9th May 2025
Dear Parents
Well, the weather didn’t hold for bank holiday but it was still lovely to have an extra day to be with friends and family.
For a 4-day week we have squeezed a great deal in.
The Scholars Cup
The week started with The Scholars Cup for Year 4 sports. A football and Tag rugby team travelled to Samuel Ryder to take part in a Year 4 competition with all of the other Year 4s in the Trust Primary schools. We had a mixed result coming third in Tag Rugby and first in football. This translated into second overall by one point. This was a shame but as one of our delightful children said as we left, “Well, we won it last year so there was no real need for us to win it again”.
Our children showed perfect manners and sportsmanship throughout the event and were a real credit to our school.
In 2 weeks it is the turn of the Year 6 children to take on the Scholars Cup and we wish them the best of luck.
Year 3 & 4 Boys Football Team Impress at Local Rally
Our Year 3 and 4 boys football team recently took part in an exciting football rally, winning an impressive 3 out of their 4 matches. Despite narrowly missing out on a place in the semi-finals, the team played with great determination and skill. Throughout the event, they were frequently praised by other teams and coaches for both their strong performance and outstanding sportsmanship. Well done to all the boys for representing the school so positively!
VE Day
This week we have marked the 80th anniversary of V.E Day. In classes, children have learnt about the importance of this day and answered the enquiry question "Why is V.E day important to us?" by looking at sources of evidence including pictures, videos and written accounts. We also had a special assembly discussing the importance of the day, highlighting the role Harpenden Academy had as a centre for evacuees during WW2. We sang a song of remembrance to mark the occasion before heading out onto our playground for our street party. We thank Lee from Aspens for working extra hard to make sure each of us had a shortbread biscuit to enjoy. As you can see by all the smiley faces, we captured the essence of celebration of this special occasion!
The Festival Foyer has been decorated for VE day complete with a modal plane from the era. Dermot has excelled himself again!
SATs week, 12th May - 15th May 2025
The Year 6 children will be having their SATs next week. The SATs actually pale into insignificance as far as the children are concerned with the SATs breakfast being the most important event of the day! I am sure that the parents who are on breakfast duty that day have been informed and are ready to go – no pressure but the breakfasts get more and more spectacular each year!
We deliberately don’t pile on the pressure on the children when it comes to SATs. Our logo is “Educating Hearts and Minds” and we live by that. Cramming and hot housing our children would fly in the face of that. We prefer to teach the children solidly day in and day out so that all SATs become is 4 days out of a whole year. We don’t spend a whole year getting ready for 4 days. Usually, this becomes one of the children’s favourite weeks due to the care, attention and fun activities that sit between the papers. We of course wish our children the very best of luck in their tests and hope that they have a really positive experience of a test week.
On a serious note, can I ask however that parents and children set the alarms early next week so that we can have all the children here at the correct time, at the start of the day, so that we can all start our SATs together. Once the SATs start any late children will need to be isolated until the paper is over and will have to sit it separately from the rest of the class.
Mark the Science Man - Family Science Event - Hands On Science, Thursday 22nd May 6.30pm-8.00pm
We now have 18 families approx. 55 people signed up for Mark’s family science event on 22nd May. Thank you for letting us know and I will be passing on these details to Mark so he can plan for a great evening. All I know about this event is it is a new challenge so I will be really interested to see what it involves. It is still not too late to sign up to the event - please can we ask you to complete the form on the 'forms tab' of your Edulink by Monday, 12th May.
Traffiic Light Creative and Performance Arts, May Half Term Club
Booking is now open for May Half Term Holiday Workshops. We expect this to be a popular week, so please book early to secure your place!
Happy birthday this week: Cara-Leigh R (Yr1)
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