Dear Parents and Carers,

We are looking forward to the Bollywood Night this evening.  Thank you very much to the Y6 parents for organising this event and to Sandia Furtado, our Y1 parent, for leading the dancing!  Tickets are available to buy on the door and we look forward to seeing you there.

We hope that those of you who were able to attend the Parents’ Coffee Morning found it useful today.  Mrs Compton and Mrs Diver shared information about emotion coaching and how this can be used with children at home.  We look forward to the next Parents’ Coffee Morning in the Summer Term.

This week in school

Y2 Class Liturgy

Thank you to the Y2 children who led our liturgy so beautifully yesterday. They used their recent RE theme of Books and the Bible as the focus of the liturgy.  From the Old Testament they retold the story of Creation and from the New Testament they acted out the account of Jesus meeting Zacchaeus the tax collector.  They wrote their own prayers and illustrated their words with wonderful paintings, leaving us with the message to look after our world and know that God loves each and every one of us, just like Jesus loved Zacchaeus.

Children’s Mental Health Week assembly

It is Children’s Mental Health Week and to mark this, Mrs Compton, our well-being lead, led a whole school assembly on the theme of ‘Know yourself. Grow yourself.’  The children were encouraged to take notice of their feelings, so that they can make better choices and be more connected with their feelings and behaviours.  To illustrate this Mrs Compton wore her ‘feeling proud’ peacock costume!

We have attached the slides used in the assembly to this email for you to share at home.

Y1 Visit to Holly Lodge

This week, Year 1 went on a visit to Holly Lodge, where they learned fun facts about different types of animals. They participated in various workshops about mammals, including guessing the mammals using clues, sorting mammal footprints, and even making their own animal footprints using clay.

Sports update from Mr Sagar and Mrs Knowles

It has been another busy week of sport at St Elizabeth's. The rugby team signed off their league season with a draw against Deer Park School on Monday. The team scored several good tries and showed some great tagging skills in defence. The opposition voted Colton as player of the match.

On Thursday, the netball team travelled to The Russell School for their final league game of the season. The team has made progress this term and finished the game with another draw. The children played well and worked well as a team with Jack, who was voted player of the match, scoring the final goal to secure the draw.

Congratulations to Hugo in Y5, who represented St Elizabeth's at the RISE swimming gala this week. Hugo won a silver medal competing in the breaststroke race!

 PGL Visit 2026

Thank you, Y5 parents, for your response to our Dorset PGL 2026 survey.  There is clearly a lot of enthusiasm for this visit and we are happy to say that we have enough interest to go ahead and make our booking for 2026!  More details of the deposit and visit dates will follow.

Stained Glass Window Competition

A reminder that we are looking for designs from the children for stained glass windows in the new chapel.  Details of the competition can be found on this link and the closing date for entries is Monday 24^th February.  https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1071JXHaF5CVOrcLvdJ1tXT4Nu7PVoB94/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=117523969287903982490&rtpof=true&sd=true

Please do encourage your child to take part!

Next week in school

No swimming lessons next week

Please note that Y6 and Y5 will not be swimming next week.  After half term Y3 and Y4 will be going swimming each Thursday.

Explorer Dome in school

The Explorer Dome will be in school next Friday delivering Science based workshops to children in Reception, Y4, Y5 and Y6.  To enable these workshops to go ahead, please make your payments for these workshops on Arbor Pay.  Thank you.

Upcoming Events

FEBRUARY

12th  a.m.  Y2 ‘Great Fire of London’ Freshwater Theatre Visit

13th  p.m.  Borough Swimming Gala

13th  9:10 a.m.  Y5 Class Assembly – parents invited

14th  a.m.  Y6 Light workshop with Explorer Dome

14th  a.m.  Y5 Space workshop with Explorer Dome

14th  p.m.  Y4 Sound workshop with Explorer Dome

14th  3:15pm  Half-term holiday begins

24th  a.m.  School returns after half-term holiday

27^th  9 a.m.  Sayers Croft meeting for Y5 parents

27^th  10:30 a.m.  Y3 and Y4 swimming sessions start

Values Awards this week

Congratulations to the following children for being noticed for living our School Values this week:

Reception – Connie        

Y1 – Olimpia

Y2 – Tommy

Y3 – Amelie

Y4 – Clodagh

Y5 – Maxim

Y6 – Ava

St Elizabeth's Cycle Ride 2025!

The annual St Elizabeth's Cycle Ride will take place from Friday 16th to Sunday 18th May 2025 … and this year the cyclists will be going from Richmond to Guernsey!  This cycle trip includes a ferry to Portsmouth and a cycle ride on the island of Guernsey itself.  The cyclists will set off Friday morning from school and will return during the May Fair on Sunday. 

We welcome parents, both present and past, to join our 2025 team to raise funds for our school.  We are especially looking for parents who have not done the cycle ride before, as we are looking to grow our group with current school parents.  It is great fun too!

Attendance and Punctuality this week

Whole school attendance this week is 97.1%.  Congratulations to Y2 for having the highest attendance this week with 100%!  This is closely followed by Y1 with 99.7%.               

Congratulations to Y5 for having the best punctuality this week with the lowest number of latecomers, closely followed by Y2. 

Sporting Opportunities over half-term

Richmond Rugby Holiday Camps

This February half-term, Richmond Rugby are running their usual Rugby camps.

The dates are as follows:

Monday 17th February – Wednesday 19th February for U5’s to U10’s

Wednesday 19th February – Friday 21st February for U11’s – U16’s

Please see link for information:

https://richmondcommunity.ticketco.events/uk/en/e/richmond_rugby_holiday_rugby_camps

Wishing you a lovely weekend,

Jane Hines and the staff of St Elizabeth’s