From the Head
What a fantastic afternoon we had on Friday! Our Christmas Fayre was a true celebration of the St Olave’s community, and I want to extend a huge thank you to everyone who made it such a memorable event. Thank you to our brilliant FRSC parent volunteers, our dedicated staff and to all our families and children for your generosity, enthusiasm and kindness. I am especially grateful for your flexibility with the adjusted pick-up arrangements; it made an enormous difference to how smoothly the afternoon ran, and we really appreciated your support. A particular highlight, of course, was the arrival of the reindeer. The children were absolutely captivated, and seeing their faces light up was a real reminder of the magic of this time of year. It was such a special moment for all of us. We are now happily stepping into the festive season. Rehearsals for the Nativities and our Upper School Carol Service are well underway, and the school is buzzing with excitement. We have lots of wonderful experiences planned for the children over the coming weeks and look forward to sharing this joyful time together. Thank you once again for your incredible support and for helping to make the Fayre such a success. Kind regards, Miss Holloway
The week ahead...
Lunch Menu
Monthly Safeguarding Update
November – Online Safety Together Children’s online lives are part of their everyday world. Please keep talking to your child about what they watch, play and share. Remind them they can always come to you or us if they see something upsetting online. We use filtering and monitoring in school, but open conversations at home make the biggest difference.
This week at St Olave's
EYFS trip to The Unicorn Theatre How does Santa go down the chimney? On Tuesday, Reception and Nursery hopped on a train to London Bridge for a special trip to The Unicorn Theatre, where we had tickets to see How Does Santa Go Down the Chimney? Before the show, we made a quick stop by the River Thames to enjoy the beautiful views. We even spotted the iconic Tower Bridge! Once at the theatre, we settled into our seats, got comfy, and watched a fantastic performance. We discovered lots of imaginative and magical ways Santa might visit our homes on Christmas Eve. On our journey back to school, we gave commuters a little preview of our nativity songs. They were delighted to hear us sing! We had such a wonderful day filled with excitement, learning and Christmas magic.
Poet in Residence
This week, Upper School enjoyed their final poetry workshop for this term with our resident poet, Adisa. The session focused on the theme of environment and climate change, encouraging pupils to think creatively and critically about global issues. Working in groups, the children created expressive freeze frames to represent different aspects of climate change, using these powerful images as inspiration for their own poems. With the support of sentence stems, they crafted thoughtful, imaginative pieces that captured both the urgency and emotion of the topic. The workshop concluded with a lively popcorn poetry performance, where year groups shared their work with energy and confidence. After school, parents were invited in to work with their children on some collaborative poetry, with some wonderful results!
Sporting Round Up
This week in PE, Nursery and Reception have continued with their ball skills topic. Using little touches to control the ball, and big touches to kick the ball harder at the goal. Year 1 and 2 have been playing football using our Christmas tree decorating game, which helps support dribbling skills, alongside our small sided number game, which encourages small sided matches. Upper School had this week's games lessons, where we had football, netball, hockey, and dodgeball inside the hall due to the cold weather.
Nursery
A bit of Christmas magic and sparkle has begun to enter Nursery this week… On Tuesday the children enjoyed, what was for many of them, their first school trip. We were so proud of them as we caught the train to London to see a wonderful and very funny performance of How does Santa Go Down the Chimney? The children are still talking about all the funny ways Santa delivers the presents and we have seen first hand how the performance has inspired their play. Back in the classroom the children have been exploring the cotton wool, glitter and pom poms as they have created some snowmen, reindeer and snow globes. The children’s skills of cutting, sticking, designing and amending are developing so quickly and they are always very proud of their creations.
Reception
We say it every week, but time has flown once again! Not only did we enjoy an incredible trip to The Unicorn Theatre, but we’ve also had a wonderful and very busy week in school. As we were so inspired by our trip to the theatre, our Drawing Club this week was based around the story How Does Santa Go Down the Chimney? The children created their own wonderful drawings of Santa and even invented special codes and magical powers to help him make his way down the chimney. In maths, we’ve been learning even more about subitising and spotting number patterns, and the children are becoming so confident in recognising amounts at a glance. In phonics, we’ve been hard at work consolidating our Special Friend sounds and using them in both reading and writing. We’ve even added a few more Red Words to our growing collection, we can now confidently read 'your' and 'he'! We played Tricky Word Bingo with all the words we have used. Our Nativity rehearsals are in full swing and the children have truly impressed us. Their confidence in saying their lines and their enthusiasm when singing all the songs have made us incredibly proud. All the lovely Christmas jars the children worked so hard to create have now been collected. They are all so excited to find out whose jar they will win at the Christmas Fayre! Another fantastic week of learning, fun, and festive excitement! We hope you have a wonderful weekend. :)
Year 1
This week, our Nativity rehearsals are in full swing! The children have been practicing their songs with great enthusiasm, and they are sounding absolutely beautiful. We know you are all looking forward to seeing their wonderful performances in just a couple of weeks — they are working very hard and we can’t wait to share their efforts with you. In writing, the children have continued to sequence events from a story and have been putting their punctuation skills into action. They have been focusing on using capital letters and full stops accurately. They have also started exploring adjectives, ready for expanding their sentences even further next week. In maths, the children have now completed their unit on addition and subtraction within 20. Throughout the unit, they have been developing key skills such as number bonds to 10, counting forwards and backwards, and working with doubles and halves. These are great skills to revisit at home and any extra practice will continue to build their confidence. In PSHE, we have been thinking about how our actions impact others. Using concept cartoons, the children explored different scenarios and considered what each character might be thinking or feeling. They discussed how someone’s actions may affect others without them realising. The children shared thoughtful contributions and worked collaboratively to come up with ideas about how they can make considerate choices in different situations. We’re so proud of everything the children have achieved this week. Thank you, as always, for your continued support.
Year 2
Our penultimate week before our big performance has been filled with more rehearsals. We are starting to become confident with our lines and are excited to put on an excellent show. Thank you for your continued support helping your children so far! Please keep practice up at home this weekend if possible. In English lessons, we have reached the end of our diary writing topic and have composed diaries in the role of Ellie from our story of Diary of a Killer Cat. We took the opportunity to show off our skills of writing in first person, past tense and including speech. Many of the children have shared how they have been inspired to write diaries for themselves too. There should be plenty to write about over the coming weeks with all of our exciting Christmas season activities coming up!
In maths, we have finished our topic of addition and subtraction with continued practice of additions and subtractions. Please continue this at home over the coming weeks and the Christmas break to help with fluency and retention of this skill.
Year 3
In maths this week, children have begun exploring equal groups, arrays and repeated addition to build their confidence with early times table concepts using practical resources and problem solving challenges to deepen understanding. In English, our focus has been on understanding audience and purpose through informal letter writing. The children have explored how the tone and style of a letter change depending on who it is written for and why. Year 3 became intrepid explorers as part of our geography learning this week, writing postcards home about their research roles in Antarctica. These postcards describe the freezing temperatures, incredible wildlife and thrilling discoveries they’ve made on their imaginary expedition. Art has been wonderfully messy and creative as we experimented with making our own natural paint as part of our prehistoric art topic. Using simple household spices like turmeric and paprika, pupils mixed powders with water and flour to create vibrant, textured colours. Year 3 has certainly been bursting with creativity and curiosity this week!
Year 4
We have had a wonderful and busy week in Year 4 as we begin the lead-up to Christmas. The children have thrown themselves into rehearsals for all our upcoming Christmas events, singing with great enthusiasm throughout the week. On Monday, our poet in residence, Adisa, led an inspiring session where the children created poetry about being eco warriors, thinking deeply about nature and how they can make a difference. In Maths, the children have been revising the 7× and 12× tables, enjoying spotting patterns and using gestures to help them remember the facts. They have also practised the column method for multiplication, multiplying by one-digit numbers, and have been taught how to divide by 2- and 3-digit numbers. In English, they became police detectives, writing reports about the unusual incident involving flying frogs. They showed a great understanding of tone and practised using reported speech and adverbs of possibility. In Science, the children carried out an investigation to find out which materials are conductors and which are insulators. Their collaboration and excitement were wonderful to see, and they wrote up their findings confidently. In Art, the children used “drawing with scissors” techniques, cutting shapes from pictures to create their own imaginative designs. There was lots of creativity and enjoyment. It has been a joyful and productive week, and we are very proud of the children’s efforts. Have a lovely weekend!
Year 5
Another busy week both in lessons and getting ready for our fabulous Christmas Fayre! As mathematicians, we turned our attention to algebra, both forming expressions and substituting terms in expressions. This certainly captured the children’s interest and they made a brilliant start. In English we brought our focus on balanced arguments to a close with the big question - ‘ Should we change how we live to protect endangered animals?’. The focus was clear, whatever our personal opinions, we needed to present both sides of the argument clearly. The children have really enjoyed this topic and the various questions we have considered - we think we might have some keen debaters on our hands in the future. We also loved our workshop with Adisa the Verbalizer, our poet in residence, where we had the opportunity to consider the impact of climate change and use this to inspire our own poetry. As scientists, we conducted an experiment into the insulative properties of different materials to see which would help keep a cup of coffee warmer for longer - paper, foil or cotton wool. We ensured this was a fair test and demonstrated great team work to take the temperatures accurately over a 30 minute period, before presenting our results both in a table and a graph. What fun! We also loved having the opportunity to help prepare the school for the Christmas Fayre - and were only a little bit excited about the reindeers! We are looking forward to our visit to Frognal House next Tuesday and the opportunity to share some of our favourite Christmas songs with the residents - don’t forget your Christmas hats! Have a wonderful weekend.
Year 6
Year 6 have had a busy and exciting week of learning and creativity. In English, pupils wrote reflective narratives in role as Isabelle from The Invention of Hugo Cabret, capturing the moment the automaton came to life. They focused on using semi-colons, colons, dashes, sensory detail and introspection, producing high-quality writing. In maths, the class deepened their understanding of dividing fractions by fractions and integers, using models, written methods and reasoning skills. They then applied this knowledge to more complex, multi-step problem-solving tasks with great perseverance. A highlight of the week was our trip to the British Museum, where pupils examined Maya lintels up close and enjoyed a fascinating talk with an expert, enriching our Maya history topic. Year 6 also showed excellent teamwork while preparing for the Christmas Fayre - running stalls, organising prizes and setting up games to ensure an enjoyable event for the whole school. Well done, Year 6, for a fantastic week!
Outdoor Learning
This week the weather has been a complete change from freezing cold to lovely and warm! The children have been busy clearing more of our beds as well as receiving even more gnomes to place in the beds! On Wednesday, the children took some lovely photos of the icy conditions but later on in the week they were seeing bees and wasps! Let’s hope the weather remains rather clement so the children can continue working outside in the allotment.
Languages
In French, Nursery and Reception had their last week on body parts and the children are now extremely secure with the core vocabulary. Well done everyone! The story this week was “La fille qui ne voulait pas se marier”. Year 1 learnt the differences between masculine and feminine adjectives for nationalities: the children picked up the sound differences very easily and confidently. Year 2 had their last lesson on hobbies: the children made a cartoon strip writing in French which hobby was done and when. Year 3 learnt some basic prepositions to talk about where things are in a room: the children used objects on the table to replicate the prepositions and they also acted themselves, using sofa, tables and chairs. Great collaboration and creativity! Year 4, as part of learning about festivals and celebrations in different cultures, started to work on Christmas: the children were given a mat with core vocabulary and they made a Christmas Nativity scene that introduced pupils to the main character in French. In Spanish, Year 5 talked about appearance and character, practising new adjectives with a very challenging listening task; whilst Year 6 carried on working on the core vocabulary of family, practising translation and writing skills. In Latin, Year 6 tackled the topic of slavery in ancient Rome: we used Candidus, one of the slaves of our family, to understand the points of view of British tribes before and after the Roman conquest; in grammar, we have introduced the concept of adverbs and the children worked out the most common suffix to add.
Design & Technology and Computing
Quiz of the week, ask your child to recall what they understand about the words in bold. Year 3 Pneumatic Monsters This week pupils in Year 3 inserted the pneumatic mechanism into their selected toy casing with careful consideration for how the mechanism will appear when the balloon is inflated. Year 4 Slingshot cars Pupils in Year 4 explored hot glue gun safety as they prepared to cut and connect the parts of their chassis. Year 5 Doodlebots Pupils in Year 5 applied their experimentation findings to the design stage of the doodlebot casing. Year 6 Micro:bit Arcade Yeah 6 pupils learned how to cut card neatly by using a steel ruler and canary cutters.
Computing Year 3 pupils created a spreadsheet in preparation for data entry as they scour the internet for a holiday itinerary. Year 4 pupils searched the internet for the hottest and coldest places on earth in order to better understand climate vs weather. Year 5 pupils modified a polling program in order to create and sabotage a pedometer code and Year 6 pupils followed a tutorial to learn how to use shape manipulation in Tinkercad.