From the Head
This week has given me a number of moments to pause and reflect on what makes St Olave’s so special. Today, many of our families are celebrating Eid, and we send our warmest wishes to all those marking this special day. Eid is a time of reflection, gratitude and generosity, often spent with family and friends, sharing food and giving to others. It is always a privilege to be part of such a diverse and inclusive community, and we hope it has been a joyful and meaningful celebration for all who are celebrating. I was also reminded this week of just how long those St Olave’s connections can last. I was delighted to see a familiar face on screen - one of my former pupils, Dominic Sullivan, whom I taught in Year 5 and Year 6 here at the school, appearing in the first episode of Young Sherlock on Amazon. It immediately brought back memories of him in the classroom and made me enormously proud. After I wrote to his father to congratulate him, Dominic kindly replied himself and is now planning to come back into school to look around and reminisce about his time here. Moments like that stay with you as a teacher, and as a Head, because they are a reminder that what we do here really does last.
I still remember my music classes with Mr Wharton (I believe that’s how it’s spelled), singing 'Let It Be' at the Christmas Concert, running around on the tag rugby field; knees burning from the grass and dehydrated soil. (Dominic Sullivan)
Alongside these moments of reflection, it has also been a typically busy and productive week in school. I have enjoyed meeting with Year 5 parents to start conversations about secondary transfer, and as always, I have been struck by the openness, trust and shared ambition we have for every child. These conversations are incredibly important and are a real reminder of the strength of our partnership with you as parents. Looking ahead, we are very much looking forward to welcoming you into school next week for Parents’ Evenings, as well as our Upper School Easter concert, which promises to be a joyful celebration of the children’s talents and hard work. It has been a full half term, and I think we will all be ready for a well-deserved rest over the Easter break. Thank you, as always, for your continued support and for the trust you place in us every day. It is a privilege not only to teach your children, but to know them, to watch them grow, and to share in the journey that begins here and, as this week has reminded me, continues long after they leave us. I wish all our families a restful and happy weekend ahead.
Kind regards, Miss Holloway
The week ahead...
Lunch Menu
Monthly Safeguarding Update
March – Spotting Signs Outside School
Exploitation and radicalisation can affect any child, in person or online. Look out for unexplained gifts, secretive behaviour or sudden changes in friendship groups. If you are ever worried, speak to us - no concern is too small.
Focus on School Values
This week at St Olave’s, we’ve continued our journey with Curiosity, focusing on how we interact respectfully with the adults we meet in our lives. Whether it’s a teacher, a visitor, a coach or a neighbour, the way children address grown-ups tells us a lot about their confidence, kindness and awareness of others. In assembly, I shared the picture book Miss Hazeltine’s Home for Shy and Fearful Cats by Alicia Potter. It’s a delightful tale of a woman who gently helps timid cats find their confidence. We used the story to talk about how adults often help us grow and how we can show them respect through the way we greet and speak to them.
Our manner of the week is: “Learn how to address grown-ups correctly.” We’ve encouraged the children to speak clearly, make eye contact, and use polite greetings like “Good morning, Mrs…” or “Hello, Dr…” unless told otherwise. You can support this at home by helping your child practise greeting grown-ups politely in different settings, whether at a shop, family gathering or after-school activity. Books like How Do You Say Hello? by Ashlyn Anstee can support younger children in thinking about greetings around the world. Thank you for helping us continue to model the kind of respect and curiosity we value at St Olave’s.
This week at St Olave's
Super Swanage Year 5 have spent the week reminiscing about their fabulous trip to Swanage. Although blessed with dry weather, we still had everything from bright sunshine to fog and high winds to heavy grey clouds, but this did not stop the fun!
We could fill the newsletter with our escapades, but instead we will stick to some key highlights. The first of which has to be our trip to Corfe Castle, despite possibly being the coldest day, the children took great delight in ‘storming the castle’ and participating in an historical reenactment of betrayal and miracles!
We also took great delight in searching for fossils at Kimmeridge Bay - we apologise for the amount some of the children brought home with them - but the sheer joy on faces upon discovering ammonites and shells was worth the thrill of the waves crashing alongside us.
We were so proud of the children during the high ropes session where everyone pushed to their limits demonstrating great resilience.
Playing in the sand dunes at Studland Bay was huge fun - from learning about how sand dunes are formed to rolling down them and flying kites above them, everyone had a blast!
Finally, there has to be a nod towards mealtimes and the amount of food consumed by Year 5 - with seconds (and occasionally thirds) being on offer, we are pretty sure there was no waste by the end of the day! Thank you for letting your children come away with us! Onwards to Norfolk in Year 6!
Science Curiosity Day On Monday, St Olave’s welcomed Rosie from AS Creatives to come into the school and deliver a wonderful day called ‘Curious about Science’. The day started with an informative assembly talking about some of the big questions we might want to know that science can answer and also talking about using trusted sources to find your information. Throughout the day all of the children were treated to a special workshop focusing on an aspect of science and an influential pioneer who had used their scientific knowledge to change the world. It was great to see the children so full of curiosity and wonder and I hope there have been lots and lots of questions at home!
Sporting Round Up
Gymnastics Plus Year 3 travelled to Sutcliffe Park on Monday to take part in their Gymnastic Plus session. They loved their time at the purpose-built facility, learning lots of different skills and experiencing all the different types of moves you can do. Thanks for a great afternoon Year 3!
Girls' Football League Year 5 and 6 girls had their last Girls' Football League fixture on Tuesday. The girls showed just how much they have progressed by dominating the game and winning 4-0. The girls have been fabulous all season, only losing 1 game, drawing 1 game, and winning the rest throughout the season. I would like to personally thank them all for their hard work and dedication during the course of the season. Well done girls! Fingers crossed as we wait to find out where we finish in the league.
Year 4 Baseball Year 4 children travelled to the University of Greenwich and participated in a baseball event. The first part the children took part in was the skills sessions, which taught them how the game was played, along with developing their skills. We had an ‘around the world rangers’ activity, which taught us about base running, ‘grounders and flies’, which focused on fielding, and lastly we took part in ‘fly ball frenzy’, which developed batting skills. After this we then took part in two friendly matches. The children were fantastic and developed a great sense of teamwork skills in the field, and smashed the ball around with the bat, scoring lots of runs! Well done Year 4!
Nursery
Curiosity is one of our core values at St Olave’s and this week the Little Acorns have been encouraged to be curious about minibeasts and in particular, spiders. On Monday, Rosie the Scientist came and talked to us about different minibeasts and later in the week a fly happened to visit our classroom prompting us to wonder which minibeasts might help us deter the flies… So began an investigation into fly-eating and fly-trapping creatures including spiders and frogs. We knew from our workshop that spiders have 8 legs but we learned that many spiders also have 8 eyes! We got busy in the Creation Station and many children were able to create their spider independently and were then eager to put their spiders and frogs up around the classroom to catch any intrepid flies that dare to enter Little Acorns! It was interesting to see the children applying their subitising knowledge when adding legs to their creations (“I’ve got 3 on this side and 3 on this side so I need to add 1 more on each side to make 8”) and measuring the legs so they were all the same length (“this one is too long so I need to cut a bit off to make it shorter”).
Reception
We had the most amazing time seeing you all during our Parent Sharing Morning. The children beamed with pride whilst showing you their work and it was so lovely to see them share all of their hard work with you. Thank you for joining us and making it such a special experience for everyone. On Monday, we were lucky enough to have Rosie, a very cool scientist, visit our classroom to teach us all about minibeasts. The children learnt so much about insects and their habitats and were fascinated by all the new information. Did you know that only female wasps can sting? This week in Drawing Club, we read the traditional tale of The Three Billy Goats Gruff. The children were so inspired by the story that we decided to create our own character puppets and recreate it. They had great fun making spoon puppets, stick puppets and sock puppets, bringing the story to life through their creativity. Our love for being authors shone through again as the children also wrote their own versions of the story. We also took on an exciting challenge by making our own bridges using a range of materials. The children experimented with different weights to see what each bridge could hold, which was a fantastic opportunity to problem solve and work as a team. If there’s one thing Reception love most, it’s seeing the sun shine so we can enjoy lots of fun outside, especially playing with water and building bridges for their trolls to hide underneath! We hope you have a wonderful weekend and we look forward to seeing you at Parents’ Evening next week.
Year 1
We have had another busy and exciting week in Year 1, with lots of wonderful learning taking place across the curriculum. In English, we have continued exploring Anansi stories, and the children have really enjoyed listening to and comparing different versions of the same story told in different styles by different storytellers. This has encouraged them to think about how stories can change depending on how they are told, as well as to spot similarities and differences in language and presentation. In Maths, we have been working on partitioning numbers into tens and ones, and using number lines up to 50 to support our understanding. The children have also been practising estimating where numbers belong on a number line, using their growing confidence with number knowledge to make sensible and thoughtful guesses. In Science, we have continued learning about animals and have been applying everything we have learned so far to categorise them and identify their characteristics. The children are becoming increasingly confident in grouping animals and explaining their choices. We also had a fantastic science workshop this week where the children learned about George Washington Carver, also known as the “Peanut Man.” They were fascinated to discover how he used plants, especially peanuts, in so many different ways, and we are sure they will love sharing everything they have learned with you at home. We are very much looking forward to our trip on Wednesday to the Royal Naval College - it is sure to be a wonderful experience for the children. Have a lovely weekend!
Year 2
This week in Year 2 we have been busy researching and assembling the different components of our non-chronological reports. We have created sub-headings and snazzy titles on a variety of animals ready to educate our readers on all things diet, habitat and appearance. In maths, we began our mass, capacity and temperature topics. We discussed the important vocabulary of units of measurement and how this differs from length and height in our previous topic. Our first lesson was to compare masses between two objects to see which were heavier or lighter on scales. There were some tricky mass problems involving three different masses for multiple objects but with some practice we understood how changing the amounts of objects on either side of the scales affected the balance. In art this week, we have been exploring the world of colour. We explored how primary colours can be mixed together to create secondary colours and independently experimented doing this to see which colours should be added to each other to create all manner of colours from the rainbow! We are very much looking forward to our Gymnastics Plus session on Monday, please remember to wear PE kits!
Year 3
This week in Year 3 has been full of exciting learning and fantastic effort from everyone. In maths, we have continued our work on fractions and focused on identifying equivalent fractions. The children showed great resilience in order to understand how different fractions can represent the same amount and we used a variety of visual models to support our learning. It has been wonderful to see the class growing in confidence and showing great perseverance when tackling new challenges. In English, we began writing our own information texts and explored the key features that make them clear and interesting for the reader. Our topic has been underground habitats and the children have enjoyed learning about the different animals that live beneath our feet. Our science this week took the form of a brilliant workshop where the class shared their prior knowledge of forces. The children impressed us with what they already knew and were eager to ask thoughtful questions and take part in discussions. In geography, we have been classifying different types of volcanoes in preparation for our highly anticipated trip to the Natural History Museum today. The children were incredibly excited and showed exemplary behaviour throughout the journey on public transport and while exploring the museum. They represented the school beautifully and demonstrated curiosity, respect and enthusiasm for learning. We are, as always, very proud of them.
Year 4
This week in Year 4 has been full of curiosity, creativity and excitement. On Monday, we were treated to a fantastic science curiosity workshop led by Rosie. The children were eager to ask thoughtful questions about the classification of animals, and we were incredibly impressed with their existing knowledge. This is a topic we will be exploring further after Easter, and a visit to an animal park over the holidays could be a wonderful way to spark even more interest. In English, the children were captivated by the well-known poem The Spider and the Fly. During our first reading, we paused before the ending to consider whether the fly should enter the spider’s den. The children took part in a ‘conscience alley’, offering persuasive reasons from both perspectives. We have also enjoyed listening to a range of narrative poems, particularly those by Michael Rosen, whose engaging performance style the children loved. Inspired by this, the children worked hard to enhance their own writing by extending sentences with adjectives, adverbs, similes, metaphors, alliteration and powerful verbs. They explored how language choices can create atmosphere and had great fun using thesauruses to compare and refine their ideas. In Maths, the focus has been on equivalent fractions. The children are beginning to recognise patterns and sequences, helping to deepen their understanding and confidence in this area. A highlight of the week has been Art. While some children represented the school at a baseball competition, the rest of the class explored the technique of batik. Using glue and paint on cotton fabric, they created beautiful pieces inspired by photographs of rainforest animals. Today, we marked Red Nose Day as a school community. The children learned about how the charity raises money to support children around the world and reflected on the importance of helping others. It has been a wonderful week of learning and engagement, well done, Year 4!
Year 5
Year 5 had a busy week following Swanage, starting with a brilliant Science workshop which looked at the timeline of the Space Race, from the launch of the very first artificial satellite Sputnik I, through to the Moon landings and the construction of the International Space Station. Children learned about the USSR and USA's head-to-head of science 'firsts' in space. They also looked at the contribution to the American efforts at NASA made by female African-American mathematicians including Mary Jackson and Dorothy Vaughan, as well as the prejudice that they faced at the time. In English, we continued to draft our fantastic news reports based on the plane crash at the beginning of The Explorer, adding witness and expert quotes as well as using the past progressive tense. We also revisited our inference skills, working out the definition of challenging vocabulary by using context and clues in the text, as well as logically ruling out answers that were not possible. In maths, we continued to build on our fractions calculations, looking at multiplying and dividing fractions by integers and other fractions.
Year 6
This week, Year 6 have delved into statistics exploring different representations of data. We improved our skills of reading, interpreting and drawing line and dual bar graphs, as well as reading and interpreting pie charts. In English, we completed our writing assessment focusing on our work on editorials. Within this the children demonstrated an understanding of bias and how to formulate an argument clearly and ensure that they provide evidence and justification to support. Following this, we began our narrative poetry unit focusing on Malorie Blackman’s, Cloud Busting. We explored, ‘Mr Mackie said’ to help us analyse the key features of a narrative poem. Towards the end of the week, we deep dived into WW2, exploring the effects of the war on everyday life and finished the week with a visit to Churchill War Rooms, where we developed a better understanding of the work of Cabinet War Rooms, which were used by Churchill, his War Cabinet and the Chiefs of Staff during the Blitz. It was amazing to experience the war rooms that have been frozen in time.
The Year 6 children have also been busy auditioning for their end of year production and we have been absolutely delighted by the talent, confidence and enthusiasm on display. The standard has been incredibly high, which has made casting a very careful and considered process for the team. As always, our aim is to ensure that every child has the opportunity to shine. Whether through a leading role, a speaking part, ensemble performance or contribution behind the scenes, each child plays a vital part in bringing the production to life. We are very much looking forward to seeing the whole year group work together to create something truly special!
Outdoor Learning
I hope you all enjoyed your flowers last Sunday. The children were very happy to look after them and take them home. This week, the children have been busy covering the strawberry beds with mulch to protect them in the coming months. The outdoor play area has been recovered in bark chippings which the children love to do, using the wheelbarrows, forks and spades. We have started to put in more flowers in the beds by the orchard to fill them up. Year 4 sowed more peas to put into the greenhouse as they saw how well the other peas have grown, which were sown by Nursery and Reception. The allotment is looking amazing with all the daffodils and tulips out. Let’s hope the weather stays as warm as it has been this week so our seeds really start growing.
Languages
Nursery and Reception consolidated their amazing knowledge on animals with many different fun games, then Year 1 felt they also needed to keep up with EYFS and they had an amazing lesson on zoo animals and pets! Year 3 created their own weather forecast maps: using the map of France, the children drew four different types of weather, one for each of the cardinal points, and created sentences to describe their maps. Year 4 consolidated their knowledge on hobbies, revisiting the rules of the verbs “jouer” and “regarder” and using the time phrases. In Spanish, Year 6 practised opinions with school subjects using a guide chart to remember the word order; in Latin, the children worked on preposition using a comic from Minimus textbook: we watched Minimus and Vibrissa playing around a ballista and telling us where they were in each frame of the story.
Design & Technology and Computing
Quiz of the week, ask your child if they can explain what the words in bold mean. Year 3 Static Electricity Game Pupils in Year 3 designed and made the characters and parts required to create a game that demonstrates how static electricity can be used to move objects with invisible forces.
Year 4 Pavilion Structures This week Year 4 followed assembly instructions and steps required to build 3 legged pavilions with non permanent fixings. Year 5 Bridges In Year 5, pupils cut their mitre joints and joined most of the required parts to their bridges in order to create strong 3D wooden structures. Year 6 Electric car Year 6 pupils attached the axles and wheels to their cars with some also adding custom aerodynamic features like fins and spoilers.
Computing highlights Year 1 reviewed their learning by completing a quiz about Bee Bots. Year 2 learned how to retrieve data from spreadsheets by browsing through columns and rows. Year 3 pupils used Scratch coding to tell a story; they used a pre-made code to add more code blocks to customise and continue a short animated story. Year 4 pupils practiced editing HTML code to create a short story on a webpage. Year 5 pupils used Tinkercad to start drawing a Mars rover in 3D. Year 6 explored how AI prompts can provide different, deeper responses based on the length and detail provided in the initial prompt.