Welcome to our first newsletter of the year which contains details about what the children have been learning and events in school as well as useful information about upcoming dates for the diary. It has been a great start to the term and the children have been positive and enthusiastic about being back in school. Even though we are only two weeks in, there has already been a lot happening.
The new Nursery children have settled brilliantly into life at Atwood and have had a positive start to the new term! They have loved exploring the provision – climbing the outdoor equipment, digging into our new sandpit, and whipping up tasty smoothies in the mud kitchen. Group time has been full of energy, with everyone singing along to 5 Little Ducks and 5 Little Monkeys. In storytime, the children enjoyed reading Lulu’s First Day and were able to compare Lulu’s adventures to their own first experiences at nursery. We also read Kindness Makes Us Strong, which taught us a great new sharing strategy: learning to ask, “Please can I use that after you?” We are so proud of how well everyone is settling in. Well done everyone.
Our Reception children have started and are now in school full time in their freshly refurbished classrooms. As well as learning the day-to-day routines, they have also been started learning some phonics. Read more here: https://www.pegasusacademytrust.org/news/eyfs/173095
This week, Year One read our first-class book, Red Rockets and Rainbow Jelly. The children used the story to talk about the different things they liked doing and eating. They also began identifying capital letters in sentences and spotting when they were missing. In maths, Year One have been looking at place value up to ten, counting forwards and backwards, as well as finding one more than a given number. In science, they shared all the different parts of the human body they knew and labelled an outline of the body with these body parts. For geography, they looked at various landmarks around Sanderstead and sorted them into human and physical features. Finally, Year One looked closely at their faces and the proportions of their features. They sketched their faces in preparation for making a self-portrait later this half term.
Year 2 have been enjoying reading the story of The Lonely Beast in English. The children have been focusing on using verbs in the past tense and they are looking forward to retelling the story next week. In maths, the children have been focusing on place value and practising counting forwards and backwards up to 100 and thinking about one more and one less than a number. The children have also partitioned numbers into tens and ones. In science the children have been learning about the basic needs for animals and humans. In Thematic, the children have begun learning about what life would have been like in the Tudor era.
This week, Year 3 have been up to so much! In English, the children are retelling the story on ‘Into The Forest’ by Anthony Browne and looking at writing in the past tense.The children learned all about the functions of a skeleton in Science. In Maths, they practised their place value skills by learning to find 10 more and 10 less of an amount. Finally, in PE, the children have been learning Victorian dances!
This week, Year 4 have created sentences with noun phrases and fronted adverbials for our retelling of Romulus and Remus. In maths, the children have learnt how to tell the time to the nearest minute and are now starting to convert analogue clocks to digital clocks. In geography, Year 5 have been learning about physical and human features and have located famous features in London and Rome using an atlas.
Year 5 have continued their English work based around the book ‘There’s a boy in the girls’ bathroom’. They are writing their narratives focussing on using relative clauses and dialogue. The children are all really enjoying the book! In maths, they have been ordering, comparing and rounding numbers up to 1 million. This term’s Thematic topic is ‘The Vikings are Coming!’ and year 5 have been researching the topic as well as ordering historical events chronologically on timelines.
Year 6 have made a fantastic start to the new school year and have already shown great determination, resilience and enthusiasm in their learning. This week, the children completed their first SATs practice activities, approaching the challenges with a positive attitude and working hard to demonstrate what they know. We have been incredibly proud of the effort they have shown already. We know that all our children have so many talents that can’t be measured by SATs and at this early stage, the baseline is just to help the teachers identify where the learning needs to go next.
In Maths, we have been working hard on place value, developing our understanding of the value of each digit in a number. The children have also been learning how to round numbers to the nearest 100 and 1,000, applying their knowledge to a range of different problems.
In Thematic, we have begun designing the front covers for our new Ancient Egyptians topic books. The children have carefully drawn side profiles of Ancient Egyptians, paying close attention to fine details and working hard to create accurate and detailed illustrations. We are looking forward to developing our knowledge of this fascinating civilisation over the coming weeks.
Finally, we were very lucky to have a TfL talk this week, focusing on how to stay safe when using different forms of transport around London. The children listened carefully and discussed important ways to keep themselves and others safe when travelling.
Breaktime snacks
All children in key stage one are entitled to a piece of fruit through the ‘Fruit for Schools’ scheme. This fruit is available for the children during morning break. This scheme does not extend into key stage two so children are allowed to bring a healthy snack to eat at break time. This should ideally be a piece of fruit or a fruit-based snack bar (although these can contain many hidden sugars). Unhealthy items such as crisps, chocolate wafers or biscuits are strongly discouraged. Please remember that we are a nut free school and no products containing nuts are allowed in school.
If you would like to know more about healthy snacks for children or what constitutes a healthy packed lunch, more information can be found here:
https://www.srnutrition.co.uk/2026/02/healthy-packed-lunches-for-children/
School Uniform
It is amazing to see how much lost property (some of which is brand new) we have already accumulated despite it being the beginning of term. Any items that are clearly labelled can easily be returned but we have many articles of clothing that are unlabelled. Please spend 10 minutes this weekend checking your child’s uniform making sure that everything has a name in.
DATES FOR THE DIARY
Please check these dates as the list is regularly updated.
Tuesday 22nd September: Indigo Class London Mithraeum visit
Friday 25th September: Amber Class London Mithraeum visit
Wednesday 30th September: Year 3 Crystal Palace Park trip.
Monday 5th October: Parents’ Evening
Wednesday 7th October: Parents’ Evening
Wednesday 7th October: Year 6 to Natural History Museum.
Friday 16th October – Show Racism the Red Card – Wear Red day
Thursday 22rd October end of half term
Tuesday 3rd November – First day back to school
Thursday 5th November: FOAP Fireworks display
Thursday 5th November: Year 1 Science Museum trip.
Friday 6th November: Magenta Class assembly
Friday 13th November: Indigo Class assembly
Friday 20th November: Cyan Class assembly
Friday 20th November: Year 4 Roman Workshop
Friday 20th November: Year 2 Hampton Court Palace trip
Friday 27th November: Amber Class assembly
Wednesday 2nd December: Year 1 church visit.
Friday 18th December: End of Term
Monday 4th January: Back to school
