Dear Parents and Carers,

I hope that you and your children have had a happy and restful half term break. It was really good to meet so many of you at Parents Evening and to hear how your children are settling back into the school. It was lovely to meet the grandparents who visited us for lunch that day.

We finished the half term with our Harvest Festival Assemblies. The Upper School told us about the work they had been doing in class growing and cooking food. Middle and Lower classes worked together to explore flour, dough and bread making. We all enjoyed singing the beautiful Harvest Calypso song that Kerry and Shakyra, our music therapist and teacher, taught us. Thank you so much for the generous gifts of food and toiletries which were passed on to Purley Food Hub. We also welcomed Tony Perrott, one of our ex-pupils, and his father Steve, to our Harvest Celebration. They presented the school with a very generous gift of £600 raised at the Edmundson Electrical Golf Day.

This half term we are looking forward to welcoming back our ex-pupils at “Old Scholars” evening on Friday 29th November. We are hosting a Croydon Housing Clinic on Wednesday 13th November and a Yoga workshop for parents on Wednesday 20th November. Our Middle school and Pink class Christmas performance will be at 1.40pm on Thursday 5th December. Lower school parents are invited to an interactive Christmas performance at 10.15 on Friday 13th December.

We are continuing to further develop our curriculum and assessment systems. Our INSET day on Monday 25th of November will focus on reading. We will also be looking at our new online platform called “Evidence for Learning” which will improve our ability to gather evidence, assess, review and plan for our pupils. We look forward to sharing and using the platform with you.

Do remember that if your child has been unable to access the vaccine at school, there will be clinics available at Lennard Road on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursdays throughout November running from 3.30pm to 4.30pm. No appointment is necessary; they are drop in sessions.