Dear Parents and Carers,

As we come to the end of the Autumn Term, I want to take a moment to reflect on what a truly lovely end to the year it has been. The past few weeks have been full of festivities and celebrations that have brought our whole community together. Highlights such as our Christingle services, the EYFS Singalong, the Year One Nativity, our annual Carol Singalong and, of course, Festive Friday have filled the school with festive cheer and a wonderful sense of togetherness.

With our new headteacher joining us in January, I would also like to extend my heartfelt thanks to all of you for your support over the last 18 months during my time as Acting Headteacher. It has been a privilege to lead the school and our dedicated team, and I am incredibly proud of how much we have grown and flourished as a community during this period.

I hope you all have a joyful, restful Christmas break filled with peace and happiness.

Wishing you and your families a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Warmest wishes,
Hayley Hanson
Acting Headteacher

On behalf of the governing body, I would like to extend our heartfelt thanks to Mrs Hanson for her outstanding leadership as Acting Headteacher during what has been a period of challenge and growth for the school. Her unwavering commitment, steady guidance, and the stability she has provided have been invaluable, and under her leadership we have continued to grow and build positively following the Ofsted inspection.

We are delighted that Mrs Hanson will remain with us as Deputy Head, ensuring continuity as she hands over to our new Headteacher in January.

We are excited to welcome Mr Larner and are confident that he will continue the school’s development, building on the strong foundations laid by Mrs Hanson and the team.

As we look ahead to the new year, the Governing Body wish all our families a safe, restful, and joyful Christmas break.

Weekly Year Group Attendance

Week beginning 1st December

Reception 91.5%
Year 1     86.2  %
Year 2      89.1  %
Year 3      89.8 %
Year 4      90.2 %
Year 5      84.7%
Year 6      92.3%
Whole School 89.1%   

Week beginning 8th December

Reception  84.5%
Year 1       90.5%
Year 2       89.9 %
Year 3       87.3%
Year 4       90.9%
Year 5       85.1%
Year 6       92.0%
Whole School 88.6%    

Week beginning 15th December

Reception 82.4 %
Year 1       90%
Year 2       89.5%
Year 3       88.3%
Year 4       86.4%
Year 5       88.3%
Year 6       91.9%
Whole School 88.2%    

Hello Forest School families and friends,

We have been having a festive few weeks making Christmas decorations, playing on the slack line, using our balance, using tools, cleaning the pond and having the best time! We have all come so far during these past two terms and have learnt new skills, become more confident learners and worked on making great friendships. We are all very excited for Christmas and wish you the happiest time over the holidays.

Kate Shepherd, Forest School Leader

Forest School Plea -  We are in need of volunteers to help with our Forest school sessions.... If you could spare a few hours ( morning sessions - 9am - 11:45) ( afternoon sessions - 1:30pm - 2:55pm) we'd love to hear from you, please contact the school office.

• All day Tuesday
• Wednesday Morning
• Thursday morning
• Friday All day

We would like to wish you all a VERY Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. 

This academic year the children have had so many different and varied opportunities; they have really enjoyed the new climbing frame, we’ve been on an exciting residential visit, other year groups have been into Gloucester City Centre, to Nature in Art, Glos Wildlife Trust, we’ve had iSing Pop, Christingles, an Early Years Singalong, a wonderful Nativity, met an author, had workshops with the police, created a new Kingsholm Song, two spectacular iRock concerts, great football matches, Kingsholm Star celebrations, just to name but a few of our activities. 

 We have really enjoyed the two terms as Prime Minister and Deputy, particularly helping out with worships, the Wriggly Nativity, cake sales and the Kingsholm Star celebrations. 

We are looking forward to Term 3. 

Dhruv and Isabelle 

Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister

Well done to all our wonderful iRockers who performed last week.

It was lovely to see the families of those performing in attendance and our Year 3 classes were invited to attend as well as siblings of the performers.

The bands that took part were:

• The Awesome Stars performed Thick of It
• Lightning Stars Forever performed Try Everything - From "Zootropolis"
• The Seven Macaronis performed Cupid
• The Potato Army performed Hall of Fame
• Sandbox performed The Final Countdown

As you can see from the photos the children were fantastic and certainly enjoyed themselves.

If you are interested in learning more about iRock - please see the link below.

About | iRock Rock and Pop Band Lessons

Thank you to everyone who came and supported our Year 1 children who performed their ' Wriggly Nativity' to their family and friends this week.

The children all looked and performed brilliantly,  we are very proud of each and every one of you.

Gloucester Schools were invited to take part in the BBC Radio GloucestershireAdvent Calendar.  We were day 15 and I think you will agree that the children sounded fantastic!

For anyone who would like to listen to Year 6 on the radio!  Here is the link!

Https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m002n9hy

Ensure to scroll to 1hour 55mins in to the show (although may possibly open at this).  

The children have enjoyed all of the Christmas festivities that we have had this Christmas. One of the highlights is always our Christmas Dinner. As you can see from the plates and smiles a delicious lunch was had by all, and it's always a treat to see our Senior Leadership Team taking over from the catering team and actually serving the children!

A big thank you to our catering team and lunch time supervisors for all their hard work in making this such a special occasion for the children.

We relaunched our parent forums on the 26th November. The parent forums are two short information sessions held at 9 - 9.30am and 2.30-3pm once every long term. It's a great opportunity for us to ask for your views on school life, and for you to share anything you would like to celebrate, or draw our attention to.  (Any individual concerns that you have about your child, should always go to their class teacher).

For all those parents unable to attend we thought we'd share the questions we had, with you here. Please do email us on virtualoffice@kingsholm.gloucs.sch.uk, with any thoughts.

1. We are looking for your feedback on the events and activities we have held since September for parents that you have been invited to:

• Welcome To The New Academic Year
• Meet Your Child's New Teacher (Open Classrooms)
• Phonics Workshops (Rec and Y1) 
• Y6 Residential Meeting
• Y4 Harvest
• My Plan Meetings for Parents
• My Plan + Meetings for Parents
• Parental Vision Planning
• Y4 ISingPop
• Y3 Forest School
• Time To Talk
• Kingsholm Star Celebration
• Y5 Reading Cafe
• Family Cookery Club After School 
• Y6 Remeberance Service
• Y1 Forest School

2.Fundraising Ideas. We are looking for suggestions re fundraising events that we can hold in school and would love to hear your thoughts on this. All monies raised are invested back into special activities or non curriculum based resources for the children.

3. Community needs - do you have any concerns?

We look forward to hearing from you.

• A reminder to parents / carers about parking in and around the school area.  Please do not obstruct driveways, businesses etc Unfortunately we have had another report of a car blocking the Spartans' rugby club. 

• The 'Read With Me' team are trying to make sure every school in Gloucestershire can benefit from their reading volunteers by the end of 2026. However, achieving this goal comes with significant costs. To help raise vital funds for 'Read With Me', their founder and director, Linda, will be participating in the Ragusa Half Marathon in January. Every donation counts - just £1 can make a difference and help us reach our goal. Thank you! 

  https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/linda-thomas-5?utm_medium=CF&utm_source=CL

• CBeebies Parenting Please see the link to little videos, activities and games to help with all sorts of things like toothbrushing, bedtimes, morning routines etc. 

• Family Support. We appreciate for many these can be tricky times. Do get in touch if you have any worries about food, finances or housing and we will try and help. Please get in touch with the Virtual Office - virtualoffice@kingsholm.gloucs.sch.uk

• Reminder - We wanted to share with you a brilliant app that has be brought to our attention Olio - Your Local Sharing App  It's been designed to help with saving money and it's eco friendly!  Beat waste with Olio: the app for finding what you need and sharing what you don’t with local people.