✨ This Week at Morningside ✨

What a week it has been at Morningside! We’ve had lots of visitors, some exciting opportunities for our children and plenty to celebrate as we head towards the end of our first half term.

This week, we welcomed visitors from UCL and the Maths Hubs, who spent time in classrooms observing maths lessons and talking about teaching and learning. They were blown away by the quality of the children’s work, their enthusiasm for learning and their excellent behaviour. It is always a pleasure to welcome people into our school, but particularly when they leave so impressed by what they have seen. A huge well done to our children and staff, who work so hard every day to make this happen.

Our Year 6 children have completed their final week of Bikeability, and it has been brilliant to see just how much their confidence has grown. So many of them are now cycling with greater skill and independence, and it has been a real pleasure to watch them develop over the past few weeks. We hope they will continue to enjoy cycling and put their new skills to good use.

Year 4 have also had a fantastic time taking part in workshops with the Ministry of Stories. The children thoroughly enjoyed the experience and behaved brilliantly throughout. We are always delighted when children have opportunities to learn in different ways, develop their creativity and discover something new.

Today, it was wonderful to see so many children and staff wearing red to show their support for Show Racism the Red Card. Wearing red is a simple but powerful way of standing together against racism and discrimination. At Morningside, we want every child to know that they belong, that their identity is valued and that they have a responsibility to stand up for others. These are conversations we continue to have throughout the year, not just on one particular day.

And, of course, we have our PTA discos to look forward to! We hope everyone attending has a brilliant time. A big thank you to our PTA and the staff and volunteers who give up their time to make these events possible. They are such an important part of our school community, and we know how much the children enjoy them.

Next week, we are looking forward to our Black History Month celebrations, when children will have the opportunity to share and celebrate the learning they have been doing throughout October. We are excited to bring together their work and explore the stories, achievements and contributions they have been discovering. It promises to be a fitting way to round off a month of thoughtful and important learning.

As we approach the end of our first half term, I’ve been thinking about the Morningside story that we began talking about in September. In just a few weeks, our children have been learning new skills, finding their voices, showing kindness, tackling challenges and making us proud in all sorts of ways. This week’s visitors have had a glimpse of that story, and their reactions have reminded us just how much there is to celebrate.

We have one more week of learning, sharing and celebrating before our half-term break, and I suspect it will be a busy one!

Have a lovely weekend!

We hope you enjoy this week’s newsletter and have a lovely weekend.

Jo and Rachel

Next week at Morningside:

Thu 22nd Oct 3:25pm PTA Tuck Shop Buy cakes, drinks and sweets to raise money for the school

Thu 22nd Oct 4:00-5:00pm Black History Month Event

Thu 22nd Oct Wear something to school that celebrates your own culture.

Fri 23rd Oct Wear something pink. Raise money. Change lives. Breast Cancer Awareness Day. Bring a £1 donation

Fri 23rd Oct SCHOOL CLOSES FRIDAY 23rd October 3:30pm

Next Half Term at Morningside

 Free Breakfast Club

We are delighted to now be offering the Government’s free breakfast club at Morningside.

The breakfast club is available from 8:15am, free of charge, for children in Reception to Year 6. It’s a great way to help children start the day positively, enjoy a calm breakfast and get into good morning routines. We do have limited places available for children in Rainbow nursery and in the school nursery too, these are payable at £5 per day.

If you need to drop your child off from 8:00am, this will also be free until December when it will be reviewed by the school governors.

If you would like to apply for a place, please contact the school office. We will then contact you once your place has been approved. This is not because places are limited, but because we need to make sure that we have the correct staffing ratios in place to keep everyone safe.

We look forward to welcoming more of our children to breakfast club!

 Thinking About Reception?

It might feel like starting Reception is still a long way off, but the Reception application deadline is in early January. If your child will be 4 before 31st August 2027, you can book an individual tour by speaking to the school office or using the link on our website.

You can also join us for a Stay and Play on Thursday 20th October, Thursday 19th November or Thursday 10th December, to find out more about starting reception at Morningside.

OPaL Playground Wishlist

As part of our OPaL (Outdoor Play and Learning) programme, we are continuing to develop our playground to give children richer, more creative and more adventurous play opportunities.

We have created an Amazon Wishlist with items that would really enhance our play offer. If you would like to support, you can do so by purchasing an item from the list and having it sent directly to school.

There is absolutely no expectation to contribute, but we are very grateful for any support. These small additions make a big difference to children’s play experiences every day.

https://amzn.eu/03Ls5B1g 

Attendance this week

This week, we want to celebrate 1M and 5M  who both have 100% attendance . A HUGE congratulations and keep up the excellent work; it has a great impact on learning and progress. You can help your child’s class win the weekly fruit platter by making sure they are at school everyday.

Whole School attendance this week: 95.4%

Our school target is  96% attendance this year.

Class attendance this week