Dear Parents and Carers,I hope that everyone has recovered from the Lyndhurst Proms, I was certainly blown away by the talent of our pupils and staff. I’d like to extend a huge thank you to everyone who gave up their time to make the event a success – from the music team who mastermind the event to the parent volunteers serving drinks and the pupils who sang or performed. It was also brilliant to see so many families at the FoL welcome evening on Thursday. These events are what make Lyndhurst such a special place.
Black History Month
As we enter October we also enter Black History Month (BHM), a month that often sparks debate: is it about studying the history of colonisation and learning from errors of the past, exploring the historical significance of black civilisations or celebrating black individuals and communities. At Lyndhurst, we have worked hard to ensure that our curriculum for 2022 is diverse and looks at all of our subjects from a variety of lenses including but not limited to ethnicity. However, we select a number of days, weeks and months that we feel we should give additional emphasis. This year the national theme for BHM is ’Actions not Words’. We will be exploring this theme over the month of October by looking at The Bristol Bus Boycott—so that we can learn about advocacy. We will also be exploring the origin of our class names as part of a larger project with Decolonising Geography. Keep an eye out on our social media channels for more details.
Our Library
You may have noticed that the dinner hall has been a flurry of activity over the last week. We are moving the library into old dinner hall so that it can be a more central part of our school. We plan to open it at lunchtime and are exploring the idea of opening it after school too. Over the next week we hope to have it looking just as wonderful as it did in its old location—if not better! A huge thank you goes to all of the parents and staff who have helped with the move.
Poetry Day
This Thursday we will be celebrating National Poetry Day, each class will read a number of poems over the week including some about the National Poetry Day theme which is ‘The Environment’.
Lunchtimes
We are now all eating in Lower Hall, this enables the catering team to serve from one location which ensures that all pupils have an equal choice of options and reduces some of the concerns that you have raised about choices not being available.
What your child should bring to school
The pupil planner should travel to and from school each day as teachers will looking at these regularly. If your child needs money for an event after school or a mobile phone to travel to and from school they should hand these to a teacher when they arrive.
Rewarding Behaviour
As in common at the start of a new academic year, we have been working as a school to set our behaviour expectations for Lyndhurst. Our new behaviour policy will be available on our new website soon. It outlines how we reward behaviour and encourage intrinsic motivation. Over the next term you will start to receive ‘postcards home’ from your child’s teacher outlining how they have exemplified our school values: advocacy, resilience, global citizenship, free-thinking and courteousness.
SEND Coffee Mornings
Wednesday the 12th October will be the first of our SEND coffee mornings in which we will be looking at the Lyndhurst Offer. We will be joined by Will Cannock, The Charter Educational Trust’s SEND Strategy Lead. There will be a session after drop off and after school. All parents are welcome not just those whose children are on the SEND register.
Upcoming Dates
Friday October 7th – INSET day
Friday October 14th – Last day before Half term.
Have a great week,
Tom Turnham
Headteacher
