Upcoming Diary Dates

This week	Event	Details
Thursday 29th February	Parent Workshop ‘Understanding Young Children’s Behaviour and Responding from the Heart’ 9am	Jo Pearce shares teachings from the work of Dr Emmi Pikler, mid-century pioneer of progressive parenting and freedom of movement for children. Using the Pikler lens we will look at how we can use bodily care moments (eating, dressing, bathing etc) as a starting point for connecting through the heart. This aids relationships to root in secure attachment, and becomes a springboard for children’s sense of self and freedom to express themselves in self-directed play and joy in their work. For more information and how to book onto this workshop, please follow this link: https://forms.office.com/e/9RNJzkbSyf
Thursday 29th February	8BillionIdeas ‘Design the Next Toy Craze’ Workshop for Birch Class 9am – 12pm	After such enthusiastic response from Oak and Chestnut children last term, we are welcoming 8BillionIdeas back to facilitate an entrepreneurial workshop for Birch Class. We are also delighted to be welcoming Year 3 students from Hall School Wimbledon to be joining us for this workshop.
Friday 1st March	Community Clear-up at our Growing Spaces 8:35am	Thank you to all the volunteers who have signed up to help give our allotments some much-needed tender, loving care. Let’s hope for a sunny morning for our working party.
Friday 1st March	Open Day 11:30am -1pm	We look forward to welcoming prospective families to visit our school to find out for themselves what makes our school so special. To book onto our Open Day please follow this link: thelondonacornschool.co.uk/open-day
Next week	Event	Details
Monday 4th March	Ready, Steady Read sponsored reading week starts	As we celebrate the culture of reading in the lead up to World Book Day, this week is a great opportunity for us all to focus on reading while also earning money for new books for our school library. Ready, Steady Read reading logs will be handed to children on Monday 4th March.
Tuesday 5th March	Junior and Kindergarten Parent Meetings	Your child’s Class Teacher will be emailing you with details on how to sign-up for a Parent Meeting, either in person or remotely.
Wednesday 6th March	Junior and Kindergarten Parent Meetings	These meetings are an opportunity to discuss your child’s emotional, social and academic progress.
Friday 8th March	Walk & Talk – Parents of Year One (Older Kindergarten children) 8:35am	Sarah will be meeting with parents of Year One (the top of Kindergarten) in the park to answer questions about the forthcoming transition to Junior School.

Welcome from our Headteacher

Our assembly series for this half term and beyond is about defining, exploring and celebrating diversity.

We started last Monday, when we agreed that, no matter how interesting or agreeable a single individual might be, the world would be very boring if it only consisted of one sort of person. We then conducted a fun experiment to establish how different view points can move a task on to success; two students squeezed out toothpaste and we noted how approaches can be different even to this everyday task. They were then asked to get the toothpaste back into the tubes, and that was a bit more challenging. Luckily, supported by different outlooks in the room, and surrounded by other students eager to help, they got a fair bit of toothpaste back in.

In future weeks we will explore and celebrate other areas of human difference, from different abilities and disabilities to differences in human appearance, different family shapes and family cultures and beliefs. We will focus on how to respectfully recognise difference and cherish and respect it, so that everyone feels belonging and a sense of being heard. We will also explore the challenges that people might experience in coping with difference.

Please support us by celebrating and accepting difference with your child. They may have friends, classmates and family members with varying personalities, needs or appearance. If we support them by modelling our own openhearted understanding and acceptance, they will continue to embrace diversity and create that deep sense of settled belonging together that is a hallmark of a deeply happy group in childhood.

With warmest wishes,

Sarah

Announcements, Reminders and Important Information

CONGRATULATIONS:

As a school, we would like to say a huge congratulations to Coach Jody and his wife Vivienne on the arrival of Amelia Rose Smith on Sunday 18th February. We hope you are all doing very well and look forward to meeting the latest member to our school community soon.

GROW SPACES – COMMUNITY CLEAR UP:

We will be running a community clear up of our allotment grow spaces on the morning of Friday 1st March, for an hour and a half after drop off. If you fancy joining in, please bring along your boots and a spade or trowel. We are aiming to get the little paths woodbarked and the edges of the beds painted.

We would also welcome some help with flower arrangements for our Open Day event later that morning.

PARENT SURVEY -THANK YOU:

Thanks to the very many of you who responded to our recent survey on the reasons that drew you to The London Acorn School. We are very proud to let you know that the key reasons why most parents chose our school are an appreciation that we protect childhood and that we support and promote contact with nature and the natural environment. In individual responses many families mentioned the care and love demonstrated by teachers. This makes us very proud to hear, thank you to all of you who responded.

READY STEADY READ FOR WORLD BOOK DAY!

Letters have been sent to parents about our sponsored read.

World Book Day will be celebrated at our school on Monday 11^th March. So many children love dressing up for it, we also have activities for children who prefer to celebrate in other ways.

Kindergarten: Our kindergarten groups are working with Sibylle von Olfers‘s The Story of the Root Children. If your child wishes to, they may dress up as a flower or plant. Homemade costumes only please.

Junior School: Your child may dress as any character from a book. We will have the opportunity to make a small presentation in school so please can they bring the book with them that features their character. If their costume has a headpiece, please can they enter school with the headpiece off, to avoid reactions from younger children who might find some headpieces a bit of a shock to see! Homemade costumes only please, as simple or complex as you prefer.

UPDATED SPRING CALENDAR:

Please take a careful look at the latest edition of the spring calendar at the end of this newsletter with extra events added, such as a Junior Flute and Recorder Concert for parents to attend.

EASTER HOLIDAY CAMP WITH COACH JODY:

Kindergarten News

It rained; it rained and it rained, but nothing can stop us from having fun outside. The chains of puddles everywhere in the park have become the best playground for kindergarten children. We walked forth and backwards; we jumped; we listened to the splashing water drops and felt the spongy ground. We noticed the blossoms on the trees and the cheerful daffodils. Spring is coming!

This week, we listened to the Story of the Root Children. While we followed the root children’s preparation work and marvellous procession through the pages. Children excitingly pointed out their favourite colours and chose the flowers that they would like to become. We also ran with the flippy-floppy pancake at circle time and had the most delicious pancakes lovingly made by Ola on school pancake day! The sweet memory of the day made all of us counting for the next year to come. Everyone was happy to see each other after half-term holiday. We greeted Dawn and Paxton into Kindergarten and children have been very helpful to them. There were calm and gentle play inside.

On Monday, the 26^th of February, the time slots of parent consultation meeting will be posted on Bridge Door for all kindergarten parents to book their sessions. The main themes of this half-term is Spring and Easter. Please help your child preparing two blown-eggs to bring to the school in the next couple of weeks. As we would like to try to dye the egg shells with vegetable peels this year, eggs with white shells would be more preferable. Thank you!

Junior School News

Willow Class have hit the ground running with division this week, learning why Davina Divide does not get on with Tommy Times. One of them wants to halve everything and the other double!

We’ve also been working really hard with knowing the difference between odd and even numbers, our 2x table and 3x table. If you’re able to, please support this with practice on your way to school, e.g. ask your child about the 3x table orchestra, although watch out for 30! A firm foundation of number knowledge will really help us progress with the four operations.

Birch Class have started working on their class play this half term about St Francis and the Wolf. It is wonderful to see children getting involved in all aspects of production: from making props with Doug in Art, to performing piano pieces, to trying out different acting roles. We can’t wait to watch this performance!

Birch Class are also pioneering for us Les Puces resources and teaching with Howard in French. It looks as if we are off to a creative and exciting start.

Oak and Chestnut Class: first week back and everyone was engaged in building some great main lesson book work on rivers and how they are formed, starting our models for “Green my City” and creating our first electrical systems together. This half term will be all about making, including making books from scratch and walking together, all with a watery theme. Moreover, in Maths, students have been learning the difference between short and long division. Finally, in Woodwork, this class have started their 3D cam mechanisms – we look forward to seeing how many heads they can turn!

Woodland Craft News

Willow Class

The craze for boats took a fresh turn after I’d been inspired over half-term by the rough little rafts shown by Hew Locke in the Entangled Lives exhibition at the Royal Academy. After much stick gathering and good knotting practice, lots of vessels floated well, while some students chose to play by the stream. Next week I hope everyone will complete another project, the printing of flags (or perhaps they are really sails!?)

Birch Class

Birch students used their staffs to measure puddle and the stream- depth, balance on logs and double up as ski sticks. I suggested making cloth cones stuffed with nesting materials for birds – but Birch class wanted nothing as prosaic as that, and opted instead for imaginative projects such as making an adder, stitching leaf-boxes, weaving and wrapping sticks for birds to find. Lots of games of coo-whit and their own made-up games made a peaceful afternoon.

Oak and Chestnut Class

We discussed polar bears and global warming briefly, and considered what we can do to protect biodiversity. After examining several of those wonderful crustaceans, the woodlice, we decided to make a tiny deadhedge. This was designed as a barrier to discourage humans from making too many little paths that cut through the undergrowth, and to give the invertebrates shelter. Students enjoyed snipping with the secateurs, and several games of ‘sink and fade’.

Lunar New Year – The Year of the Dragon

Thank you to all the creative, beautiful and thoughtful interpretations of Dragon Art received last week. You’ve put time and dedication into your project, well done!