Dear Parents and Carers,

I hope this email finds you well and that you have had a pleasant week in the early autumnal sunshine.

Today we welcomed the Herts Disability Sports Foundation who came in with a mission of ensuring every child can cycle! It was great seeing so many of our Year Three children getting on bikes in our playground and enjoying their morning and my thanks go to Miss Kilby who organised the morning. The visiting team left very complimentary about their morning with the children also. Thank you Year Three! 

My first message this week is about home learning. You may have noticed that we have discontinued our traditional purple home learning books. This was a deliberate decision made at the end of the summer term following discussions with our leadership team and feedback from our staff on the impact of traditional homework. However, this does not mean learning stops at home! Instead, we are refocusing our efforts on mastering key core skills, such as number bonds, multiplication tables, spelling, and handwriting, which build the essential foundations for your child’s year group. Above all else, reading at home with your child carries the single greatest impact on their future success. Consider this: a child who reads or is read to for just 30 minutes a day throughout their primary years will have experienced over 2,000 hours of reading by the time they leave us in Year Six. That time directly transforms their vocabulary, comprehension, and life opportunities. Having said this, we know home learning can also be a wonderful opportunity for families to create together. To support this, we will be setting one creative, open-ended project each half-term for children to enjoy at home, starting with our Black History Month project - details below.

This year, De Havilland will be marking Black History Month with a focus on 'Belonging'. We have chosen this theme to directly connect with our school value of Wellbeing, creating a rich and meaningful unit of learning. True wellbeing relies heavily on feeling seen, valued, and accepted within a community and essentially knowing that you belong. Over the coming weeks, children will explore how diverse Black pioneers (primarily with strong Black British links) found, fought for, and created spaces of belonging for themselves and others. In addition to their classroom work, children will bring home an activity as our first half-termly creative home learning project. This will need to be completed and returned by Wednesday 4th November. We will then hold a showcase event in the lower hall on Friday 6th November to celebrate all of the children's learning. After the success of our art exhibition in June, this is something we are all really looking forward to!

It is incredible that we are already into the final three months of 2026 and the first month of the school year is complete. As the initial excitement of September begins to settle, I want to take this opportunity to remind families of the vital role you play in supporting our school expectations. We ask that you actively reinforce school expectations at home and support my staff if you are contacted regarding your child's behaviour or choices. Following our Home-School Agreements sent out last month, I firmly believe that De Havilland thrives when school and home work together toward the same shared goal, which is building a strong, successful school community. Part of this partnership involves ensuring your children arrive at school on time every day, ready to learn, unless they are genuinely unwell. This must continue as we move into the next portion of the school year. 

Have a lovely weekend and I look forward to seeing the children on Monday,

Mr Bostock

Headteacher