Miss Hamalis’ Bulletin – Wednesday 8 January 2025

Please see updated Staff List 2024/2025  A reminder that you can also read about the staff and find photos of them on Firefly (please use your daughter’s login details): Staff Bios on Firefly.

Please find the email contact details of the staff: JS Key Contact information. Please could we ask that your specific query is directed to the appropriate individual and anything of a more serious nature is directed to a member of the Senior Team. Please note that Miss Hamalis needs to approve all requests for absences so please send them via the Junior School Office: jsoffice@channing.co.uk. 

In order to prevent unnecessary awkwardness and/or embarrassment, please remember to address members of staff by their title and surname. 

Please be mindful that staff may not pick up emails immediately (teachers will, of course, not be checking emails when they are teaching, running clubs or supervising pupils at break and lunchtimes) and may choose to take time to investigate the matter before responding. However, they will endeavour to answer your queries within 24 hours. Please do not think that a lack of instant response means a lack of interest on the part of the member of staff. 

Please note that staff are not expected to reply to emails outside normal school hours, weekends or during school holidays. If you have an emergency which needs to be dealt with before school next opens, please email: jsoffice@channing.co.uk. Please do not send communications or information to communication@channing.co.uk or info@channing.co.uk.

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.  

During the week commencing Monday 13 January, we will be celebrating Hockey Week. Aedan McCrossan will coach the girls throughout the week. He currently plays for Southgate Mens 1’s and has represented Scotland for several years. Katie MacCallum (PE Assistant, Senior School) will also be supporting the week. She is an impressive hockey player who has also played for Scotland and is currently in Southgate’s Womens 1’s.

Please ensure all Year 1 – Year 6 girls bring in their hockey equipment for all PE lessons during the week.

As the Young Art Competition exhibition (see details below) is being held in the Library on Monday 13 January, there will be no Late Collection provision for Reception and KS1 on this day. If you are late to collect your daughter on Monday 13 January, she will be taken to Mini Owls where she will be dismissed at 3.35pm at the main gate.

Club allocations for the Spring Term are visible on the Parent Portal. Here, you can view all the clubs your daughter(s) has been assigned, including whether she has a confirmed place or is on a waiting list. It is essential to review your daughter’s club assignments to ensure the details are accurate.

Please note that many clubs are oversubscribed. While we strive to accommodate as many pupils as possible, maintaining appropriate pupil-to-teacher ratios for both our Waiters provision and the clubs themselves is crucial. With over 100 clubs offered each term, we are unable to expand capacity or add additional clubs at this time.

If your daughter will no longer be attending a club she has been allocated, please notify Miss Radford at jsreceptionist@channing.co.uk. This will allow us to offer the place to another pupil on the waiting list. Additionally, please be aware that once externally-led clubs begin, the full block of lessons for the Spring Term will be charged and included in your end-of-term bill.

Thank you for your understanding and cooperation.

Due to the 4+ assessments scheduled over the coming weeks, some Spring Term Clubs will not commence until the week beginning Monday 20 January, due to room and staffing constraints.

The following before and after-school clubs will not start until the week commencing Monday 20 January:

• Monday: Reception Ballet and Key Stage 1 Ballet
• Tuesday: Reception Ballet and Years 3&4 Gymnastics
• Wednesday: Key Stage 2 Gymnastics Squad, Key Stage 1 Karate, Reception Storytime and Years 4&5 Samba Band
• Thursday: Key Stage 2 Gymnastics Training Squad, Years 3&4 Choir, Key Stage 1 Cheerleading and Key Stage 2 Spears String Orchestra
• Friday: Key Stage 2 Folk Band, Key Stage 2 Cheerleading and Key Stage 2 Karate 

Please liaise with Miss Radford to sign your daughter(s) up to Mini or Late Owls, should you require this: jsreceptionist@channing.co.uk 

We are delighted to be able to welcome parents of Year 4, Year 3 and Year 2 pupils into school to watch your daughters in their Year Group Assemblies this term. They will be performed, in Fairseat Hall, to pupils and staff on Mondays and to parents on Wednesdays from 8.30am-9.00am. To watch your daughter’s performance, please arrive no earlier than 8.25am when you will be asked to sign in at the iron gates to be escorted to Fairseat Hall by our Specialist Teachers. 

The dates of the Year Group Assemblies this term are: 

• Year 4 Year Group Assembly – Wednesday 29 January
• Year 3 Year Group Assembly – Wednesday 12 February
• Year 2 Year Group Assembly – Wednesday 26 March

Pupils in Reception and Year 1 will have their Year Group Assemblies in the Summer Term. More details to follow.

From Monday 20 – Friday 24 January, we will be celebrating Maths Week. The theme is ‘Maths Through Stories.’ Each form will be using picture books to explore mathematical concepts tailored to their year group, enabling Mathematics to be brought to life in a meaningful and memorable way.

On Monday 20 and Tuesday 21 January, the girls will be taking part in a Maths Through Stories workshop provided by Curious Maths. These workshops will challenge them to work collaboratively on a range of challenging mathematical problems embedded within the story 365 Penguins, sparking curiosity, creativity and further promoting their’ love for the subject. 

On Friday 24 January, we are once again joining up with the NSPCC, for an early Number Day. The girls (and staff) are encouraged to take part in ‘Dress up for Digits’, raising money to support NSPCC services such as Childline and the Speak Out, Stay Safe programme. There is a suggested £2 donation; pupils will be on hand to collect these on the gate the morning of Friday 24 January. The girls are invited to come into school dressed as a number; this could be anything from wearing a football shirt with a number on to dressing up as a dice. Some girls may choose to come in as a character from the story 365 Penguins on which their workshop was based; this is also encouraged! To help us be more sustainable, we encourage the girls to make an outfit using items they already have. We look forward to seeing their creativity!

Our series of curriculum talks, led by our Subject Leads, continue this term. These in-person sessions, open to all parents and carers, will provide an overview of the curriculum in the key areas as outlined below. You will gain insights into what and how your daughters will be learning throughout this academic year and beyond.

As this is a valuable opportunity to engage directly with our Subject Leads and to ask questions about the curriculum, teaching approaches and how to best support your daughter’s learning journey at home, the sessions will not be recorded. If you would like to attend one of more of these in-person evening talks, please sign up below using the linked Google Forms. 

Schedule of Talks:

• Reception – Year 6 Music: 14 January, 6.00pm – 7.00pm in Fairseat Hall
• Reception – Year 6 PSHE and Emotional Management: 23 January, 6.00pm – 7.00pm in Fairseat Hall

We look forward to welcoming you and appreciate your ongoing support in helping your daughter achieve educational success, as we strive for all of the girls to be ambitious, realise their full potential and become the very best versions of themselves.

We have collaborated with TooledUp Education: an invaluable digital library of evidence-based resources on all aspects of parenting, education and family life. Founder, Dr Kathy Weston, has collated the best and most up-to-date research from around the world and distilled it into usable, easy to understand resources which can be instantly applied to daily life. Channing Pin: cha0706

For more information about this resource, see the dedicated section below. 

For upcoming TooledUp courses and events please click here. 

• Thursday 23 January 1.30pm ~ An Introduction to Endometriosis
• Monday 27 January 10.00am ~ Everything Parents Need to Know about Roblox
• Thursday 30 January 7.30pm ~ Parental Engagement in Learning – Small Things, Big Impact

All Junior School submissions for the Young Art competition will be exhibited in our Library on Monday 13 January between 3.00pm and 4.30pm. Artists who have entered are welcome to come along after school to view their pictures with their family. Entries will then be sent off for judging and those selected will appear at a special exhibition in April at the gallery@OXO on London’s South Bank.

All artwork must be brought into school by this Friday and sent to Mr Fellows (Art & DT Lead). Entries should have the artist’s name and year group clearly displayed on the back. This year’s theme is ‘Faces and Places’ and artworks should be an A4-sized painting, drawing or print (no digital artworks or photographs allowed). Good luck to all entrants!

Parents are requested to give advance notice to the school if they intend their daughter to be absent. Please write to Miss Hamalis via JSOffice@channing.co.uk with your request. Please complete this form outlining the days your daughter will be absent from school due to religious observance.

The girls (and staff) are very lucky to have a delicious and nutritious lunch every day. Have a look at the menu options for this term on the website.

You are very welcome to send in nut-free cakes or treats for your daughter to celebrate her birthday with her form or year group. Please ensure that they are separate cakes or treats rather than a large cake that needs to be sliced. Additionally, please be mindful of the size of cakes: they should be no bigger than a child’s hand. Due to health and safety, please do not send in cake pops or boiled/hard sweets. Furthermore, please do not send in treats for any other occasions without prior permission from your daughter’s Form Teacher. Thank you in advance for taking particular dietary requirements within the form into account when planning birthday treats.

The Spring Term Curriculum Newsletters for each year group as well as the Information for Parents documents (shared in the Autumn Term) have been shared on the Year group Firefly pages to view and download; please log in to Firefly using your daughter’s account details. You can also click the document links below:

Recommended Reading Lists for each year group are available to view and download from Firefly. Please remember you can contact the teachers directly if you have any questions or in fact, ask them at the gate when you collect your daughter(s).

Following parental feedback at our English and Mathematics Curriculum Talks, Form Teachers of pupils in Years 2-6 will now upload example spelling lists to your daughter’s year group Firefly page. The words included in these lists will correspond to the RWI Spelling Unit that your daughter is learning in English. The spelling lists will remain on Firefly for the year, so that your daughter can continue to go back and practise previous spelling rules too. Please note that the lists will include examples of words that demonstrate the spelling rule being covered in lessons, rather than a fixed list of words that your daughter must learn. Pupils will not be formally tested on the words uploaded. Not all words that follow the rule will be included in the list, so we encourage you and your daughter to explore other words at home that fit the same spelling pattern. We hope that the addition of these spelling lists will help you support your daughter in practising her spellings at home.

Year 6 Firefly RWI Spelling Words

Year 5 Firefly RWI Spelling Words

Year 4 Firefly RWI Spelling Words

Year 3 Firefly RWI Spelling Words

Year 2 Firefly RWI Spelling Words

Listen on: Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Channing Website

In our latest episode of Chatting with Channing, we are delighted to feature Simon Singh, the celebrated author and TV producer behind bestsellers such as Fermat’s Last Theorem, The Code Book, and The Simpsons and Their Mathematical Secrets. Simon was this year’s speaker at the sold-out annual Christmas STEM lecture, From Theorems to Serums, From Cryptography to Cosmology…and The Simpsons.

Interviewing Simon in this episode are two of Channing School’s keen sixth-form mathematicians, Alisa and Natalia. Simon takes us on a whirlwind journey through his life and career, as Alisa and Natalia pose engaging questions that explore the pivotal moments that ignited his passion for mathematics and his transition into media. Simon’s insights are inspiring not only for students but also for anyone interested in blending technical disciplines with creativity. He also uncovers the hidden mathematical gems in The Simpsons and offers valuable advice for those eager to delve into the world of STEM.

This episode is a must-listen for anyone who loves science or maths – or for those seeking inspiration from someone who has followed their curiosity to unexpected and rewarding places.

• Tuesday 28 January 7.45am-8.30am: PreLoved Uniform Sale

• Sunday 9 February, evening: North London Laughs Charity Comedy Night, with Channing parent offered first-access to tickets

• Saturday 15 March, 4.30pm-7.30pm: Charity Swimathon in Poolside Manor

• Sunday 18 May: Summer Fair ‘Chanfest’, held in the Junior School grounds