From the Head
Dear Parents, What a wonderful, and wonderfully busy, week it has been at St Olave’s! We have launched our new half-termly school value of Compassion, perfectly timed as we head into next week’s Anti-Bullying Week. On Monday, children are invited to wear odd socks to celebrate individuality and kindness, and on Thursday they may wear something blue with their school uniform to show support for anti-bullying awareness. (Year 1 children can still join in, even on their school trip, but must wear blue alongside their uniform, please.) We are absolutely delighted to share the happy news that Mrs Aldridge has welcomed a beautiful baby girl, Emily Poppy, weighing 6 lb 14 oz. Both mother and baby are doing brilliantly, and Oliver is thoroughly enjoying his new role as big brother. I know the whole St Olave’s community will join me in sending the family our warmest congratulations and love.
We also send our best wishes to Miss Penney, who is currently on enforced voice rest. She will be joining us as and when she can throughout the Christmas preparations until she is fully recovered. In the meantime, I am thrilled to welcome Mr James Watson to our teaching team who will be covering class music lessons while Miss Penney is resting her voice. James is an exceptionally talented and dynamic music educator with over twenty years of experience inspiring children through creative, energetic lessons. He specialises in ensemble-style teaching and a wide range of instruments, from djembes and ukuleles to keyboards and guitars. Alongside his teaching, James is also a composer and producer, and brings an infectious energy, sense of fun, and creativity to every classroom.
Tomorrow we look forward to our Open Morning, and I would like to thank our Year 6 children and their parents for generously giving their time to help showcase all that makes St Olave’s so special. On Sunday, we have the great honour of laying two wreaths at the Eltham Remembrance Day Parade; one on behalf of the school and one for Sid, the WW2 veteran who had hoped to join us for our VE Day 80 celebrations earlier this year. Although Sid sadly passed away over the summer, his family were deeply touched by the children’s letters and have asked us to lay his wreath with pride. It will be a moving moment for our school community.
Finally, thank you for your amazing generosity towards the Christmas hampers so far. Your contributions and generosity make a real difference and bring such joy to our festive events. Please do check today’s separate letter for donation reminders and thank you, as always, for your continued kindness, enthusiasm and support. With warmest wishes,
Claire Holloway Headteacher
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.
Focus on School Values
This week’s school value: Compassion
This week’s manner: If your child is invited to a friend’s house, make sure they thank the friend’s parents
Assembly Book: Have You Filled a Bucket Today? by Carol McCloud At St Olave’s this half term, we are exploring the value of Compassion - noticing when others need kindness, and doing something about it. This week, the children heard the story "Have You Filled a Bucket Today?”, a picture book that helps them visualise how their actions either “fill” or “empty” someone’s invisible bucket of happiness. I assembly on Monday, we also reinforced a key manner: remembering to thank the adults who welcome your child into their home. Whether for a playdate or a party, this simple gesture reinforces gratitude, respect and good upbringing - values we take seriously as part of developing children of character. Please support this message at home. A quick “Thank you for having me” or even a short thank-you note makes a lasting impression on children and the adults around them. You might enjoy revisiting this week’s book at home or trying a similar title like Kindness is My Superpower by Alicia Ortego.
Year of Reading
This month’s Year of Reading theme is 🔍 Non-Fiction Explorers. Reading doesn’t only mean stories; non-fiction books allow children to discover how the world works, answer big questions and spark curiosity. In school, children may build class “curiosity walls,” go on fact-finding treasure hunts in the library, or share their favourite true stories. 📚 Books to try at home this month: Ada Twist Scientist by Andrea Beaty (picture book) Fantastically Great Women Who Changed the World by Kate Pankhurst (non-fiction) Curiosity: The Story of a Mars Rover by Markus Motum (non-fiction picture book) 💡 How you can help at home: - Visit the library’s non-fiction section together. - Let your child choose a topic they’re interested in (dinosaurs, football, space!) and find a book on it. - Encourage your child to share a fact at the dinner table each day. Together, we can nurture a love of learning as well as a love of stories.
Notices
Poppies We will have poppies available for a donation at the gate on Monday and Tuesday mornings - cash only. Thank you so much for supporting the Poppy Appeal.
Christmas Fayre - 28th November 2025
Every year, we are asked about ways parents can support the Fayre and contribute to our Christmas raffle. If you're looking to help, we’re inviting families to make a small voluntary donation, via ParentPay, to enable the FRSC to purchase a special star raffle prize. We are hopeful that, with everyone’s support, we will be able to offer some truly amazing prizes. Many thanks and we're looking forward to seeing you at the Fayre on Friday 28th November 2025.
Save the date - New Eltham Lights Up We will be taking part in the New Eltham Lights Up again this year on the afternoon of Saturday 29th November - further details and timings will be announced soon.
This week at St Olave's
Year 6’s trip to the Globe Theatre This week we went to the Globe Theatre as part of our English topic, Shakespeare! We had an excellent day where we were transported back to 400 years ago and immersed ourselves in the sights, sounds and secrets of Shakespeare’s London. We learnt lots about the Globe Theatre on our tour and the children were clear experts in sharing what they had learnt about Shakespeare. The children showed great acting and improvisation skills in their drama workshop, acting out a scene from Macbeth. Some of us could definitely take to the Globe Theatre stage already!
Year 3 trip to Chislehurst Caves Year 3 had an amazing time exploring the mysterious Chislehurst Caves as part of their learning about the Stone Age! After a short bus ride, we met our friendly tour guide who led us deep underground. We couldn’t believe how dark it was down there! Luckily, we had our trusty lanterns to light the way. Along one of the cave tunnels, we were shown a fascinating negative fossil of an ammonite on the ceiling, which had been created approximately 60 million years ago! It was a super way to end our topic and bring all of our previous learning to life!
Sporting Round Up
Tag Rugby On Wednesday at Footscray RFC, St Olave’s hosted two exciting tag rugby matches for Years 5 and 6.
Our Year 5 team faced a very strong and competitive side, and although the game ended in defeat, the players demonstrated excellent teamwork and an outstanding ‘never give up’ attitude. I was incredibly proud of their resilience and determination throughout. Our Year 6 team played a thrilling, closely contested match, securing a well-deserved 14–10 victory. Well done to all the players for their fantastic effort and sportsmanship!
TOCA Social On Thursday afternoon, our Year 4 girls enjoyed developing their football skills at TOCA Social in the O2. The girls loved competing with their friends in such a fun and supportive environment. They were an absolute credit to our school and made the afternoon a brilliant experience for everyone involved. Well done, girls!
Nursery
The children have really hit the ground running this week and were so pleased to be back with their friends after the holidays. Chef has kept a steady supply of cardboard boxes coming our way and the children have had lots of fun using them in their play. We read the story Whatever Next! about a bear that makes a rocket and were inspired to make our own rockets with space helmets and set off into space. Some of the children decorated their rockets with paper and cutouts and some used paint or pens. The children decided what to take with them and packed some yummy picnics to eat on the moon! The children have also been creative with glue, sequin glitter and chalks making some fabulous firework pictures.
Reception
Just like the fireworks, we have started this half term with a bang! The children have settled back beautifully and have thoroughly enjoyed sharing their half term adventures with their friends. We have loved looking at your photographs and hearing all about the incredible things you have been up to as a family. This week, our learning has been bursting with excitement. We have been discovering the story of Guy Fawkes and Bonfire Night. The children have created their own spectacular fireworks pictures using paints, glitter and a wide range of creative materials. Their artwork has truly lit up our classroom! We are also excited to have begun our Drawing Club sessions, inspired by the story ‘Whatever Next!’. The children have been using their imagination wonderfully to design their own rockets, invent brand new planets and even plan the most incredible packed lunches for their space adventures. The weather has been fantastic, so we have taken every opportunity to enjoy learning outdoors. We have loved playing parachute games and even made our own kites to fly in the autumn sky. The laughter and excitement have been a joy to see. On Thursday afternoon, our Year 4 buddies came to visit us. We were lucky enough to have one of our friends read a story to us! We hope you all have a lovely weekend and enjoy reading the book we sent home!
Year 1
It has been wonderful to welcome the children back to school after half term. They were so enthusiastic to see their friends and eager to get back to their learning. In maths, the children have continued their unit on addition and subtraction, beginning with number bonds to 10. They then applied these skills to adding two amounts and solving problems, showing great focus and determination. In English, we have been focusing on retelling events. The children began the week by sequencing events from the familiar traditional tale Goldilocks and the Three Bears. They then used these skills to sequence events from a typical school day before identifying and ordering key points from the story Errol’s Garden by Gillian Hibbs. It has been wonderful to see their confidence in storytelling grow throughout the week. In science, the children will be learning about Seasonal Changes this term. They were brilliant at sharing their prior knowledge about the seasons and created lovely weather wheels, identifying which months each season falls in. You might enjoy going on autumnal walks with your child and discussing the features of the season you observe in nature. This term, the children will also be learning all about Transport in their humanities lessons. They were very lucky to have a special visit from a Marine River Inspector from the Port of London Authority. He spoke to the children about his role as part of the Harbour Service on the Thames and explained the different types of vessels that use the river each day. The children were captivated by his talk and asked some fantastic questions, showing great curiosity about life on the Thames. Have a lovely weekend ahead of our exciting trip to the London Transport Museum on Thursday.
Year 2
We are back with a bang in Year 2 this half-term! In English, we have begun our new topic focusing on diaries, inspired by The Diary of a Killer Cat by Anne Fine. We explored the features needed to write a successful diary before taking a deeper dive into past tense and how to change verbs to write in this manner. We continued by identifying the dialogue in the text as we began learning how to write speech for our characters. In maths, we have continued our addition and subtraction topic by calculating how to add and subtract tens to two-digit numbers. We then progressed on to adding and subtracting various two-digit numbers using practical and column methods. This week, as part of our continuous provision, we have focused on PSHE. We reflected on what makes us unique and what makes us different. This helped us identify how lucky we are to be such good friends in our classes and our positive relationships with each other. We discussed simple ways in which we can be kind to others every day and learned about the responsibilities that we all have to keep our classroom and school a happy place. We also learned about gender stereotypes and how these come to be; however, we also thought about how we can tackle these stereotypes in ourselves and others. Christmas preparation has officially started in Year 2 as we learned our roles for the nativity. We have even started learning some of the songs, so watch this space as more will be revealed soon!
Year 3
Year 3 has made an excellent start to Autumn term 2! In English, we began our new topic of poetry and are already seeing some budding poets in our midst. We have looked at a variety of shape poems and annotated their features then we began to create words and phrases that could be used in our own poetry. The children have blown us away with their use of simile, alliteration and expanded noun phrases. In particular, they wrote ‘I am’ repetition poetry that created imagery around their chosen animal. The children even practiced their oracy skills and performed these poems to the class. We can’t wait to see how this topic progresses and what lovely poetry the children will produce going forward. In maths this week, we have continued our revision of addition and subtraction and have been focusing primarily on written methods for these calculations. The children have shown the value of resilience as they tackled challenging 3 digit by 3 digit questions that required exchanging numbers into the tens and hundreds columns. We are now seeing confidence in both the method and in their mental maths skills and we encourage the children to continue to practice number bonds and other mental maths calculations as this will assist them in their written work as well. Science this week moved on to our new topic of forces and the children were excited to be testing out contact and non-contact forces during a carousel of activities. We tested everything from push and pull to gravity and friction. For all of these we considered which way the force was interacting with an object and whether it required contact. What better way to understand physics than with kicking, throwing and playing ‘tug of war’? Finally, this week has seen Year 3 attend their first trip of the year and we were very impressed with their behaviour and conduct both travelling and at the venue. The children enjoyed exploring Chistlehurst caves and learning all about the Stone Age in the process. They showed courage and resilience when trying a new activity as well as excellent listening. We hope they can share with you all that they learnt and experienced.
Year 4
It has been another busy and exciting week in Year 4! The children have worked incredibly hard across all subjects and shown great enthusiasm for their learning. In English this week, the children have continued their focused study of Until I Met Dudley by Roger McGough and Chris Riddell. They thoroughly enjoyed exploring the text’s creative and playful explanations, identifying and naming its various presentation features. Working in groups of four, they collaborated brilliantly to create their own Dudley-style explanations for some of the “crazy” ideas inspired by the book. Each group worked carefully to include all the key elements, such as numbered boxes, conjunctions, onomatopoeia, diagrams, labels, and subject-specific vocabulary. The results were imaginative, detailed, and great fun to read! In Maths, Year 4 have been developing a range of useful strategies for solving addition and subtraction calculations. The children have been practising rounding and estimating to check the reasonableness of answers and using the inverse operation to confirm their results. These strategies have helped strengthen their confidence and accuracy when working independently. In Science, the week began with a review of our end-of-unit assessment on solids, liquids, and gases. The children worked through any corrections and addressed any misconceptions about the water cycle to consolidate their understanding. We then began our brand-new topic on Electricity. During this introductory lesson, the children explored where electricity comes from, the different types of energy, and how electricity is used in our daily lives. They showed tremendous curiosity and a very good understanding of how to stay safe around electrical devices - a knowledge organiser was sent home to support and extend learning at home. Our History lessons have taken us deep into the fascinating world of the Roman gods and goddesses. The children researched and created fact cards about various deities before designing their own imaginative Roman god or goddess. Their creativity and enthusiasm were wonderful to see - some of their ideas were truly inspired! On Thursday, while the girls visited TOCA Social at the O2 for a football event, the boys stayed at school to focus on teamwork and sportsmanship. They took part in a mini tournament featuring dodgeball, football, and basketball. Their effort, skills, and stamina were impressive, and they thoroughly enjoyed the opportunity to play competitively with their friends. It has been a wonderful week filled with creativity, curiosity, and teamwork. We are so proud of the children’s positive attitudes and the energy they bring to everything they do. Have a lovely weekend
Year 5
Another brilliant and busy week in Year 5. We threw ourselves into our wild new book, When The Mountain Roared by Jess Butterworth, which concerns a girl called Ruby uprooted from her life in Australia and thrown in the wilderness of India surrounded by scorpions, bears and leopards. We will be using the story and its themes of conservationism to inform our main English topic this term: balanced arguments. We explored the formal language, devices and structure required for building a strong argument. Both classes loved our initial debates, and devised impressive and passionate arguments around issues such as wearing school uniforms, a 4-day school week and a break from homework! Long multiplication, angles and volume took up our attention in Maths this week. We learned about angles in full turns, angles around a point and angles in quadrilaterals, and how to use this knowledge to calculate missing angles and solve problems. In Science, we began to explore properties of materials including electrical and thermal conductivity, and magnetism. We tested a range of materials and observed how they reacted under different stimuli. We reached the New Kingdom in our study of Ancient Egypt and learned how Ahmose I reunited the upper and lower kingdoms by defeating the Hyksos. We explored Akhenaten’s attempt to move from polytheism to a monotheistic religion, and how the tomb of his son, Tutankhamun, remained intact for 3,000 years until discovered by Howard Carter’s team in 1922.
Year 6
We have had a great start to the half term in Year 6 this week. In English we have begun looking at our new text ‘The Invention of Hugo Cabret’ by Brian Selznick. We have been focusing on developing our inference skills, thinking about how the images that are used in the text create a silent movie of events, and how this can change our interpretation of the characters, their thoughts and feelings and the setting. We then explored how the author’s choice of language can change our inferences and discussed and explained the effect that this has on the mood that is created by the author and the effect this has on us as readers. In maths, we have begun our topic on fractions. This week we have consolidated our understanding of ordering and comparing fractions, and adding and subtracting fractions in which we used our knowledge of equivalent and simplified fractions to help us. In history, we learnt about the Maya religion and gods, looking at the different gods they believed in and their beliefs that they had and how they impacted daily life. We are looking forward to seeing some of the children for our Open Day on Saturday. Have a lovely weekend.
Outdoor Learning
This week has been preparing for the winter and getting lots of jobs finished. We emptied Poly 1 of the old chillies and cucumbers and it has been washed down. The last tomato beds were dug over and we will put compost on them to rot over the winter ready for next year. It is the time of year when all the leaves fall over our plot and we pick them up to use as a mulch for later. We have also been gifted lots of concrete slabs which we have started to use in the classroom and other polytunnels. The weather has been superb all week so we have managed to get all these things completed.
Languages
Welcome back! We hit the ground running with every class this week. In French, Nursery and Reception have started their new topic, body parts. They had fun with Madame Potato and “Head, shoulders, knees and toes”, singing along in French. The story this week was “Il y a un alligator sous mon lit”, a story of courage and kindness. Year 1 worked on “How old are you?”, revising writing and reading numbers in French and practising speaking skills in pairs. Year 2 talked about hobbies: football, dance, gymnastics and music were mentioned amongst others. Year 3 learnt how to describe their home, with the different rooms and garden: the children used the game “snap” to consolidate the vocabulary and practised translation. The topic of this half term for Year 4 is giving directions: this week the children started to familiarize themselves with directions in French and they revised some of the Paris landmarks already learnt. In Spanish, Year 5 and Year 6 started their new topic, my family. Year 5 learnt the vocabulary for family members, revised the verb “tener”, and practised the use of the possessive adjectives, whilst Year 6 worked on the new core vocabulary and verbs at the present and past tense, practising reading and speaking skills. In Latin, Year 6 continued working on verbs: the children practised verbs in the first person singular and third person singular, noting the patterns in the endings; also, we explored more derivative words through our comic strips.
Design & Technology and Computing
Quiz of the week: Look for the words in bold and ask your children if they can explain what they can remember from DT and IT. Year 3 Pneumatic Monsters This week we experimented with pneumatic mechanisms. Pupils needed to prove that an object can be moved by air and that wind can be a form of energy. Year 4 Slingshot Cars Year 4 pupils analysed their design briefs in order to identify what they needed to achieve to create a successful slingshot car. Year 5 Pop Up books Pupils in Year 5 completed their pop up book structures and have taken these home. They have the opportunity to further customise their books at their own pace.
Year 6 Steady Hand Games and Arcade Games Year 6 pupils completed, tested and evaluated their steady hand games which they have taken home to enjoy. We also started exploring the new project that involves digital games design for an arcade.
Computing Highlights Year 3 pupils demonstrated how data can be displayed in graphs and how colour and shape can be used to make data easy to decipher. Year 4 pupils embedded maps into their websites and rearranged the themes and layouts of their web pages. Year 5 pupils created and modified codes for a polling program and Year 6 pupils analysed data and used it to solve public transport problems for commuters.