From the Head
Last night, I had the immense pleasure of being invited to watch one of our ex-pupils, Harry, take on the lead role in Oliver Jr at Chislehurst and Sidcup Grammar School. It was an incredible performance, and to my delight, the evening turned into an unexpected St Olave’s reunion! So many of our past pupils were involved, whether performing on stage or supporting behind the scenes with the technical team. I couldn't have been prouder to see them shining in their various roles, demonstrating the confidence, creativity and dedication that we strive to instill in every child at St Olave’s. A huge congratulations to Harry W, Ella I, Charlotte O, Emilia and Eleanor R, Ines P and Zachary T.
This moment truly highlighted what we believe in as a school - when children follow 'the St Olave’s way', they leave us well-prepared for the next stage in their education and beyond, living with kindness, grace and aspiration. What a privilege it was to witness their continued success and to be reminded of the lasting impact of a St Olave’s education.
February is an exciting month in our Year of Reading as we turn our attention to Diverse Reads - Windows and Mirrors. At St Olave’s, we believe that reading opens the doors to new perspectives, cultures and experiences, and we want to ensure that our children have access to a wide range of books that reflect the richness of the world around them. This month, we are celebrating stories that introduce different voices and experiences, encouraging children to explore books that broaden their understanding and appreciation of others.
Some of the fantastic books we are sharing with the children this month include:
‘African and Caribbean Folktales, Myths and Legends' by Wendy Shearer – A fabulous collection where we meet Anansi the trickster, climb to the moon with a spoiled prince and dance the night away at the Headless Dance!
‘Look Up!’ by Nathan Bryon – An inspiring story about following your dreams and looking beyond the ordinary.
'Gina Kaminski Rescues the Giant' by Craig Barr-Green - A book to inspire every child to tell their own story, their own way. Just like Gina.
This past week, the school has been buzzing with the joy of storytelling! As part of National Storytelling Week, children have delighted in listening to captivating stories. There is something truly magical about being read to, and it has been wonderful to see the children so engaged, laughing, imagining and reflecting on the stories they’ve heard.
Alongside this, library visits have been a highlight, giving children the chance to explore books, discover new favourites and enjoy the simple pleasure of getting lost in a great story. Reading for pleasure remains at the heart of our curriculum, and we continue to nurture a love of books that will last a lifetime.
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...
Lunch Menu
Safeguarding Team
This week at St Olave's
Year 6 excel at Cicero Cup Debate Competition
Year 6 pupils showcased their debating skills at Sydenham High, competing against teams from the hosts and Dulwich College.
Our team opposed the motion "Zoos should be shut down," with Arianna, Maita, and Goktug delivering well-structured arguments praised by the judge. Feedback encouraged integrating personal experiences, engaging with opponents through rebuttals, and using rhetorical questions to enhance arguments.
In the impromptu round, Chloe, Aarna, and Shiva debated "Children under 12 should not have their own phones" with just 20 minutes of preparation. Their confident delivery and strong teamwork were commended, with advice to analyse motions carefully and consider all stakeholders.
The competition was an enriching experience, sharpening our pupils’ critical thinking, public speaking, and teamwork. We are incredibly proud of their achievements!
Mixed Football League
Last Friday, after school, the mixed football league started for children in Years 5 and 6. We played two games, drawing the first game 1-1 and winning the second game 1-0. Both games were extremely close and the result could have gone either way. A lot of hard work and team spirit was shown through in our performances, which meant we are currently unbeaten and have taken 4 points from our first two games. Well done on an excellent display of football!
Girls Only Football League
The Girls Only Football League continued on Tuesday, with our girls playing another two games of football. They were excellent for the second week running, winning both games 2-0 and 1-0. Every child is developing and growing in confidence each week, wth brilliant tackles, passing and moving, and important saves. Keep the excellent work going girls, as we currently remain top of the league!
Year 6 visit The Royal Courts of Justice
Year 6 thoroughly enjoyed their visit to The Royal Courts of Justice, where they took part in a mock trial about cyberbullying. Each child played an important role in the courtroom, including judge, clerk, usher, defendant, barristers, solicitors, witnesses, or jurors, allowing them to gain a hands-on understanding of the British Justice System. Following the workshop, Mr. Poxon, a Year 6 Parent and solicitor, provided further insight into the legal profession by sharing his experiences and answering thoughtful questions from the children. He also handed out some merchandise for the children to keep!
Grazing tables
This week the children were encouraged to 'Eat the Rainbow' with beautiful fruit and vegetable grazing tables at lunch. All the children chose extra portions of fruit and vegetables alongside their normal lunch and absolutely loved them!
Nursery
Sharing is caring!
This week the Little Acorns have enjoyed the story Sharing a Shell by Julia Donaldson and Lydia Monk. The children learnt that sharing can make things more fun and we thought about times we have shared with our friends even though sometimes it can be hard. The children made some play dough and then shared it out to make a crab and an anemone to share a shell together.
Reception
This week, we have continued to learn about Chinese New Year and the traditions that take place during the celebration. Some of the children in Reception visited places in London over the weekend. They shared their experiences with the class and told us about the traditional parades they saw and how they joined in with the celebrations. Seeing items such as drums and dragons that had been bought in from their trips, inspired the children in Reception to make their own. It has been a joy to watch every child create with enthusiasm and passion. The love for learning continues as they were keen to put their creations on their ‘WOW board’ and write a sentence to explain what they have made. We have been blown away with the children’s writing.
Last week, we focused on finding ‘how many more’ to make 10. This week, the children have been learning to recognise and form numerals to 10. They have also played games where they are given a number, find the corresponding amount and write the numeral. They have really enjoyed this and we have seen a huge difference in their number formation and accuracy when counting.
Thank you for updates on Tapestry, sharing your Red Word sentences and learning. It is so lovely to see the children share their work with pride. It is making a huge difference to their confidence as they are applying these words to their writing, independently.
We hope you all have an incredible weekend and we look forward to learning more in the final week of this half term - where has the time gone?
Year 1
Another exciting week has flown by in Year 1. The children have enjoyed discovering more traditional tales from around the world. They began the week learning the story of ‘Anancy and Mr Drybone’ and used their sequencing skills to retell the story. They then thought about questions they would like to ask about the story and wrote them into their books using the correct punctuation. We enjoyed working collaboratively to think of appropriate answers for these questions using the text.
In maths, we have continued to use our number bonds and doubling skills to help us to add two numbers up to 20. The children have been applying their number bonds to 10 to add a single digit number to a teen number. They are beginning to recognise and understand if 4 + 6 = 10, 14 + 6 must be 20. Please feel free to continue to practice this at home.
In Science, the children continue to identify which objects are made from man-made or natural materials. We have identified different objects around school and thought about the process in which they were made in order for us to use them daily. In art, the children continue to build on their sculpture creating skills. They have been learning different methods to manipulate paper to shapes and textures to create wonderful pieces of art. We are sure you were very impressed with the amazing sculptures they brought home at the beginning of the week.
We hope you have a wonderful, restful weekend in preparation for the last week of half term.
Year 2
A highlight of our week was starting our new faster read book ‘The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe’, which the children are loving so far. It is so nice to be able to sit down together and share a good book! Speaking of stories, in English we became fully fledged authors and published our stories - including illustrations - inspired by the imaginary creatures we created. The children took so much care with their presentation, we were very impressed.
In maths, our attention turned to multiplication. We spent time looking at the correlation between repeated addition and multiplication before using arrays to generate multiplication number sentences. By Friday we were looking at making equal groups to get our heads around division.
Our new History topic of Monarchs has certainly captured everyone's attention, first we shared what we know about monarchs, before looking back through history to create a timeline of 6 key monarchs. The children are very excited to delve further into the impact of our three queens. We continued to emerge as budding sculptors in art, using our hands to shape, tools to imprint and the scoring method to join - what fun!
Finally our science learning led us to inventor John MacAdam and how hard he worked to create better roads. Obviously the only way to try to emulate this was using chocolate! We melted some delicious smelling chocolate before adding raisins and crushed biscuits as our ‘rocks and rubble’, we let them harden and then tested their strength!
Year 3
This week has been full of fun as always in Year 3. We finally finished our Faster Read book with a dramatic climax of the evil Crowky and our hero Arthur falling through the sky before being saved by a dragon as we gasped and were shocked at the cliff hanger the author left for us at the possibility of Crowky returning. ‘Land of Roar’ is part of a series so please feel free to read the sequel and carry on the enjoyment we have had in class at home!
In English this week we have put pen to paper ourselves as we became authors of our own stories. Inspired by ‘Fantastic Mr Fox’ and with our plans finished last week, we set about writing. The classrooms were filled with amazing adjectives and similes for some top notch descriptions and some humorous plots have started to unfold. We can’t wait to share with you the results of our hard work over the next week.
Maths lessons saw us continuing our length and perimeter work. We learned how to convert measurements and then put our conversions to the test with some ordering and comparing. We then put our addition and subtraction skills to the test again to calculate lengths and combine our skills. Next week we will be finishing up our topic by measuring and calculating perimeter. To support this learning, please make sure the children have access to rulers and tape measures at home.
In History, we became Archivists and used historical sources to discover the jobs of Victorian children. We found reflected on how the poor working conditions would make us feel and we concluded that we much prefer our lives in the modern day!
Lastly, we were very proud to put some finished artwork and writing up on display this week for all the school to see! We have had lots of compliments on how much it has brightened everyone’s day as they walk past already! The writing and jars show what we are most grateful for in our lives and we invite you this weekend to practise some mindfulness and think about what you are most grateful for too!
Year 4
It has been a jam-packed week in Year 4. We began the week by cooking with Mrs Dourmoush. The children enjoyed preparing, making and sampling fresh basil houmous, even the teachers got to sample it. It was a hit!
We are almost at the end of our swimming course and have one final session next week. The children have been working hard and showing excellent focus and effort in their sessions. The instructors have encouraged the children to find opportunities over the coming months to practise their swimming skills but more importantly have fun in the water, and commented on their fantastic progress.
In maths, we have revised how to measure the perimeter of rectilinear shapes, using our knowledge of shape properties to find missing lengths. Our arithmetic skills have come in handy with this topic too. Next week, we will be starting our fractions topic. In English, we have drafted and continued to edit our newspaper reports in preparation for publishing next week. The children have persevered with adjusting their tone when reporting which has been a tricky skill to master. We have been really impressed with handwriting too. We loved seeing some of the children’s string telephone home learning as part of the science topic too!
The highlight of the week was our trip to Danbury Outdoors - we will write about this next week. We look forward to seeing you all at our Danbury Parent meeting next Wednesday 12th. We hope you all have a lovely weekend.
Year 5
We have continued with some tricky Year 6 maths this week and have been blown away with how Year 5 has risen to the challenge. They have quickly become masters of long division after exploring three different methods: efficient method, chunking and drop down. Moving on from long division, we explored multiplying and dividing by decimals, before starting our next unit where we will be focusing on fractions.
In English, we have completed publishing some very impressive non-chronological reports on animal migrations. They look very professional and the children are incredibly proud that they will become part of our display. We have begun to explore migrations of people, starting with Floella Benjamin’s story of her experience as being part of the Windrush generation. Delving into sections of her text, we worked on not only our retrieval skills, but also our inference skills by unpicking implied information and thinking carefully about what we could surmise from the information available to us.
In Science, we continued our topic of forces by exploring the forces acting on an object floating in water and identifying the similarities and differences between air and water resistance. To do this, the children conducted a science experiment to investigate the impact the shape of an object has on how fast it can move through water. Year 5 ensured they conducted a fair test by considering their variables carefully. They ensured that the amount of modelling clay remained the same by carefully weighing it prior to shaping the clay.
Year 6
Another fantastic week of learning in Year 6! Our exploration of Macbeth has continued, with the children delving deeper into the complex characters of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth. Using a describing frame, they wrote thoughtful and reflective language, applying a metacognitive approach to analyse the characters’ motivations, emotions, and transformations. Their use of descriptive language was particularly impressive, showcasing their ability to think critically and express their ideas with depth and creativity.
In Religious Education, the children have been exploring the life of Jesus and the significance of The Holy Trinity. Their enthusiasm and curiosity have been evident, as they have asked insightful and thought-provoking questions, leading to rich discussions that have deepened their understanding of Christian beliefs.
This week in History, the children gained insight into the vital role women played in the workforce during wartime. They researched various jobs that women undertook, including the training required, working hours, and wages. Their enthusiasm for the topic was evident in their fantastic propaganda posters, where they created intelligent slogans and striking hand-drawn images to persuade and inform. We were delighted by their creativity and attention to detail!
We have launched a new Science topic: Electricity! The children began with a knowledge harvest to reflect on their previous learning. It was fascinating to see how much they remembered from past years, and they are eager to build on this foundation with practical investigations and experiments in the weeks to come.
The children loved visiting The Royal Courts of Justice, where they took part in a cyberbullying mock trial and explored the British Justice System, followed by a session with solicitor and parent, Mr Poxon, who shared insights into his work and answered their questions.
Outdoor Learning
It has been cold in the morning but beautiful weather later on in the day, so lots of children have been able to have a look around the allotment for various creatures living there. Year 1 had the best discovery of the week when they found a rose chafer in one of the compost bins. Several were brave enough to actually put it on their hands! The children will continue their winter projects in their books and are enjoying discovering new facts to enhance their knowledge of the plants and animals in the allotment.
Languages
In Early Years, both Nursery and Reception have started to name the different parts of the body and they had a lot of fun singing and moving on the note of the song “Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes” in French.
Year 1 had one more lesson on numbers and the children were extremely focused while writing the correct spelling on their whiteboards. Year 2 has carried on working on describing eyes and hair, and started to make the adjectival agreement for the plural.
In the Upper School, Year 3 has learnt more vocabulary related to the weather, and this week we talked about extreme weather! Year 4 had a lesson on opinions about music and the children produced some amazing work in class.
In Spanish, Year 5 talked about appearance and character, and explored the use of the verb ser (to be). Year 6 children have worked at their writing skills and created extremely complex sentences on opinions on school subjects, using high register structures.
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 Electric posters
This week, Year 3 pupils created the circuits needed for their posters to become interactive and functional.
Year 4 Pavilion Structures
Pupils in Year 4 started preparing the materials they will use to make their free standing structures.
Year 5 Wooden Bridges
In Year 5, we explored sustainable materials and the 2 different wood families that are used to create wood based products.
Year 6 Automata Toys
In our lesson this week we started measuring and marking out the materials needed to create our Automata toy frames.
Music
This week in the Upper School, Year 6 learnt about counter melodies and how they can be used to create harmonies in music. The children learnt a counter melody for ‘The White Cliffs of Dover’ and then split into groups to sing the main melody and counter melody together. Year 5 learnt what a ‘break’ is in terms of drumming rhythms. We recapped our African drumming rhythms from last week and then created a drumming ‘break’. Year 4 recorded their rainforest body percussion compositions and played their rainforest melodies over the top to create their final rainforest compositions to represent all four layers of the rainforest, the forest floor, understory, canopy and emergent layer. Together, the four compositions sounded very atmospheric! Year 3 created a Chinese New Year dragon dance to go alongside their pentatonic melody compositions. With the help of a handmade Chinese dragon from the children in Reception, the Year 3 children played their tuned and untuned percussion instruments to create a final masterpiece to end our topic! The dragon moved along to the tempo of the music and took note of changing dynamics, it even tried to scare the instrumentalists by hovering over them!
In the Lower School, the children in Year 2 completed their group soundscape compositions and started to rehearse them. We discussed how someone in each group became the natural leader, ‘conducting’ the rest of the group, and that these people gave helpful instructions. We will showcase our compositions to the year group next week. Year 1 thought carefully about how dynamics may change at the seaside e.g. one moment the sea is calm and then a thunderstorm may happen and the sea is wild! The children used body percussion and instruments to create a group story to demonstrate the change in environment.
In Nursery and Reception this week we’ve enjoyed learning to sing a sea shanty called ‘In My Backpack’. We discussed how it has a jolly rhythm and would be sung to keep people feeling positive and hard at work if they were onboard a boat out at sea! The children in Nursery listened to a story about Vivaldi’s ‘Four Seasons’ and we discussed how he had used lots of string instruments in his music. We talked about how each piece represented a season in the year. The children in Reception learnt about ‘pitch’. We listened to sound clips of everyday sounds and discussed if they were high or low pitch e.g. siren, whistle, double bass. We then went on to learn the ‘Jiggle Your Scarf’ song and waved the scarf up high when we were singing high and low if we were singing in a low pitch.