Weekly Bulletin 7 January 2026

7th January 2026

Dear Parents

Wishing you a very Happy New Year from all of us at Homerton.

Thank you again for all good wishes and kindness over the Christmas period, we hope you all had a good break. The children have been enjoying telling us all about their holidays and their different celebrations.

Chinese is our language this half term.  Next week I will be sending out a sheet of fun activities for you to enjoy doing with your children relating to the Chinese language and culture.

Highlights for us this term include celebrating Chinese/Lunar New Year, which actually starts in half term on 17^th February. It is the year of the Horse. We are lucky to have some staff and parents who are experts on these celebrations, so can help us plan appropriate creative activities focusing particularly cooking, art and dance.

We are also continuing to celebrate story telling this half term with our Core book, which is ‘Goldilocks and the Three Bears’.  This ‘Once upon a time’ story gives the opportunity for children to learn about simple story structure, characterisation and plot. The staff are also hoping to put on a play of Goldilocks for the children to enjoy later in the term. I will send out a simplified version of the story for you to enjoy with your children in next week’s bulletin.

Chinese/Lunar New Year, Valentine’s Day, Shrove Tuesday (Pancake Day), and the start of Ramadan all take place during half term, so we will be celebrating them a little early. These festivals give us the chance to share more stories, cooking activities and card making activities.

This term we are also holding a parent evening workshop focusing on the development of Communication Language and Literacy. The workshop is on Thursday 12th February at 7.30pm-8.30pm.  This workshop is being delivered by Jacqui Hunt, our West Room teacher, and will focus on how we teach Communication, Language and Literacy at Homerton, and how you can help at home to develop these key skills for your child, so please put this date in your diary and come along if you can. The workshop is just for adults.

We continue to have Jake Ladlow, our Teacher Trainee in West Room, with us until February half term. I know the children are really enjoying working with him.

Please remember to apply for a primary school place by 15^th January 2026, if your child is due to go on to primary school in September 2026.

As the weather is suddenly so much colder can I ask that you provide your children with warm layers of clothing, including a named warm coat, hat, gloves, and scarf.

The photos this week are all of the children enjoying being outside and exploring in the snow and ice. They particularly had fun sledging down the Nursery garden hills using our tin trays, and mark making using their hands and feet.

Exploring the ice and snow in our builders trays and making footprints in the snow

                                   Using the snow to mark make in the tray                          

Enjoying sledging down the hills on the tin trays

        Collecting snow in the garden to make snowballs and snowmen                                                    

15^th January 2026 – Deadline for application for Primary School Reception places

12^thFebruary – Communication Language and Literacy workshop for parents led by Jacqui and Alex 7.30pm-8.30pm

16^th-20^thFebruary – Half term holiday and holiday club. Mel will be sending out forms for holiday club shortly.

Applying for Reception places – Please remember the deadline for applications is 15^th January 2026

Homerton is looking for a new parent Governor please speak to Alex if you are interested.