Message from the Head Teacher - Alexandra Primary School

Message from the Head Teacher
Hello Parents and Carers,
It has certainly been a very busy term. The children have worked hard and achieved a
great deal. Hopefully they will tell you what they have been learning this holiday. All of
the weekly overviews are on the website in the learning pages so this can help as a
reminder. Winter / Christmas homework also appears on the overviews, along with
Doodle, Bug Club, MyMaths, Timestable Rocks stars and more, again these are
accessible from the Online learning pages. The children’s work this time is a selection
of year groups.

School will reopen at the usual time on Tuesday 4 th January 2022. Keep checking the
website for any updates regarding COVID precautions.
In school we are continuing to take reasonable precautionary measures and will
continue to promote good hand and respiratory hygiene. Please continue to use lateral
flow testing twice a week. If positive, you will need to get a PCR test for your child.
Public Health Hounslow provided a letter which we distributed to parents and can be
found on the website here:
https://www.alexandra.hounslow.sch.uk/index.php/news/news-detail/public-health-
hounslow-information
We continue to teach the school breathe techniques to the children. Ask them to
demonstrate. These can be used anywhere and are fun. Adults can use them too!
They can be found here on the website:
https://www.alexandra.hounslow.sch.uk/index.php/school-breathe
Nursery parents, please ensure that you have completed your child’s reception
application form online by 15th January 2022. Further information can be found on our
website at www.alexandra.hounslow.sch.uk/index.php/admissions-reception.
Parents, please sign up to National Safety Online, one of our safeguarding partners.
Please follow the link. Here you can get regular updates and find out more information
to help keep your child safe whilst they are online.
https://nationalonlinesafety.com/enrol/alexandra-primary-school-1
School uniform can be purchased from School Bells:
https://www.schoolbellsuniforms.co.uk/primary-schools/alexandra-primary-school.html
or you can visit the School Bells shop at 48 Bell Road, Hounslow, TW3 3PB.
A reminder that term time leave will not be authorised.
In the morning, the gates open at 8:45am for soft start and closes at 8:55am. Please
arrive promptly between these times. Infant and junior siblings to enter school via the
Denbigh Road gate, junior children via the Tiverton Road gate. Collection times are
3:20pm for infant children and 3:30pm for juniors. Please collect and leave promptly at
the end of the day.
Should you be more than 10 minutes late at home time, your child will then attend
aftercare and you will be charged. Whilst collecting junior children, younger children
should stand next to you and not play on any of the equipment.

No snacks should be brought on site for children before or after school. This can cause
children to choke when eating and walking or trip as they are not focused on walking
and children will not have washed their hands.
Last term, you will remember that we held a fundraising event for children of conflict.
The money raised was sent to the Children of Peace Charity. We have received a
lovely email thanking parents and the children for our donation. The money has been
used to train three nurses to support children. Thank you for your donations and thanks
to Sumayyah in Y6 for coming up with the idea following seeing an article in the news.
School will be sending home the digital version of the APS Chronicle. This is the
children’s newspaper. Many thanks to Miss King and her team for putting it together.
Miss King will be leaving APS at the end of term to return to Australia to see her family.
We thank her for all her hard work over the past three years and wish her all good luck
with the next stage of her career.
We hope to set up a preloved uniform shop in the coming term. The holiday period is a
good time to look out for uniform which your child has grown out of. We will be asking
for contributions at some point next term we hope. Many thanks in advance.

Over the holiday period, things can happen and at times we all might need a little
support. Foodbank information can also be found in the parent’s tab, information for
parent’s pages. Emergency information can be found on the website and here:

We have uploaded the Digital Parent information booklet to the website. This provides
some useful information about using digital devices with children.

At times, you may want to discuss concerns and issues with class teachers. We have a
number of ways of doing this. You can email the school using
office@alexandra.hounslow.sch.uk or telephone on 0208 570 6826.
We also have Year Group Leader emails which can be used for general concerns.
Year Group Leader Emails:
Nursery at Alexandra Primary School nursery@alexandra.hounslow.sch.uk
Reception at Alexandra Primary School reception@alexandra.hounslow.sch.uk
Year 1 at Alexandra Primary School year1@alexandra.hounslow.sch.uk
Year 2 at Alexandra Primary School year2@alexandra.hounslow.sch.uk
Year 3 at Alexandra Primary School year3@alexandra.hounslow.sch.uk
Year 4 at Alexandra Primary School year4@alexandra.hounslow.sch.uk
Year 5 at Alexandra Primary School year5@alexandra.hounslow.sch.uk
Year 6 at Alexandra Primary School year6@alexandra.hounslow.sch.uk
The Year Group Leader may answer directly or ask a class teacher to phone you.
Please ensure school has at least two contacts and that you keep us informed of
changes to mobile numbers and email addresses.
And don’t forget:

                              In December we have…

                21st December – Winter Solstice (the shortest day)
                     25th December - Christmas Day (Christian)
                            26th December – Boxing Day
                           31st December - New Year’s Eve

Thought for the week:

    Perseverance is not a long race; it is many short races one after another.

Question of the week:

          What do you think the world would be like if sweets were free?

Nursery - This week in Nursery we have been reading the final story from our Bears
topic ‘Snow Bears’. The children have been exploring with winter objects such as ice
and branches from a spruce tree. The children helped to decorate the home corner and
enjoyed talking about all of the bright and sparkling decorations. Through play we have
been counting lots of objects around the Nursery and saying when we find two amounts
that are the same.

Year 3 - In English, we completed our unit on diary entries while, in Maths, we have
continued to consolidate our 2, 4, and 8-times tables knowledge by practising
multiplication and division using these times tables.
In our ‘Animals, including Humans’ unit in Science, we identified that humans and some
other animals have skeletons and muscles for support, protection and movement. We
learned the names of some bones that make up the human skeleton and considered
what we would be like if we didn’t have any bones!
Hannah said, “If I didn’t have bones, I’d be all squidgy and I wouldn’t be able to run or
stand up.”
Aleks said, “It would be easier to damage the things on the inside because the bones
wouldn’t be there to stop things from hurting us.”
Shirley said, “You couldn’t move because you’d be flat on the floor. Your bones help
you move.”
                                                 Year 3 really enjoyed participating in the
                                                 wellbeing/anti-bullying workshop based
                                                 on the book ‘Kindness is all Around’. We

played lots of games to help us to think about
how we can consider our own and other
people’s feelings.

In Design & Technology, we learned how
                                              trapped air can be used to create a
                                              product with moving parts. We had great
                                              fun designing and creating our cardboard
                                              box ‘monsters’ with a pneumatic system
                                              for opening and closing the mouth.

Year 5 - Using our focus text ‘Journey to Jo burg’, we have written our own version of
a chapter of the book. To enable us to produce this, we have described our character
and setting. We used ‘role on the wall’ to help us understand the qualities both inside
and out of our character. We also used our ambitious vocabulary to help describe our
setting. Here are some examples of the work we have produced in this unit.

Science – In our unit ‘Living things and their habitat, we have
                     learnt about the exciting work of Jane Goodall with chimpanzees.
                     From our learning, we wrote an advert to persuade people to
                     donate to her charity.
                     We have also learnt about the lifecycles of insect, amphibians,
                     mammals and birds. We understand each stage and the correct
                     vocabulary for the stage.

In Geography, we have finished our learning about South Africa. We combined our
math sans Geography skills to produce a line graph about the varying temperatures of
places in South Africa. We also identified where South Africa is on a map and its
surroundings.

Examples of homework – we have produced some amazing homework both on paper
and on Google classroom. We have created lifecycles of insects for our Science
homework, produced a travel leaflet to persuade people to travel to South Africa and
we have written a letter from a character in our class text. Here are some examples of
our work:

In November school was visited by Ruth Cadbury,
Member of Parliament for Brentford and Isleworth.

She spoke about climate change with the children, who
were inspired by the messages she gave.

She listened to the children’s views and told them
about her work in Westminster to tackle the climate
crisis. Below are two children’s accounts of the visit.

Last week, the Member of Parliament for Brentford and Isleworth, Ruth Cadbury, came
to Alexandra to talk to us about climate change and the urgency of the situation.
Additionally, the school councillors informed her about the things we do to tackle
climate change as an alert school community. She explained to us about the necessity
of being aware of the problems surrounding climate change and the effect it has on the
world. Also, Ruth Cadbury enlightened us about what we could do individually or as
families to stop the tidal wave of global warming and climate change. Personally, I was
fascinated by the advice and information Ruth Cadbury gave us and enjoyed listening
as she delved into the certain specifics and details about climate change. Also, I think I
speak for everyone when I say the topic is very important to me and has no reason to
be ignored or disregarded. I was inspired by the methods Ruth Cadbury takes to lower
her carbon footprint including: wearing another jumper instead of turning on the heating
and finding ways to walk, cycle or use public transport. She also told us about COP26,
an event that I had heard a lot about, but she gave me a clear insight into the things
that happened.
After our meeting with Ruth Cadbury, I definitely feel more aware and passionate about
the topic of climate change and have a new point of view on the situation.

Aaliyah 6P

Last week, Ruth Cadbury, Member of Parliament (MP) for Brentford and Isleworth,
came to talk to Year 6 about climate change and COP26 (a huge programme about
changing the world). She mentioned about the grave issues relating to countries that
may just disappear in the future. She also noted concerns about the way transport is
used. This is not a joke and we should play our part to prevent climate change. We can
help by saving electricity, e.g. by turning the tap off when not using it or turning the light
off. To help our environment, we can commute by train or bus as it would prevent
congested traffic and it would help the air pollution. A huge part in saving our home
(probably the most important) is Recycling! Lots of unnecessary waste goes into the
ocean and one million sea birds and 100,000 marine animals and turtles die every year!
This information shows we clearly have a lot of work to do.
Alhai 6SC

         So as 2021 comes to an end, we often reflect on the past year and look
          forward to 2022. What are you able to do now that you couldn’t at the
                beginning of 2021? What will you be able to do in 2022?
      Have a really good holiday and all best wishes from all staff at APS. Have a
                          good holiday and Happy New Year.

                     Enjoy, read, relax, rest, recover and we will
                           do much more in the new year.
             What do you remember from this week, last month, last half term?