Dear Parents and Carers,

I hope you are well.

The highlight of this week at De Hav would surely have to be our Early Years trip to the cinema to see Despicable Me 4! The feedback from staff who attended was so positive and it is a compliment to both them and our wonderful Reception and Nursery children that the trip was such a success.

Next week we have some exciting events to look forward to, including a Viking Day in Year 4 and our Scholastics Book Fair. You can find further information regarding the book fair further down the newsletter. Talking of books, I would like to extend a thanks to Sycamore class's very own Krishvi and especially her mum who this week donated more than 20 quality books to De Havilland which we were able to distribute around the school. It really is so lovely when families think of school when their children have outgrown their books at home and we welcome and are grateful for any donations.

By the time you read this, we will have said goodbye to Mr. Jackson who had his last day at De Havilland today. Previous editions of this newsletter have paid tribute to Mr. Jackson and the impact he has had on our school and I know I speak for everyone in the De Havilland community when I wish him and his family all the very best for the future.

I wish you all a very pleasant weekend.

Mr. Bostock

Attendance This Week . . .

Whole School -

94%

Best Attendance by Class

Early Years - Apple - 95.8%

Key Stage 1 - Chestnut - 96.5%

Key Stage 2 - Pine - 97.3%

Special Mentions Table

Early Years News

This week in Acorn Class we have been exploring important events. We have learnt about Remembrance Day through thoughtful discussions and creative poppy-themed crafts, helping them understand the significance of remembering others. We also embraced the spirit of giving with activities for Children in Need. We helped Pudsey gain some spots that he seemed to have lost on his journey into Acorn Class! In literacy, we dived into the magical world of fairy tales, enjoying the adventures of Cinderella and Little Red Riding Hood. The children loved retelling the stories, dressing up, and exploring themes of kindness and bravery. It’s been a busy and exciting week!

This week in EYFS, the children had a fun and engaging time exploring literacy and maths through a variety of activities. In literacy, they participated in Drawing Club with Greg, where they focused on the story The Hairy Toe. The children used their imaginations to create their own monsters, design unique houses, and even plan how to trap their monsters, fostering creativity and storytelling skills. In maths, the children explored and investigated squares and rectangles, developing their understanding of shapes and their properties through hands-on activities. A highlight of the week was the school trip to the cinema, where the children were wonderful ambassadors, demonstrating excellent behaviour and enthusiasm. It was a memorable experience that added to their learning and enjoyment of the week!

Reception

September 2025 admissions open now

Apply now for a reception school place to start in September 2025. 15 January 2025 – deadline for on time applications.

Please remember - all children born between 01/09/2020 and 31/08/2021 must apply for a reception place. Children attending our nursery must also apply, a nursery place does not guaratee a place in reception.

Join the Friends of

De Havilland (FODs)!

We invite you to become part of the Friends of De Havilland (FODs) — a group dedicated to supporting our school through fun, engaging fundraising events and activities! From baking a cake, helping run a stall at De Hav Fest, or rallying support from local businesses, there’s a role for everyone, whether you have a little time to spare or a lot.

Your involvement, big or small, makes a huge difference in enriching our children’s school experience. Come join us in making a positive impact and connect with other parents along the way!

Book Fair

Next week we have our great Scholastics Book Fair. It will be running from Tuesday - Thursday for children and adults, straight after school in the lower hall. On Wednesday 20th November, it will be open for 15 minutes before school pick up for parents who want to purchase books without their children there (in case you want to discreetly pick up a christmas present!).

There will be books from just £2.99 and every book purchased means that we can buy more books for our classrooms. It is a fantastic chance to purchase some lovely quality books for your child and to encourage a love for books and reading. Don't just think about a book for your child to read but also about finding a book that brings the joy that children get from hearing stories and listening to a bedtime story. Come and find one at the book fair. Research into reading has shown many benefits, as recorded by the Book Trust:

* Children who are read to frequently at age five are over half a school year ahead in reading performance at age 15, compared to those who are read to infrequently or not read to at all.

* Reading for pleasure at the ages of 10 and 16 has a substantial effect on a child’s cognitive scores in vocabulary, spelling, and mathematics at age 16.3

Emotional benefits to reading for fun

Reading is proven to have a positive impact on the mental health of children.

Fiction and non-fiction books teach children about the world around them, what they learn in stories makes them better equipped to face challenges in their own life.
Stories can be tools - characters become inspirational for children and they feel that they can take on the world. Utilising this inspiration can reduce anxiety in day-to-day life for many children.

Cashless Payment Option:

Parents can pay for books while they’re at the Fair using the QR code, parents will be able to scan the code on their phone to easily access our parent pay website.

Key Stage 1 News

Year 1 have had a very exciting week this week! On Monday, we discovered that a friendly dancing robot had been into our classrooms and having a disco! We were all very surprised and thought of some ways that we could catch him and send him back to the party that he came from. The children had some great ideas and wrote them down in their English books. They also enjoyed using different craft materials to bring their ideas to life. Thankfully, we have found the robot now and taken him back to the disco to carry on with his dancing. Across the week, we have continued our history project on the 1950s with a party to celebrate the coronation of Queen Elizabeth in 1953. We watched some footage of the coronation and pretended we were children in the 1950s. We made ourselves some crowns and flags and had a party to celebrate the new queen, with dancing, games, biscuits and jelly. It was lovely to see the children enjoying bringing their history learning to life!

Year 2 have been very busy this week, from exciting English lessons to explorative science lessons. We have looked at different ways to be sustainable in geography as well as comparing England with Somalia. Did you know Somalia's highest mountain is 2460m tall? We have spent a lot of time practising and learning our new story map in English, all about 'How to trap a dragon'. We even had a go at drawing our own dragons and practising how to write instructions. We discovered the differences between, alive, dead and never been alive things in science, using examples we could from the classroom. In PSHE we have looked at the similarities and differences between each other and how we can overcome stereotypes. In maths we have been using the base 10, part whole models, cherry models and songs to help us with our learning of adding and subtracting two 2-digit numbers. We have had a great day wearing our spots for children in need, thank you all for your kind donations. Just to remind you all, we have changed our PE days to Tuesday and Thursday. Please make sure your child has either leggings or tracksuit bottoms and a jumper in their PE bags as we move forward with the weather getting colder.

Well done for a great week everyone.

Join Asda Rewards to support your local school

Asda have teamed up with Joe Wicks to support UK primary schools through Cashpot for Schools. As a member of Asda Rewards you’ll be able to select De Havilland Primary School – and they will donate 0.5% of your total spend when you shop* to our Cashpot. Plus, we’ll give them an extra £1 for every customer who chooses them!

Here's how you can make a difference

Step 1

Join Asda Rewards and opt-in to Cashpot for Schools

Download the Asda Rewards app and sign up. Once you’ve signed up, tap ‘Cashpot’ then ‘Join Cashpot for Schools’ to opt-in.

Step 2

Choose De Havilland Primary School

Once you’ve opted in, you’ll be asked to choose a school to support.

Step 3

You shop, we donate

All you need to do now is shop! Every time you spend £2 or more at Asda.com or in store, 0.5% of your total will go to your chosen school. This is an additional donation and doesn’t affect your personal earnings.

Lower Key Stage 2 News

Year 3 have had another fantastic week, working hard and learning lots of new things. Perhaps the highlight has been our science this week , looking at bones and particularly joints. The children experienced what it would be like if we could not bend our arms - it turns out it is not very convenient at all! We used cardboard tubes to cover our arms - elbows - and then tried to drink and perform other simple tasks. It was quite an eye-opening experience and the children really enjoyed finding out all about our different hinge points and types of joints. Well done year 3 - muscles next week!

The children in Year 4 have enjoyed another busy week, engaging with enthusiasm in all their learning. In Talk for Writing, we have been internalising the model text “The Day I Met The Mighty Aslan”, which forms the basis of our unit on recount writing. The children have been creatively exploring sentence patterns, such as using time conjunctions as sentence starters and using the “position + place, action +subject” sentence structure. In maths this week, the topic was Area, which involved working out the area of rectilinear shapes as well as some problem solving. The children are becoming more confident with explaining their thinking. In our weekly music lessons, the children are learning to improve the range and tone of their singing voices, and developing their skills in part-singing.

Please remember we have our Viking Day on Monday 18th November!

Our Sponsor of Sport at De Havilland

We are very excited to announce the partnership between De Havilland and Diamond Gymnastics Club.

Diamond Gymnastics Club have generously agreed to become our sponsor of sport. Their contribution will make a huge difference towards furthering the opportunities and development of sport provision here at De Havilland.

Photos Order Deadline

The deadline for free delivery to school is

Tuesday 19th November 2024 so make sure you order by then!

Upper Key Stage 2 News

In PE this week, the children practised jumping and landing in gymnastics then continued their stamina work in cross country. In history, the children learnt about a princess named Fu Hao, from the time of the Shang Dynasty. She then became the most successful military leader of that period in history. In Science, we considered the order (by distance from the Sun) of the planets of our Solar System and what relationship there is between this and the time it takes to orbit the Sun. In Puppets, the children began to sew their puppet costumes together. Thank you for the parent helpers who attended this week. In maths, we continued to embed our times tables by identifying common factors of two numbers, before looking at prime numbers and square numbers and ending the week with Arithmetic Friday.

In Guided Reading this week, we have been reading ‘The Big Bang Fair' and practising some comprehension questions. We have also started our new class 'Book Stop' reader 'The Jamie Drake Equation.' In English, our new writing genre began - poetry! We wrote our cold task and analysed our new model text 'The River'. Well done for a successful week Year 5! Please continue to remember that home learning must be handed in on time, on or before next Wednesday, and that reading nightly with a sentence summary in your reading record books continues for now as part of the home learning expectation. Thank you.

This week in Year 6, we have been really impressed with both classes' resilience and maturity as we have had another attempt at our SATs assessments. These have been challenging at times, but have also highlighted areas for improvement, supporting each child to take accountability for their own progress. The children completed these with a great attitude and we are very thankful for the approach they have taken. In science, we have started our new topic, light theory. We have started the topic reviewing our knowledge from previous years, discussing different light sources and understanding the importance of these. In PSHE, we have thought carefully about the use of gaming, reflecting on both the positives and negatives of using games. This led to some excellent discussion about appropriate use of technology and ensuring that we are remaining safe online.