Miss Hamalis’ Bulletin – Monday 13 November 2023

You can view all events for the year in the school calendar via our Parent Portal: SchoolBase login. Your calendar view should already be filtered to display the Junior School events and events which are specific to your daughter’s year group. 

The ‘School Calendar Parent View’ button shows the complete calendar, which can be viewed by each month, week or day. Events also appear on the right-hand side of the home page under ‘Forthcoming Events’ and the monthly view of the calendar also appears at the bottom of the home page.

Miss Baker and Mr Rich (our Sustainability & Forest School Leads) along with our Sustainability Team, are thrilled to announce a non-uniform day in support of  Just One Tree. The girls can come in to school dressed in tree colours or as an environmentalist. For every £1, Just One Tree will plant a tree.

Details regarding how to donate will be outlined in next week’s Bulletin.

We are delighted to invite Junior School parents to the inaugural Channing Christmas STEM Lecture on Thursday 7 December 2023. This year we will have the opportunity to hear from astrobiologist, research scientist, presenter and author, Professor Lewis Dartnell who will discuss his Sunday Times ‘New Thinking’ Book of the Year and international bestseller The Knowledge: How to Rebuild our World from Scratch. Book your tickets here.

Thank you for your invaluable feedback and ideas on how to further improve our wraparound care provision to best suit the needs of our families. Further adjustments to Mini Owls and Late Owls will be implemented from the start of the Spring Term. 

Please read the letter you have received alongside today’s Bulletin, Adjustments to Wraparound Care, for details of these changes. We hope that the planned adjustments will support the needs of your family and aid the smooth collection of your daughter(s) from school. Please do not hesitate to get in touch with Mrs Brant (Head of EY and KS1) or Miss Kitsis (Head of KS2) if you have any questions or require further information.

We are participating in a friendly Mathematics competition, involving schools in England. The competition runs from 7:30am tomorrow to 7:30pm on Thursday 16 November online via https://ttrockstars.com/.

Pupils in Years 2 – 6 can play in any game mode with every correct answer to a multiplication or division question, earning themselves, their Form and the school a point. Year 1 pupils are welcome to play on the Times Tables Rock Stars platform; however, as they have not used this regularly and confidently in school yet, their game play points won’t be included in the competition. The Times Tables Rock Stars platform will calculate the Form average (the number of correct answers per pupil in the Form who play during the competition hours, subject to a daily 60-minute limit (see below)). Winning Forms (from Year 2 – 6) in the school and in the competition as a whole will be the ones with the highest average.

To support player wellbeing, there is a daily time limit of 60 minutes per player. In other words, each player can earn competition points for up to 60 minutes between 7:30am – 7:30pm each day between Tuesday 14 – Thursday 16 November. Once the player goes beyond 60 minutes of play on that day, they will still earn coins but will no longer earn points towards the competition. Please encourage and support your daughter(s) in Years 2 – 6 to the extent that it doesn’t cause high stress levels or impact on family plans.

Pupils are invited to enter the prestigious Young Art competition for a chance to exhibit their work at the Royal College of Art. They can enter an A4-sized painting, drawing or print based on this year’s theme: ‘Our Living World’. The school will cover the entry fee of £2 (maximum of one entry per person) and proceeds go to a specific research project into childhood cancers at UCL Great Ormond Street. If you would like to donate additional funds to the charity, please send this with your daughter’s artwork. All artwork must be brought into school by Friday 12 January. Entries should have the artist’s name, year group, DOB and school clearly displayed in block capitals on the back. It is also a good idea to add a sentence explaining what is depicted overleaf. Girls from the Junior School have had success in this competition in previous years, so we cannot wait to see what our pupils can produce this time around.

We will continue the tradition of Form Captains (and Year 6 Head Girls) making Festive Card Post Boxes for their form, so that the girls can write and send cards to each other. Please can the post boxes be in school by Monday 27 November ready to receive cards. There will also be a post box outside Miss Hamalis’ office where girls can post cards to members of staff. We look forward to seeing the festive creativity! 

Head lice are not serious, but can be very annoying. Research has shown that infections of head lice occur just as often in school holidays as during term time. Despite young children being the most affected, it is a community problem rather than a school problem. As a school, we need to follow the advice as outlined by Public Health England:

• School nurses should not send out letters informing parents about any incidents of head lice.
• There is no need for a child who has head lice to stay away from school.
• Routine screenings/ head inspections should not be carried out at school. 
• Parents should be encouraged to check their children’s hair regularly using a nit comb on wet hair.
• Parents should be advised to only treat if live lice are found.

Click the link for further information.

Following this guidance, we do not share information to or regarding specific cases as this could result in bullying and unkindness towards individuals and/or groups or children and/or parents. We do; however, include half termly reminders in the Bulletin in order to remind you to check your daughter’s hair.

If individual parents would like to share information with other parents in their daughter’s form, you are, of course, able to.

If you are at all worried about head lice, or feel you need more advice, then you should consult our school nurse, your health visitor, pharmacist, or family doctor.

We encourage everyone to check their daughter’s hair and treat it if any live lice are found. It is thought that if we all do this three times per year, once every school term, then we will eventually reduce the spread of lice.

Every year, around 700 children in the UK become seriously unwell because the signs of diabetes have been missed. As it is World Diabetes Day on 14 November, we have been asked by the Diabetic Team at Whittington Hospital to share the poster below to alert you to signs to look out for.

Uniform4Kids, our uniform supplier, is offering a 20% discount which applies to all products including schoolwear, sportswear, footwear and accessories. The offer is valid for one day only, exclusively on Friday 24 November 2023 online only via www.uniform4kids.com Discount code BLACKFRIDAY20 must be entered at checkout. A discount cannot be added retrospectively to an order already placed.

They will not be offering Click & Collect or Delivery to School during this event. Orders will be dispatched via courier. Orders may take up to one week to process.

Buy your tickets for the Winter Fair fundraising raffle in aid of Great Ormond St Hospital, and be in for a chance to win some amazing prizes! Family and friends are welcome – and encouraged – to also buy tickets!

Buy your tickets here and share the link with family and friends!

Prizes include:

Dinner for 4 at Claridges

Tickets to Willows Farm

Coaching session with Freddie Ljungberg, Arsenal and Spurs tickets, signed Pelé & Maradona shirts

Tea party with Miss Hamalis

Tickets to Ed Gamble at Hackney Empire

Everyman Cinema tickets

Spa and Beauty Salon vouchers

Local pub vouchers

1-2-1 tennis lesson with Mr Entwisle

Gym memberships & coaching passes

Harvey Nichols hamper

1-2-1 Drama lesson with Mrs Lynch

And many more items!