From the Deputy Head
Dear Parents and Carers
It’s Friday once again, and today started with another awesome Celebration Assembly for Years 1 - 6. Celebration Assemblies are our opportunity to come together to share the many successes from across our school each week. Assemblies start with a vibrant song, all of the teachers present their ‘Postcards of Praise’ and update us on events and fixtures, we cast a spotlight on achievements outside of school and much more. We do love a ‘trophy lift’ as well!
As always, it has been a privilege to observe and support the delivery of our broad and exciting curriculum this week. Whether it be a calm and focused handwriting lesson, a practical science experiment or a breakthrough moment at games, our school has been buzzing with positive energy and progress.
Lunchtimes are also packed full of activity and fun, with Years 1 - 6 having extra ‘chillout’ times in our allotment. The children really enjoy spending even more time in this wonderful environment and it has been brilliant to see them access the many options we have to offer. Creating their own nature hunts has been a very popular pastime, where many have been designing their own lists of things that they want to find, before going off to explore. We regularly speak together in assembly about the importance of following our clear rules and staying within our boundaries. Whenever I visit, our staff members on duty, who are always spread out in different areas around the allotment, agree that our children are embracing this opportunity.
As you will see in this bumper edition of our newsletter, many of our children have experienced some wonderful trips that brought learning to life in new and exciting ways this week. Seeing the smiles on the faces of our Nursery and Reception children on their return from the Theatre on Wednesday was truly special!
Thank you very much, as always, for your continued support. With Christmas around the corner, we look forward to welcoming you to upcoming events over the next few weeks.
Have a lovely weekend.
Mr Lupton
Deputy Headteacher
The week ahead...
Please note that there won't be any PE lessons for Years 1 and 2, or additional school-based PE lessons for KS2, during the last two and a half weeks of this term (from Monday). This is due to our hall being used for Christmas production rehearsals and other Christmas events. Everything will return to normal in the new year.
Daily PE for EYFS will continue as normal (weather permitting). KS2 Games will also continue as normal on Wednesdays, apart from the last day of term on Wednesday 18th December, when there is early closing.
Thank you.
Lunch Menu
Safeguarding Team
Notices
New Eltham Lights Up Saturday 30th November
We are looking forward to supporting our local community with a light procession at 4.40pm from school to the village, and will then entertain the crowds with our singing. The lights will be switched on after we have finished singing! Please join us if you can. We will be leaving school at 4.40pm. (The entertainment runs from 4 - 6pm).
Christmas Fayre 6th December 3.30 - 6.30pm
Just a reminder that there will be no playzone or clubs on Friday - pick up at usual time and then join us at the Fayre. Please send in decorated and filled jars by Thursday 5th December. Please bring cash if you can.
Santa has managed to fit in a visit to our Fayre, even though he is very busy. We have lots of exciting stalls, games, delicious food and drink and fun activities, as well as our popular “Secret Room”, Jar Stall, Bottle and Chocolate Tombolas, children’s toys and books, plus much, much more .
Raffle Tickets - we have lots of fabulous prizes (please see the end of the newsletter). Don’t miss out on your chance to win - return completed stubs with your money. We have extra tickets available if you want more chances to win!
This week at St Olave's
EYFS Theatre Trip
On Wednesday all the EYFS children and staff made a special journey up to the Unicorn Theatre in London Bridge to watch a performance of Huddle. The story is a heartwarming tale of a daddy penguin bringing up his chick. Before we found our seats, we went to see the Christmas tree near Tower Bridge. The children loved seeing the lights and used lots of their prior learning to share facts about Tower Bridge. When we got to the theatre, we were blown away with the amazing show and they found it hilarious! The children were completely enthralled by the story and we were so proud of the way they behaved all day.
Y1 visit the London Transpost Museum
On Thursday, we made our way up to Covent Garden to visit the London Transport Museum. It was a fantastic way to end our topic all about different forms of transport. The children were amazed to see all the different forms of vehicles and how they have developed over time. They enjoyed acting as passengers on old trams, buses and trains and learning about how tube stations were used as shelters during The Blitz. After lunch, they enjoyed playing in the transport themed role play area, which we are sure they were very excited to talk about at home.
Before heading back to school, we walked through Covent Garden to take a look at the giant christmas tree. We were so impressed with how sensible the children were and look forward to taking them to the pantomime next week!
Year 6 Trip to The British Museum
On Monday, under bright blue skies, the children embarked on a delightful school trip to The British Museum, traveling seamlessly by train and tube. The highlight of the day was a fascinating workshop on the Ancient Maya Civilization led by a knowledgeable archaeologist. She captivated the children by explaining how artifacts unearthed during excavations unlock the secrets of the past. Focusing on the lintels displayed in the museum, she invited the children to interpret the intricate carvings and shared insights about the city of Yaxchilan, Maya rulers, architecture, beliefs, writing, food, entertainment, and the environment.
Adding to the excitement, the children explored the Roman section of the museum, complementing their Latin lessons. They were thrilled to see authentic tablets from Vindolanda, showcasing cursive Latin written by Roman soldiers. The children were eager to view the paintings discovered at Lullingstone Villa, a nearby historical site in Kent, and were fascinated by how these artworks depict people in acts of prayer to God. The children were also captivated by the busts of real Romans who lived during the first century. They were especially intrigued by the bust of Emperor Hadrian, which was discovered in the River Thames after the fall of the Roman Empire in Britain.
The children were a delight to take out and full of enthusiasm, curiosity and lots of questions! (Looking forward to our next trip . . .)
Mrs McNamara
Harp Concert - St Alfege Church
What a treat we had this week: on Thursday our St Olave’s harpists travelled to Greenwich to attend a Harp concert! It was a wonderful experience to hear some students of the Trinity Laban Conservatoire perform flamboyant music. We felt transported into a magical land, thanks to the music by Bach, Scarlatti, Marson, Walter Kuhne and Caramiello, and we were all mesmerised by the fingers flying up and down the strings, and the feet moving so fast to change pedals. We certainly felt inspired to do a lot of practice!
Mrs Mossone Evans
Geography Awareness Week
Last week was Geography Awareness Week. On Wednesday, Mrs Marsh led an assembly to the whole school to raise awareness of this very important subject. The children found out what the difference is between physical and human geography, while recapping the seven continents in the world. We also discussed what geography topics we have already covered as a school which included: Extreme Weather, Antarctica and Biomes. The children shared some fantastic learning and also linked it to the experiences on our residential to Swanage in Year 5. Mrs Marsh set a challenge to complete some extra home learning, and two children in Year 6 produced a brilliant geography quiz and a fact sheet about the endangered rhinoceros.
Year 3 and 4 Football Fixture
This Wednesday, St Olave's hosted a Year 3 and 4 friendly football fixture against West Lodge Prep. Year 4 lost their fixture and Year 3 won their game. Lots of goals, tackles, and saves made. Well done everyone for all their efforts.
Pupil Achievements
Grade 5 Violin
Congratulations to Paige in Year 6 for passing her Grade 5 Violin exam with distinction!! What a fabulous achievement! To celebrate, Paige gave us a wonderful performance in assembly - thank you Paige.
Nursery
A very exciting week in Little Acorns as we began the rehearsals for our Christmas Play. The children have been learning some lovely songs and working with the Reception children to perform the story.
The wintry weather inspired some cold and frosty pictures and some children used our egg trays to make snowmen with scarves, hats and buttons.
Reception
The weather is cold outside… it’s time for a HUDDLE!
This week, Reception jumped on a train to see a production of Huddle at the Unicorn Theatre. As Huddle is all about arctic animals, we have read lots of books to inspire their learning this week. They created wonderful arctic animals and arctic scenes.
We hope you all have a lovely weekend and we look forward to seeing you at the Christmas Fayre on Friday 6th.
Year 1
November has flown by and we are in full swing getting ready for our festive celebrations! The children are very excited for the Lower School nativity and have been patient and focussed during rehearsals. They sound wonderful and have some groovy dance moves, you really are in for a treat this year!
Year 2
Year 2 have certainly been enjoying doing it all this week! Our days have been full to the brim with such a fantastic array of activities, it is hard to recount them all. In English, we started the week working on a plan for an alternative version of a story - this was a great way to develop our ideas and really get to grips with the beginning, middle and ending of what are sure to be some of the greatest animal stories ever told! All of the children were inspired to write and share their ideas which is excellent.
In Maths, it has been fun and interesting to widen our knowledge of 2D and 3D shapes. We have practised reading and writing shape names and are pretty good at recognising many shapes now, and describing some of their properties. Our work has also included finding lines of symmetry in shapes and learning new vocabulary such as horizontal and vertical.
We were very lucky to go out on a visit to Frognal House Care Home on Wednesday. Not only did we get to ride in the new St Olave’s minibus, we had the opportunity to make decorations with some of the lovely residents who stay at the home. They were very pleased to have us with them and we enjoyed meeting them and working on glittery creations together. Thank you very much to Mrs Farrell for organising such a lovely trip for us.
Rehearsals are well underway for our Christmas play, ‘The Boogie Woogie Nativity.’ We are truly having a lot of fun with this! Only one more week until showtime. The children are excited to get into their costumes and get the concert on the road! Please may we ask that you encourage them to keep practising any lines and song words over the weekend. Many thanks and have a super weekend.
Year 3
Time is flying past as we approach December! This week in English we have been very 'on theme' with the chilly weather and writing our topic paragraphs for our non-chronological reports. Towards the end of the week we began to publish some of the different parts, decorating the background of the pages and we are so looking forward to seeing them all finished!
In maths we have been tackling the challenging eight times tables. We first spotted patterns when multiplying before using the same maths facts to divide. We then applied our multiplying and dividing skills to see if we could work out eight times table word problems!
Geography saw us learning all about the explorer Shackleton’s journey to Antarctica. We listened carefully to a log telling us all about the troubles he encountered and his experiences. We then tracked the journey with the coordinates on a map. We were so looking forward to the end to find out if his crew all managed to survive!
In Science we continued our exploration of magnets by investigating whether items in the classroom were magnetic or not. We had a lot of fun and then cross referenced our results by the materials and found that the magnetic items were metals and although some that seemed to be plastic, they actually had metal inside which attracted the magnets!
Year 4
As always the week has flown by! Christmas is definitely nearly upon us with the start of carol practices and Christmas themed artwork! In maths, we have continued with our multiplication and division unit by consolidating our times tables knowledge. We have expanded our maths vocabulary by learning that the two numbers which are multiplied together are called factors and the answer can be the product or multiple. Using the fact that multiplication is commutative, meaning it can be done in any order, we learned how to multiply three digits together and even spoke about the order of operations in a calculation.
In English, we have moved onto learning about non-chronological reports. The book we are focusing on is called ‘Cool Architecture’ by Simon Armstong. We identifed the features that you can find in such reports and then we learned how to summarise a text by highlighting the key information. Next week, we will be moving onto researching our own landmarks and creating a report on them.
In history, we revisited our Roman shield designs, picking the one we liked the most and giving reasons for this. The children then created their own shields by drawing the designs onto cardboard and painting them. We think you will agree that they are all fantastic!
On Tuesday, we had some time to work on our team building and friendship skills. We identified the different dynamics in friendship groups and how we can try and use these to help us navigate the tricky waters of friendship. We also took part in some team games where we had to use our communication and listening skills to work collaboratively.
We hope you all have a lovely weekend, and we look forward to seeing you at the Christmas Fayre next Friday.
Year 5
We have had another busy yet brilliant week in Year 5. In maths, we have been using our multiplication and division to help us find equivalent fractions when comparing and ordering fractions greater and less than 1. We have then used our addition and subtraction skills to add and subtract fractions. In English, we have enjoyed listening to some more cautionary tales and have thought about how we can use adverbs and modal verbs to show a degree of possibility, certainty or ability.
In science, we explored which materials would be best suited to be a thermal conductor or insulator. We experimented by adding different materials to the outside of a cup and measured the temperature of the water to investigate which material is the best insulator.
In PSHE, we learned about what racism is, exploring how it negatively impacts individuals’ emotions and wellbeing. The children engaged in thoughtful reflection on their own attitudes and beliefs, discussing ways to combat racism and created their own ribbon to campaign for change.
Year 6
This week has been both inspiring and productive, with the children showing creativity, teamwork, and enthusiasm. One of the main highlights was our trip to The British Museum, which you can read about in the article earlier in this newsletter, as well as on our social media.
To conclude our ‘Black Lives Matter’ poetry unit, the children wrote thoughtful acrostic poems on the theme of racism. Their poems showed empathy and a deep understanding of the issues we have been discussing. It was a great way to reflect on the power of words and celebrate the learning they have done.
In English, we have been focusing on presentation and handwriting, encouraging the children to develop a consistent cursive script in preparation for secondary school. We have been really impressed with their effort and attention to detail and expect this high standard to continue across all their work. We also started a new unit, which is based on the poem 'The Highwayman' by Alfred Noyes. The children enjoyed reading the first three stanzas and used their drawing skills to illustrate their understanding of the imagery used in the poem.
In science, the children continued learning about the human heart and its role in the circulatory system. This week’s practical activity was a highlight, where the children worked together to model how blood flows through the body. It was fantastic to see their enthusiasm and teamwork, and their understanding of this complex process has grown a lot.
In art, the children have used the technique chiaroscuro to show light and shade using a maya calendar name. They developed their own piece of art using charcoal and rubbers.
This afternoon, we welcomed back Mrs. Isenberg, who shared an interesting lesson on the ancient Roman festival of Saturnalia. The children were excited to learn how the Romans celebrated this winter festival! It might well be time to wrap up warm with a hot chocolate. Have a happy weekend one and all! (Christmas is coming . . . )
Outdoor Learning
The children have been busy planting, sowing and clearing at the allotment this week. We have planted onions and garlic in various beds. We are also in the process of creating a new area for our strawberry plants, so the children were helping to dig over the area and put in a path. This will eventually be netted so the birds cannot eat our lovely fruit! We finally picked our final chillies from Poly 1 and the children then cleared that too and were amazed to find pottery and even a bone in the soil! We also cleared the sweetcorn bed and will build a new structure to keep out the squirrels.
Languages
Another busy busy week in the Languages department! Nursery and Reception enjoyed practising colours and numbers, with songs and activities. In Year 1 we talked about how many languages we speak as a class, and we played games to learn how to say different languages in French.
In the Upper School, Year 3 practised their French speaking and listening skills on the “holiday” topic, playing the “trap door” and the “mind reader” games. Year 4 consolidated their knowledge on “directions”, reconstructing sentences and guessing what their friends wrote in their books. In Spanish, Year 5 has focused on talking about teachers, using adjectives ending in -o/-a and intensifiers.
In Latin, we have been extremely lucky this week: we had the archeologist Mrs Isenberg come into school to give us an amazing talk on Saturnalia. We discussed the origins of Saturnalia and the god Saturn, and we explored the activities, food, decorations and games that the Romans did to celebrate. We also had a lot of fun wearing brightly coloured scarves and discussing recipes and games. Thank you so much Mrs Isenberg for this unique experience!
Design & Technology
Year 3
This week Year 3 tested the functionality of their mechanisms and cut out the features of their pneumatic monsters.
Year 4
Year 4 started cutting the materials they would use to assemble their cars. They planned how they might make their cars aerodynamic.
Year 6
Pupils in Year 6 cut out and folded the bases for their steady hand games. They created their own flat rectangular nets which they then assembled into a 3D structure.
Music
A huge congratulations to Aizah, Raya, Geetanjali, Melek, Thandie and Paige in the Upper School! Last week they took part in either singing or violin examinations and have achieved outstanding results! Well done, we are all very proud of you.
We are looking forward to seeing many of you at the New Eltham Christmas Lights event. The children have been rehearsing their Carols and they have also made Christmas lanterns in their DT lessons to carry in the parade. Google Slides with Christmas Carol lyrics have been sent to parents via ParentPay so that the children can rehearse and learn their words at home too. The majority of these songs have a backing track to rehearse to, click on the red song title on the Google Slides to take you to the backing track. The slides also contain songs that the Upper School children can rehearse at home ahead of their Carol Service. Thank you for supporting your children in learning their song lyrics.
We would also love to have as many children as possible from any year group singing Carols at our school Christmas Fayre. A Google Form has been sent to parents to sign up for this. Have a great weekend!
Postcards of Praise
Community News
Raffle Prizes
Children’s prizes:
- Amazing Fire HD 10 kid pro tablet (worth £199)
- Amazon Alexa Echo dot kids (worth £64.99)
- Yoto player - large with bundle of 6 cards (worth £120)
- Yoto player travel size - with bundle of 6 cards(worth £80)
Adult Prizes:
- £200 Bluewater voucher
- £100 M&S voucher
- £50 M&S voucher
- £50 M&S voucher
- A voucher for a place at Rosy Thompson Dance Academy holiday club worth £350
- 2 x Balfour vineyard wines with glasses
- Luxury chocolates
- A voucher for a family photo session & 10” x 8” print worth £115
Tooled Up Education
Upcoming webinars from Tooled Up Education
Tooled Up Education warmly invites you to register for their upcoming December 2024 webinars. Please click on the links to book:
Tooled Up Education & Parenting Matters Present: United Front Parenting: Easier Said than Done!
December 4, 2024, 19:30-20:30 GMT
Ever wondered what your parenting style is and importantly, how it might affect your children and/or their future outcomes? In this webinar, Professor Stephen Scott and Dr Kathy Weston talk us through differing parenting approaches and explain how these can best support children with family life. The webinar will discuss real life scenarios with time for questions at the end.
December 5, 2024, 12:00-13:00 GMT
In this webinar, Sophie Cartledge, founder and menopause hormone health educator of Hormones on the Blink will discuss what neurodiversity is in the context of hormone and mental health. She will cover inclusive approaches to support, empowerment and advocacy, as well as answering any questions our members may have on these topics.
The Psychology of Math Anxiety & Tools to Overcome it in Students
December 9, 2024, 19:00-20:00 GMT
Dr Aditya Nagrath is a leading expert in educational psychology and maths learning. In this session, he delves into maths anxiety and what contributes to it as well as its impact on student confidence and performance.
Dr Nagrath will share proven tools and strategies for parents and educators to help students build resilience, reduce anxiety, and foster a more positive relationship with maths.
Hi there - if you're here looking for this week's menu, you might have missed it's new location! Click the button underneath this week's calendar (near the top) to be taken to the lunch menu on our website.