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Friday 21st March 2025

Dear Families,

Thank you to our families who came in on Thursday to deliver an assembly to our Year 1, 3 and 6 children all about Persian New Year. It was fascinating to learn about Nowrooz and some of the traditions that go with it. And what a wonderful celebration of the richness of cultural diversity we have in our parent community. 

This week we have had other celebrations across school:

#ShoutOutForGerman Week - celebrating all the incredible benefits of learning German, from improving the brain, to increasing cultural awareness. And in the words of Nelson Mandela - "If you talk to a [person] in a language they understand, that goes to their head. If you talk to them in their own language, that goes to their heart." Thank you Ms Rebecca for helping orchestrate the week. 

What a success our German Cafe was! Thank you so much to the Friends of JKPS for organising it and to all the volunteers who have contributed. Vielen dank!

Neurodiversity Celebration Week - such an important opportunity to explore how we can be even more inclusive, ensuring that every child is celebrated on their learning journey.  A shout-out to Ms Georgia W for her unwavering commitment to ensuring that inclusion is at the heart of all we do. 

Schönes Wochenende!

Patrick 

Key messages:

Sadly, Mr Alfie will be leaving us at the end of this term. If you know anyone who might be interested in a caretaker role at JKPS, please forward them the following link: https://mynewterm.com/school/Judith-Kerr-Primary-School/139907

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Neurodiversity Celebration Week 2025

On Tuesday this week, Southwark Mental Health Team came into school to work with the teachers to better understand how we support children who are neurodivergent. It was definitely a useful session and affirmed the benefit of lots of the strategies we have in place, as well as providing new ideas.

In classes, we have been learning about how all of our brains are different (neurodiversity) and how some people have unique learning paths in their brain (neurodivergence). The children have shared role models that are neurodivergent, including Simone Biles, Daniel Radcliffe & Albert Einstein and spoken about how their amazing brains they have supported their journey to excellence. After we learnt all about neurodivergence, we got to play games where we shared our facts with our friends. In assembly, the children shared ways we can help those children that may be neurodivergent such as giving them a hug if they need it (whilst recognising others' sensory needs), helping them with a task they find tricky and being understanding of their challenges.

Finally, this year at JKPS, we have been utilising widgets to support learners' understanding through dual coding (words & pictures) and to celebrate this, we all created our own widgets. Despite this week being neurodiversity week, every week is one where we discuss neurodivergence and all of unique qualities at JKPS. 

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Deutschecke

#ShoutOutForGermanWeek

Did you know?

In Reception, children learnt about the story of Queen Louise of Prussia. When Napoleon forced Queen Louise of Prussia from Berlin, she hid her children in a cornfield and kept them entertained and quiet by weaving wreaths of cornflowers. One of her children, Wilhelm, later became the Emperor of Germany. Remembering his mother's bravery, he made the cornflower a national emblem of unity.

Now, we’ve been learning all about flowers as part of our topic, so this worked perfectly for our Shout Out for German week. We made our own cornflowers by weaving cut up pieces of toilet roll and painted them with watercolours. We’ve even put string on them so we can hang them up as decorations.

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Meanwhile, Nursery focussed on German food. They ate sauerkraut, Frankfurter sausages, cornichons and the most German food of all time; the kohlrabi. The children gave mixed reviews but enjoyed learning about German cuisine, especially the North German delicacy called Mettigel (raw meat!), one of the strangest culinary decisions to have ever been made.

Year 1: read ‘Ein Löwe in der Bibliothek!’ (A Lion in the Library!). We then created our own lion! They also created our own Bauhaus inspired art pieces and learnt about Paul Klee the German Artist. 

Year 2 learnt about German food in different parts of Germany, and also looked at what food Germans eat during their celebrations, such as at Easter.

Year 3 learnt about what makes Germany famous, from sights such as the Cologne Catedral, to famous German people such as Sebastian Vettel (F1 driver).

Year 4 discovered more about the history of the Berlin Wall, why it was built and the consequences of it.

Year 5 learnt about amazing German inventions and discoveries and how they have impacted the world, such as Johannes Gutenberg’s printing press.

Year 6 investigated the German suffrage (women’s rights) movement and wrote magazine articles about this.

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Trips this week...

Both the Year 3' and Year 4's had trips to the Science Museum. The Year 3's learnt all about the digestive system and medicines of the past, including what was quite a gory workshop on guts!

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If you go down to the forest today... 

You might see the bird nests that Reception created this week using egg boxes and natural materials in their forest school sessions with Ms Katrin.

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Safeguarding 

Polite notice: please ensure that all snacks are healthy, use minimal packaging and don't contain nuts or sesame seeds.  

Attendance

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School attendance is mandatory for all students of compulsory school age. Whilst we understand that it isn't always possible to reach 100% attendance, we are fully committed to ensuring the highest levels of attendance to ensure we enable every student to meet their potential.  

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Friends Corner

🇩🇪🍰 Kaffee und Kuchen. Thanks so much to everyone who has helped to make our pop-up Cafe a great end to Shout Out for German week - it all helps to support German interns to return to JKPS and cover the Year 6 Goethe Institut test fees. If you couldn’t help out or bake, we’ve set up a new fund on our donations page. Head here and select German Provision on the donation dropdown if you’d like to contribute. 

❓ Our Quiz Night next Wednesday 26th March is now sold out! Thanks to all who have bought tickets, we can’t wait to see you. Proceeds will go towards helping cover the Year 6 Goethe Institut test fees and supporting German interns to return to JKPS. 

🗳️ This year’s AGM is next Thursday 27th March at 8pm (online). A Zoom link will be circulated next week. We’ll give an overview of the school year 2023/2024 and an update on projects, present the treasurer’s report, and elect new trustees, as Jane and Paula are stepping down. If you want to get more involved or stand for a trustee position, please email us at fojkps@gmail.com and we can share more details. 

🌳 Our final Gardening Day of this term is next Saturday 29th March, 11am to 3pm. Please come along and have some fun in the sun (we hope!) and enjoy the garden as it heads into Spring. 

🚴‍♀️ Peddle My Wheels’second-hand bike market, Thursday 3rd April 3:30pm - 4:30pm. Donate an outgrown or unwanted bike in the morning, then come along at pick-up to buy a “new” one. All bike donations will be fixed up by a team of mechanics throughout the day and made ready for sale. Proceeds from the sale of donated bikes will go to the school.

And finally Ioana, a Reception parent, has been working hard on an idea for a JKPS Tonies Club, a parent-led initiative aiming to increase access to quality content and stimulate language development through stories and singing. It’s designed as a rental model - if you’d be interested please respond to a quick survey so we can get an idea of numbers and plan the logistics!

Key Dates

Nelson Mandela Class to Brockwell Community Gardens       Monday, 17th March

Neurodiversity Celebration Week                                     Week beginning 17th March

#ShoutOutForGerman                                                        Week beginning 17th March

Malala Yousafzai Class to Brockwell Community Gardens  Wednesday, 19th March

Year 3 Trip to the Science Museum                                         Wednesday, 19th March

Year 1 Parent/Carer teacher meetings                                              Friday 21st March 

Year 4 Trip to the Science Museum                                                    Friday 21st March

Year 4 Trip to St Faith's                                                                    Monday, 24th March

Zaha Hadid Class to Brockwell Community Gardens                Monday, 31st March

RockSteady Easter Concerts         9:30am, Wednesday & Thursday, 2nd & 3rd April

EY/KS1 Perform drama workshop                                                      Tuesday 20th May 

Year 1 Trip to Tower Bridge                                                                  Friday, 27th June

Year 1 rescheduled trip to Dulwich Picture Gallery                    Wednesday 2nd July           

Click here for all this academic year's term dates

Please note dates for Academic Year 2025-26 are also now available. 

 

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