Welcome back to everyone at Millfields — pupils, parents/carers and staff. I hope you have had a good summer break, and enjoyed time with friends and family, and that you are now back in the school routines.

A special welcome to all our new Nursery and Reception class children and parents/carers and other newstarters throughout the school. I know it may seem a bit daunting for the children (and you!) but they will soon settle and get the hang of all the school routines. Welcome also to all our new staff; Claire, Hizza, Orla, Marie and Sheila, and welcome back to Clara who has been on maternity leave.

Also, congratulations to Blaithin on the birth of her baby boy, Rory, and to Rosie onthe birth of her baby boy, Otto. Both mums and babies are doing really well.

The children all seem to be very happy and settled in their new classes with their new teachers and support staff, and they have quickly learnt the new routines, which are almost back to the days pre-Covid! Although,we are, and will be, continually reviewing the policies and procedures currently in place in response to new positive cases in school and in the community, and any following PHE or government guidance. The numbers in Hackney are rising so please try to revisit and reinstate some of the old protocols around social distancing, hand-washing and sanitising, and plenty of fresh air and enhanced ventilation. In school, windows and doors are all open and the children are washing hands regularly.

All of the children seem to be enjoying working in their new classrooms, and enjoying the first week of learning. For the next 2 weeks every class in the school from Y1-Y6 will be engaging in a unit of learning called ‘Growing Our Future’. The work is inspired by the book ‘The Promise’ by Nicola Davies.

There has already been lots of outdoor learning in local green spaces in order to let the children connect with nature, reconnect with each other, rebuild relationships and foster togetherness. So far the children have explored our connection with nature during a park visit, made an observational drawing of a natural object, written a poem that describes their connection with nature, written a pen portrait to understand the impact of the world around us on health and well-being, taken part in role play to make inferences about a character’s feelings and motivations, and read and responded to a range of poetry about nature. Classes have also been thinking and about and discussing climate change. This theme will continue next week.

In Science, all classes have taken part in the 'Egg Drop Experiment', where the children worked in groups tocreate a design that will protect an egg when dropped! The children were so excited and had so much fun! The designs were very inventive - I think the 2 best designs I saw were the egg in a bag of rice that remained intact, and the egg in a box that floated down gracefully to the playground and landed without the egg breaking. Please speak to your children at home about this lesson.

The main aim of this week was to ensure consistency across all classes and to establish and reinforce expectations across the school, including handwriting, presentation and formatting work. Well done everyone -your workbooks look amazing!

Thank you to all of the parents and carers for being so patient while we establish our expectations and routines at the gates at the beginning and end of each day. Thank you for your support sofar with the arrangements. Luckily, as we are part of the Safer Schools Streets initiative, we have very few cars travelling down the roads around school so we can make good use of the space, but please can I remind you that it is still a road in use! Please do not congregate in the road and move on when you have collected your child. As a reminder for those parents traveling via car to school, please do not park on the double yellow lines on the corner of a road and definitely not in front of the dropped pavement as this is an access issue and dan-gerous.

Thanks also, for your cooperation while we ensure that the new, very popular, clubs are established and tried and tested routines are put back in place. We will continue to review and keep you informed of any changes,and strive to find the best solutions. Please look out for an email, and also look at Google Classroom for the Class Information Booklet that will give you an overview of the curriculum expectations and topics for this term, as well as other useful and important information for your child's class. The main form of communication will be via Google classroom and email, so please make sure we have the correct email contact details. Parents in Nursery and Reception classes, please look out for joining details next week.

Each class in Y1-Y6 will also be inviting you to a virtual 'Welcome' meeting that will take place next week. Look out foran email that has the Zoom link to enable you to join the meeting. This will give you an opportunity to meet the teacher and to hear about your child's planned year ahead, and for you to ask any questions. There will be a PowerPoint Presentation that will be shared after the meeting for any parents unable to attend.

A final reminder -please make sure you label your child's clothes, and that the children wear their PE clothes to  school on the day that their class has a PE lesson.

I hope you have a good weekend.

Take care, stay well and keep safe everyone. Jane

Term starts for children on Thursday 2nd September.

If your child is starting Reception, you will have been allocated a date to start from Thursday 2nd September, as we stagger the entry to ensure a smooth start to school.

If your child is starting Nursery, you will have been allocated a date to start from Monday 6th September. You will receive more information once school has re-opened.

Well we have made it to the end of another challenging, but also immensely enjoyable year at Millfields, andI can only again, thank the whole school community - the children, the parents and families and the brilliant staff we have at Millfields who have tried their very best to make it the best year that it can be for all the children, under the extraordinary circumstances!

A huge ‘thank you’ to all the amazing parents and carers who have supported their children. We worked as always, together as a team, a community and have created memories for another year –different ones but great ones all the same!! Thanks to all the children, staff, parents and the wider community for all of your amazing support, compassion, enthusiasm, creativity and productivity during the school closure, which was a much better experience the second time round - let's hope it was the last! I know that Ialways say it, but I feel so privileged to be part of this brilliant community – it is an honour to be the Headteacher of this incredible school. The staff team, the parents and wider community, but mostly the chil-dren, make my job so enjoyable and rewarding on a daily basis.

It is very sad that we still have some children and staff at home isolating, due to the continuing pandemic,but we are really, really hoping that there will be some kind of normality in September, but that remains to be seen. We will of course keep you updated via email and text, so please keep checking throughout the summer.

It is also a very sad day for the Y6 children and their families, and for me and many of the staff who have seen the current Y6 group develop into confident, able, beautiful and amazing human beings - our change-makers! As they get ready to move on to the next stage in their educational journey, we celebrate the brilliant individuals and collective year group who have been true ambassadors for the school in every way and on every forum. From their very first day, at the start of their journey at Millfields, it has been a joy! They have thoroughly enjoyed the last few weeks (and I hope the last 7 or 8 years!) at Millfields - the Y6 play, the Sports Days and activities, the cookery sessions and last night's prom, being the highlights! Thank you to all the children and their families in Y6 - you have all been so supportive and we will miss you all! Good luck on the next stage of your journey and remember – continue to make sure your voice is heard and be the best that you can be!

At our end of term celebration assemblies today, we recognised all the amazing sporting activities that havetaken place over the last 2 weeks. We gave out medals and certificates for sporting brilliance, excellent effort and great teamwork! Huge 'thank you' to Fiona for organising us all, and to Nana and Sharon who workedhard to make the Sports Days run so smoothly! Also a special mention to Mahalia and Kimberlie for their morning aerobics and dance sessions! We also celebrated the 6th successive Hackney Cycling League trophy. Well done to all the cyclists who helped make the points tally mean we kept a good lead throughout the season! Well done everyone! I am always very proud of your effort and achievements! A big 'thank you' to Paul, Alisdair, Andy and other parents, as well Sharon who supports the team at each event.

Another big 'thank you' & 'well done' to our Y5 Debating Team, and to Izaac who led the team to second place.The Y5 'Forever Curious' group of children also went out on a trip this week to Wieden & Kennedy Agency, near Brick Lane on Wednesday to admire and celebrate their artwork in a special exhibition. They had agreat time and were so proud of their work.

We have also managed to keep all our musicians playing throughout this difficult year, and the children learning to play instruments have thoroughly enjoyed the online Music Concerts. Thank you to Roz, Tom, Celia, Simeon and Jack for making this happen and for keeping music alive at Millfields!

Last, but certainly not least, we are again, saying a goodbye and a huge ‘thank you’ to some members ofstaff who are moving on to new and exciting ventures. Farewell and good luck to teachers – Keli, our UKS2 teacher and Maths Lead has a promotion and is moving to a school nearer home, and Y6 teacher and Art Lead, Judyann who is moving onto a SEND School in another London borough! I know you will join me in thanking them for all their work at Millfields and wishing them all the best and good luck for the future! Good luck and best wishes also to Reception teacher, Cheniece, who is getting married tomorrow, and best of luck to Y3 teacher, Blaithin and Y4 teacher, Rosie who are going on maternity leave, both expecting boys in August!!

Finally, good luck to all the children and families who are moving out of London to new houses and new schools over the summer – we will miss you all! Look out for the Parent Information Booklet about how school will be operating next year - this should come via email later today. Thank you everyone, have a great summer break, and see you on Thursday 2nd September.

Take care, keep well and stay safe.

Jane

CONGRATULATIONS, to Ayla Yamac, our new Prime Minister and Remi Dring, our new Deputy Prime Minister whose party 'Team Green Machine' won with 193 votes!

It has had a brilliant 'Democracy Week' despite all the covid-related restrictions, school bubbles and other various barriers this week! From Monday morning, all the excitement began as classes voted for 'members of class' and then the election of  5 excellent candidates from across Year 5.

A massive 'Well Done' to Shan'tay, Zhane, Dash, Ayla and Jasmine for their excellent speeches. There were lots of fantastic ideas ranging from more art, drama and creative projects, more indoor plants to help with well-being, first aid training for children, more fund-raising, a school well-being pet, more outdoor learning and so much more!  Thank you to the party advisors -Adele, Vickie, Jo, Dudley and Izaac for supporting and guiding them. All of the fantastic ideas will definitely be part of the work that all the candidates will be doing next year as part of the Millfields Cabinet. I would also like to thank Zuhair Essak, our out-going PM, who has had a difficult year but has been a great ambassador for our school and community!

All of the children from across the school have been so involved in all of the activities and events this week.They have been learning about democracies, the voting process, parliament and world leaders, and have been excited to hear all the candidate's ideas for our school. A first for Millfields -the hustings, some voting and PM announcements took place online! We had more than 70 participants from whole class groups to family groups and individuals, all online to listen to speeches and hear the PM announcements this morning.

There have also been a few Y6 journalists, journalists and vloggers at work, writing articles for the Democracy Week newspaper, as well as gathering opinions and views and making online videos etc. Huge 'thank you' to Keli who was coordinating this.

The whole week has been organised so meticulously and creatively by Emma! Thank you so much as always!

In other news this week, the Cycling Team, albeit a reserve team in lots of cases as most of Y5 are isolating, are off the last event of the year at the Olympic Park Velodrome today. Good luck to you all -do your best, and I hope that the Hackney Cycling League Shield will be coming back to Millfields for another year!

The next 2 weeks are our Sports Fortnight, and I am hoping that all of the children will really enjoy all the activities that are planned. Please note that children can wear different sports clothes and sports shoes/trainers every day until the end of term!  As already mentioned, Sports Days for all  the year groups will take place in the final week, and unfortunately due to Covid restrictions, we won't be able to allow parents to attend.

Thank you to everyone in the community for keeping to the covid rules and restrictions that we have in place -we need to stay vigilant, and make it to the end of term!. We now have 8 positive cases in the school, and want to make sure that it is contained in Y5 where there are 2 classes and staff isolating. If your child has any of these symptoms: persistent cough, high temperature, sore throat, headache, loss of taste or smell, while off school, they will need to have a PCR test, please inform the school immediately of the results.

Finally, the children will be meeting their new teacher on Friday next week.

I hope you have a good weekend.

Take care, keep well and stay safe.

Jane