Dear Parents and Carers,

I hope you had a lovely half-term break. It is lovely to see everyone back. Thank you for coming to Blastonbury yesterday and coping with the change in the weather. The children were amazing, and thank you for being such a good audience. It was a wonderful celebration of country music.

On Monday, Year 6 visited the Estorick Collection of Modern Italian Art for an Art in Motion workshop. They explored a range of artworks, focusing on how different artists captured movement in their pieces. Inspired by what they saw, the pupils practised sketching motion using several techniques observed in the galleries. To finish, they combined their new skills to create their very own flipbooks. A lot of our classes have had a trip to this gallery, as it is local, and we love an art trip where specialists support the children and their learning in Art.

Year 4 Fuchsia have had the wonderful experience of working with the London Symphony Orchestra, and on Thursday, they attended the LSO St. Luke's. They performed their own composition inspired by Holst's The Planets with musicians from the London Symphony Orchestra. All the children were incredible and really showed their musical abilities. Well done to Fuchsia class and Zoe.

On Saturday, 16th May 2026, 116 children from Betty Layward School took part in the Hackney Schools Challenge at Hackney Marshes. We were fortunate to have beautiful weather, and the children enjoyed a fun, energetic day, demonstrating great teamwork, enthusiasm and sportsmanship throughout. Thank you to Richard Babington for organising such a well-run and enjoyable event and for helping to create a memorable experience for all the children involved. Well done to Stanley in Year 4, who came first.

The week before half term, Y1 Lavender delivered an exciting assembly all about the Great Fire of London. The children confidently shared facts, sang songs, and acted out key moments from the famous event. They worked incredibly hard to learn their lines and performed with great enthusiasm and confidence. It was great to see all the hard work that had gone into the homework projects, which looked fantastic. Well done, Lavender class.

A group of children from our cricket club participated in a school cricket festival. It was an exciting sporting event where children from different local schools came together to compete in friendly cricket matches. The festival provided young players with the opportunity to develop their cricket skills, teamwork, sportsmanship, and confidence in a fun and supportive environment. The children really enjoyed the event.

Before half term, Year 6 were delighted to welcome back Eric Huang, our Writer-in-Residence, for an inspiring writing workshop. Eric spoke to the children about his journey to becoming a writer, explaining that many of his ideas stem from his own life experiences, and encouraged them to see that they, too, can draw inspiration from the world around them. He then challenged the pupils to write a fantasy or science fiction story based on a newspaper report about a dog called Hades who survived after being lost in the desert for three months. The workshop sparked creativity and enthusiasm, and the children produced some fantastic ideas. We would like to thank Eric for such an engaging session, and we look forward to welcoming him back to work with the rest of the school in the future.

We are proud to share that the children from Betty Layward came second out of 11 schools in the Hackney chess league competition. Their focus, teamwork and determination were outstanding throughout the competition. Well done to Gene, Sacha, Jacob, Lucas, Henry, Al and Acer.

In May, Hackney District Girls made history by reaching the semi-finals of the Southern Counties Cup for the first time ever. It’s one of the most prestigious cups you can win.  After successfully beating Newbury in the semi-final, they went straight to the final to play Chiltern and Bucks and won. This is such a huge achievement for the team and we are immensely proud of them. Both Clara and Livvie are representing Hackney District for the second year, after playing a year up last year. They are both very proud to be representing Betty Layward and we thought you’d be pleased to hear of their success. I’m not sure if you are aware of this stat- Betty Layward has provided the largest number of girls for Hackney District teams since it started.

On bank holiday Monday, Luiza and Georgie set up a stall outside The Spence bakery on Stoke Newington Church Street to fundraise for our school. They sold rolls, watermelon, cookies, ice lollies and lemonade. They raised a total of £292.75 for the school, with £141.25 in cash and £151.50 by card.  The day before the fundraiser, they made flyers and put them around Stoke Newington. On the day of our fundraiser, Chloe, Sunday and Raisa came to help us at the stall. Louisa sang some songs. A huge thank you to everyone who supported them, to their mums, Joanna and Aida, who helped with the set-up and items sold on the day, and to The Spence bakery for being closed on a Monday. They had a great location. Well done Luiza and Georgie. We are very impressed by all your efforts.

The silent disco was really fun this afternoon and we loved watching the children dancing around the playground.

We are holding an Eid event on Monday, 8th June, in the playground after school. I hope you can join us. Any food donations would be greatly appreciated. We look forward to seeing you there.

Year 6 are off to France on Monday for a week, and we hope they have the most wonderful, well-deserved time.

Have a lovely weekend,

Jessica

Headteacher