From the Head
This week has been a wonderful reminder of the power of stories - both those passed down through generations and those waiting to be written.
We began by thinking more about genres, exploring different ways to enjoy reading and the children loved listening to 'Don't Look in this Book!' (always fun when the Headteacher breaks the rules!)
On Wednesday we celebrated Lunar New Year, a time of fresh beginnings, family and tradition. The children enjoyed learning about the customs, symbolism, and vibrant celebrations that mark the start of the new year in many cultures. It was lovely to see their curiosity sparked and to hear their thoughtful reflections on what a "new year" means to them. Lunch was a delicious feast too, thank you to our wonderful catering team for providing such delicious and enticing menus for the children.
Stories took centre stage again when Oliver's dad, Jonathan Horden, captivated the children in assembly yesterday, sharing his journey of writing his own children’s book, 'Bee's Mission to Mars'. His insight into the creative process - where ideas come from, how characters are shaped, and the joy (and challenge!) of bringing a story to life - was truly inspiring. As we approach National Storytelling Week, his words couldn’t be more timely. We hope this will encourage our young writers to embrace their own storytelling potential!
Next week, we look forward to even more story magic as we start our February Year of Reading theme by celebrating National Storytelling Week in assemblies. As part of our Year of Reading at St Olave’s, February’s theme will focus on Diverse Voices: Windows and Mirrors. This theme encourages children to see both reflections of themselves (mirrors) and windows into the experiences of others, through stories and traditional tales from a variety of cultures and perspectives. We would love to invite parents, grandparents, family or friends who have special stories or traditional tales from their culture to share with our children. Whether it’s a story passed down through generations, a favourite book that speaks to your heritage, or a cultural tale that holds personal significance, we would be thrilled for you to bring these narratives to life for our children. If you have a special story, memory, or traditional tale from your own childhood that you'd like to share, we would love to hear from you.
If you’re looking to ignite a love of reading and theatre in your child, a trip to Greenwich Theatre is a perfect way to bring stories to life! This weekend, Town Mouse and Country Mouse promises a delightful adventure for young audiences, The Magic Bookmark provides half term fun, while at the end of March, the timeless classic The Railway Children will transport families on an unforgettable journey. Theatre enriches children’s imaginations, deepens their understanding of stories and fosters a lifelong appreciation for literature and the arts. Don’t miss these wonderful productions - visit greenwichtheatre.org.uk for more details!
Wishing you all a wonderful weekend,
Kind regards, Miss Holloway
The week ahead...
Lunch Menu
Safeguarding Team
This week at St Olave's
Chinese New Year
On Wednesday, we celebrated Chinese New Year in school with a wonderful display at the front of our school, a whole school assembly, and we also had the opportunity to taste some delicious Chinese food at lunchtime. Mrs Marsh led the assembly with the help of two members of 4 Rowan. She talked about the Chinese New Year story and that sometimes this celebration is also referred to as the Lunar New Year. The children found out about the Zodiac animals and that this year is the Year of the Snake. Alfred and Thomas, from Year 4, discussed how they celebrate the event in their families, and even brought in a snake balloon, and a poster with a symbol that represents fortune. At lunchtime, the children were treated to spring rolls, egg fried rice and noodles, sticky honey chicken and braised jackfruit! We wish all of our families a very happy and healthy new year.
Football Tournament
Monday saw children from Year 3 and 4, compete in some friendly football matches. What was not so friendly was the weather! The rain and muddy pitches did not put our children off competing, as both year groups battled well in every game they played. St Olave's Year 3 won three of their four fixtures, losing only one game along the way. Lots of goals scored throughout the afternoon. Year 4 won one, drew one and lost the remaining two games. Lots of running, tackling, scoring, and most importantly fun being had! Well done for all of your efforts children!
Girls' Football League
After school on Tuesday, saw Years 5/6 girls enter a girls only football league. On another glorious sunny day (I wish!), the girls battled the rainy weather and competed in two games of football. The first game saw a tight match in which we came out victorious with a 1-0 victory. The second game saw the girls' confidence grow and we won the game comfortably 6-0. Two clean sheets, and lots of goals scored, meaning we sit top of the league after the opening week of the girls football league! Well played girls!
Pupil Achievements
Gymnastics Gold Medal
Alfred in 4 Rowan won a gold medal at his recent gymnastics competition last Sunday. He had to perform a synchronised routine with a partner, and they both showed fantastic strength with some of their moves! Alfred has been doing gymnastics since he was three years old, and is already performing at a high level. We look forward to seeing what he does next in this sport. Well done Alfred!
Nursery
Another week has flown past in Little Acorns and the children continue to amaze us with their creativity and desire to learn. The children’s love of stories has been particularly evident this week as the children have been inspired by the books they read to create costumes, props and models.
One of the children’s favourite characters is Super Daisy from the books by Kes Gray and Nick Sharratt. The children looked closely at the illustrations and then made themselves headbands, belts and capes ready to dress as Super Daisy and save the world from Planet Pea!!
Another story that has captured the imaginations of the children is Mouse House by John Burningham. The children have made a mouse house and filled it with little mice. They then made some little tiny books for the mice to read (one about a big, bad cat!) and warned the mice about some cheese that had been left by the mouse catcher!
Reception
Happy Chinese New Year. Welcome to the Year of the Snake! We learnt all about the traditions of Chinese New Year and we now know what our animals are on the Chinese calendar.
This week, we have continued our learning about life under the sea. The children have expressed an interest in cleaning up the oceans and creating less pollution. As they were so passionate, we asked for household waste to be brought into school so that the children could recycle it and make their very own rubbish scoop. They created codes to give their scoops magic powers.
During a discussion about rubbish and waste, the children asked to go to the local park to pick up any litter that had been dropped. We put on our coats, took our litter pickers and went on a mission to clean up our environment. We are so proud of their commitment to making a positive difference to help their community!
We are so impressed with the children’s knowledge of number so we decided to set them a challenge to find missing numbers to 10. We are focusing on using the words ‘more than’/ ‘how many more’. The children used 10 frames and counting bears to support them.
We had a great time at the library with Sally and we can’t wait to share our books with you.
Have a great weekend!
Year 1
The children have had a wonderful week in Year 1! We have enjoyed our learning in science looking at the properties of different objects and discussing the materials they are made from. In Geography, we have furthered our map skills by identifying the different continents and some of the countries in each of them. It was exciting for the children to identify the places they have visited and the different parts of the world our families come from.
In English, we have continued looking at traditional tales and how they can be told. We retold and sequenced events from the story of ‘Chicken Licken’. We also looked at how a story can be told in multiple ways and looked for the similarities and differences in two different versions of a story. We will continue this topic next week in a build up to the children writing their own traditional stories. Please take the time to share any traditional tales you have at home.
In maths, we have begun to learn our new topic of addition up to 20. This week we have focused on using our knowledge of number bonds to 10 and applying this to finding number bonds to 20. We have also started to use the vocabulary ‘double’, please continue to practise this at home.
We hope you have a lovely weekend.
Year 2
We’ve spent time this week mastering our place value, addition and subtraction skills in maths, working logically to solve one and two step word problems. Next week we launch multiplication and division! We explored instructions in English and had to help the cookie monster with how to make a delicious egg sandwich after the first set of instructions he received ended in disaster! We looked at sequencing, time conjunctions and imperative verbs.
Exploring climate zones in geography, we found out that we live in a temperate climate and enjoyed looking at the map to see if we had visited any countries in different climate zones. We enjoyed making fabulous pinch pots in maths, using our hands to shape the clay before attaching features to try to create an animal inspired pot. We visited the international space station in computing too!
We loved having another visit to our new school library - the children so much enjoyed sitting with their friends and reading a book. An absolute highlight was having Oliver’s daddy come into our assembly to not only share his story but also to talk to us about the process of writing a children’s book!
Year 3
The battle with Crowky has begun! As promised, an update on our Faster Read book, The Land of Roar. We are still a few chapters away from the end of this fantastic book but the children are really enjoying reading about Arther and Rose’s adventure into the magical land and we have come to the final battle with the story's villain - Crowky. As we read through, we are perfecting our summarising skills as well as learning some new vocabulary. This week we have defined the words blissfully, hypnotised and hoarse. We can’t wait to find out the ending and learn even more great vocabulary next week.
In Maths we started our new topic of measurement by practising measuring items in cm and mm. We learnt that there are 100 cm in a metre and 10mm in cm. We also discussed why it makes more sense to measure an elephant in m than in cm! We had lots of fun measuring objects around the classroom.
In English we have continued to build up skills ready for our story writing next week. We have now designed and described our characters and setting and prepared dialogue to include in the story. We have planned out our opening, build-up, problem, resolution and ending and are eagerly awaiting our chance to put it all together into a best writing piece yet!
Our healthy eating theme from Science spilled into PSHE this week as we discussed nutrition and a balanced diet as part of our healthy choices topic. Our main task was to match items with the amount of sugar we thought they contained. We were shocked to find that yogurt contains 18g of sugar and that a fizzy drink has 35g! We discussed making some healthy swaps and the children resolved to look more carefully at the labels of foods they choose to eat.
Our 'animals including humans' topic in Science moved onto exploring skeletons this week. The children were fascinated to learn that all animals have either an endoskeleton and exoskeleton or a hydrostatic skeleton. It was particularly useful to use our own bodies to see how skeletons can support, protect and allow animals to move. We were also shocked to learn that we have just as many vertebrates in our neck as a giraffe! Theirs are just bigger and more spaced out. A fantastic science fact!
Year 4
In English, we have continued to look at newspaper reports, and explored the use of alliteration and puns in headlines. The children came up with some fantastic ideas e.g. Mer-tastic Mermaid Appears on Land! and Mythical Mermaid Makes a Splash! We also planned out our report ready to write up next week. The children learnt about the differences between direct and indirect speech and had a go at converting between them.
In maths, we have come to the end of our multiplication and division topic, and have moved onto length and perimeter. We talked about the difference between metric and imperial units, and converted between kilometres and metres. On Friday, we learned how to find the perimeter of a shape using a grid.
In science, we have started our ‘Sound’ topic, and discussed the children’s prior knowledge in this area. We learned that we hear sounds by the air being vibrating and then hitting our eardrums. We did a fun activity to find out where the sound was coming from in class, and even discussed what an acoustic engineer is! In RE, we learnt about the origins of the Buddha, and how his teachings helped him to become a teacher to all.
We hope you have a wonderful weekend and we look forward to our Danbury day trip next Friday!
Year 5
This week in English we have been finalising our non-chronological reports and have published some excellent pieces of writing that use a range of cohesive devices and inform the reader on our chosen animals and their migration. Next week, we will be exploring how people also migrate, and will be using the text ‘Coming to England’ by Floella Benjamin.
In maths, we have been continuing our learning of multiplication and division. We used the efficient method to help us divide, using our knowledge of factor pairs to divide a 3 or 4 digit number by a 2 digit number. We then explored using long division to practise our fluency and solve a range of problems.
We have begun our new topic in science - Forces. We explored how gravity and air resistance affects the speed in which different objects fall. In PSHE, we looked at the health impacts that smoking has as part of our new topic on ‘Healthy Me’.
Year 6
This week in Year 6, we embarked on a new topic in maths, focusing on measurement and the metric system. The children worked hard to develop strategies for solving word problems, particularly those requiring the conversion of units—a challenging but rewarding skill!
In English, our focus was on debating, and the children demonstrated exceptional progress in a short time. They engaged passionately in a debate on 'This House believes zoos should be shut', mastering the art of rebuttal and using points of interest to strengthen their arguments. We also trialled an impromptu debate on 'This House believes school uniforms should be banned', which was both lively and thought-provoking, showcasing their ability to think on their feet. We have also begun our new Faster Read book which is called Rooftoppers by Katherine Rundell - so far we have been introduced to baby Sophie, who is miraculously found floating in a cello case after a shipwreck and is taken in by the kind but unconventional Charles Maxim, setting the stage for a story of adventure, mystery, and defying expectations.
In science, we concluded our circulatory system topic with an insightful discussion and an end-of-unit test, allowing the children to demonstrate their understanding. Meanwhile, in art, we explored the work of abstract artist Frank Bowling. The children experimented with his techniques—dripping and pouring paint, creating textures, and incorporating resources into their artwork. Impressively, they managed to keep the classroom spotless!
To round off a busy and successful week, the children celebrated the completion of their secondary school examinations with a well-deserved fun morning at AirJump in Orpington. Their enthusiasm and resilience throughout this process have been truly commendable, and we could not be prouder of their efforts and achievements!
Outdoor Learning
This week has been a chilly and windy one with the children staying in the classrooms to complete their winter project work. The Year 6s are focusing on bees, Year 5 are looking at trees, Year 4 are studying birds, Year 3 are learning about spiders, Year 2 are looking at the different plants at the allotment and Year 1 are finding out about any creatures found in the allotment. The Year 2s did manage to complete their plant treasure hunt as it was pouring with rain last week and we decided to stay indoors!
Languages
In Early Years, both Nursery and Reception have played more games to reinforce their vocabulary on family and they have been revising colours.
Year 1 revised numbers up to 20 and worked really hard on recognising the spelling of all of them. Year 2 did a great job at describing their hair and eyes, practising their speaking and writing skills.
In the Upper School, Year 3 have revised the French words for the seasons and talked about the different weather related to them. The children created a table for the four seasons and thought of different types of weather that can happen in each of them. Year 4 had a lesson on music genres and they also learnt how to express opinions on them: reliving the successful experience of Young Voices last week, the children had a go at telling each other in French how much they like rap and pop music.
In Spanish, Year 5 talked about pets and animals, and worked on adjectival agreement with colours. In Year 6, the students focused on learning adjectives to give opinions on school subjects. The children had access to complex important words and attempted, very successfully, to translate a set of sentences.
In Latin, Year 6 has worked on “the military machine”: the children talked about the Roman Army and learnt how to give command in Latin, focusing on the imperative form of the verbs.
Design & Technology
Year 3 Electronic Posters
This week pupils cut out and started assembling the parts needed for their posters. They redrafted their topical fact and took care to include this in their final design.
Year 4 Pavilion Structures
Year 4 students explored the concept of exhibition pavilions and started planning the designs for their pavilion structures.
Year 5 Wooden Bridges
Pupils in Year 5 started carefully marking out the materials needed to build their bridges as well as quality controlling and accurately cutting their materials with junior hacksaws.
Year 6 Automata Toys
This week Year 6 pupils were introduced to their new project which includes a moving cam mechanism which will be used to create a moving, interactive product display.
Music
This week, Year 6 compared a notation score with a graphic score of ‘The White Cliffs of Dover’ and gave opinions as to why one may be easier to follow than the other. The children then went on to annotate the score to add dynamics, places to take a breath and highlight key features such as rests, time signature and places to speed up or slow down.
Year 5 used the djembe drums to create African polyrhythms. In groups, the children learnt a variety of drumming rhythms and we then combined the rhythms together, creating polyrhythms! We can’t wait to trial the drumming with our song ‘Shosholoza’ next week.
Year 4 composed their own musical ‘loops’ to represent the canopy and emergent layer of the rainforest. They thought carefully about the creatures that live there and the sound of rainfall to create high pitched, fast moving melodies with their partner. Next week they will combine the loops with their ‘forest floor’ and ‘understory’ body percussion to create a full rainforest composition.
Year 3 continued to improve their pentatonic melodies this week. As it was Chinese New Year, we also listened to celebratory Chinese New Year music played by a ‘quartet’, discussed how the music influenced the movements in a dragon dance and learnt a traditional song in Chinese called ‘Mo li hua’ (Jasmine Flower).
Year 2 started to plan their group soundscapes using symbols to create a composition. They will continue to develop these next week. Year 1 explored the musical instruments in the classroom to create soundscapes for the seaside. They used picture clues as prompts to create their own seaside sounds, thinking carefully about tempo and dynamics.
The children in Reception learnt about ‘tempo’ this week. We listened to a variety of musical excerpts and decided if they were a fast, moderate or slow tempo. We found out about the composer Camille Saint-Saens and listened to some of his music from ‘Carnival of the Animals’. We moved around the classroom to the tempo of the music.
The children in Nursery learnt about ‘improvisation’ this week. We worked as a team to copy drumming rhythms from the ‘master drummer’ and we all had a turn at improvising on our drums!