This is the place where you will be able to read my weekly newsletters. Thanks for taking the time to read them, Jessica

• Newsletter Friday 29th December 2024

  Fri 29 Nov 2024 Jessica

  Dear Parents and Carers,

   

  It is good to see the sun shining after the wild weather we had at the weekend. I hope it did not impact you.

   

  As you know, we have our Christmas events coming up. These are on our website's calendar, so please add all these events to your diaries. The Year 2-6 Christmas concert in the church will start at 1:30 p.m. Please remember that the children will need to be picked up from school, not the church. Thank you, and we look forward to seeing you there.

   

  On Friday 6th December we have a non-school uniform day for the children in return for them bringing in items for the Winter Fair. This can be chocolates, toiletries or alcohol. The planning for the Winter Fair is well underway and the main thing we need are volunteers. We would really appreciate it if you could sign up to help. At the moment we do not have enough help and if it does not improve we might have to cancel it. That would be a big shame as so much has already been done and it does raise a huge amount for school and with everything as it is at the moment we need as much financial help as possible. PLEASE sign up and help even if it is just for an hour. It is also a really lovely way to be part of our school community. A massive thank you to those of you who have already signed up. It really does make a difference.

   

  We were very proud of our children this week as they attended the Panathlon Challenge. Here is what they wrote about it –

  ‘On Wednesday some children in KS2 went on a trip. We went to the Panathlon on the 141 bus. When we got there, we were super excited. When we entered the building, we started doing some activities like beanbag throwing. We did basketball, then we did curling, then we balanced a ball on a racquet and walked around cones. Finally, we threw four balls at a target. At the end, we had a medal and we took pictures as a group together.’By Ajahni, Diana and Taliayah (Fuchsia Class) Well done to these children. It sounded like you had a great time.

   

  This week we launched a new handwriting scheme, Letter-join, for all year groups. Letter-join is an online platform that teaches handwriting in line with the National Curriculum. Handwriting is an integral part of children's writing, which allows them to share their ideas and structure their thoughts in a well-crafted manner. Letter-join has structured lesson plans that build the children's skills incrementally. The lessons will not only teach the children letter formation and joins but also how to develop their writing posture and correct pencil grip. In addition to this, we had an assembly on Wednesday where the children discussed what good handwriting looks like, how we can achieve it and why it is such an important part of their writing. We will be sharing handwriting for the children to complete at home too. To further encourage the children's handwriting development, we will be awarding handwriters of the week a special treat. The children chosen for this honour will be able to choose a pencil topper to put on their pen or pencil for the week as an extra incentive. We look forward to seeing the amazing efforts the children put into this, as well as the opportunity to celebrate their success.

   

  We are now registering 3 and 4 year olds for our school nursery places in September 2025 – 2026. Rainbow Nursery in Betty Layward Primary School prides itself on providing caring and inspiring provision for our children. We are very popular so we advise you to secure your space now. You are very welcome to come and visit us and our school and have a look around our delightful nursery for yourself. We provide 15 hour part time morning places and 15 hour part time afternoon places. We also provide full time 30 hour places that can be fully funded or partially funded and then the other hours are privately paid for. Our nursery is aimed at preschool children aged three and four years old. Children can apply for one of these nursery places if they turn 4 between 1st September 2025 and August 31st 2026 or in the term after their third birthday. Any questions about admissions to nursery in 2025 – 2026 do not hesitate to drop an email to paularamsden@bettylayward.org. We look forward to receiving your applications and meeting you next year. 

   

  We finish for the holidays on Friday 20th December at 1pm. There is no Premier or clubs on that day so all children will need to be collected at 1pm. 

   

  I hope you have a lovely weekend and please sign up for the Winter Fair.

  Jessica

  Headteacher

   

   

   

  

• Newsletter Friday 22nd November 2024

  Fri 22 Nov 2024 Jessica

  Dear Parents and Carers,

   

  We have had a lovely week and we hope you have too. The weather has been interesting this week and we hope you have been keeping warm. It was lovely to see the children so excited by the snow. 

   

  Year 6 Ruby class attended the Hackney Junior Citizenship Scheme event on Thursday. Year 6 met with firefighters, Doctors, nurses, police officers and TFL workers who spoke to them about staying safe, being healthy and looking after their mental and physical health. This was a great day to support year 6's transition to secondary school next year.

   

  Thank you for all your support with the children’s project homework. They are great and the children really enjoyed sharing them with their classes and in a special assembly. Well done to our children for working so hard at home as well as school.

   

  A huge thank you from the PTFA, Quiz team, myself and the staff for your support with the annual quiz last Friday. It was an enjoyable night. The event is entirely dependent on your volunteering and support so a massive thank you to everyone. After expenses, we raised a whopping £4215. Thank you to those of you who came, helped, presented and created the quiz. This total is amazing and shows what a great community Betty Layward is.

   

  Well done to Year 6 who held a bake sale to help them raise funds towards their French trip in the summer. They held it during parent’s meetings and raised an amazing £346.43. I appreciate your support with this. They have been challenged to raise £2000 towards the trip and are thinking of different ways to do it. We know they can and it is a lovely skill for them to learn. The London Fire Brigade also told the children that if you need a fire alarm they will fit one in your home for free or will come and check yours if you already have one. Please use this link to find out more-https://www.london-fire.gov.uk/protect

   

  With this link you can book the fire brigade to come and check alarms and also they will install fire alarms for free if any properties do not have them

   

  I had the lovely experience of going into every class to watch writing being taught this week. Seeing the children focussed, engaged, and enthused by their learning was a pleasure. I was incredibly proud of them all.

   

  Well done to Charley in Year 2 who chose to bake cookies herself and raise money for the school by selling them. She raised an amazing £15.73. Well done Charley.

  As you know we try very hard to keep parents regularly informed about first aid incidents at school. Sending paper notifications home can be rather ‘hit and miss’ with notifications often going astray along the way. We are also increasingly aware of the substantial cost, time and environmental impact associated with the amount of paper and photocopying involved with this.

  
  we are changing our system of reporting first aid. We are now going to use a service called Medical Tracker. Medical Tracker not only allows us to inform parents/ carers of first aid incidents by email but it also allows us to analyse the data we record.

  
  Medical Tracker will be beneficial to you because:
   We can record and track first aid incidents that involve your child
   We can record and track medication administration that involves your child
   You can be notified immediately after a first aid incident by email
   You can be notified immediately after medication has been administered by email
   

  You will still always receive a phone call for head injuries and any concerns where we think a child needs extra attention. To use Medical Tracker effectively we need to collect the best email address to use to notify you of incidents. Please let us know if this is different to the one on Arbor. Please be assured that Medical Tracker is registered with the Data Protection Registrar and guarantees that all
  information you provide will be kept private and will not be passed on to any other organisation.
  Important – When we start using Medical Tracker, email messages will be sent from
  donotreply@medicaltracker.co.uk.  Please add this address to your email address books (or approved sender list) to prevent messages from being blocked by your SPAM/JUNK filters. We will need to rely on you to check your emails to ensure this system works effectively.

   

  Please remember not to use your mobile phone as you enter the school, on the school grounds and in the school itself. Please do not bring any hot drinks into school either. Thank you for your support with this.

   

  Have a lovely weekend,

  Jessica

  Headteacher

   

• Newsletter Friday 15th November 2024

  Fri 15 Nov 2024 Jessica

  Dear Parents and Carers,

   

  I hope you have had a good week. We have had a busy and great week. This week we celebrated Anti-bullying week by wearing our odd socks and choosing respect. We enjoyed an assembly where we learned the meaning of respect, and how to spot bullying if it happens. We also celebrated World Kindness Day on Wednesday. Each class wrote acts of kindness on leaves, and created a whole school kindness tree to show kindness grows kindness. The children enjoyed sharing positivity and happiness. I reminded the children that their kindness is evident all the time, not just on this special day. I am so impressed with how kind and thoughtful the children are at Betty Layward. 

   

  Thank you for attending your parent’s meeting yesterday. We are so proud of how well the children are doing and how focused they are on learning. It is also lovely to see them when they are proud of themselves. 

  
  This week, as part of their Mapping unit, year 5 visited Hampstead Heath for an orienteering session. They looked at maps and compasses in more detail, created their own islands and tested their map-reading and teamwork skills by exploring the Heath's orienteering course. 

   

  On Tuesday 12th November a group of year 5 and 6 children participated in the Hackney Football League at The Eastway Hub against Halley House. The boys kicked off first and despite displaying great teamwork skills with goals from Joe and Lorcan the boys were defeated. The Girls were up next and blew away their opponents with an 11-0 victory with goals from Livvie, Bonnie, Clara and Martha. Well done to all the children who took part and a special thank you to all the parent volunteers.

   

  It was lovely to have our parents and carers visit us in Reception for Family Friday today.  The children and families were thinking about Understanding the World and our local area.  They drew maps of the local area that surrounds Betty Layward and thought about their journeys to school.

   

  Our Winter Fair is on 7th December from 12:30-3:00pm. On Friday 6th December please can the children wear their own clothes and bring in a donation for the fair. This can be toiletries, chocolates or bottles of alcohol. If you also have a suitable raffle prize please let us or your PTFA rep know. We will also need help setting up the fair on the Friday and setting up, running a stall or clearing up on the Saturday. Any help is greatly appreciated and we can only run these events if we do have enough help. Thank you for your support with this.

   

  We have a new venue for our Year 2 to 6 Christmas concert. It will be held at St Matthias Church, Wordworth Rd, N16 8DD on the afternoon of Tuesday 17th December. We are just confirming the times and will let you know soon. You will not be able to take your child home from the church. The children will go back to school first. 

   

  I look forward to seeing you at the quiz night tonight. Thank you to everyone for your excellent organisation skills, your help and for buying tickets. I look forward to seeing you there.

   

  Have a lovely weekend 

  Jessica 

  Headteacher 
   

   

  

• Newsletter Friday 8th November 2024

  Fri 08 Nov 2024 Jessica

  Dear Parents and Carers,

  We have had a lovely week back after the half-term break. We really hope you had a good week. It is lovely seeing everyone back. Year 5 started the week with a great trip to the Buddhist Centre in Bethnal Green.

   

  Thank you to those of you who attended the PTFA AGM on Monday. It was lovely to see you there. We really appreciate all the help, time, and support you provide to the school. Every little bit everyone does really makes a difference for the children, so a massive thank you from myself and everyone at Betty Layward. We look forward to seeing you at the quiz next Friday.

   

  Thank you for signing up for your parent’s meeting. Please ensure you have done this. Your child can join the meeting if you would like them to, or they can attend the creche. The creche is only for the duration of your meeting and not for the whole afternoon. Premier is open from 1p.m. but has limited spaces as they need to ensure they have the right adult-to-child ratio. We look forward to seeing you on Thursday. Please remember we close at 1pm on Thursday and need all children to be picked up so we can start the meetings. 

   

  Our Christmas Concert for Years 2 – 6 is normally held in St Mary’s Church. Unfortunately, they have just let us know that their heating has broken down so we cannot perform there. We are currently finding a new location and will update you with the location and timings as soon as we know.

   

  As you know, we are implementing OPAL in our playground. This encourages children to play in different ways. Next week, on Wednesday 13 November, OPAL are holding a short webinar for parents to talk about the power of play and to help them make play part of every day for their child.  At the event, OPAL Director Michael Follett will explore some of the key benefits of play, look at how playwork theory can support parents, and share his top tips for play at home. This event is part of OPAL's commitment to making play part of every child's life and is fundraising to support Project Play, a wonderful organisation that provides safe spaces to play for displaced children in Northern France. This webinar is free to attend, but we encourage participants to make a suggested donation of £10 to Project Play's fundraiser, which is being match funded by OPAL CIC. Book your free place on https://bit.ly/4fgpQKK 

   

  As we ask the children not to be on their phones in school we are going to ask parents and carers to do the same. We are asking that you are not on your phone on the school premises, inside the building, coming into school and in the playground. We think this will be a better example for all the children. Please can you let anyone else collecting know this and signs will be going up soon. Thank you for your support with this.

   

  If you are requesting a leave of absence for your child during term time please complete an absence request form. These can be obtained from the office. We cannot authorise any holidays or trips that could be taken out of term time.

   

  Have a lovely weekend,

  Jessica

  Headteacher