Learn Together, Grow Together, Succeed Together

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July 2026

Issue 42

This week I had the pleasure of joining Year 2 on their residential trip to Frylands.  All the children had a fantastic time and were a huge credit to our school with perfect behaviour throughout the visit. The children took part in climbing activities, blindfold trail, archery, pond dipping, disc golf and other fun activities. The whole year group water fight on Wednesday evening was immense fun for them all. A huge thank you to the Year 2 team and the other volunteers for helping to ensure the children's first overnight school stay was a huge success.
Year 6 produced two fantastic performances of their show 'Dare to Dream'. The year group has worked very hard this half term on preparing for the shows and the shows were a wonderful celebration of their efforts. The Year 6 staff team have prepared the children brilliantly and we thank them all for their hard work and organisation.  
 
Year 3 enjoyed their STEM creative day using all the cardboard in the school on Friday morning! These types of activities are great fun but also help to build the skills needed in the world of work. Thank you to The Medway Business Partnership for another great workshop for the children.
 
It has been another warm week, but the temperatures in the classrooms and the school have not hit the same highs as a couple of weeks ago. The weather warning was also amber and not red, so there was no need to close the school early. I know some people question why decisions are made, but we would only offer early pick up when the weather warning is a red, and we cannot cool the classrooms down. Every classroom has two large fans, which help to push the warm air up and out of the windows. Air conditioning is something we are looking into for some rooms. This is very expensive to install and run and has to be considered with all the other spending we have. 
 
The school governors spent the day in school on Thursday on a range of different tasks and activities. We had a very successful day celebrating the many strengths of the school and how well we are developing the school to make it even better for the staff and children.
 
I wish everyone a wonderful weekend and I look forward to seeing you all for the final full week of the school year on Monday.
 
Many thanks,
Paul Haylock (Head Teacher) 

Focus Week – Reception

Walnut and Willow class have been working hard this term along with keeping cool in this heat! This term we have been preparing for our transition into Key Stage 1 by taking some of our learning to the year 1 classrooms. We have practiced walking in through the hall door and walking together to the classroom where we saw the lockers we’d be putting our bags in - a big change from our pegs up in Reception! We explored the two classrooms and saw that although they are different from our classrooms in EYFS, they weren’t scary and still had lots of lovely things we are looking forward to using. We had our Literacy carousels down in year 1 and had focussed a lot on writing sentences and reading tricky words. After we were treated to some time outside where we all loved the obstacle course blocks! We were all very sensible and took turns climbing and jumping from block to block, we can’t wait to use them more! 

We were all treated to spending some time on the trim trail too! We absolutely loved climbing there and had the best time seeing how high we could get. Afterwards, we enjoyed having a fruit picnic in the big playground together. We have loved exploring the different areas of the school we haven’t been to before and are beginning to feel a lot more confident about moving up to year 1. 

We have really enjoyed our outdoor time with Mrs Callaghan in our Forest School sessions! We used the forest school area to delve deeper into our creative sides by collecting forest treasures and painting them using watercolours. Mrs Callghan taught us all about our senses, which we used to explore the forest school area. It was very tricky to find the one thing you could taste in the forest school, but after a thorough search we found a mint plant growing and all said how it smelt like toothpaste! We also used the sunny weather to play with our shadows and even made some shadow drawings by tracing our friends' shadows. 

We were sports athletes last week running our morning Daily Mile for the Freddie Farmer Foundation! We spoke about why we were running and all tried our hardest, seeing who could do the most laps in 10 minutes. Everyone participated with lots of enthusiasm and we loved having our parents run with us on Friday. 

Whilst the weather has been blazing hot we have made sure to stay cool by having lots of water based activities out in our garden area! We have loved paddling in the tuff trays to keep cool and playing in our water tray, using the chutes to make water courses. However our favourite activity has been having our teachers spray us with the hose! 

This week we have started getting ready for our reception graduation next week and are looking forward to showing our adults how much we have progressed in our year as Walnut and Willows. We have had a great year in Reception and have all learnt so much, we can’t wait to continue to grow with our new year 1 teachers!

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Attendance

Class Attendance 
Walnut  92.14%
Willow 84.86%
Hazel  94.67%
Holly 97%
Cedar  93.06%
Chestnut 97%
Beech 97.93%
Birch  94.83%
Fig 91.94%
Fir 95.17%
Elm  91.38%
Elder 95.86%
Oak  93.93%
Olive  97.42%
Blossom 85.71%
Damson 87.5%
Mulberry  88.57%
Whole School 93.76%
Year 1 cinema trip
9:30am – 12:00pm
10
July