School Newsletter : 10 October 2025

A HUGE thank you to everyone who generously donated to our Harvest appeal this year. We were overwhelmed by the number of donations, all of which will go directly to help those in need over the next few months.

It was lovely to see many parents and carers join us in our Harvest Service this week. We were all blessed with many opportunities to see a range of pupils across the year groups participate in singing, musical performances, bible readings, prayers and a class poem.

It was also wonderful to see so many pupils bringing along their soft toy animals for the service. Alongside the school chickens and Biscuit, everyone was given a wonderul blessing by Graham.

Pupils were delighted about bringing their special toys to school and it was lovely to hear all about the toy that they had selected and how much it meant to them.

Well done to Year 3 who concluded our service with a wonderful recital of a poem, performed with great clarity and confidence.

A big thank you to all the parents and carers who joined us for our recent Nursery & Reception Parent Workshop!

It was wonderful to see such a fantastic turnout and to continue building strong partnerships between home and school. We hope you found the session informative and helpful.

An email will be sent out shortly with the presentation slides, and if you would like a copy of any of the resources shared during the workshop, please don’t hesitate to contact the school office.

Our Autumn term Parent Teacher Meetings will take place on Thursday 23rd October 2025.

Parents can book their meeting slots from 09:30 on Monday 6th October via the Arbor App.

Each appointment slot is 15 minutes long. The first 5 mins are set aside for you to look at, discuss with and comment on your child’s work before meeting with the class teacher.

Please remember to complete the feedback slip provided, before you meet with your child’s class teacher.

If you experience any problems signing up on the Arbor App, please contact a member of the school office team, who will be happy to assist you.

For Black History Month, and as part of the Not Forgotten project, Year 6 took part in a powerful session with historian Peter Daniel on the life of Walter Tull.

Walter was both a professional footballer and a soldier during the First World War. He left his career at Tottenham Hotspur to join the army and was quickly promoted to Sergeant in the “Football Battalion.”

In 1916, despite the rule that only white, British-born men could train as officers, Walter was allowed to continue his training and went on to become one of the first Black men in the British Army to be commissioned – and the first Black British officer to command white troops.

His story of resilience and courage showed the children how determination can break barriers and gave them the chance to reflect on issues of equality and identity while continuing to work as real historians through original sources.

Woof…

Happy Friday everyone. What a week of celebration and refelction we have had with not one but two wonderful services 🎉

It was great to see so many school friends and family at the Animal Service on Tuesday evening. And so pawsome to have many other animals in the church celebrating with us – it was especially exciting to see the two beautiful grey horses from the Metropolitan Police there.

I think Graham should invite them more often especially as everyone was so well behaved, including the humans!

I was very excited that the chickens could join us in church too. They have also enjoyed their time visiting our Preschool and Nursery classes this week. Just in case you’ve missed the news, following many suggestions from our pupils, their names have been confirmed as Cinnamon, Nutmeg and Nugget!

On Wednesday we came together for our Annual Harvest Service and the generosity of our Burdett-Coutts family is nothing short of pawsome 🐶 So many wonderful donations have been received which will go a long way in helping others.

It has been such a fun week in school but it does mean I have been quite tired in the evenings. However I am looking forward to a weekend of walks and swimming especially as the weather this weekend looks great.

Enjoy everyone and see you on Monday.

Love Biscuit x  🐶

On Tuesday this week, many of our school community along with our wider community came together for St Stephen’s Animal Blessing service, to celebrate and give thanks for the special animals in our lives.

We took time to reflect upon the many roles that animals play in our lives, past and present. Most importantly, the unconditional love that the animals we are blessed to have in our lives give us 🙂

Celebrating and acknowledging the important roles they play such as the police horses who protect and patrol our community and have a special partnership with their police rider; to the crucial role of Guide Dogs who provide someone with independence and security, to those who work within the armed forces, search and rescue and farming and forestry work around the world.

There were many animals in church for our service, including TWO beautiful police horses! All the animals received a blessing from David and Graham. and there was lots of lovely singing, including one of Biscuit’s favourite hymns, All Things Bright and Beautiful 🐶

We hope to see you there again next year and warmly welcome others to join us (pets not essential🙂).

Please ensure that your children are wearing the correct school uniform to school each day. It is important that all pupils are also wearing the correct school shoes – which are black shoes, and not trainers.

The Autumn/Winter term uniform options for pupils in Nursery to Year 6 are:

Please find here the agreed term dates set by our school’s Governing Body for the upcoming academic year, starting September 2025.

Please remember that holidays will not be authorised during the school term, and that all children should be in school (on time) every day.

Alternatively, you can click on the image thumbnail on the right to view the PDF (please note this will open in a new window) or you can click on the link below:

• Burdett-Coutts & Townshend Foundation CE Primary School Term Dates 2025-2026 >

Preschool had the chance to try tasting lemons this week. They were curious about the sour flavour and loved sharing their funny ‘lemon faces’. Afterwards, they explored using lemon halves as stamps, dipping them into paints and pressing them onto paper to create beautiful patterns. This activity encouraged creativity, fine motor skills, and a chance to notice the unique textures of fruit.

Nursery’s focus in numeracy has been all about patterns! The children had fun discovering how patterns work and identifying things around them that repeat. Using coloured cubes, they created their own patterned towers, carefully selecting which colour came next and explaining why. It was a fun and engaging way to build early maths skills through play and exploration

This week, we explored our core text Ruby’s Worry, a beautiful story about how worries can grow when we don’t talk about them. The children have been very brave and thoughtful, openly sharing their own worries. Together, we’ve been learning that talking helps, and practising a variety of other strategies to manage and cope with our worries.

Year 1 have been exploring the History of Childhood and discovering how life was different for Victorian children. To bring history to life, we transformed our class photos into Victorian-style portraits – helping the children imagine what it might have been like to live and learn in the past!

As Artists, Year 6 have been exploring the powerful world of street art and how it can be used to share messages and provoke thought. Inspired by real-world examples, the children discussed whether street art is positive or negative and looked at how artists use colour, scale and imagery to create visual impact. They designed their own street art concepts focussing on important environmental issues, such as ocean pollution and recycling, carefully planning how to communicate their messages clearly and creatively. Building on this, they studied the work of street artists like Edgar Müller to learn how perspective creates depth and realism. They practised drawing street scenes using one point perspective, learning how to use vanishing points, scale and shading to make their artwork feel three-dimensional.