School Newsletter : 27 November 2025

A HUGE thank you to everyone who attended our Thanksgiving Event last night.

It was lovely to have the chance to meet and mingle with parents & carers, both new as well as those who have left our school. It was also a joy to see some of our returning pupils, now in Year 7, 8 & 9, and a pleasure to see parents and children who will be joining our school in January 2026.

The evening was wonderfully successful, and a fantastic opportunity for the school staff and governors, to say a heartfelt ‘Thank You‘ to all of our amazing families for the support that they give to Burdett-Coutts.

Together, we (families and staff) make an outstanding team in nurturing our young people, providing wonderful opportunities for extra curricular experiences and opportunities, raising and removing barriers to reaching outcomes and achievements, whilst demonstrating respect, understanding, care and love for each other.

Thank you to Mr Carden and Ms Cameron for their preparation work with the school choir. Thank you also to our wonderful school choir, who for the first time had to sing with recorded music, something they’ve rarely had to do. However they were amazing and their acapella singing of O Holy Night, with no backing music, was simply beautiful. Well done!

Thank you also to our wonderful PTA team, who again have been instrumental in providing anther successful event for our school community to enjoy.

We were also delighted to be able to reveal the opening of Snowdomia at last night’s event. Earlier this year, we’d decided to throw caution to the wind and put our school’s Christmas displays up a notch and take it outdoors!

It was a bold decision and there were some challenges along the way; manifested by quite a few pauses during the planning, plus some ‘is this going to work?‘ moments!

However, as evidenced last night, Snowdomia was a hugely successful Christmas installation and what wonderful delight it has already brought.

It was truly heart warming to see and hear the sheer delight of the children showing their parents and carers around the displays last night; full of chatter about their artwork, their day of creativity and adding to the building of their general excitement for the festive season.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank my amazing school staff for the vast amount of planning, time and commitment that has gone into yesterday’s event; on top of the day-to-day teaching and support of their pupils.

Your attention to detail, and the care you show and apply in bucket loads to the vast range of extra curricular requests made of you is nothing short of AMAZING!

Not surprisingly, we have three very busy weeks of term left ahead of us, so please do keep an eye on the calendar section below to ensure that you don’t miss out on anything. We look forward to seeing you at many of the shared school events coming up during December.

Have a wonderful weekend.

Our School Christmas Lunch will be on Tuesday 9th December. Please see the menu below.

Children are welcome to wear their Christmas jumper on this day.

Parents & carers of those children with a packed lunch, if your child(ren) should prefer to have a Christmas Lunch instead on this day, please inform the school office by Wednesday 3rd December.

Kindly note there is £3.00 charge for the meal, which can be paid at the school office.

Thank you to those families who have dropped in gifts for this initiative. Our PTA volunteers, along with school staff, will be wrapping and labelling all gifts donated over the next few weeks.

We are still accepting donations of gifts to pass to a local charity working with families affected by homelessness, during this Christmas festive season.

From Wednesday 26th November until Tuesday 16th December, we will have an area available for families to leave a donated gift for this cause. Your gift could be a toy, book, board game or item of clothing.

You can choose to wrap your gift and attach a gift tag identifying whether the gift is for a boy or girl and the intended age it is for. Alternatively, you can drop the donation into school where we will wrap it and add the tag.

Thank you in advance for your support and the donations received to date.

Woof…

It’s beginning to look like Christmas

It was chilly winter day yesterday but it was such a heart-warming day of fun, festivities and franticness as everyone took part in Christmas Display Day!

I really enjoyed helping out with the building of Snowdomia and I must say, the pupils class projects are pawsome! I really love all the pretty lights and especially love the penguins – although I have been told they are not for me to play with!

This week, I have continued to have so much fun playing football in the playgrounds with the Breakfast Club pupils. As a bonus, we even had the chickens out ‘free range’ – although, they didn’t seem to want to join in with football. They did enjoy wandering around looking for grubs in the planters and receiving a few pats with the children though.

Wishing you all a wonderful long weekend – enjoy the crisp mornings and crunchy ground frost if you are out and about early. I am really looking forward to running around in the frosty fields this weekend. Paws crossed it doesn’t rain all weekend.

Love Biscuit x 

Parents & carers, please ensure that when pupil trip letters are sent home requesting permission for trips or visits, that you correctly read and complete the forms attached and return them to school by the date requested.

When forms are returned late, it is a challenge to manage and accurately provide the required confirmation / information to venues – which are usually requested 48 hours in advance. Furthermore:

• Our admin and catering teams face additional pressure to prepare lunch orders and first aid.
• These are difficult to amend at the last minute, and it also pulls them away from other duties & responsibilities they have.
• Teachers are also unable to assign group pupil:adult ratios to ensure a smooth trip briefing with other staff/parents supporting the trip.

Because of this, pupils will miss out on attending a trip if the correct permission slips are not returned by the designated deadline. Instead they will be assigned appropriate class work to complete in a supervised buddy class.

Many thanks for your understanding and support with this matter.

Please note that lip balms are not permitted in school.

Despite regular reminders, pupils often share these amongst their friends, which can lead to the spread of colds, flu and coldsores. These items also cause disruption and arguments, both in the classroom and the playgrounds, leading to interrupted teaching time and wasted time in resolving disputes.

If your child has a medical condition which requires any form of topical medication – such as a lip balm – please contact the school office so an appointment can be made with the school nurse. This will activate the appropriate protocols allowing designated pupils to be able to access this properly while in school.

Many thanks with your support in this.

A reminder that the following class assemblies will be on Fridays @ 9am. If attending, please be seated in the First Floor Hall by 9am.

• Year 3: Friday 5th December

Dear Parents/Carers and Pupils,

Many thanks to everyone who have safely navigated there way to school this week, amongst all the road and traffic disruption due to the water works taking place in our streets.

A polite health & safety reminder for those driving – please do not double park or block the roads around the school as this poses a real hazard to other users.

We will continue to support drop off and collection times as much as possible over the coming weeks by having a visual staff presence in and around the entrance to the school.

Road closures by Thames Water remain in effect from Monday 27th October until early December 2025.

• During this time, drivers will not be able to turn into Greycoat Lane from either direction. Barriers to prevent vehicle access will be put in place where the two blue lines are drawn on the map below.
• Please note you cannot turn into Rochester Street from Rochester Row, as this is one way street (and this would be going the wrong way). Please note that there is a camera on the street.
• Do ensure you review your travel routes to school before the new term starts, as those who drive will need to park in order to drop off and collect their children.
• As parking is very limited in our area, where possible we would strongly recommend using public transport and walking – rather than driving – during this period of works. Please note parking wardens do heavily patrol the areas.

For those with no alternative to driving, there will be a member of staff on the corner of Greycoat Street (Lane) and Elverton Street every morning, so that pupils can be dropped here.

Kindly note that this will be in the mornings only and only for drop offs. You will not be able to park here to walk your child into school. Please secure correct parking in the afternoons in order to collect your child/ren.

Full pedestrian access is still in place down Rochester Street (from Rochester Row) and from Elverton Street, along Greaycoat Lane to the main school gates, as shown as pink lines on the map.

If you have any queries, please email the school office. Kindly note that we will only be able to respond on Monday 3rd November, when school resumes after the half term break.

Kind regards,

BC Admin Team

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 >

This week, Preschool have been exploring the story Dear Zoo. To make reading time extra engaging, we added a special twist. Each day the children opened a new “present” delivered from the zoo! Inside each gift was one of the animals from the book. Throughout the day, we learnt more about the animal we had unwrapped, where it lives, the sounds it makes, and whether it is big or small. The children loved the excitement of discovering a new character each morning, and it provided wonderful opportunities for conversations, curiosity, and imaginative play.

In Numeracy, Nursery have been exploring 2D shapes. The children have been discussing what makes a shape 2D and noticing the different shapes we see all around us in our everyday environment; doors, windows, signs, and lots of hidden shapes too! For their main activity, theychose a 2D shape and worked on matching it to a corresponding shape on the table, helping them build confidence in recognising and naming familiar shapes.

Alongside all the Christmas crafting and seasonal excitement, our Reception children have been busy exploring positional language this week. Through fun, hands-on activities, they practised using words such as under, behind, next to, in front of, and between to describe where objects are placed. The children enjoyed applying their new vocabulary in festive challenges, showing growing confidence in describing the world around them. 

Year 1 have been busy sprinkling a bit of Christmas magic into their writing this week as they penned their letters to Santa. With careful words, kind wishes, and a few hopeful requests, the children sealed up their envelopes and set off on a short little walk to the red postbox. There was pure delight as each letter was posted through the letterbox, off on its journey to the North Pole! Now we will wait (very excitedly) to see if Santa writes back!

This week, Year 6 worked on their contribution to Snowdomia, the whole school collection of Christmas displays inspired by this year’s theme of Christmas Movies. Year 6 chose The Polar Express and with Ms Lavinia, who worked with them all day, the children worked in teams – much like little elves – to build the different elements of the story. They created the brick bridge that separates the two worlds of the film, the boy’s house where belief begins to fade and the North Pole where the magic is found again. They made 55 tiny elves with carefully crafted details, a Christmas tree made from pompoms topped with a golden star and extra snowy trees built from egg cartons. The children also designed their own characters in pyjamas, ready to travel to the North Pole with our very own Conductor, Mr Carden, to rediscover the magic of believing.

On one side of the bridge sits the boy’s house, along with the gift he receives from Santa at the end of the story: a jingle bell from the sleigh, reminding us of the message, “The bell still rings for all who truly believe.” On the other side, the North Pole is filled with elves pausing to watch the lit Christmas tree and Santa arriving with his sleigh. The project has been a real example of teamwork, creativity and collaboration. Every child contributed, supporting one another just like elves working in Santa’s workshop. At its heart, our display reflects the message of The Polar Express: that sometimes we need others to guide us, encourage us and help us rediscover the magic we may have forgotten.