From the Head
We are absolutely delighted to share the wonderful news that Mrs McNamara and her wife, Nina, welcomed their beautiful baby boy, Théo Robert McNamara Tolleret, into the world on Friday 28th November at 2.05am, weighing a perfect 7lb 2oz and arriving exactly on his due date! His middle name, Robert, is a heartfelt tribute to Mrs McNamara’s father, making his arrival all the more special. I know our whole St Olave’s community will join me in sending Anna, Nina and baby Théo our warmest congratulations and very best wishes at this precious time. We cannot wait to meet him when the winter germs have settled and to welcome Mrs McNamara back in the new year but for now, we hope they enjoy every moment of these early days together.
As we move through these final festive weeks of term, I want to take a moment to acknowledge just how brilliantly the children are coping. Between pantomime rehearsals, nativity practices, carol singing, extra events, and the general buzz of Christmas, the school day looks and feels very different at the moment. The children are working incredibly hard - learning lines, remembering stage directions, singing their hearts out and adapting to shifting routines with huge effort and enthusiasm. With this comes the inevitable end-of-term tiredness. Many children are a little more emotional, more easily overwhelmed or simply worn out and winter illnesses are circulating as they always do at this time of year. This combination of excitement, disruption to the usual rhythm and sheer effort can leave even the most confident child feeling a bit unsettled. This is completely normal. Over the next couple of weeks, a little extra patience, reassurance and planned calm at home can make a world of difference. Some helpful things to consider: Build in quiet evenings wherever possible: early bedtimes and gentle routines will help children recharge. Protect rest at weekends: if you can, leave space for slower mornings or peaceful family time, rather than filling every moment. Expect their emotions to run a little closer to the surface: big feelings are common at this time of year; tiredness and excitement often arrive hand in hand. Keep after school commitments light: children will give their very best in performances over the next fortnight, but they need the energy to sustain it. Remind them that it’s okay to feel tired or wobbly: validating their feelings builds resilience and helps them manage busy periods with confidence. Most importantly, we are keeping school days as calm, structured and nurturing as possible. The children are doing incredibly well and we are so proud of how they are rising to the challenge of a full festive calendar. A gentle reminder (with the above caveat about tiredness firmly in mind!) that on Wednesday 10th December all children will need to be in school by 8.00am. We are leaving promptly at 8.00am to walk to New Eltham Station to catch the 8.21am train to the Greenwich pantomime. We know this is an earlier start than usual, and we are grateful for your support in helping us keep the morning running smoothly. With a little extra rest and balance at home, the children won’t ‘peak too soon’ and will be able to enjoy every moment of the celebrations still to come. Thank you for your continued support and understanding during this wonderfully busy season. Have a lovely weekend and I look forward to seeing you all next week.
Kind regards, Miss Holloway
The week ahead...
Lunch Menu
Monthly Safeguarding Update
December – Safe Visitors and Clubs
We are careful about checks on all adults in school, but you can help too. If your child attends holiday clubs or tuition, please check the providers are reputable and staff are vetted. A quick question about safeguarding policies is a good habit to build.
Community
Joy this Christmas At this time of year, we are always mindful of the enormous generosity shown by our St Olave’s community and, equally, of the many requests that can come parents’ way. With that in mind, I wanted to share a local initiative that some families may wish to support, without placing any additional pressure on those who already have full plates. A wonderful community group, Joy This Christmas, runs an annual campaign collecting pre-loved toys, books, games, warm clothing and teddies, as well as new items, to be re-gifted to vulnerable children and families in the local area. Now in its ninth year, the project has supported more than 1,000 children, providing thoughtfully curated gift bags filled with books, small toys, pyjamas, cosy winter items and a few festive treats. If you feel able and would like to contribute, we will continue to collect donations on Monday and Tuesday next week. There is absolutely no expectation and we fully understand this is an especially busy and expensive time of year. Even one gently used item that your child has outgrown can make a meaningful difference to another family. A huge thank you to the families who have already kindly contributed to the campaign. Your generosity will make a meaningful difference to vulnerable children and their families in our local area. Thank you, as always, for the kindness and generosity that defines our school community.
This week at St Olave's
Year 6 Trip to the British Museum On Friday, Year 6 travelled to the British Museum as part of their history topic on the Maya. During the trip, the children (and adults) enjoyed exploring the ancient artefacts on display - especially the lintels, where they learned more about the daily life, beliefs and traditions of the Maya people. The expert talk gave insight into how artefacts are used to interpret what life was like and learned about their detailed carvings, meanings and historical importance.
Year 5 Visit to Frognal House On Tuesday, Year 5 visited the residents of Frognal House in Sidcup to spread some Christmas cheer. We dazzled them with our beautiful voices as we invited them to join us in some carol singing. In between our ‘shows’ we had the opportunity to participate in some arts and crafts; from making cards and decorations to sewing Christmas stockings, it was a super start to the festive period.
New Eltham Lights Up Thank you to all the families and children that came to support our local community on Saturday. The organisers were delighted with our torch procession and singing, and have already asked us back next year!
Sporting Round Up
Year 4 Netball It's been a busy week for sports, with the Year 4 girls attending a netball festival at Woolwich Poly Girls school on Tuesday, which included a wide range of skill sessions. The girls developed their shooting, passing and teamwork skills whilst learning the positions on the court. Well done girls for a really fun start to a morning.
Girls' Football League After school on Tuesday, the girls from Years 5 and 6 competed in the Girls' Football League. Their first opponents did not attend which meant an automatic 3-0 victory for St Olave's. The second fixture was a strong performance from our girls as we battled and passed the ball well. However, as much as we huffed and puffed, we unfortunately just couldn’t get the ball in the back of the net. We drew the game 0-0. Well played girls - you showed fantastic team work and determination.
Football Friendlies Wednesday afternoon, West Lodge traveled to Footscray RFC to play some friendly football fixtures against our Year 5 and 6 children. Both year groups played two competitive games each resulting in Year 6 drawing 2-2 and losing 5-2. Year 5 played a thrilling 6-5 loss, and also lost 3-0. Well played everyone!
Pupil Achievements
Congratulations to our Christmas Jar Winners! EYFS - Alex M, Nursery
Lower School - Vedast, 1 Pine
Upper School - Isaac, 5 Rowan
Nursery
As we have entered the period of Advent, the children have begun the ‘Countdown to Christmas’ and have been using our class calendar to work out how many days are left until the Christmas holidays. Each day we take a counter off the chart and work out how many are left. This real life purpose helps to make maths meaningful to even the youngest children and they are able to confidently tell us how many days are left as we take one off each day. Elsewhere in the classroom the children have been busy crafting and creating. They have made their own decorations and paper chains to decorate our tree as well as making angels and wreaths using a variety of media.
Reception
The Christmas countdown has officially begun in Reception! This week, we put our subitising skills to the test to work out how many days are left until we break up for the Christmas holidays. Using our class calendar, the children identified our final day of term and covered each remaining date with counters. We then transferred the counters onto a five-frame, exploring the patterns and number relationships we could see. The children were absolute superstars and loved discovering the countdown for themselves. Keeping with the festive theme, Reception have been busy, busy, busy! We’ve been creating beautiful Christmas decorations to hang on our classroom tree and it looks absolutely BEAUTIFUL. In Drawing Club, we read The Jolly Christmas Postman, which the children adored. They designed their own Christmas cards for Santa and wrote him a lovely message, using our new red word ‘to’ and cleverly adding ‘me’ as a secret code. It has been such an exciting week, and we are bursting with pride as we watch the children prepare for next week’s Nativity. Their rehearsals have truly blown our socks off! Have a magical weekend!
Year 1
Alongside our rehearsals each afternoon, the children have been working hard on their English, maths and science skills. We have enjoyed studying 3D shapes in maths lessons and learning their names and properties. The children have worked hard to start recognising and using adjectives in their sentence writing and have made great progress. In science we have been learning (appropriately!) about winter weather and thinking carefully about what happens to the wildlife as the weather turns from Winter to Spring. We can’t wait to show you the results of all of our hard work from our rehearsals for our nativity play: ‘The Gigantic Star’ next week; we are certain you’re going to love it and really put you in the mood for Christmas.
Year 2
It's been one of our busiest weeks this week in Year 2 as we prepare to dazzle and amaze with our acting skills on Monday and Tuesday next week. Somehow we have managed to squeeze in the start of our new shape topic in maths. We discovered some new 2D shapes and 3D shapes to add to our vocabulary and began to recognise them by how many sides and vertices they have. In English, we have been exploring rhymes in poetry. We took the poem of The Owl and The Pussycat by Edward Lear and spotted the rhyming pairs in the text. After playing some rhyming matching games and creating some rhyming lists we even had a go at writing some poetry lines of our own ending in rhyming words. As our rehearsals come to a close, our Nativity show is now ready for you all to see! We are so proud of what we have put together and are looking forward to you witnessing all of our hard work. Thank you so much for supporting your children with their lines and preparing their costumes. We can’t wait to see you all there!
Year 3
It's been a busy start to the last month of the year but we are already enjoying December. The children have been busy preparing for their Christmas Carol Concert and have been singing beautifully. No doubt you have heard them practising at home and we can’t wait for you to see it at the end of term. In class, we have been carrying on with our letter writing skills. Inspired by letter-based texts including ‘The Jolly Postman’ and ‘The Day the Crayons Quit’, the children have been writing informal letters in role as a character from the traditional tale ‘Little Red Riding Hood’. It has been wonderful hearing their unique ideas as they wrote as the wolf to apologise for scaring Little Red or as Grandma inviting the wolf to tea. The children have shown excellent understanding of features such as greetings, address and date, sign off and rhetorical questions. We are sure that now they have the skills they will be corresponding frequently! In maths, we continued to develop our multiplication and division skills by looking at the 3 and 4 times tables. The children recognised the link between multiplication and division as well as studied the difference between grouping and sharing as a method for finding the solution to worded problems. Other written representations of multiplication and division that we have shown are arrays, bar models and number lines so that the children have lots of ways to visualise their tables in addition to learning by rote. We hope that the children can model some of these representations in order to demonstrate what they have learnt this week. In Science this week, the children have furthered their understanding on magnetism and how different types and shapes of magnets can affect their strength and use. We found that a horseshoe magnet was more powerful than a bar magnet and discussed how a disk shape is best used for your favourite fridge magnets. Regardless of type, the children now know that all magnets create a magnetic field and have both a north and a south pole. They also learnt that opposite poles attract whilst same poles repel. Finally, in Geography this week we are continuing to study the fascinating continent of Antarctica. We have been reviewing what we have learnt about the geographical features of this continent and then using this to discuss why Antarctica is a largely uninhabitable place. The children showed great interest and a good understanding of how weather, temperature and availability of resources can impact whether a place can be lived in.
Year 4
As we move into the final weeks of term, Year 4 has been filled with lots of festive spirit! We have been rehearsing our Christmas carols in preparation for the upcoming Christmas Concert, and will be sending home a poem, ‘The Road to Bethlehem’ - which will be performing as a year group. The children are working incredibly hard and can’t wait to share their performances with you, so please support them with learning their lines. In maths, we have been focusing on written calculations for division, using the bus stop method both with and without remainders. The children are becoming increasingly confident with this method. Please continue to support them at home by practising their times tables, as strong multiplication knowledge makes division much easier. In English, we are preparing to write our own newspaper articles based on the events that follow the end of our class text, Tuesday. We have explored the key features of newspapers, planned our reports, and have now begun drafting. The children are proving to be budding reporters, showing creativity, curiosity, and great attention to detail. In Science, we are nearing the end of our unit on electricity. Using our understanding of conductors and insulators, the children designed and created their own switches. They then tested their designs to see whether they could successfully complete a series circuit. It’s been fantastic to see their problem-solving skills and scientific thinking in action! In art, we completed the final stage of our mixed-media drawing project. The results were incredibly effective, and the children were very proud of their creative work. It’s hard to believe that next week is our last full week before the Christmas break! Bring on the panto!
Year 5
After the joyous Christmas Fayre, the festive spirit has truly arrived in Year 5, the excitement as twinkling as the lights on the 5 Rowan Christmas tree. Also adorning the classrooms are the festive stocking the children made on the carol singing trip to Frognal House. The children have been diligently rehearsing the songs for the Christmas Carol Concert and sounding wonderful - we cannot wait for you to hear them. We are also practising our class poems for the concert - these will go home this weekend for the children to learn by heart. In English, we have slammed ourselves into our performance poetry unit, starting with a BBC live lesson with British poet and children's writer Joseph Coelho, as well as performance tips with Micheal Rosen. Drawing upon the verse memoir Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson, we rehearsed and performed poems attempting to use expression, intonation and emphasis to bring the verse to life! In Maths, we learnt to contract polygons with precision, using protractors to accurately draw internal angles of triangles and quadrilaterals. We looked at the properties of specific regular polygons and how they are related to each other. We also explored data handling, introducing dual bar charts and line graphs which the children used to analyse and extract information. It’s a busy week approaching with not one, but two, pantomimes for Year 5!
Year 6
What a festive start to December! It was such a successful Christmas Fayre on Friday, the children showed great maturity and responsibility giving up their free time to help with all of the different stalls. Thank you to all of the children and to the FRSC as well for making this event magical! The children have also been practising their singing for the Christmas Carol Concert and have been filling the school with their beautiful singing. We are really looking forward to this at the end of term. In English, we finished writing our reflective narratives in the perspective of Isabelle. We then thought about how Hugo would have viewed the same events and wrote another reflective narrative in his perspective, using introspection, sensory detail and a range of high-level punctuation to bring his thoughts and feelings to life. In maths we have finished our topic on fractions and have begun our measurement topic, specifically looking at metric measurements - how we convert them and use these conversions when calculating different units of measure. In PSHE we discussed how there are different perceptions of ‘normal’ and how everyone is unique and different in their own way. We then thought about how people can have different ‘powers’ in group situations. We discussed and reflected on how this can make people feel and how we can ensure that everyone feels included. We can’t believe that next week is the last full week of term! It is sure to be another busy one!
Outdoor Learning
The children have been busy clearing the allotment for the winter. We have been given a large number of pots which will be useful for our new plants next year. The Year 3 children cleared the concrete shed and put away things like the netting and the hoses so they do not get damaged when it gets colder. It looks a lot tidier now! We have continued to move the bark chippings on to the play area at the back and clear more leaves. Most of them have fallen from the trees bordering the allotment. We have also started to plant our spring bulbs in pots and dotted them around the plot.
Languages
December has arrived and the school has become very festive indeed! In French, Nursery and Reception have started to work on Christmas vocabulary, whilst Year 1 and Year 2 have prepared a Christmas card. Year 3 talked about Christmas food, and they specifically focused on desserts: we found out how delicious some traditional desserts look and we all got very hungry in the lessons! In Spanish, Year 5 carried on talking about appearance, this week focusing on eyes and hair, whilst Year 6 has had the last lesson of the term on family, practising translation and speaking skills. In Latin, Year 6 talked about travel in Roman Britain and we were all very surprised to find out that a journey from Vindolanda to York would have taken a week back then! In grammar, the children consolidated the use of nouns, adjectives, verbs and adverbs in Latin, also properly focusing on plurals.
Design & Technology and Computing
Quiz of the week, ask your child if they can explain what the words in bold mean. Year 3 Pneumatic Monsters Pupils in Year 3 tested their pneumatic mechanisms for functionality and to identify any flaws to address. They also continued to add features to their monsters.
Year 4 Slingshot Cars This week Year 4 pupils started measuring and cutting the materials for their chassis, they used junior hacksaws and bench hooks to steadily cut their square dowel rod ready for assembly. Year 5 Doodlebot In Year 5, pupils selected their final doodle bot design and started assembling their models.
Year 6 Microbit Arcade Year 6 pupils created the code needed to make their digital scoreboard function. They took this opportunity to customise their code to include more inputs and outputs.
Computing highlights Year 1 reviewed their understanding of programming algorithms with a quiz. Year 4 started transferring the data they researched from a paper based record to a digital spreadsheet. Pupils in Year 6 started designing a digital 3D case for Micro:bit.