There have been lots of very creative and imaginative art activities happening this week at Millfields! Creative Week activities have all focussed around the exploration of nature and art. We have all been thinking about how we can reconnect to their natural world, the importance of nature and how to understand our place in the natural world.  We have been observing and drawing the natural world around us –pot plants in school, trees in the playground and all of the wonderful natural world in our local parks and green spaces. We have also been looking at how different artists have represented and used nature through different mediums to express their creativity. Some of our classes visited artworks in the National Gallery or the British Museum to give them inspiration.

Each year group was given a focus. The work created in each class and year group for our Art in nature theme is all made from recycled materials, particularly  cardboard! Thank you for all your donations – we are brimming with junk: card, paper and boxes that will be the basis of this year’s art installation for Creative Night. The work created by each and every child includes lots and lots of pieces of art based on famous sculptors and artists, The amalgamation of all the artwork will be displayed for you all to see on ‘Creative Evening’ that takes place on Monday 3rd February. Entry is by ticket only and there are 15 minute time slots so that you are able to have the time and space to appreciate and immerse yourself in the installation. Tickets are on sale now from the main office – adults £1 and accompanied children are free. Tickets are selling fast!

There will also be a selection of school meal dishes on sale - meat and veg curry, mac and cheese, chicken dumpling soup and jerk chicken and rice. If you want to bring a take-away container to eat at home, then please do.

Thank you very much to all the parents and carers who have volunteered their time this week to support classes and create the centrepiece of our exhibition– your support is greatly appreciated.

Thank you also to the parents and carers who came to the Maths Whizz workshop earlier this week – I hope you found it useful. There is an ‘E-safety ‘ workshop about online identity and keeping your child safe online on Tuesday 4th February – please call the office to book a place.

Finally, a reminder that it is Hispanic Week between the 10th –14th February. If you can help out by coming in to talk to a class about your experiences about living or visiting a Spanish-speaking country, please contact our Spanish teacher Belen Fernandez on email: bfernadez@millfields.hackney.sch.uk

Hope to see you on Monday at the Creative Night event.

Have a good weekend.

Best Wishes, Jane

We are proud to present the January edition of the Millfields Gazette, a pupil run newspaper that focuses on news from our school, local community and the latest topical issues. Enjoy!

We have had a busy week learning in class and out and about, as well as getting ready for Creative Week that is happening next week! Reception classes visited the V&A Museum and took part in a ‘Discovering Shape’ workshop. The session was set within the atmospheric China gallery, and encouraged the children to use imagination and experimentation to explore different shapes found in objects and spaces around the museum. Through this hands-on physical approach, the children made large shapes in groups, went on a treasure hunt around the gallery to find shapes hiding in the museumobjects and then had a go at drawing their own shapes using coloured string inspired by some of the artwork and objects they had seen. The children really enjoyed their learningexperience.

Well done to our Y4 and Y5 cyclists who won medals at the latest roller bike competition.We are currently trying to raise some funds for a couple of permanent roller-bikes inschool so that the whole of KS2 can benefit from them as part of fitness sessions and PElessons. Look out for more information soon. Also, a huge ’thank you’ to Paul and all the parents who gave up their Saturday to tidy and organise the green Play Pod in the play-ground. It is so tidy –very much appreciated!

Thank you also to all the parents and carers who came in to the Y1 Toy Museum on Wednesday afternoon. There were so many brilliant old toys and special toys brought in by parents, grandparents and great-grandparents. So many old toys that brought back lotsof memories for all our staff of different ages! The children are still talking about all the amazing and unusual toys then have seen –brilliant for bringing learning about the past,and make comparisons to life. Creative Evening is on Monday 3rd February –this is an opportunity to look at all the work your child will be creating during Creative Week. Tickets are on sale now from the mainoffice –adults £1 and accompanied children are free. There are timed sessions with limited tickets for each and they are selling fast! There will also be a selection of school meal dishes on sale -meat and veg curry, mac and cheese, Caribbean chicken dumping soup, vegetable soup and jerk chicken and rice. If you want to bring atake-away container to eat at home, then please do. Or join us and eat in the bottom hall.Thank you to all the parents and carers who have volunteered their time next week to support classes with their creative projects – your support is greatly appreciated.

Finally,a few reminders: please make sure that your child bring their PE kit and suitable trainers for their PE lessons –check the Parent Information Book that was sent at the beginning of this term for the class PE days. Also, please be reminded that Millfields is a ‘nut-free’school –please do not bring nut-based products to school in packed lunches or in foodbank donations; also if we do not have more than one phone number for you on our information system, or your number has changed, or we do not have a current email address, please let us know asap via info@millfields.hackney.sch.uk

Have a good weekend. Best Wishes, Jane

Firstly, another big ‘thank you’ to the Millfields community for the many generous donations to the food bank collection before the holiday. The Hackney Food Bank asked us to keep the donations until the first week back as that is a time when they are always in need, so after delivering that, we are now collecting again. If you have any tins, or packets of food, including UHT milk or washing powder and toiletries, please drop them in the basket in the main office from Monday.

Thank you to all the parents and carers in Y2 and Y3 who attended the Maths Whizz workshop with Keli, our Maths Lead on Wednesday. I hope you found it useful, and thank you, as always, for your feedback. There are lots of workshops for parents and carers over the course of this term, so please have a look at the list and call the office to book a place. On Monday 20th, we have our resident CAMHS worker running a repeat session of the very popular workshop from last term, ‘Supporting children to develop self-esteem’, please book in today if you would like to attend.

This week children in Y1, Y3 and Y5 enjoyed lots of additional learning opportunities to enrich their curriculum, including trips, workshops and special visitors to the school. Y1 visited Sutton House as part of their Humanities topic, Time Machine’. They took part in a one-hour workshop that invited them into the Sutton House imaginary time machine, where they met occupants of Sutton House from the last 500 years and had the chance to explore how education, travel and communication have changed over time, comparing and contrasting Hackney in 1535, 1635, 1745 and 1985. The children loved telling me about Hackney in the past when they came back!

Y3 visited the Verulamium Museum in St Albans as part of their History topic on the Romans. The children learned lots and really enjoyed dressing up and looking at and touching Roman artefacts. The staff at the museum were extremely complimentary about the children’s knowledge, their enthusiasm and their behaviour! Well done Y3! Year 5 were very lucky with the weather as they visited the seaside town of Whitstable, in Kent as part of their Geography work on coastal erosion and sea defences, as well as Art work on Turner’s landscapes. These visits really do support the children’s understanding and bringing learning to life.

Teachers have also been preparing for our ‘Creative Week’ sessions during the week beginning 27th January. Thank you to the parents and carers who have volunteered to come in to help. Please call the main office to offer your services or email Judyann, our Art lead on jplatts@millfields.hackey.sch.uk. The children will all be doing creative sessions and producing class and individual art /models based on ‘Art in the Natural World’ and will be an exploration of art and nature, that will be on display and shared at our ‘Creative Night’ scheduled for Monday 3rd February. There will be ticketed sessions between 4pm-7pm, so please buy your tickets from the main office. Adults £1 and accompanied children are free. There are a limited number of tickets, so please buy early to avoid disappointment. As part of the evening celebrations, we are also selling food – lots of the delicious food that your children eat every lunchtime will be on sale. If you could donate any cakes to sell that would also be appreciated. There will be also be drinks on sale during the event. We would love to see you all there.

We are always encouraging the children to wear coats, gloves etc. at playtime and would like you to reinforce this at home please, especially as I read that the weather is set to get much colder towards the end of January… we might even get some snow!

Have a good weekend. Best Wishes, Jane

Happy New Year’ and welcome back to all our children and families. The children have returned well-rested and have been very busy this week. All classes have been talking about their new topics and doing initial pre-assessment activities to make sure that the learning is matched to the needs and interests, and so that challenge and support is considered for all the children in the class. Year 6, Year 2 and Reception classes have also been out on their WOW trips that help to launch the excitement and enquiry about their new learning this term. Year 6 visited Kew Gardens and took part in the “Rainforests: People and Plants” workshop. Y2 took part in a session called ‘A visit with Miss Nightingale’ at the Florence Nightingale Museum, as part of their English and topic work and Reception classes visited the Science Museum to find out more about the planets and space as part of their knowledge and understanding of the world work.

Also this week, the staff have been getting ready for Creative Week which starts on Monday 27^th January. The theme for this year is ‘Art in the Natural World’. The staff have been preparing resources and looking at ideas for the week of activities that are linked to their current Science and Humanities work. They have also been discussing the whole school evening event that will showcase this work that is scheduled to take place on Monday 3^rd February. If you are a creative or artistic parent, grandparent, aunty or uncle who is an artist, sculptor, ceramicist or just an art enthusiast that would like to come in to support us during Creative Week, please contact Judyann Platts: jplatts@millfields.hackney.sch.uk.

Lots of our parent engagement activities start next week-’Come Dine with Us’ and Parent Workshop sessions have already been advertised in the Mag and emailed out for this term. Please call the main office to book a place at any of our events.

As many of you will already know, we work very hard at prioritising pupil, staff and the whole community well-being. The well-being and mental health of pupils and staff is something that we have been working on over the last 2 years, and along with already embedded school-led initiatives and the Hackney WAMHS Project (Well-being and Mental health in Schools), we now have many resources, systems and structures in place that support, guide and nurture the Millfields community. At the beginning of December, the school had a visit from an assessor from the Well-Being Award for Schools that is linked with the National Children’s Bureau.

As a result, we are delighted to announce that we successfully achieved the award that recognises and celebrates all the work we do in this area for the pupils, for example, encouraging pupil voice and pupil participation, ‘listening’, providing safe spaces, providing therapeutic interventions and for staff in terms of their well-being -reducing workload and creating and maintaining an ethos that promotes positive mental health. The full report can be found in the Mental Health and Well Being area of the school website or via this link: http://www.millfields.hackney.sch.uk/index.php?page=mental-health-wellbeing

Well done and thank you to all the children, staff, parents and friends of the school who helped us achieve this award, but a special thanks to Debi who is our Well-being and Mental Health Lead, for all the hours spent gathering all the evidence together.

Please remember that school starts at 8:45am. If you arrive after this time and the main doors are shut, then your child is marked as late and will need to enter the school via the side door known as the ‘late gate’. Also, please remember to send your children to school with a warm coat, hat and gloves that have their name on them! The new yellow lost property box is filling up again already!

Have a good weekend. Best Wishes, Jane

Happy New Year to all the Millfields community. I hope you all had a good break, and that the children are rested and refreshed, and getting ready to start the new term.

School starts for all children in Nursery to Year 6 on Monday 6th January at 8.45am. I look forward to seeing you all then.

Best Wishes for a happy, healthy and successful 2020.

Jane

Firstly, well done to an amazing cycle event for our Cycle Team last Friday - they won 11 outof 12 medals on offer and have managed to make up lots of points to make it very close at the top of the league!

A huge ‘thank you’ to the whole school community who have been collecting food donations for the Hackney Food Bank over this term. We also made up a lovely hamper for Acorn Lodge who were delighted that we had thought of them. We have also raised an amazing amount of money for various charities and good causes over the last few weeks. The choir have been singing around London and raised lots of money that will make a huge difference for the Clapton Drop-in, St Joseph’s Hospice, The Project Trust and Shelter. We also collected more than £300 for the St James Church roof appeal, as well as money towards lots of smaller school projects and charities. Today we have, so far, raised more than £150 by wearing our Christmas jumpers! You are such a generous community and it is very much appreciated, especially at this time of year and for your continued support.

The choir have been bringing festive cheer to lots of organisations including Acorn Lodge,Homerton Hospital and commuters at Hackney Central and outside Hackney Town Hall. The concerts from Y1-Y6 have been fantastic and we also had out best ever Evening choir and instrumentalist concert on Wednesday. The musicians were amazing and we were also treated to some lovely pieces from our ex-pupils Aisling and Esme. Thank you to Roz and the amazing music team –Tom, Simeon, Lawrence, Jon, James, Jenny, Celia and Jack, whohave been relentless in their musical adventures over the last few weeks!

Yesterday was London Day – a day when all the children go out to visit a museum or gallery in London to find out more about our amazing city! Reception enjoyed a day out at the Tate Modern or Transport Museum, Y1 visited the Museum of Childhood in Bethnal Green. Y2 went to explore HMS Belfast; Year 3 had fun at the V&A Museum ,Year 4 visited the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, Year 5 went to the Museum of London at Docklands and 2 Year 6 classes visited the Imperial war Museum, while Turing class went to the Army Museum. They all enjoyed their day out and had lots of stories to tell me on their return.

Finally, this is the last Mag of the calendar year, so if I do not see you, I hope that you have a restful holiday and enjoy Christmas if you celebrate.

Just a reminder that school starts back for children on Monday 6th January 2019.

Best Wishes, Jane