Issue 5 - 3rd October 2025
Dear Families,
Things are starting to get busy now that we are fully settled back into school life. Over the next few weeks, there is lots to look forward to. FOAH have organised a Silent Halloween Disco for each year group which I know the children really enjoy. Please do remember to buy your tickets as we cannot allow entry without one (more information can be found below). We also have a range of exciting sporting events coming up. Our Year 6 children will soon be heading off on their residential trip to Grafham, which we know will be a fantastic experience.
Next week, we will also be hosting our Parents’ Evenings. Our teachers are looking forward to meeting with you and sharing your child’s progress so far this year.
I would also like to thank the parents who attended our SEND and Pastoral Coffee Morning this week. It was our largest number of guests so far and it is wonderful to see.
Emma Fordham,
Headteacher
Kindness of the week – ask a child who is new to the school if they are okay and ask if they’d like to play.
Key Messages
School open events and key dates for secondary transfer
Moving on 2026 leaflet Information for parents with children in year 6 at primary/junior school. Further information about moving to secondary school in September 2026 will be available at www.hertfordshire.gov.uk/admissions
The timetable below gives you an idea of what will happen over the next few months.
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September and October |
Secondary and upper schools hold their open events (Details available at www.hertfordshire.gov.uk/schoolsdirectory) |
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31 October 2025 |
Deadline for applications |
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2 December 2025 |
Last date to: • submit reasons for making a late application and for that application to be considered ‘on time’ • notify us of a change of address and for that address to be taken into account for allocation day Please refer to the online admission pages for more detail about these processes. |
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30 January 2026 |
Last date to make a late application to be considered for allocation day. |
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2 March 2026 |
Allocation Day. School places are offered. |
Flu Vaccinations - Wednesday 8th October
Flu has had a serious impact on the health of England’s population over the past two winters. Vaccinating your child helps reduce the risk of serious illness and plays an important role in protecting vulnerable individuals in your community, friends and family.
The team will be visiting our school soon to offer the flu vaccine. You can choose between the quick, painless nasal spray or a pork gelatine-free injection.
For further information about the vaccines, please follow the attached link Vaccination UK Immunisation. The form is available in 10 languages— select yours when it opens. If you do not want your child to be vaccinated, please submit a decline via the same link. Note: School aged children cannot receive this vaccination with their GP unless they are clinically vulnerable. https://bed.schoolvaccination.uk/flu/2025/hertfordshire
Please ensure your child has had breakfast on the morning of the vaccinations.
Parents’ Evenings
Our Parents’ Evenings (PTI’s) for the Autumn Term will be held on Tuesday 7th and Thursday 9th October for Years 4-6 only. Year 3 meetings will take place in January to allow more time for the class teachers to get to know the children and for our regular assessments to take place.
Please visit https://almondhill.parentseveningsystem.co.uk to book your appointment. A short guide on how to add appointments is available on the school website.
Save the Date – Open Evening – Thursday 13th November 5.30-7.00pm
Our open evening for prospective parents will be on Thursday 13th November where we will welcome lots of families to look at our wonderful school. This is supported by Year 6 children who act as ambassadors for the school and show families round. We always receive positive feedback about this event and are really looking forward to this year’s open evening. Look out for more information in the coming weeks.
Bounce Resilience
We use Bounce Resilience resources as a key part of our Year 5 curriculum and have funded parents to attend similar courses in the past. They tell us these were really good. Although we don’t fund this anymore, these free places offer an opportunity to support parents in this very worthwhile way.
Signing up for Events
We work really hard to take part in so many events and we really try to ensure that all children have the opportunity to take part (if they want to). When you are sent the invite for your child, it will provide the information of event, date, times, location etc along with a deadline to respond to provide your consent. If the deadline passes without consent/communication, the place will be passed on to someone else. Please check with your child that they want to take part before signing them up. If they don’t, that's absolutely fine but please ensure you have let us know they will not be attending by replying to the invite email. These events are planned by Stevenage Sporting Futures with a minimum/maximum participation requirement that we need to meet in order to attend.
Diary Dates
Did you know, you can subscribe to our calendar to keep up to date with the events going on within the school?
Follow the link below, select 'subscribe' and follow the instructions for your device.
Preloved Book Sales
Our preloved book sales take place during the school day. Children can bring cash to school for these. Books cost 50p each.
Wednesday 22nd October
Wednesday 26th November
Preloved Uniform Sales
These take place from 3.00-3.30pm in the school hall. Families can purchase preloved uniform for a suggested donation of 50p per item.
Thursday 6th November
Thursday 4th December
SEND and Pastoral – Save the Dates
Afternoon tea: Monday 8th December at 2:30
We welcome all parents to attend (whether your child has a diagnosis or not) if they feel they would benefit from speaking to our SENCo and/or our pastoral team. In our experience, almost all children benefit from pastoral support during their journey at school. Examples of where this has been supportive in the past are when friendship issues arise, loss of a pet, online issues outside of school, family break up and bereavement. We are always delighted when more parents join us.
Opportunities to Join our Parent Forum
The benefits of the strong partnership we hold with you cannot be underestimated and it is with this in mind that I would like to extend an invitation for parents to join an Almond Hill ‘Parent Forum’ which is led by Miss Simmons. The aim of the group is to share and discuss important educational issues affecting the school and to get parents even more involved in decision making that directly affects your children. It is an opportunity to provide feedback, discuss future initiatives and national news related to education and has resulted in some really good partnership work resulting in changes to the newsletter, increased accessibility to bike ability, return to world book day dressing up to name but a few! Each and every one of you is an expert in what it is like to be a parent at our school and would be welcome. Children thrive best when school and home work together.
Miss Simmons plans half termly meetings to discuss an agenda jointly formed between the school leadership team and parent volunteers. The most important thing is that parents get involved. We would love approximately three parents per year group and with so many new families joining, we wanted to remind you of this opportunity.
Please email admin@almondhill.herts.sch.uk FAO Miss Simmons if you would like to get involved, or even just find out more. This is a really exciting opportunity to further develop the home school partnership.
The next meeting will be held on: Wednesday 22nd October 6.00-7.00pm (online)
Microsoft Teams Need help?
Meeting ID: 399 410 886 735 7
Passcode: iN62oH3Q
Attendance
Year 3 96.94%
Year 4 98.21%
Year 5 96.04%
Year 6 96.98%
All Students 97.03%
4C 99.63%
5B 99.3%
Lower School Class Winner
Upper School Class Winner
Class of the Week
Almond Hill Achievements
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At Almond Hill, we love to share and celebrate your successes. If you would like your child featured in our weekly newsletter, please complete the form on our website: https://www.almondhill.herts.sch.uk/form/?pid=130&form=483
House Points
FOAH News...
Friends of Almond Hill Halloween Disco - 23rd October
If you have some monster moves bursting to get out, then our Halloween Disco is the place for you!
We will be running 4 Halloween discos (one for each year group) on Thursday 23rd October. Tickets are £6, include pizza and a drink, and must be purchased on Arbor (in the school shop) by 12.30pm on 15th October for catering and risk assessment purposes.
This will be a silent disco allowing our ghoulish guests to select the tunes (and volume) of their choice.
So polish your pumpkins and break out your broomsticks and book your tickets now!
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Please do not leave/bring your child if you have not purchased a ticket. Unfortunately we cannot allow entry without one and we would hate to cause any upset on the day.
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Risk assessments are completed before the disco to ensure we are meeting health and safety requirements. These are shared with all volunteers in advance, so everyone involved has the necessary time to read and understand them.
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FOAH order refreshments (taking dietary needs into account) and arrange headsets ahead of the event.
Because of this, deadlines must be strictly followed. We are unable to make exceptions.
Children in Year 3 can stay at school at 3.15pm and their teacher will escort them to the disco. If your child is staying here, please ensure they have their costume or change of clothes with them. They will have time to change in class before the disco starts. In the past, we have had parents arrive at the end of the school day to dress their children in elaborate and intricate outfits which takes a lot of time and therefore children miss out on what is a relatively short time at the disco. Children can bring their costumes to school and teachers will give them plenty of time to get ready at the end of the day before the disco begins. Please allow them to bring their costume to school to enable them to do this and make the most of the disco. Please also note that as this is a silent disco, children will be wearing headphones so head pieces are not necessary and could get lost so you may want to leave those at home. Children will not be able to apply face paint before the disco as they often paint each other and some children are allergic but don't worry - the hall is dark so the children won't see!
Children in Years 4-6 must be dropped to the hall doors by the main office via the main office gate which will be open. If your child is booked to go to Premier after school club, they can bring a change of clothes with them and will be taken to the disco by an adult. All children must be collected (from the quadrant) by an adult. As it may be dark when your child is being collected, we will see the children out individually to ensure everybody’s safety. Please form an orderly queue! Please remember, staff and parents volunteer their time for these events so would appreciate a prompt collection at the end of the disco. Phones are not allowed at the disco so please make sure these are left at home.
Clubs - if your child is due to attend Stop Frame Animation or Outdoor Activities, these clubs will still be on.
FOAH Christmas Cards
As some Christmas items are starting to appear in the shops, Friends of Almond Hill are also getting ready for the big day and this week teachers will be sending home a template for your children to create Christmas cards and gifts from their designs - so please look out for these. 3B are doing theirs in class but if you would like a template to do at home, please let us know.
Additional templates will be available if there is a change in artistic direction which can be collected from the office. Please can we ask that all artwork is clearly labelled and returned to your class teacher by Monday 20th October.
In Other News...
Almond Hill has been awarded an ECO Schools Green Flag Award
We are very excited to share that Almond Hill Junior School has been awarded an ECO Schools Green Flag Award for 2025-2026! Last academic year, the re-established ECO Committee and wider school worked so hard to spread awareness and make our school more environmentally friendly. Our Green Flag application was considered over the summer holidays and we have now been sent a fabulous new green flag (made from 100% recycled materials!) to proudly fly outside of our school! Well done to the Almond Hill school community and a special thank you to all the ECO Committee members for all your hard work and dedication. Here's to another year of working together to protect our planet!
Golf Festival
On Wednesday we headed over to Stevenage Golf Centre for a beginners golf masterclass and what an afternoon it was! We started off with some chipping and then tried our hand at putting (which turned out to be trickier than it looks!). The best bit by far was the driving range, where the children loved hitting the balls as far as they…
Additional Information for Families
