School News
September 2008
Under Fives Autumn Term Newsletter
Dear Parents, Guardians and Carers,
Welcome back to another exciting term at Gower House. We hope that you all had a good summer and enjoyed the holiday period. We would like to extend our welcome to all our new children and their parents and hope that their first week has been an enjoyable one.
Last term was very busy with many fun and interesting activities. At the end of term we participated in the ‘Barnardo’s Big Toddle’ and raised a total of £577.70, which I hope you will all agree is a great amount of money for such a good cause. We would like to thank you all for your effort in collecting the money and especially your children who walked the ½ mile. We also had our annual Teddy Bears Picnic at the end of term which was lots of fun and enjoyed by all. We look forward to the many fun and exciting activities planned for this term.
Themes for this half of the term are:
Myself
Black History Month
Children will be learning about parts of the body, senses, family, siblings and the community in which they live.
The whole of October is Black History Month and one of our favourite themes. The children will be learning about famous black people in History such as Nelson Mandela, Mahatma Gandhi, Bob Marley, Pele, Thierry Henry and many more. If you have any artefacts of interest to young children from your travels abroad, please send them in for us to look at and we will return them to you at the end of the topic. Alternatively, you are welcome to come in and share your experiences with the children yourselves. If you wish to share your experiences please speak to your child’s class teacher.
We always end this topic by celebrating all our cultures and festivals e.g. Diwali and Eid together with a party. We ask parents to send in food contributions such as jerk chicken, salt fish fritters, rice, samosas, kebabs and chappatis. The party will take place on Friday 17th October. Your child may bring traditional outfits to wear for the party but must arrive at school in uniform. The teachers will be happy to help children to change their clothes. We will remind you of this nearer the time.
Due to the curriculum requirements, children’s activities will be based outdoors as well as indoors. As we are moving into the winter months, for outside activities the children will need a pair of wellington boots. These should be labelled clearly with your child’s name and will be kept in school.
Healthy Eating
We continue to encourage the children to eat fruit daily. It would be greatly appreciated if all children could bring fruit into school at the beginning of each week. The fruit will be shared with the class at snack time.
Parents Evenings:
We will be holding Parents Evenings towards the end of this half term to give parents the opportunity to speak to the teachers regarding their child’s progress. These evenings will be on Tuesday 21st and Wednesday 22nd October between 5.00 – 7.00 p.m. More details will follow nearer the time.
Date for your Diaries
Black History Month Party: Friday 17th October
Parents Evenings: Tuesday 21st & Wednesday 22nd October
Half Term: Monday 27th Oct – Friday 31st Oct inclusive
Dance classes will start again next Thursday 19th September. Children in the under fives lesson starts at 3.30p.m.and ends at 4.10p.m. If you wish your child to join the dance club please contact the school office.
May we remind parents that children are not permitted to wear jewellery to school. Girls may wear small stud earrings. Chains, rings and bracelets are a safety risk and the loss of expensive items is distressing for all concerned.
Please label all your child’s uniform especially cardigans, jumpers, hats, scarves and coats. With the cold weather approaching children will be wearing these more often and we find that these items are usually not labelled. Please kindly label everything clearly, as items that are labelled are more likely to be found and returned if misplaced.
Mrs Jobe’s Class
Children in Mrs Jobe’s class require a pencil case with pencils, rubbers, colouring pencils and a sharpener. These will be sent home every Friday to be sharpened over the weekend ready for Monday.
Start and Finishing times
All the Under Fives classes begin at 9.00 a.m. Staff are in the rooms by 8.50 a.m. Parents and children are asked to wait outside until staff welcome the children in. If however you are late arriving (especially in the two classes after the nursery) please let your child into the room without causing disruption to the lesson. All classes in the Under Fives Dept. end at 3.15 p.m. Your prompt arrival to collect your child is greatly appreciated.
Attached is a copy of the school holiday dates, our collection and dismissal policy and our outings policy. Please keep a copy of these policies for future reference.
Do not hesitate to contact me if you are unsure of anything.
We look forward to a wonderful term together.
Mrs M Jobe
Head of Under Fives Dept.
Under Fives Newsletter January 2007
Under Fives ½ Termly Newsletter
Dear Parents/Carers and Guardians,
Welcome back and a Happy New Year to you all. We trust that you enjoyed the seasonal festivities. We certainly did!
We would like to start by thanking you all for your kind thoughts and gifts at the end of term. Your words of praise and encouragement are always welcomed and greatly appreciated. Thank you also for the food contributions towards the Christmas Party, they were delicious and we had a very enjoyable afternoon.
We have another very exciting ½ term ahead. Our theme for this term is ’People who help us’, we will be learning about the jobs of people such as fire fighters, doctors, nurses, opticians and the police etc and the important roles they play in our everyday lives. We are in the process of organising a visit to the school from the paramedics and Willesden Fire Brigade. We will send out details of this once it is organised. We are also planning to take the children to the local post office on Church Lane. Once again, more details of this will follow once it has been arranged.
We have a request, if you are a professional and work in one of the fields above we would be interested in hearing from you. We would like to invite you to come into school and share all your job experiences with the children. We appreciate that you are all busy, but if anyone could spare a little time to talk to the children about what they do please speak to your child’s teacher.
Before the end of the half term we will also be covering Chinese New Year and hopefully visit Lili Wong’s Chinese Restaurant a short walking distance from the school. Once there the children will be able to see how the restaurant is decorated in preparation for the New Year and sample a few delights from the cuisine. There will be a small charge for this and we will inform you nearer the time.
Healthy Eating
Last term we wrote to you regarding healthy eating and we would like to continue with this again this term. As you already know the children are given fresh fruit and vegetables at lunch time but we would like for them to be able to get their five portions of the recommended daily allowance. To be able to do this we would like to ask parents to contribute one piece of fruit e.g. 1 banana, 1 apple etc or one vegetable e.g. a carrot or a cucumber each week. The staff will then help the children to cut this up and share it during snack time. The children will still be having toast or a sandwich with a drink of water or milk each morning. Children in Mrs Jobe’s class will also be given a snack in the morning and usually bring a snack in for the afternoon from home.
We have found that the children in this class are bringing in a lot of sweet sugary foods and we would like to clamp down on such foods. Please provide your child with a healthier alternative to biscuits, cakes, chocolate and drinks such as ribena and fizzy flavoured drinks. Again, a cheese sandwich, pieces of cucumber and carrots, yoghurt and bottles of flavoured water are a much more suitable and nutritious option. Learning to become healthy is an objective, children under five are required to achieve through the Foundation Stage. We appreciate that some of you have already been given letters regarding the snack where it was stated that you may send in crisps and biscuits but we feel that this is no longer suitable if we are to promote healthy eating.
Uniform and Jewellery
We would like to stress that children must wear regulation school anoraks, hats and scarves which are available from the school office. All items must be clearly labelled. Children are not permitted to wear jewellery to school. Chains, bracelets and hooped earrings should not be worn as they are a health and safety risk. Girls may wear small stud earrings.
Dates for your Diary
Half term: Monday 19th February to Friday 23rd inclusive
Thank you for your co-operation in the above matters.
Mrs S Chana
Head of Under Fives Dept.
15th September 2006
Dear Parents/Guardians and Carers,
Welcome back to another very exciting term at Gower House. We hope that you all had a good summer and enjoyed the holiday period. We would like to extend our welcome to all our new children and their parents and hope that your child’s first days have not been too distressing.
Last term was very enjoyable and as you may remember we participated in the ‘Big Toddle’ for Barnados and raised a lot of money for a very good cause. We would like to thank you all for your effort and especially your children who walked the ½ mile.We also had our annual Teddy Bears Picnic which was good fun. We have a lot of exciting things planned for your children this term but before I give you details of that I would like to bring to your attention some staff changes that have taken place.
Mrs Jobe who is well known to the children from last term has now taken over what used to be Mrs Jabbal’s class. She will be teaching alongside myself (Mrs Chana). Mrs Jabbal has moved class and is now working in the middle part of the school. I would like to thank her for all her valuable contributions to the Under Fives Dept over the years. Miss Bridgman has taken over my class and is assisted by Mrs Bahad and also Mrs Griffin when she is not carrying out other duties. The nursery remains largely unaffected, however, Mrs Leach who has various teaching assistant qualifications joined us at the beginning of this term. Welcome to her and Mrs Jobe. There will also be joining us several students from various colleges around in the Under Fives classes. Mr Khatry who many will remember from earlier this year has rejoined us to complete his qualification in Early years and again will be around in all classes at various stages throughout this term.
The themes for this half of the term are:
Myself
Black History Month
Myself: Children will be learning about parts of the body, senses, family, siblings and the community in which they live. Children will be comparing their own growth to other things that grow and will be planting cress seeds and observing the stages of growth. We will also be taking a walk in the locality to observe our surroundings. We will give you notice of this a few days before the planned activity.
The whole of October is Black History Month and one of our favourite themes. The children will be learning about famous Black people in History such as, Nelson Mandela, Mahatma Gandhi, Bob Marley, Pele, Thierry Henry and many more. If you have any artefacts of interest to young children from your travels to India, Pakistan, Ghana, Jamaica etc, please send them in for us to look at and we will return them to you at the end of the topic. Alternatively you are welcome to come in and share your experiences with the children yourselves. If you wish to share your experiences please speak to your child’s class teacher.
We always end this topic by celebrating all our cultures and festivals e.g. Diwali and Eid together with a party. We ask parents to send in food contributions such as jerk chicken, salt fish fritters, rice, samosas, kebabs and chappatis. The party will take place on Thursday 19th October. Your child may bring traditional outfits to wear for the party but must arrive at school in uniform. The teachers will be happy to help children to change their clothes. We will remind you of this nearer the time.
Parents Evenings:
We will be holding Parents evenings towards the end of this half term to give parents the opportunity to speak to the teachers regarding their child’s progress. These parents evenings will be on Tuesday 16th and Wednesday 17th October between 5.00 – 7.00 p.m. More details will follow nearer the time.
Date for your Diaries
Black History Month Party:
Thursday 19th October
Parents Evenings:
Tuesday 16th & Wednesday 17th October
Half Term:
Monday 23rd Oct – Friday 27th Oct inclusive
May we remind parents that children are not permitted to wear jewellery to school. Girls may wear small stud earrings. Chains, rings and bracelets are a health and safety risk and the loss of expensive items is distressing for all concerned.
Please label all your child’s items of uniform especially cardigans, jumpers, hats, scarves and coats. With the cold weather fast approaching children will be wearing these items more often and we find that these items are usually not labelled and causes a lot of distress to all. Please kindly label everything clearly, as items that are labelled are more likely to be found and returned if misplaced.
Mrs Jobe’s Class
Children in Mrs Jobe’s class require a pencil case with pencils, rubbers, a sharpener and colours. These will be sent home each afternoon. On a Friday afternoon child will be participating in a P.E Lesson, your child should bring their P.E Kit to school and will be assisted when getting changed. As the lesson is late afternoon your child will go home wearing their P.E Kit. The kit consists of a maroon tracksuit and a pair of plimsoles/trainers.
Start and Finishing times
All the Under Fives classes begin at 9.00 a.m. Staff are in the rooms by 8.50 a.m. Parents and children are asked to wait outside until staff welcome the children in. If however you are late arriving (especially in the two follow up classes from the nursery) please let your child into the room without causing disruption to the lesson. All classes in the Under Fives Dept. end at 3.15 p.m. Your prompt arrival to collect your child is greatly appreciated.
Do not hesitate to contact me if you are unsure of anything.
We look forward to a wonderful term together.
Mrs S Chana
Head of Under Fives Dept.
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