On Monday morning, we were treated to an exciting and energetic performance by our new Poet in Residence, Adisa the Verbalizer, right here in our school playground! Adisa’s unique blend of poetry, performance and storytelling brought an incredible burst of energy to the whole school and we were all captivated by the powerful rhythms and vivid imagery that filled the air. Thank you to everyone who joined us in the audience! It was wonderful to celebrate the joy of spoken word and the beauty of language together. We can’t wait to see what Adisa has in store for our Upper School during this exciting first chapter!
Year 4 - Archaeologist Talk
On Tuesday, Year 4 were treated to a very special visitor, Mrs Isenberg, a friend of St Olave’s and former parent, who is a very accomplished historian and archaeologist currently studying for her master’s degree. With her wide expertise in history, particularly the Romans, she captivated the children with stories about Romulus and Remus as well as the alternative tale of Aeneas, a Trojan who settled in Italy.
The children learned about the vast territories conquered by the Romans, the emperors who visited Britain, and the impressive villas and heating systems they designed. They were fascinated to discover how Roman baths were used as social spaces, much like modern-day spas. To finish, Mrs Isenberg gave the children the unforgettable opportunity to handle genuine artefacts she had excavated herself, including roof tiles, parts of a mosaic, Roman coins, and even fingerprints left on a tile over 2,000 years ago. Handling authentic artefacts helped the children truly connect with the past, deepening their understanding of Roman life and sparking lively discussions.
Huge thanks to Mrs Isenberg who gave us her time and expertise and really made history come to life!
New Instagram Account
Our wonderful catering staff have started a new Instagram account so that you can keep up to date with all the scrumptious things going on in our school kitchen. Please give them a follow if you haven't already and find out what's been on offer this week!
Sporting Round Up
Games returned this week with Upper School taking part in tag rugby, football, netball, and hockey. Year 3s were very excited as it was their first experience of the games afternoon and they all engaged and behaved exceptionally well. I am looking forward to seeing them all progress throughout the academic year.
Nursery
Our Nursery children have continued to enjoy lots of exciting activities and are really beginning to forge some strong friendships. We are learning what resources are in our classroom and how to play with them and care for them and tidy them when we have finished. The children are doing so well learning all our routines and are beginning to see that working together can have great results.
This week we have discovered the ‘loose parts’ such as glass pebbles, stones, tumbled glass, counters and coins. We have used them in many different ways such as food in the home corner, treasure in the sand tray and to make roads for our cars. The children have sorted them by size and colour and used them to make beautiful patterns. The children love to tell us what they notice, such as which one is biggest, which one is flat or smooth or how many yellow ones they can find, brilliant maths Little Acorns!
Reception
WOW – what a windy week we’ve had! It really has blown past us – quite literally! We’ve had another fun-filled week in Reception, continuing to build friendships and getting to know each other even more.
As promised, we made cupcakes with delicious icing. The children loved learning about recipes and ingredients, and why it’s important to follow them carefully. After ticking off the ingredients, mixing, pouring and scooping, we finally baked our yummy cakes and enjoyed them for pudding. The children listened beautifully and followed the step-by-step method so well – we were very proud!
In phonics, we’ve continued learning new sounds and have even started blending words together. They have met Fred the Frog who helps us to hear words that have been broken down. We have also practiced writing our names and writing using lower case letters in the middle of words.
This week, we also introduced subitising, playing games to spot patterns and differences in numbers. We will continue to focus on strengthening subitising skills throughout the year.
Planes are still a big hit in our classroom, and we’ve seen so many creative designs take flight!
Here’s hoping the sun shines for you this weekend – have a wonderful rest!
Year 1
It has been another exciting week in Year 1! The children were thrilled to begin with a visit from the poet Adisa the Verbalizer. His inspiring performance set a positive tone for the week ahead, motivating the children to dive enthusiastically into their learning.
In maths, the children have been continuing their unit on place value up to 10. They have been practising counting forwards and backwards from any number, as well as finding one more and one less. It has been wonderful to see their confidence grow as they build these important number skills.
In English, the children have begun reading 'Luna Loves Library Day' by Joseph Coelho. This lovely story has inspired them to explore list writing, and they have produced their own lists to help remember the items they bring to school and the members of their family. The children have really enjoyed making these meaningful connections to their own lives through writing.
In topic learning this week, the children have been focusing on the art unit 'Exploring Line and Shape'. They learned about the artist Paul Klee and then created their own imaginative self-portraits using a variety of shapes and lines. Their creativity and individuality really shone through in their artwork.
We have also begun our science unit All About Me. The children have been learning to identify different parts of the human body and have been given a Knowledge Organiser to share with you at home, outlining the content of the unit.
We are so proud of the children’s enthusiasm, creativity, and hard work this week, and we look forward to more exciting learning ahead!
Year 2
From bears in the forest to fires in Pudding Lane, Year 2 have had a very interesting week. As one of the children remarked, “What lesson haven’t we had yet?” The answer is Geography and that will be coming soon enough. We made honeycomb in Cooking Class on Monday, which was a sweet start to the week. We are pleased to say that the children are becoming more focused and taking greater pride in their work as each day passes. In particular, we are taking time to practice forming letters correctly, as this will speed up our written work and produce beautiful handwriting.
Year 2 have enjoyed expanding their vocabularies in this week’s descriptive writing task, which was to describe a forest. In Science, the children had some productive discussions about what humans need to survive; learning to distinguish between needs and wants. The Great Fire of London is proving to be a captivating topic for the children; they were amazed at how quickly the fire spread and we investigated the reasons why. We hope to gather some more facts and figures next week.
In maths, the children have been getting to know two digit numbers really well. We have been counting up to 100 in tens and in ones and have worked with number tracks and number lines, locating numbers to improve our understanding of the value of the digits. Please practise counting forwards and backwards at home, especially when crossing over a ‘tens’ number so that your child has automatic recall of number order - this would be very helpful.
We have plenty of art activities to look forward to next week, so if you have an apron (that is not already in school) or an old t-shirt, please bring it to school on Monday. Thank you.
Year 3
Another exciting and busy week for Year 3 - This half term is whizzing by! We started the week with the introduction of Adisa the Verbalizer, our new resident poet. The children were excited and engaged both in his introductory assembly and their first oracy workshop where they worked in groups to create a list poem around the idea of poetry itself. There were some fantastic ideas such as ‘poetry is friendship’, ‘poetry is a dinosaur's teeth and claws’ and ‘Poetry is when I score a goal in football.’ Year 3 really put their personality and passions into the work and were happy to perform them to the group.
Elsewhere on the topic of English, our newspaper reports practice continues as we developed descriptive phrases for a circus. We wrote excellent lines including expanded noun phrases and similes for everything from a clown's ‘bright, red nose’ to ‘the audience was as loud as a plane’s engine'. We can’t wait to see how the children weave these great lines into their writing next week. Also this week in English we used role play to imagine ourselves as the characters of our focus text ‘Leon and the Place Between.’ This helped us to interview the characters and generate effective quotes for our reports. The children impressed us when acting in role and when asking excellent questions. Furthermore, they are becoming much more confident with writing direct speech and may even be able to sing you a catchy song all about speech rules.
In Science this week the children became rock experts and used this knowledge to investigate different formations of rocks. The children now know igneous, metamorphic and sedimentary rocks. They can tell you how they are formed and recognise some of the features. During our investigation we tried many techniques to reveal a sample’s rock type including testing for water absorption, scratching to test durability and using a magnifying glass to identify layers or crystals. The children have all been very passionate about this topic and we are very impressed with the budding geologists we have in Year 3.
Our maths this week reviewed and extended skills the children may have come across in previous years. We looked at partitioning numbers, recognising place value and using numberlines. With each area, the children are building on skills they need to work with numbers in a variety of contexts and they are making great progress.
Finally, we must mention the much anticipated first Games afternoon of the year and the first Games session for our Year 3s. The children behaved brilliantly on the walk down and in all of their sports. Everyone showed effort and resilience. We were really proud of how they have started this journey into sport and can’t wait to see where it takes them.
Year 4
It has been another full and exciting week in Year 4, and the children are settling into their new routines with confidence. We began the week with our fantastic Poet in Residence launch event! Adisa the Verbalizer wowed us with his poetry and inspired us to search for our ‘artistic voices’, by finding similes and metaphors for important people in our lives.
In English, inspired by Varjak Paw, the children used their five senses to write descriptive sentences about the contrasting settings of the city and ancient Mesopotamia. They then stepped into the character of Varjak, writing a letter about his experiences of 'the Outside,' describing what he could see, hear, smell, taste and touch.
This week in maths, the children practised traditional and flexible partitioning of numbers up to 10,000 and found 1, 10, 100 and 1000 more or less of a given four digit number. The children are already showing increased confidence in their mental maths skills, developing strategies to calculate quickly and confidently.
In History, we welcomed Mrs Isenberg back to St Olave's for an engaging and informative presentation on Roman Britain - we even got to examine real Roman artefacts! In Science, we continued our study of states of matter, learning how particles behave and how heating or cooling can cause water to change from one state to another.
In PSHE, we explored the idea of inclusion, thinking about what it feels like to be included or excluded. The children shared thoughtful ideas on how we can ensure everyone feels valued and included within our class and the wider school community.
We are really proud of how hard the children are working. Have a wonderful weekend.
Year 5
Another busy week has flown past - from poetry to reasoning, the movement of the planets and descriptive writing, the children have had a brilliant week.
A highlight was meeting our new Poet in Residence, Adisa, on Monday. The children were excellent in their workshop and really found their inner poets. English continued this week with developing our descriptive writing, creating ‘show, not tell’ sentences about both a setting and a character.
In maths we have worked on our ordering, comparing and rounding skills before diving head on into using the column method for addition and subtraction, working with ever increasing numbers and put our problems solving and reasoning skills to the test.
Science this week had us exploring the movement of the planets and how this impacts on night and day.
We LOVED getting down to Footscray on Wednesday for Games, with everyone showing great sportsmanship across our autumnal sports!
Have a wonderful weekend.
Year 6
This week in Year 6, pupils have been working hard across a range of subjects and showing enthusiasm for their learning.
Our focus has been on grammar, particularly using brackets, dashes and commas for parenthesis, and developing sentences with relative clauses. They then practised these skills in their writing by retelling the story of Romeo and Juliet. This week has also seen the children enjoy performing scenes from Romeo and Juliet and developing the understanding of the text further. In maths, we began the week by tackling negative numbers and then moved on to practising written methods for addition and subtraction. Later in the week, pupils explored factors, preparing them for more complex number work ahead. Applying these skills to tricky word problems, helped them to demonstrate their mastery and excellent recall of prior knowledge.
This week, we also started both our science and art topics. In science, we explored how light travels through a series of small experiments, discovering that light travels in a straight line. In art, we explored what photomontage is and recognised how artists use photography to create effective pieces. The children then worked at selecting images for a design brief and experimenting with composition to create an effective photomontage.
Outdoor Learning
This week the children have been tasting a variety of our produce, either by juicing the fruit and vegetables or simply eating them straight off the plant. We have had tomatoes, sweetcorn, strawberries, carrots as well as juices containing grapes, apples, chard and courgette. The majority of the children were surprised how nice they all tasted, even the green juice! The younger children also collected lots of leaves to keep the allotment nice and tidy. We have already almost filled another tonne bag and they did enjoy jumping up and down on our leaf trampoline!
Languages
In French, EYFS children started to respond to “How are you?”: both Nursery and Reception practised words for “good”, “bad” and “so so” with a new French song. The children enjoyed listening to the story 'Boucle d’Or et les trois ours'.
Year 1 revised greetings and saying how you are: the children put together their learning from last week and they practised dialogues and played some listening games. Year 2 learnt how to count up to thirty in French and played listening games to reinforce the vocabulary.
In the Upper School, Year 3 started to work on saying which country they live in and on giving more details about the place they live in - we explored “by the seaside”, “in the countryside”, “in a city”, “in a town” - whilst Year 4 has started their new topic of places in town, and learnt how to say sentences such as “there is a library”, “there is a park”, “there is a supermarket”.
In Spanish, Year 5 focused on counting up to 15 and answering the question “how are you?”. The children are getting used to the text book beautifully and they are enjoying the challenge of the listening tasks. Year 6 has dived into their topic of eyes and hair: the children have started to learn the core vocabulary, which includes verbs chunk at the present tense, past tense and conditional, and they made sentences using the new vocabulary.
In Latin, the children met the family from Vindolanda (including Minimus the mouse and Vibrissa the cat!) that will take us on a journey into the Romans’ world, and this week we learnt to introduce oneself and greet one another.
Design & Technology and Computing
Quiz of the week, ask your child about the words in bold to see if they can remember how to explain the process or what the terms mean.
Year 3 Creative Castles
This week we experimented with cutting and folding net shapes that could be glued together to make 3D structures.
Year 4 Electric Torches
Pupils in Year 4 learned about the importance of understanding who their target customer is and how to design products that meet their needs.
Year 5 Pop Up Books
This week, Year 5 experimented with making 2 pop up book mechanisms, they made a lever and a push/pull tab.
Year 6 Steady Hand Game
Pupils in Year 6 started designing the base shapes for their steady hand games,. In this lesson they were able to explain how steady hand games can enhance fine motor skills, they drew accurate and neat circuits and they identified the differences and similarities between a circuit used for a torch and a buzzer circuit used for a steady hand game.
Computing Highlights
This week, in Year 2, pupils were able to explain and differentiate between input and output devices. Year 3 pupils listed different types of data and they designed their own battle cards where they compared higher and lower field values in order to win new cards. Year 4 pupils designed layout plans for websites that they plan to build. Year 6 learned about infrared technology and how it is found in everyday objects.