Fitness Friday!
Transforming children's mental and physical health through PE is a whole school focus this year. To support this, I will be including PE home learning in the newsletter each week. I hope lots of children will be excited to try the attached challenge and we can't wait to hear about how they did after half term.
Parents and carers- we are looking for you to get involved to in completing these activities- enjoy!
PE_Home_Learning_Healthy_Hearts_90VW_2021_08_06_18_33_19_415
Forest Garden News
Forest Garden volunteering: Tree, bulbs & hedgerow planting Date: Saturday 11th November
Time: 11am-3pm
All children to be accompanied by an adult
Refreshments will be provided (but please bring your own lunch or pop out)
Autumn is here and its time to plant trees, bulbs and hedgerow in the new forest garden. If you can drop in for a bit or the whole time, all contributions are much appreciated! Growing Green will be kindly planting bulbs as part of the session.
Come to the black gates for the junior playground.
Brookfield Forest Garden Celebration
Date: Friday 17th November, 2023
Time: 3.35-5pm
Please arrive in time for a 3.35pm start at the Forest Garden entrance.
Parents picking up pupils in the infant playground will be shown the route to the forest garden.
All children to be accompanied by an adult.
After a year and a half of design, fundraising and installation, we will be celebrating the opening of the new forest garden at Brookfield. It will be a gathering to celebrate all the hard work and donations from the school community and beyond, and an opportunity to see the new garden.
There will be ribbon-cutting, speeches, music and seed sowing, before refreshments are served with displays of photographs documenting the build and poems by pupils about the new space!
Please get in touch with Rob (Forest School Gardener) with any questions about the event: r.logan@brookfield.camden.sch.uk.
Brookfield Forest Garden Celebration
Year 6 Sustainable Business
On Thursday, we had a visitor (our dad) come in and speak to both Year Six classes about sustainable business. He explained how some companies are doing nothing to change for the better and to take greater care of the environment, whilst others are putting in lots of effort to make their businesses eco-friendly. First, we went on a search around the classroom, looking for different company brands. Secondly, he pretended that he was an evil pencil maker and he put us in groups and told us that we had to come up with a solution to make him and his company become more environmentally friendly. He told us that instead of doing nothing, we had to take action and protect our world. As well as this, he explained his job to all of us and told us why it mattered so much in Earth. Finally, he talked to us about investors and how much they matter to a company.
-Flora and Holly Y6
Music News
Junior Choir: There will be NO Junior Choir on Thursday 9th November due to Open Evening.
Y5 Recorder Club: This will start on Thursday 9th at 12.10pm. Please let me know if your child would like to join on j.reid@brookfield.camden.sch.uk
Y6 Ukulele Group: This will start on Thursday 9th.
Camden Young Gardner Award
Brookfield pupil Betsy Kendrick (Bramble class) was presented with a Camden Young Gardener award over half term. She met the Mayor of Camden Cllr Nazma Rahman at the 'Camden in Bloom' awards ceremony which celebrated gardening efforts across the borough. Betsy received the award after her brilliant work at Gardening Club, doing extra gardening at lunch times, helping on plant sale stall at the Summer Fayre, and contributing ideas to the new Forest Garden area. Well done Betsy!
The Mayor of Camden will also be attending our Forest Garden celebration on the 17th November 3.35pm. See you there!
After School Club
Reception children are now welcome to attend Breakfast Club and After School Club. Breakfast club is a drop in service with children able to arrive between 8-8.30am by ringing the bell at the Croftdown Road gates. Payments will be added to your Scopay account, but you do not need to book in advance.
Parents and Carers of reception children are also now able to book children into our popular After School Club. Details on how to book and what's on can be found on our website:
https://www.brookfield.camden.sch.uk/about/extended-school/
MONEY RAISED SO FAR
Movie Night: 585£ (including all CAF donations for that time period)
Halloween Bake Sale and Costume Swap: 483£
Halloween Stand: 283.6£
OPEN AFTERNOON BAKE SALE
Thursday 9th of November, from 1:15pm
Junior playground
Please bring all delicious donations to reception ahead of time, or directly to the stand. And special points for any Diwali themed cakes, because we also start our Diwali celebrations on Thursday!
DIWALI CELEBRATIONS
We are planning 2 events to honour the Hindu festival of Diwali (12th of November), which symbolises the victory of light over darkness, good over evil, and knowledge over ignorance. It is often called the Festival of Lights, so we will be making lamps and lighting lanterns. All are welcome.
If you and your family are celebrating Diwali, we would love to hear from you! Could you join us to celebrate, lend us some books/decorations/music, share your stories, or bring some food to share? Please contact us: committee@brookfieldsch.org.uk
Thursday 9th of November, from 1:30pm (during the open afternoon)
Music Room
Free, donations welcome if you can.
Join us for some Diwali themed crafts!
Diya Lamps: we will make small candle holders with clay. Diya lamps are lit during Diwali to symbolize prosperity in the new year and could be described as 'thumb pots' as they are made by pressing the thumb into a ball of clay and shaping it.
Lanterns: Bring a glass jar to decorate it and turn it into candle holders for our lantern walk. Donations of tall glass jars super welcome, to Reception or the music room during the afternoon.
Friday 10th of November, from 5:30pm
Hampstead Heath, Swain's Lane entrance
Free, donations welcome if you can.
Join us on the Heath to light up the night with our lanterns, and celebrate getting together! Bring a lantern (with a candle or with an electric light). Wear warm clothes and shoes that can go in the mud. We will walk even if it rains, unless it’s not safe. All Brookfield children and their families are invited, all children must be accompanied by adults.
This walk is free, please book a ticket so that we know how many families will be joining:
https://www.brookfield.camden.sch.uk/product/lantern-walk-on-hampstead-heath/
MOVIE NIGHT
24/11, more details later
The next film will be shown on Friday 24th of November. This evening will be for KS2 children only (Key Stage 2, year 3 to year 6). It will start at 6:15pm and last until a bit after 8pm. Tickets required but free, the link will be shared later. If you have already attended movie night, please give priority to families who haven't been able to come yet!
The next movie night will be in January, for younger children.
WINTER FAIR
2/12
The winter fair will take place on Saturday 2nd of December. Please get in touch if you have ideas for a stand, activity or contribution - you are essential to a successful community event! Parent Reps, we'll be in touch very soon to organise a preparation meeting.
Book your Open Afternoon appointment
Don't forget to book your Open Afternoon appointment for Thursday 9th November between 1.30 - 7pm. School will be closed from 1-1.15pm (timings below) on this day. After School club will still be on, and if your child is already booked, you do not need to do anything else
1pm - Year 2 and Year 6
1.05pm - Year 1 and Year 5
1.10pm - Reception and Year 4
1.15pm - Nursery and Year 3
Book your Open afternoon appointment on Scopay
If you do not have a Scopay account, you need to email us, so that we can send you a link code to set up your account. Carole has been emailing lots of new families with these codes, so if you haven't had it (and you've checked your junk mail!) please do get in touch with her here
Steel pan - free sessions
Please see the attached flyer on how to access free sessions for Steel Pan playing for children and adults.
Guerilla gardening and guitar
The Highgate Society is holding a Guerilla Gardening discussion evening on Friday, 3 November, from 7.30-9pm, at 10A South Grove, N6 6BS. We would like to invite you to come along. We are keen to develop this activity, which we have been trialling for a couple of years.
The evening will consist of a short presentation, small group discussions and will be very relaxed.
It will be facilitated by our team plus April Cameron from the Friends of Waterlow Park who oversees volunteer gardening in the park. We will talk through different ways to support the work (spade-wielding is only one of them).
Everyone is welcome (families too). We will be providing drinks (no charge) and there will be guitar music accompaniment by Jonathan Byrd.
Guerilla gardening and guitar poster
Hello from the Brookfield Climate Action Group (CAG) section of the newsletter. We hope you’ve had a nice Halloween.
If you have a pumpkin lantern to dispose of we’ve learnt it’s best to compost them rather than put out in the garden or woods. Some sources say to leave out for hedgehogs but according to Forestry England it’s not so good for them. For other ideas of what to do with your pumpkin have a look at their link:
https://www.forestryengland.uk/news/
If you want to find out about local climate action in Camden, ‘Climate Emergency Camden’ have listed several local initiatives, some of which we’ve mentioned in past newsletters.
https://www.camden.gov.uk/community-climate-action
That CAG are a group with kids at every stage of the school who want to help Brookfield be a brilliantly sustainable community. We’d love you to be part of that. All parents/carers/members of the school community are welcome. To stay informed on what we’re up to (and get involved only if/when you can) click this link to join the WhatsApp group:
Brookfield Climate Action Group
or email r.selway@icloud.com or kate.taylor@gmail.com
