St Paul's Newsletter
Friday 13th June 2025
Message from Mrs Evans
This is the word cloud created from the comments and feedback on the parent/carer survey - so much to be proud of! The full feedback can be viewed here: Parent/Carer Survey 2025 - Feedback
Summer Fair
Even with the weather keeping us guessing, the PSA delivered an absolutely fabulous summer fair. The animal sessions were an absolute hit and it was wonderful to see the children and families having so much fun as they made their way round the different games. We had wonderful dance and musical displays; it was lovely to see our community coming together for such a positive day! The PSA raised an incredible £4990 and are also expecting a little bit more to come in through match funding. This is a wonderful outcome for us and starts us on our fundraising journey for our new music room!
There will be some changes to the PSA team next year and I would like to take this opportunity to say a huge thank you to Kirsty Sibley, Caroline Wales, Emma Sims and Rebecca Taylor who have been leading this for the last few years. You should be incredibly proud of what you have achieved with our community to support our school! Look out for further details about how you can get involved in supporting the PSA.
Year 1 Phonics Check & Year 4 Multiplication Tables Check
We have been very proud of our Year 1 and Year 4 pupils this week who have all taken part in the Year 1 Phonics Check and Year 4 Multiplication Tables Check. They have shown such a positive attitude towards this. We will be sending the results out to parents/carers when they are officially released to us later this month. A huge thank you to Mr Fleming and Miss Chomse for all of the hard work that has gone in to helping the children to prepare and to the parents/carers for their support at home too.
KS2 Sports Day (and Year 2 Races) Reminder
Our KS2 Sports Day will take place on the Hollyfield School Field on Somerset Avenue next Thursday - 19th June. Parents/Carers are welcome to join us at the field from 9:15am to watch the field and track events. We will be finished at 11:45am approx and will then be taking children back to school for their lunch and the rest of the day as normal. The weather is forecast to be hot, so please do bring plenty of water and suncream, and ensure that children have a full bottle of water, hat and suncream on too. They will bring their snacks across to the field and we do ask that parents/carers do not bring any other food for them.
Year 2 Races
Year 2 will have the 'races' element of their sports day on the Hollyfield School Field at 1pm on Thursday 19th June and parents/carers are very welcome to join us there. Children will each take part in at least 3 races. The races session will end at approx 2pm and we will take the children back to school at the end of this and they will be collected as normal at 3:15pm. We will ensure that the children each bring full water bottles over to the field and are asking that parents/carers ensure that they send in a hat with their child to wear.
PSA London to Brighton Cycle Ride
We are so grateful to the parents/carers taking part in the London to Brighton Cycle Ride this weekend. You are doing a wonderful thing to raise money for our school - thank you! Here is a little something prepared by the children:
//www.youtube.com/embed/L1rF8vd5ldk#t=0.5
If you would like to donate, you an use the QR code here or follow this link: PSA Peddalers - Go Fund Me Page
| Parent/Carer | Year Group/s Represented |
| Mark Bottell | Reception and Year 3 |
| Mick Edwards | Reception and Year 3 |
| James Elvy | Year 3 and Year 4 |
| Ian Curd | Year 3 |
| Dave Holdaway | Year 3 and Year 5 |
| Antony Baxter | Year 1 and Year 4 |
| Aron Sibley | Year 3 and Year 6 |
| Bea Wlodarczyk | Year 2 and Year 4 |
| Alannah Sandham | Year 1 and Year 2 |
| Tom Harvey | Year 3 and Year 6 |
| Ed Sillars | Year 2 |
| Simon Erith | Year 4 and Year 6 |
| Mike Underwood | Reception and Year 1 |
Here are some photos of members of the team on their training rides:
PSA Cycle Challenge 2025 - Training Photos
New Wraparound Care - 'The Bridge' Update
Numbers at 'The Bridge' are beginning to stabilise but it wonderful to see some new children every week attending a session or two. Our Southborough sixth formers have started as Wraparound Care Assistants and are doing a wonderful job. We are delighted that some of them are enjoying being with us so much that they are offering to volunteer to help at Sports Day.
James and Mrs Momp continue to look out for different fruits for the children to try - pomegranate went down well - and Mrs Momp has even been taking some requests for items like crumpets at breakfast club. James and his team continue to work hard to make the daily games and activities exciting for the children by giving a new theme to each week. We continue to be grateful for the support being shown by our families, including the positive comments on the parent/carer survey - thank you.
Attendance Overview
Classes - since last newsletter
| Reception | Year 1 | Year 2 | Year 3 | Year 4 | Year 5 | Year 6 |
|
96.01% |
94.84% | 95.86% | 96.38% | 95.28% | 95.69% | 96.11% |
Whole School - since the start of the year
| Our Target | Current Attendance | National |
| 97% | 95.73% | 93.3% |
Holidays in Term Time
I would like to remind all parents that holidays during term time will be recorded as an unauthorised absence. These cause disruption within the class due to children missing parts of the learning in topics which will later be built upon and can lead to children being unsettled on their return to school.
Holidays in term-time should only be taken for 'exceptional circumstances' which means that this would not be a regular (including annual) occurrence.
We are currently reviewing our attendance strategy and are closely monitoring the link between term-time absence and an increase in support needed for some of our pupils and families in school.
If you are considering a term-time holiday, I would really ask that you reflect on the confusion in the messaging to the children when they are taken out of school for a holiday having been told up to that point (and after) that they 'must' attend school.
Please look out for further updates about the changes to our strategy in the coming year.
Birthday Treats
A reminder that we do not allow cake or sweets to be given out on children's birthdays. If you are keen for your child to be able to share a treat with their class to mark the day, please provide a platter of fruit to be shared by the class or a new book to be added to the class library.
School Website
Please remember to make use of the school's website and calendar (which can be synched to your phone) for reminders and updates.
Support with Behaviour Concerns
A plea to parents/carers that if they have concerns about an incident that has taken place at school, that they avoid directly contacting other parents as this can lead to both misunderstandings and upset. We ask that any concerns are brought directly to school staff and that school are then left to deal with these. We will always follow up any concerns brought forward and would always prefer to find out more and resolve these within the school day (wherever possible) as this makes it easier for the children to accurately recall what has taken place. One of our key priorities is developing positive relationships across our community and this is something that our families can do to support us with this.
School Trips/Visits Policy
At St Paul's we have developed a rich programme of trips and visits to support our curriculum. Whilst parents/carers will always be asked for permission for their child to attend, these experiences have been carefully chosen and planned to enrich our pupils' learning and therefore we are always keen to enable as many pupils as possible to attend.
We are always keen to hear from parents/carers if they have any concerns about a trip or visit and will then invite them to come in and meet with us to discuss this concern further in the hope that together we can create a plan of support which will enable their child to take part.
Please do not be surprised to be asked to come in if you have not given permission for a trip/visit - we really value these opportunities to have conversations about concerns and to consider what can be done to support.
Developing Healthy Online Habits
We are aware that even our youngest pupils have regular access to devices such as iPads and phones to access activities online. We wanted to share some top tips with families to support them in helping their children to develop a healthy relationship with this technology. Parents and carers can do this by:
- Setting clear limits on the amount of time that these are being used daily
- Ensuring that devices are being used in an area that allows adult supervision at all times
- Discussing with children how to respond if they see something online that they do not like or if they are contacted by someone that they do not know
- Having regular conversations about what they are accessing
- Setting boundaries around online device use and bedtime – ensuring that there is a period of time when children are not using these before going to bed.
- Creating healthy habits, open discussion and clear boundaries early in children's lives is extremely important as it is much harder to put these in place once unhealthy habits have been formed. The following guide gives some suggestion
If you would like any further support with this please see the information on our school website here: Online Safety Advice for Parents
Alternatively, please contact Mrs Evans or Mrs Griffin to arrange a time to discuss this with them further.
With Me in Mind - Mental Health and Wellbeing Support for Families
This newsletter is a place where we can share with you: resources, strategies and thoughts to consider. We are keen to reach more families with messages and resources that we use with your children at school. We look forward to receiving feedback on this new venture for us.
- So what do you want to know more about?
- Are there challenges that you are facing that you would like to consider differently? Please let us know your thoughts on this Google Form
In this issue:
A Book: A book that considers the relationship between two friends and how they overcome adversity. This story encourages us to consider how we say sorry.
A Look: How we have to consider others feelings when forgiving.
A Hook: Why can it be so hard to forgive?
Book..
Hook...
Look...
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Our Mental Health Team...
Sharon Griffin Lianne Cook Fahmida Wadud
Mental Health Lead Emotional Support Mental Health Support
PSA Updates
St Paul's PSA: ‘Bringing our school community together to create lifelong memories’
The PSA have done such a fantastic job in their fundraising over the last year which has made a visible difference to a variety of areas around the school. This year they have funded brand new libraries for both KS1 and KS2 which have made significant difference for our children. They have also provided author visits and science workshops for the whole school to enrich our curriculum offer further.
Upcoming PSA Events
- London to Brighton Cycle Ride - 15th June
- Picnic in the Playground - 4th July
Remember to check out our events guide on the PSA page which is a guide for families about what our different events involve and how you can help:
Look out for upcoming events
PSA Store
Don't forget to head over to our PSA store to get involved in the latest events using the link below:
Second Hand Uniform
We have a large amount of good quality second hand uniform available, please use the link below and follow these instructions:
- Once on the website click on the three lines to the right.
- Scroll down to ‘find your school’
- Select Kingston upon Thames as our Local authority.
- Select St Paul’s C of E KT9 1AJ
Please carefully read the instructions on when to collect your items.
Easyfundraising
Easyfundraising turns your daily shopping into every day magic!
Easyfundraising partners with over 7,000 brands who will donate part of what you spend to a cause of your choice. It won't cost you any extra. The cost is covered by the brand.
Brands pay Easyfundraising a commission because when you start your shop from the Easyfundraising website or app, they can see we sent you to them. If you make a purchase, a commission is generated, and we turn that into a donation - magic!
Click the link above to register to use Easyfundraising - remember to search 'St Paul's Primary School, Chessington' when searching for your cause and turn on the donation reminder. Every little bit helps!
Class News
Reception
We have started our new topic 'Minibeasts' and we have really enjoyed learning all about minibeasts so far. We have been on a minibeast hunt around the school and used a tally chart to record our data. Then following on from this, we made a bar chart as a whole class to show our results. We used our fine motor skills to use tweezers to save the minibeasts from the spider web and we have enjoyed pretending to be minibeasts, writing about what that minibeast might say if they could talk. We have been looking at how minibeasts move and used a random wheel spinner to choose what minibeast we would try to move like. In our writing, we wrote about our favourite minibeast and why it is our favourite. To help with our fine motor skills, we have also been putting gems onto lines to create a pattern. In Maths, we looked at different ways to make 6 and 8 using multi-link cubes to do this.
Reception 2024 Newsletter
Year 1
Year 1 Newsletter 2024
Year 2
Year 2 are embracing the busy summer term with a trip to the Rose Theatre, where we were entertained by the author and illustrator of the wonderful Shifty McGifty and Slippery Sam books. In Maths, we have been revisiting time and we have included some photos of us practising our o'clock times. In Geography, Miss Welland was very pleased with our knowledge of continents and oceans. In English, we continue to polish our descriptive writing and we are learning to use a thesaurus to up level our vocabulary.
Year 2 Newsletter 2024
Year 3
Year 3 have completed their stories about 'The Dream Giver' in English, focusing on writing a clear structure using paragraphs, inverted commas and fronted adverbials. We have learnt how to compare fractions and have enjoyed adding fractions with the same denominator. We have learnt about the function of roots in plants and have considered the importance of words and actions in RE. In PE, we have recapped skipping with a skipping rope from Year 2 and are looking forward to improving our skipping over the next few weeks.
Year 3 Newsletter 2024
Year 4
Year 4 has had a busy start to the final term! We started off visiting the Sikh Gurdwara which was very interesting and we had lots of questions to ask. We have been working hard on our times tables and have now completed the times table test! We started our topic of co-ordinates and plotting and translating polygons on a grid and gave instructions to guide each other to certain points blindfolded. It was harder then we thought! In History, we started our topic of the Bronze Age and located the Bronze Age on the timeline between the Stone Age and Iron Age. In RE, we spoke about what we could do to make the world a fairer place.
Year 4 Newsletter 2024
Year 5
In English, we’ve started reading 'Just So Stories' by Rudyard Kipling. We’ve really enjoyed exploring his creative language and thinking about how we might write our own versions of his imaginative tales. In Maths, we’ve been learning how to find fractions of amounts. It’s been quite fun working out problems and applying what we already know about multiplication and division. In RE, we went on a trip to the Buddhist temple in Wimbledon to help us build on our learning from last half term. It was really interesting to see how Buddhists live out their beliefs in real life. In DT, we’ve begun our new topic on bridges. We’ve been looking at different types of structures and thinking about what makes them strong and stable. In History, we’ve started learning all about the Vikings – we’ve found out who they were, where they came from, and why they came to Britain. We also had a brilliant time at the Barnes Literature Festival, where we met the author Jeffrey Boakye and learned that everyone has their own story to tell.
Year 5 Newsletter 2024
Year 6
Over the last two weeks, Year 6 have been diving deeper into their science work where we have focused on evolution and what fossils can tell us. We had fun looking at the information that fossils can give us vs the information that they cannot give us. We even found examples of fossils where we could work out if the species was social or solitary. We then as a class looked at some fossils of extinct animals and thought like scientists thinking about what similarities we could see to living creatures. We discussed how we could use some information we have on living species to make scientific deductions about fossils that we find. We also started to complete our shape work in our maths where we are beginning to think about how we can use our knowledge of regular polygons to find missing sides or angles. Finally, we've started to work on our songs for the production and rehearsing scenes - we are really working on finding our expressions to match the tone of the dialogue!
Year 6 Newsletter 2024
Team Points
Congratulations to Year 6 and Sapphires who were the Team Points winners for the week beginning 2nd June and to Year 5 and Diamonds who were the team points winner for the week beginning 9th June.
Wider Community News and Events
Surbiton Literary Festival - InvestiGATORS Event
Junior Parkrun comes to Chessington
The Junior Parkrun is a 2k fun run which takes place weekly at many different locations across the country. We are excited to announce that they have launched a weekly event at Lovelace Primary School on Sundays at 9am. It is a free event, but you do need to register in advance using the link here:
https://www.parkrun.org.uk/lovelaceprimaryschool-juniors/
It would brilliant to hear about some of our families taking part!
Family support Workshops
Achieving for Children’s Mental Health Support Teams are delivering a series of webinars for parents of primary-aged children. The ‘Helping Children with …’ series of webinars will cover a range of common difficulties experienced by children and will aim to share evidence-based strategies to help parents and carers support their children with these difficulties. Please use the link below to find further information.
Safeguarding Information
What if I have a Safeguarding Concern?
A reminder to parents and carers that if you have a safeguarding concern about a child this should be brought to Mrs Evans (Designated Safeguarding Lead) or Mrs Griffin (Deputy DSL).
There is lots of information on the school’s website to support parents in keeping their children safe (particularly linked to online safety) which can be found by clicking on the link below:
Road Safety Around Our School
We ask that parents and carers are considerate of the other members of both our school and local community when parking for drop off and collection. Please do not park on yellow lines or on the corners of local roads - markings have been placed on the road in spots where it will become dangerous if a vehicle stops. Parking in these places makes it very difficult for families to check that roads are safe for crossing and we are aware that this also applies to our Year 6 pupils who are walking home alone. Please leave time to find a suitable place to park safely and work with us to make the local roads as safe as possible for our pupils and families.
Key School Policies
Please take some time to familiarise yourself with our School Policies: 'Separated Parents Policy' and 'Communication and Conduct Policy'. These have been put together in consultation with the governing body who have now adopted these. Click on the links below to access them; they can also be accessed on the 'policies' page of the school's website.
Separated Parents Policy Communication and Conduct Policy
Key Dates for Your Diary
New or changes to dates shown in blue
- Tues 17th June: Year 6 'Moving on Up' Event
- Weds 18th June: Kingston Music Festival - Year 3 & Year 4
- Thurs 19th June: KS2 Sports Day - 9:15am to 11:45am at Hollyfield Fields (Parents/Carers welcome as spectators)
- Thurs 19th June: Year 2 Races Event - 1:00pm - 2:00pm at Hollyfield Fields (Parents/Carers welcome as spectators)
- Fri 20th June: Macmillan Afternoon Tea at 2pm
- Mon 23rd June: Year 5 Bikeability all week
- Thurs 26th June: Year 5 at Southborough Reading Conference
- Thurs 1st July: Year 5 Taster day at Chessington School
- Thurs 3rd July: Year 4 Keyboard Showcase at 2:40pm
- Fri 4th July: Year 1 Freshwater Workshop
- Fri 4th July: Year 6 Buddhist Temple Trip
- Fri 4th July: PSA Picnic in the Playground at 3:15pm
- Mon 7th July: Year 5 Albany Reach Trip
- Weds 9th July: Year 3 Kew Gardens Trip
- Thurs 10th July: Year 6 Leavers' Service at Southwark Cathedral
- Fri 11th July: Year 2 Bushy Park Trip
- Fri 11th July: Reception Ugly Bug Ball
- Weds 16th July: Year 5 and Year 6 Production at 9:15am
- Thurs 17th July: KS1 Sports Festival at school - 9:15am to 10:00am Reception; 10:15am - 11:00am Year 1 (Parents/Carers welcome as spectators)
- Fri 18th July: Year 5 and Year 6 Production at 9:15am
- Tues 22nd July: Year 6 Leavers' Service at St Paul's at 9:15am (further details to follow)
- Tues 22nd July: End of Term - 2pm finish
Remember to visit the calendar page using the link above and to link our school calendar to the calendar no your phone for automatic updates.
