From the Head
What a wonderfully busy week it has been at St Olave’s! Following the long Bank Holiday weekend, I had the pleasure of accompanying our Year 6 children to the Houses of Parliament on Tuesday. It was a powerful and timely visit, as the children deepened their understanding of democracy, law-making and their role as future citizens.
Yesterday, we marked VE Day 80 with a celebration that was both joyful and deeply moving. It was a privilege to honour the lives and sacrifices of those who gave so much, and to remind our children that peace is never guaranteed; it is something we must treasure and protect. This 80th anniversary is particularly poignant, as it is likely to be the last major milestone marked with surviving veterans able to share their stories. One such veteran, who is approaching his 102nd birthday, was sadly too unwell to join us in person, but he wrote the children a heartfelt letter, expressing his gratitude for their respect, kindness and efforts to remember. His words moved us all, and reminded us of the responsibility we have to carry these stories forward with dignity and care. Our children listened and reflected in a way that made me immensely proud. Thank you to the large number of you who were able to attend our celebration yesterday afternoon; our Year 6 children took great pride in making you all feel very welcome. The children from across the school sang beautifully and it was a wonderful way to celebrate. Thank you also to our wonderful families who contributed to our VE Day Memory Walk by sharing photographs, stories and memories of loved ones who served during the war. Your contributions brought history to life in the most personal and powerful way, and gave the children a deeper understanding of the real people behind the history books. What an incredible legacy to pass on to the next generation; we are so grateful for your generosity in sharing these treasured memories with our school community.
Today, our Year 2 children visited Watergate School in Lewisham for the first time as part of a new programme designed to foster empathy, inclusion and real human connection. The children were fantastic ambassadors and I know this partnership will offer rich opportunities to understand different lived experiences and develop the sort of open-hearted curiosity that we value so deeply at St Olave’s.
Next week, I will be away with Year 6 on their final school journey to Norfolk - a week of adventure, laughter and making memories to last a lifetime. It’s hard to believe that their time with us is drawing to a close, but I feel so lucky to be spending this special week with them.
Thank you, as always, for your continued support. We have much to be proud of and even more to look forward to. I look forward to seeing you all when I return to school; Mr Lupton will take great care of you all in my absence!
Have a lovely weekend,
Kind regards, Miss Holloway
The week ahead...
Lunch Menu
Safeguarding Team
This week at St Olave's
VE Day 80
Yesterday, we had a wonderful day learning about the Second World War and celebrating the 80th Anniversary of VE Day. After a moving assembly, the children were immersed in the 1940s for the day, with activities involving 'Make Do & Mend', 'Digging for Victory' and a range of traditional games, all while dressed up in their fantastic 1940s outfits! The day culminated in afternoon tea for the parents with the children entertaining them with some beautiful singing. It was a beautiful way to honour the immensely brave people who made such sacrifices for us in the Second World War.
Year 6 Houses of Parliament Trip
On Tuesday, Year 6 had the exciting opportunity to visit the Houses of Parliament, where they were taken on a fascinating guided tour. Walking through the historic corridors, they stood in the same places once visited by world leaders like Barack Obama and Nelson Mandela. The children were full of thoughtful questions and impressed guides with their knowledge and curiosity about how laws are made and the role of government. The visit was both educational and inspiring, helping them to better understand the democratic system we live in.
Year 4 Maths Challenge
On Tuesday, three teams from Year 4 took part in a Maths Challenge provided by HLF Education. This was the first heat, and the teams competed against each other and other schools from all across the UK. The children showed great collaboration and communication skills through the hour-long challenge. They were tested on a variety of problems, which they had to compete in a time limit. We look forward to hearing if any of the teams have made it through to the next round! Well done to all of the children who took part. We have also entered a couple of teams in Year 3, and their heats will be taking place next month.
Year 2 National Gallery Trip
On Wednesday, Year 2 went on a fabulous trip to the National Gallery. We participated in a workshop with the fabulous Jenny who had us considering ‘why’ artists include certain elements in portraits and what we can learn about the identity of the person just by looking at the painting. The children made insightful observations and asked excellent questions. We particularly enjoyed looking at Van Gogh’s chair, and the question of whether it can still be a portrait without a person in it?
Sporting Round Up
Year 5/6 Football League
Last Friday, the mixed Year 5/6 football league returned and we took part in 3 matches. We won the first match 2-0, drew the second match 1-1, and won the last match convincingly 4-0. Well played everyone!
Tennis at Shooters Hill
Year 4 had an afternoon of tennis skills and drills at Shooters Hill college. We had a great time learning more about the game and developing our tennis skills. Excellent job Year 4!
Nursery
The children have had another exciting week of adventures. In the classroom they have been exploring needles and thread and have all created a wonderful piece of needlework to display on their boards. Outside we have been experimenting with powder paints and using natural materials as an alternative to paintbrushes.
The children have also spent some time by our pond, dipping our nets and looking closely at what emerges… we have found numerous newts, some snails, beetles and other minibeasts.
The children had a wonderful time celebrating the 80th anniversary of VE Day, and we were so proud of them as they sang the songs they had learnt. The children ‘dug for victory’ as they dug up potatoes in the allotment, played some traditional games, talked to a veteran of the Falklands War and had a delicious afternoon tea!
Reception
This week, we have been learning about the 1940s. We have learnt so much about the children, soldiers, nurses and shop workers. Mrs Harris bought in her dad’s kit bag and his medals from WW2. This sparked a great discussion about the different jobs and titles people had in the war. We then made our own medals and shared why we were receiving or giving them. We have really enjoyed learning about your relatives that played their part in WW2. We have loved reading about their huge successes and the sacrifices they made. Seeing your pictures and stories have made the learning more relatable and the children have shown a clear understanding.
On Thursday, we celebrated the 80th anniversary of VE day. The children were really keen to show their respects for all the heroes that helped during the war. They dressed up in traditional 1940s clothes and we played lots of games such as noughts and crosses and pick up sticks. We then dug for victory in the allotment and continued our learning of traditional 1940s games during our PE lesson. Over the past few weeks, the children have been learning songs from the 1940s. They have really enjoyed learning them and we hoped you liked listening to them during our celebration on Thursday afternoon.
During our carpet sessions, we have been thinking about ordering numbers and numeral formation. Using our number knowledge, we created a whole class number line and we all had a go at writing numbers in the correct order. We will continue to add to this.
Even though the sun is being a little shy, we have had a great time playing outdoors. We found a few caterpillars which led to an in depth discussion about the life cycle of a caterpillar and what they need to make their habitats safe. It wasn’t quite warm enough for fun in the sprinkler but we hope it will be again soon!
We have spent some time learning a 1940s dance. We have popped it onto Tapestry!
We hope you have a lovely weekend and we look forward to seeing you on Monday morning. :)
Year 1
What a busy week in Year 1! The children came back refreshed from the long weekend and ready to learn! In English this week, the children have been practising a variety of skills including recognising rhyming words, identifying words with specific sounds in them and completing sentences with appropriate word choices. They also practised their storytelling skills by rewriting the story of the three little pigs independently.
In Maths, we have been continuing the topic of ‘time’. The children have practised telling the time to the hour and half hour using analogue and digital clocks. They have been enthusiastic to identify where the minute and hour hands are pointing to, to tell the time accurately. This may be something you would like to continue to practise at home.
Our humanities lessons have been linked to the science topic of materials and their properties. The children have thought about which materials they may use to build a shelter to withstand rain and wind. They have then used junk modelling to create models of their structures. They have considered the features of their buildings carefully and tested them on Friday using water and a hairdryer to see how stable they are. It was very exciting!
In PSHE, we have looked at the PANTS rules and how the pantosaurus keeps himself safe. We have discussed appropriate language and behaviour when keeping ourselves safe regarding our PANTS. You can find useful resources on the NSPCC website if you would like to continue this discussion at home.
We hope you all enjoyed our wonderful VE Day celebrations and have a lovely weekend.
Year 2
What a week! After a long weekend we headed straight into possibly the busiest week so far this term!
We had another wonderful swimming lesson on Tuesday, the children found out their groups and we saw excellent participation across the whole year group - well done! Our National Gallery trip on Wednesday was a big hit - see some photos further up! Our VE Day celebrations on Thursday saw us ‘make do and mend’, ‘dig for victory’ and enjoy some old fashioned games. The children listened beautifully to stories in assembly about and from war veterans, and we enjoyed thinking about what it would have been like to be evacuated all those years ago. It was lovely to see so many of you in the afternoon and we hope you enjoyed the singing!
On Friday we had a first visit to Watergate School, to create new friendships and participate in joint learning opportunities - find out more about this next week.
With so many exciting opportunities taking place, we took the opportunity to brush up on some general English, considering capital letters, adjectives, nouns, verb and rhyming words and some mental maths consolidating finding halves and quarters of amounts. In art, we explored different maps and created our own artistic maps of a familiar journey.
Year 3
What a busy week it has been here in Year 3! We thoroughly enjoyed our trip to the National gallery on Tuesday. The children were brilliant at observing the details of the artwork and commenting on what they could see, how it made them feel and the colours that appealed to them. We were proud of their behaviour and conduct as well as their approach to their art workshop on colour.
On Wednesday, it was back to business as the children took part in their carousel and games lessons. Despite a busy day they threw themselves into their various activities and showed their best effort and perseverance. They also completed mental maths activities and revised their times table knowledge. Thanks to practice in class and with times tables rockstars, all of Year 3 are showing themselves to be times table whizzes.
On Thursday, we loved seeing the children in their best 1940’s costumes embracing the theme of VE Day. It was also a pleasure to see all the visitors to the school and we thank those who came to support and take part. There were so many great parts to the day and we are proud to be a school that marked such an important occasion.
On Friday, the children got to enjoy their lessons in art and geography. In art, they finished off their ancient Egyptian scrolls using paint and in Geography they continued their work on settlements by discussing the human and physical features of London. Perhaps they can point some of these features out to you in their local area.
We also furthered our knowledge of adverbials in this week’s English lesson. We revised the role of a verb as the action in a sentence and how an adverb describes this action. We then looked at different types of adverbs including ones for time, place and manner. The children were great at sorting these different types and could even place them into sentences. As they understood this so well, we hope that they will be able to include a variety of verbs in their diary entries that they are writing next week.
Finally, in maths, we continued to deepen our understanding of fractions by solving worded problems that required us to add and subtract them. The children understood that denominators that are the same are not changed and only numerators are calculated. They practised the skill of drawing out key information from a problem and deciding on the calculation. They were then able to add and subtract effectively. Next week we will be concluding our revision on fractions and are confident the children will retain these skills for this year and beyond.
Year 4
Despite it being a short week, we have still managed to fit in a lot! In maths, we have come to the end of our second decimal unit. This week, we finished the unit by learning about the decimal equivalents for halves and quarters and how we can also apply to percentages. We then revised our learning before completing the end of unit assessment. Next week, we will be moving onto angles and shapes including triangles and quadrilaterals.
In English this week, we explored adverbial phrases through another engaging Ananse story. The children enjoyed identifying adverbial phrases in different parts of a sentence and discovering how these phrases add detail about when, where or why something happens. We learnt that when an adverbial phrase is placed at the beginning of a sentence, it’s called a fronted adverbial. We also looked at how adverbial phrases and subordinate clauses can appear in the middle or at the end of a sentence to give extra information. The children showed great curiosity and growing confidence in using these structures in their own writing on Friday, when we applied our learning to writing our own Ananse story.
On Thursday, we celebrated 80 years of VE Day. It was wonderful to see all of the children dressed up and learning about how this day brought peace in Europe. It has also been lovely to hear some of the children sharing stories about their family members who were in the war, and also seeing photos of them too.
In art, we created our own sculptures based on the artwork of Barbara Hepworth. Last week, we sketched out our ideas, and this week we were able to sculpt them in plasticine. In geography, we compared maps of New Eltham with Danbury by looking at the similarities and differences of the land use in each area. In PSHE, we did our annual NSPCC PANTS lesson. The lesson helped us to learn, in an age-appropriate way, how to recognise the rights the children have to their own bodies, say no to touch that is unwanted, and tell someone if they feel uncomfortable.
Year 5
Year 5 have worked on developing their exam technique this week. We have looked closely at cloze procedure, developing our vocabulary and applying our understanding of grammar to ensure correct completion. This week we focused on the life and inventions of Thomas Edison and Alexander Graham Bell. On Thursday, we explored primary and secondary resources from the Imperial War Museum that helped us to gain insight into the lives of those during WW11 and the celebrations of VE day.
This week, we have begun our angles topic in maths. We explored position and direction and have been impressed with the children’s application of direction work that we have completed in NVR. Within maths, the children have applied their understanding of the sum of angles and classifying angles to find missing angles, as well as using a protractor accurately.
In VR, we developed our understanding of analogies, odd ones out and word connection. In NVR, we explored techniques to improve our accuracy of identifying reflected shapes. On Thursday, we enjoyed creating bunting in the spirit of our VE day celebrations. In PSHE, we did our annual NSPCC PANTS lesson. The lesson helped us to learn, in an age-appropriate way, how to recognise the rights the children have to their own bodies, say no to touch that is unwanted, and tell someone if they feel uncomfortable.
Year 6
This week has been packed with memorable experiences, and Year 6 have truly risen to every occasion with maturity, enthusiasm, and a sense of pride in their learning.
On Tuesday, we had the privilege of visiting the Houses of Parliament, an awe-inspiring trip that brought our studies of democracy and British values to life. The children were captivated by the rich history of the building and showed great curiosity—asking insightful questions and engaging thoughtfully in discussions about how our Parliamentary system works.
Following the tour, we headed to Jubilee Park, where the children enjoyed lunch with a view of the Thames and the iconic London Eye. There was plenty of time for play and socialising in the park, making for a perfect end to a truly inspiring day.
Back at school, Thursday saw Year 6 stepping up as role models during our VE Day commemorations. They supported the younger children with a variety of themed activities, including a ‘Dig for Victory’ session in our allotment and a lively 1940s-style PE lesson where pupils played hopscotch, hula-hooped, and took part in classic skipping games. Their encouragement and kindness made the day particularly special for the younger years.
In the afternoon, our Year 6 leaders helped to host a community celebration. They welcomed parents and local visitors with drinks and treats and performed wartime songs as part of the whole school choir. A number of children read aloud excerpts from Winston Churchill’s iconic VE Day speech, delivered with clarity and confidence. It was a truly moving and memorable moment.
In the classroom, the children channelled the wartime spirit with a creative ‘Make Do and Mend’ sewing project, using fabric scraps to assemble their very own First Aid kits—perfect for their upcoming residential trip to Norfolk!
Amid all the excitement, the children have also completed some of their annual assessments with great focus and determination. To reward their efforts, we ended the week with a special viewing of Beauty and the Beast, which was thoroughly enjoyed by all.
As we look ahead to our much-anticipated trip to Norfolk, we know this fantastic group of Year 6 pupils are more than ready to take on the next adventure. What a week it’s been! See you on Monday!
Outdoor Learning
The children have been busy planting their vegetables (spring onions, beetroot and lettuce) and then sowing more seeds namely sweetcorn, pumpkins, tomatoes and more beetroot. The younger children cut lots of rhubarb and gave it to chef to use in the kitchen. The children have done lots of weeding in many of the beds and everything looks amazing. They have also enjoyed creating their own play area at the back of the allotment.
Languages
In Early Years, both Nursery and Reception have started the new topic, fruit and vegetables: the children learnt new vocabulary and they were very excited to start expressing opinions. We had “ I love strawberries”, “I like oranges”, “I don’t like carrots” and even “I hate bananas!” all in French. Year 1 learnt more animals and reinforced the writing skills very successfully. Year 2 started to talk about food and different meals: the children can now say what they eat and drink for breakfast and lunch.
In the Upper School, in French, Year 3 revised the French-speaking countries and learnt how to say the continents in French; Year 4 consolidated school subjects’ vocabulary and the children designed their favorite timetable. In Latin, Year 6 started to become familiar with the part religion played in Roman life and they revised some grammatical rules of previous chapters.
Music
What a wonderful occasion we had yesterday to commemorate the 80th VE Day. All of the children from Nursery up to Year 6 had rehearsed their war-time songs in school and at home, and they sounded brilliant! It created a wonderful atmosphere and really took us back to that period in time. Thank you to those who came to join us in the afternoon and watch the children singing.
This week, the Upper School were excited to find out what the end of year production is going to be. This year we will be performing, ‘Beauty and the Beast’! We can’t wait to start learning some of the songs in Music lessons next week. The children may like to watch the film at home as a reminder of some of the great songs they will be learning this term.
LAMDA Drama rehearsals are fully underway at school and the children will be taking their LAMDA exams next half term. Preparations are going very well and we look forward to sharing their performances with you nearer the time.