Dates
Note: School reopens to children on Tuesday November 3rd – Monday is an INSET day. The holiday club for this day can be booked here.
We will be holding a dress-up day on Friday 6th November. Children are invited to wear fancy dress and bring a voluntary contribution of £1 to raise funds for the PTA.
Cover story
Brookfield is on the cover of the Camden New Journal this week following the food collections for their Food Aid van. Thank you to everyone who has donated, we will continue after half term: on Thursdays parents can leave contributions for the Highgate Newtown food bank at the junior and infant gates. If you want to know more, please do see the New Journal website or contact Dan Carrier.
Today, we have said farewell to Lucy (y5 LSA), Ioulia (y1 LSA) and Julia (HLTA). We thank them for their brilliant contributions to the school and wish them all the best as they embark on new chapters in Yorkshire, Greece and Barnet! We have made strong appointments and I will introduce you to our new staff members after the break.
We wish all our Brookfield families enjoyable and healthy half term breaks and look forward to seeing you on Tuesday 3rd November from 8.45am.
MESSAGE FROM CAMDEN:
Extra support over half term for families with children on benefits
Camden Council is committed to addressing food poverty and is making a commitment to ensure that all Camden families with children aged 4 to 18 and in receipt of benefits will get the support they need for the October half-term (26 to 30 October).
We have today announced a package of support for families, which means vouchers for supermarkets will be made available to all families with school age children who live in Camden and are in receipt of benefits.
The Council’s benefits team is urgently working to issue the vouchers direct to families early next week. If families who meet the criteria have not been contacted and received a voucher by Wednesday, they can call Contact Camden on 020 7974 4444 (option 9). Families who live outside the borough should be linked with services in their home boroughs.
Relationships Education Policy
All schools are required to produce a Relationships Education Policy in consultation with parents and carers as part of implementing the new statutory requirements around teaching Health Education and Relationships Education. Brookfield began this process back in March, but due to Coronavirus, the consultation period had to be put on hold. Now that all children are back at school, we plan to resume the process and would welcome your feedback on our draft policy.
The draft policy can be found in the Vision, values and policies section of the school website or by clicking on the link below. The consultation period will run until 11th November, when we will be holding a Zoom meeting at 9.30am to gather feedback and answer any questions you may have. Gill Morris, Senior Health and Wellbeing Adviser for Camden, will be in attendance to help facilitate the consultation meeting. Please email me any questions you have in advance, or if you would like to comment but are unable to attend. This will help us to prepare more effectively for the meeting and to ensure that everyone’s voice is heard.
Many thanks, Seren Quested – PSHE Lead
Year 5 this week
Year 5 have been exploring map skills in Geography and materials in Science. This week, we combined the two and created 3D maps of our local area using different materials, paying attention to their properties. The children’s creativity has been inspiring!
Camden Half term Activities
More details on half-term activities for children and young people are on the Camden Rise website here.
Places are still available on many courses and activities, including Pottery Pro, Creative Writing and Sign Language, which are being run over the October half-term by the Camden Summer University team – book your places here.
Fit For Sport October Half Term Brookfield Holiday Camp
For the INSET day you can book your child’s place on the Fit for Sport holiday club here or contact Fit For Sport at enquiries@fitforsport.co.uk and call 020 8742 4990.
Join Fit For Sport (including Haseeb and Aaron) this October Half Term for an action-packed week of fun! A Fit For Sport Holiday Camp not only provides childcare in a safe and supportive learning environment but also promises a fun and energising experience that will leave children wanting to come back again and again!
More details on the letter and poster below:
Coronavirus Update from Camden
PTA News
Hallowe’en Trail
As you may have seen from emails or WhatsApp messages, this year the PTA are running a Hallowe’en trail.
The idea is to create a bit of a fun on the 31st without the chaos of trick-or-treating, and to follow the trail around the neighbourhood. If you want to put your home on the map, simply fill out this form with the address (no names, just an address) and it will then appear on this map.
(The map isn’t updated automatically – we have to import the addresses, so don’t worry if your address is not there straight away, it will be included.)
The map probably works best on a phone so you can zoom in and out as needed.
Make it extra fun: use this sheet to tick off the number of pumpkins you see on the trail
And here are some drawing sheets to download too:
Pumpkins
Thanks to everyone who bought pumpkins – we sold out and made over £100 for the PTA, which is a good start to the term. Don’t forget to enter our photo competition. Carve your pumpkin, take a photo and send it to the PTA email. The best entries will be on the school website and Instagram account and we’ll try to drum up a prize for the winner.
Kids Quiz
We will be running three Zoom quizzes for kids in November. We are going to do it in three groups – KS1 (reception to y2); Years 3&4; and Years 5&6. (Obviously with siblings etc this is not formal, just an idea of where we are pitching it.).
Our plan is to do it on the afternoons of 12th and 13th November. Stay tuned for more details. No prizes, just a bit of fun and hopefully no tears, unlike in the adult quiz.
Raise money while doing the shopping online
Did you know you can raise money for Brookfield while shopping online? It costs you LITERALLY nothing. All you need to do is add the easyFundraising plug in on your browser and it automatically does the rest.
Find out how to do it here. Sainsbury’s, Amazon, eBay, John Lewis – you can raise money any time you make a purchase.
If we all did it, we could massively change the PTA’s fundraising. So far we have 136 people signed up (2 new in the past week – thank you to those as well as the other recent sign-ups), so if we could get to 200 that would be fantastic.
Support your school with a mask
You can still order your “I love Brookfield” mask – a bargain at £5.
BUY YOUR MASK HERE (and we’ll deliver to you). (Also – we should all be wearing them at the school gates. )
That is all.