Dear Parents and Carers,

Happy Valentine’s Day! What a lovely way to begin the last day of term seeing so many acts of kindness and smiles on the children’s faces.

As this half term draws to a close, it is lovely to see the nights beginning to get lighter… we just need a bit of sunshine now! 

We have had a busy term, with lots going on and the children working very hard.   It has been amazing to see and to celebrate so many children going ‘over and above’ with positive behaviour and attitudes.  Last week saw our 3 Linden finalists visit other schools to compete in the next round of the ‘Look Who’s Talking’ Oracy competition.   It was a very nerve wracking experience for the children and I would like to say a massive well done to Leo, Eva and Azlan.  We are all so proud of you!

Looking ahead to the next half term, our Year 4 children are off to Birmingham to take part in the Young Voices concert, we have World Book Day, Book Fair and Parent Consultation meetings towards the end of April – more information will follow after Half Term. 

We are awaiting confirmation from Holmleigh Park, but we are hoping that our swimming sessions will resume.  We would like to thank Year 6 parents and carers for their patience and understanding with the challenges we have faced this term with the pool being closed.

I wish you all a lovely half term and look forward to welcoming the children back to school on Tuesday, 25th February.

Lucy Collins

Headteacher

The Stars of the Week for week ending 7th February:

The Stars of the Week for week ending 14th February:

Last week was Children's Mental Health Week. The children have been focusing on ways to recognise their different emotions and have done a range of activities throughout the week including journal writing and gratitude jars.

Elinor from our Pupil Leadership Team wanted to share the following: 

'For Mental Health Week, the pupil leadership team did an assembly. The theme was 'Know Yourself, Grow Yourself from Inside Out 2.  They showed the whole school how to look after their mental health and demonstrated different breathing techniques. It was an amazing assembly!' 

If you feel that you need any help supporting your child's mental health, here is a useful link: 

https://www.place2be.org.uk/our-services/parents-and-carers/supporting-your-child-s-mental-health/ 

You can also arrange to speak with our parent support advisor Rozina Begum.

We are pleased to be able to share with you some photographs from when the reception children went on their local walk. 

EYFS had an amazing time at our Chinese New Year party! We listened to Chinese music, ate lots of yummy Chinese food , including spring rolls, rice and prawn crackers and we used materials to create our own Chinese dragon dances.

We enjoyed our story cafe, where our parents and adults came in to join us. We listened to the story 'Elmer' and discussed how the colourful elephant was feeling. We created lots of different crafts, such as making Elmer out of clay, colouring, using tissue paper to create our own Elmer pictures and  making our own character sticks.

This term, Year 5 have been learning about Earth and Space in Science. Throughout the unit, the children have been full of enthusiasm and have shared so many different facts that they have learnt about space from their own research. Last week, the children used Oreo biscuits to help them explain the different phases of the moon and produced some fantastic work. They then treated themselves to a biscuit as a reward for their hardwork!

This week we were so excited to receive our signed copy of Superbat by Matt Carr after winning the competition set by @schoollitnet. We are so excited to sit and share it together!  

On Thursday 6^th February, Linden had the privilege of welcoming local author Lois Kingscott. She did an assembly to the whole school, talking about her journey as an author and then did workshop based on her books with Year 2 and Year 3. It was really interesting to find out about the different ways of becoming an author and the children really enjoyed coming up with new adventures for Dave the horse. 

If you would like to know more about Lois and the books she writes please go to www.loiskingscottauthor.com 

We start back on Week 2, Tuesday. This can also be found on the SZapp.

We are very excited to update you on some Friends of Linden news and announce some events that we have coming up. 

Logo  

We have created a logo for Friends of Linden to help identify our events and communication.  You will see it added to future posters and letters.  

Tuck Shop 

The Tuck Shop has been open twice this term. Thank you to everyone that has visited.  Look out for any future dates. 

Sponsored Read 

Those of you that have children in the older years may remember the previous Sponsored Read events that we have run.

They have always been hugely successful and have enabled us to purchase an amazing number of books for the school. We hope that you will join us to make this, the fourth time of running the event, another great success. 

The event, run in conjunction with Usborne, will run from Monday 3rd to Monday 10th March.  More information will be sent out after Half Term.  

Linden Bar - Golden Egg 

Last year, we ran the first Linden Bar event and were blown away by how popular it was.

So much so that we couldn’t keep up with the demand and ran out of our stock super quick.   

This year we hope to be back, bigger and better, with lots more stock available for you to purchase. This time it will have an Easter theme.  Will you find a winning golden egg?

More information to follow but the event will be held towards the end of next term, before the Easter holidays.  

Volunteers 

We couldn’t run any of the events without our amazing helpers.  In recent months we have had Tuck Shops, served refreshments at the KS2 Carol Concerts and run the Christmas Art project.  All our volunteers give up some of their time to help make these events possible, and they all say the same thing - that they love helping and getting involved, being part of the special events and giving something back to the school.  

Our plea for additional volunteers recently, led to the recruitment of some new helpers. Thank you so much for getting in touch.  The more helpers we have available to call on, the more events we can organise and the smoother they will run.  As we work towards hopefully starting to organise our next summer fair to be held later in the year, one of the biggest challenges we have is the number of helpers, and we always need more.   

So, if you think you can help in any way, however small or big, please do get in touch.

We can have a chat about what’s involved and your availability.  Some people have lots of time available, others very little, but they still want to help where they can.  Some people might be able to help behind the scenes whereas others can help at events.

Maybe you could help to spread the word about our upcoming events to make sure everyone knows they are happening.   

Please get in touch via [email protected] or look out for posts on the Linden Parents page (an unofficial Facebook group run by parents). 

Sponsorship 

We are looking for potential sponsors to help fund materials for upcoming events, enabling us to keep costs down and raise more money for the school. 

Do you run or work for a company that might be interested in this? 

Please get in touch if you, via the contact details above.  

Hope you have a lovely half term break. 

Friends of Linden 

My name is Ms Sidhu, 

Having worked at Linden Primary School for over 20 years, I am now the founder of my own business Draw to Explore.

My practice supports clients with a non-cognitive therapeutic method which is recommended by CAMHS. It is currently being used very successfully with children within my pastoral role at school.

Below are the details of the service I provide, please do not hesitate to contact me if you require any further information or wish to make a booking.

Email: [email protected]