*NEWS FLASH!*
Exciting new gallery is looking for artists!
 
The Burlington Art Gallery is open and accepting submissions for display in its prestigious, highly acclaimed ‘Hall of Creativity’!
 
This term’s exhibition has the theme 'SPRING' and is open to each artist’s own unique and individual interpretation. We welcome work in all forms of media - paint, drawing, sculpture, collage, digital, printing etc.
 
Mrs Stebbings will be using the artwork submitted by the children to fill a gallery wall in the school. Work will be framed and displayed for all the children to see as they pass by each day. There is no deadline for submissions, so please send them in as and when they are finished and the pieces will be displayed on a rotational basis and updated weekly on Wednesdays! The theme 'SPRING' will run until Easter, before a new theme is selected by our Arts Council for the Summer term.
 
Please ensure that all art work submitted has the artist’s name and class on the reverse/base of their masterpiece and to inform your child's Class Teacher that it is for the Burlington Art Gallery!
 
Thank you, as always, for your support,
 
Mrs Stebbings
Art and Design Lead

Congratulations to Burlington's first ever ARTS AMBASSADORS!

Rubies - Devvesh & Paulina
Emeralds - Tanvi & Zaeem
Sapphires - Kitty & Ephraim
Diamonds - Connie & Henry
Venus - Yedam & Esther
Saturn - Zack & Amber
Jupiter - Idris & Charlotte
Mercury - Lila-Mae & Abi

With more than 70 applications to become an Arts Ambassador, I sadly couldn’t offer everyone a role and I am sorry if you have not been selected this time. However, all your wonderful suggestions of ways we can bring more arts into our school have been noted and will be shared in our upcoming meetings.

As Henri Matisse once said, “Creativity takes courage.”  So be bold, be brave and pursue your passions!

Thank you to everyone for your support as always,
Mrs Stebbings
Art and Design Lead

A huge thank you to this child's Dad who came in last week to Nursery to help us celebrate the Hindu festival of Holi. He told us all about why he celebrates it, how it is traditional to throw paint powder of different colours, eat sweets, and afterwards dress up smartly! 
He showed us lots of pictures and then we used colourful scarves to throw and dance with, pretending they were the paint. ​

Please sign up with a class teacher!

What is a Mystery Reader? 

Mystery Readers are special guests who come to our classroom at storytime (end of the day) to read a story to the children. Your child will be so excited that you participated, but remember to keep it "top secret"!  Children love to see their parents, grandparents, and special friends show them how much they love reading too. The story can be one that you choose to bring in or one chosen by the teacher. You can read one in English or in your own language.

Where do I go to sign up to be a Mystery Reader? 

Please message your class teacher on Tapestry or email the school office who will pass the message on to the class. 

Please can we urge parents again to use the designated pedestrian crossings on Burlington Road. We have now had quite a few concerns reported to us of parents crossing with their children directly opposite the Curry’s car park. This is not safe.
 
School drop offs and pick-ups are some of the busiest times for road traffic - you may think you are crossing carefully but it takes only a second for a car or bus to quickly approach or for a child to loosen their grip from a parent’s hand. Is it worth saving the couple of extra minutes it may take to walk down to the pedestrian crossing? On average, six children are killed or seriously injured on UK roads every day – that’s equivalent to a whole class of children every single week. Let’s all do our bit to try and make sure this never happens in our community.
 
Please help us by supervising your child closely on roads, using designated pedestrian crossings and continuing to teach road safety. We cannot stress enough how important it is that children learn from an early age how to cross a road safely. One day in the near future, they will be going to and from school on their own and we all want to be confident in the knowledge that our children are road safety aware. Children learn from our example so let us all make sure we are setting a good one.

Please email your science selfie to admin@burlingtoni.org.uk and please let me know if you would allow for it to be shared in the school newsletter and on our school website.  I look forward to seeing your Science Selfies! 

You can check out the selfies we've received so far by clicking below:

Science Selfie Challenge Photos

Mrs MacMillan

SLEEP - WEEK 1

Lots of young children find it difficult to settle down to sleep and will often wake in the night. For some people, this might not be a problem. But if you or your children are suffering from a lack of sleep, there are a few simple techniques that you can try. Every child is different, so only do what you feel comfortable with and what you think will suit your child.

Sleep is such a huge topic so we will be talking about it over the next few weeks. This week we are going to tackle a good bedtime routine:

 - Decide what time you would like your child to go to bed.

 - If your child usually goes to bed quite late and you would like it to be earlier, start a winding down routine about 20 minutes before the time that they would usually go to bed, then bring this forward by 5 to 10 minutes each week until you get the bedtime you want.

 - Try not to use any gadgets such as phones or iPads, these will stimulate children's brains and we want this time to be as calm as possible.

 - Set a limit on how much time you spend with your child when you put them to bed. For example, read only 1 story, then tuck your child in and say goodnight.

 - Give your child their favourite cuddly toy, dummy (if they use one) or comforter before settling into bed.

 - Leave a beaker of water within reach and a dim light on if necessary.

 - If your child keeps getting up, keep taking them back to bed again with as little fuss as possible. Try to remain cool and have as little verbal interaction as possible with your child.

 - Try to be consistent.

 - You may have to repeat this routine for several nights, try not to give in, you will get there in the end.

If you have a parenting concern, you can contact Mrs Easty via the school office - admin@burlingtoni.org.uk

Another £75 raised this week! Thank you to everyone who has contributed to the school fund, we are well on our way to reaching our target with £5,615 raised so far!

Our voluntary contribution is £50 per family - if you feel you are able to contribute, this can be paid online via your School Gateway account. There is also an option to pay on a reducing balance with smaller instalments throughout the year. 

We have already raised the funds for 60 brand new Chromebooks which will be rotated between classes. The school fund also pays for various workshops and special days such as Earthsong, Big Breakfast, Don Rae Music and Dance, Black History Month and Pretend Holidays.

You can read more about our School Fund by visiting the webpage: 

School Fund web page

Did you know that whenever you buy anything online – from your weekly shop to your annual holiday – you could be raising free donations for our school with easyfundraising?
 
There are over 7,000 brands on board ready to make a donation – including eBay, Argos, John Lewis, ASOS, Booking.com and M&S – and it won’t cost you a penny extra to help us raise funds.
 
All you need to do is:
 
1. Go to the fundraising page by clicking here and join for free.

2. Every time you shop online, go to easyfundraising first to find the site you want and start shopping.

3. After you’ve checked out, the brand will make a donation to Burlington Infant & Nursery School at no extra cost to you whatsoever!
 
There are no catches or hidden charges and we will be really grateful for your donations.
 
Thank you for your support.

Please click here to see a list of Easter activities run by Childrens Centres in and around Kingston.

If you have not already downloaded the School Gateway App, please do this immediately. This is our communication and payment system for the school so it is really important that you have activated your account. We will use this system to send emergency text messages and all clubs, trips, Acorns, nursery fees etc can be paid using the app. If you require any assistance, please do not hesitate to ask the school office. 

How to access School Gateway instructions for new users

You can find all our policies on our Policies web page:

School Policies web page

We have added a School Uniform Policy, please click here to read it. 

We also recommend parents read: 

Attendance Policy
Parent & Visitor Code of Conduct 
Behaviour & Anti-bullying 
Complaints policy

Dear Parents/Carers, 

Please find attached a letter from Mrs Yay-Walker regarding the proposed industrial action on Wednesday 15th and Thursday 16th March. Please read the letter carefully and if you have any queries, please contact the school office. 

Strike Letter for 15 and 16 March

Thank you and best wishes,

Burlington Infant & Nursery School

On Friday 5th May 2023, we will be celebrating the coronation of King Charles III. To mark this event, the children will be taking part in lots of fun activities throughout the day. More details to follow!

On the day, children may wear their own non-uniform clothes including something red, white and blue! Or perhaps they might like to dress as a king, queen or other royal figure! 

Alongside the PTA and Burlington Junior School, we will also be hosting a picnic with a Great British Bake Off theme! The picnic will begin at 1.45pm on 5th May and parents will be invited to join us so please save the date. We will send further details nearer the time. 

Lastly, Nourish, our new catering company are offering a special coronation lunch for this day and would like the children to share their ideas for a perfect coronation menu! Please find attached the competition form (printed copies also available from the school office). ]

Nourish Coronation Competition

Children need to hand in their entries to the class or school office by Friday 17th March. 

We hope this will be an exciting and engaging learning experience for the children.

Thank you and best wishes, 

Burlington Infant & Nursery School

A big thank you to everyone who bought books at the Scholastic Book Fair which will go towards much needed new books for the school. 

A huge thank you also to everyone who donated for the Big Booky Bedtime Sponsored Read! We have raised a whopping £1074.60 which will go towards new reading resources!

Dear Parents/Carers,

We currently have a vacancy for one parent governor and are seeking nominations for an enthusiastic and committed parent or carer to join the resources committee of our governing board. As the parent or guardian of a pupil currently on roll, you are eligible to stand as a candidate. (Eligible candidates include father, mother, legal guardian, person having custody of a child on roll).

There are no particular qualifications required for the role but, following an analysis of the results of our skills audit, we would be particularly keen to receive nominations from someone with experience in any of the following areas: 

Accounting & Finance 

Policies 

Premises Management

ICT & Technology 

Health & Safety

The core functions of the governing board are: 

Ensuring clarity of vision, ethos and strategic direction.

Holding senior leaders to account for the educational performance of the organisation, its pupils, and the performance management of staff. 

Overseeing the financial performance of the organisation and making sure its money is well spent. 

The term of office for all governors is four years.

At Burlington Infant & Nursery School, we always aim for positive and purposeful partnerships with parents, which undoubtedly bring important benefits to the pupils. One of the most significant ways you can help in promoting this aim is to volunteer to be a parent governor. The governing board’s main tasks are to support the school, ensure that all pupils receive a high quality education and plan for future development and improvement.

Parent governors are welcomed as valued members of the team and play a vital role in ensuring the governing board is aware of the views of parents and the local community. We are confident that there are parents prepared to volunteer to take on this key role and give their time and commitment to help us continue to develop and improve the school's performance.

The resources committee currently meets four times a year and meetings usually start at 8am and finish around 9am. In addition to this, there are three meetings per year with the full governing body. These meetings usually start at 6pm and finish around 8pm. All meetings are held either at the school or virtually. 

Governors are invited once a term to visit the school during the day for monitoring visits and are encouraged to support school events, where possible. 

We offer new governors a comprehensive and supportive induction, and full training for the role is available and encouraged. In line with our school safer recruitment practice, an enhanced Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) check and two character references will be sought if successfully elected. 

If you wish to stand for the position of parent governor, please complete the candidate nomination form (please see link below) by 12.00 noon on Wednesday 22nd March 2023. Before applying, please read the attached code of conduct, which all governors are expected to sign annually, and the governor declaration, which lists the criteria that could disqualify you from serving as a governor.

Nomination Form - https://forms.gle/BuuVQZPsJvCxjeD67

For equality purposes, canvassing in any form (including social media) is not permitted.

Governor Declaration

Governor Code of Conduct

Governor web page on our school website

When nominating yourself or someone else for the role of parent governor, you are nominating the person you believe has the skills and commitment to undertake the role. You are also nominating someone you trust to represent the views of parents when working with other governors and the headteacher, to promote high standards and strategically develop the school. The parent governor’s role is not to represent individual parents’ views or to report back directly to parents. 

Should you have any questions about the role please do not hesitate to contact the clerk to governors, Nadia Ahmed via the school office. 

If there are more candidates than vacancies, voting details listing the names of all eligible candidates proposed and including any personal statements received by the due date, will be issued to all parents. If the number of candidates is equal to, or less than, the number of vacancies the candidates will be elected unopposed, in which case all parents will be sent written notice of the names of the governors elected, together with their personal statements.

Yours sincerely,

Mrs S Yay-Walker, Headteacher

A big thank you to everyone who came to our Fudge day today and got stuck in with all the activities. We hope you enjoyed it!

We would be most grateful if you could spend a couple of minutes to leave us some feedback. Click here to fill out the quick form. 

Thank you.

Eco Council wrote letters to the manager of B&Q to ask if the store could donate some plants to the school. They took the letters to B&Q to deliver them. 

It was the most amazing trip! The manager of B&Q read the letters and came straight down to see the children. He donated all of the plants that the adults and children are holding!

Please can we urge parents to use the designated pedestrian crossings on Burlington Road. It is not safe to cross over from or to the Curry's car park directly opposite the school gates with so many cars and buses on the road. We cannot stress enough how important it is that children learn from an early age how to cross a road safely.   

We have had a fabulous week celebrating different poems and books this week. The children have enjoyed lots of fun activities including reading and performing poems with children from the junior school. Today we finished off the week with our annual dress-up day! The children all looked amazing in their costumes and our staff got involved too! 

Don't forget to hand in your donations for the Big Booky Bedtime Sponsored Read!

School Council met with Sir Ed Davey, leader of the Liberal Democrats who is the MP for Kingston and Surbiton. They asked lots of excellent questions about how Sir Davey would be helping schools, and how he would improve New Malden. They learnt about how Sir Davey worked with other MPs to make laws for the country, and that we needed laws to keep everyone safe and happy. They learnt that in the same way we have school rules to keep us safe and happy at school. The children were excited to hear that Sir Davey was elected, just like school council children were elected by their classmates. Well done School Council!

Thank you to those of you who were able to attend the Year 2 SATS information session for parents this morning.  For those of you who missed it, please find below the presentation:

Year 2 SATS information session presentation

This letter is being sent home today also:

Year 2 SATS letter to parents

Our new caterers - Nourish - introduced their new menu this week and we have had lots of positive feedback from the children so far!

Infants Spring 2 2023 New NOURISH Lunch Menu

Nursery Spring 2 2023 New NOURISH Lunch Menu

Nourish are looking forward to working with us and providing nutritious meals for our children. Please click below to read their welcome newsletter. 

Nourish Welcome Newsletter

Finally, a big thank you again to our wonderful school council for helping us to choose a new caterer. They did such a good job of tasting food from all the different companies and choosing their favourite. 

Click here to see this week's Inspiration Station. 

Well done to all the children who entered this week!  You can see some of the entries we've received so far this term below.

Inspiration Station Entries Spring 2023

Here is the optional Science homework for this half term. When you have completed it, please post your work on Tapestry so that we can share your work with your class. Click on the links below to access the tasks. 
Have fun!  
Mrs MacMillan

Year 1 Optional Science Homework

Year 2 Optional Science Homework

We will be collecting again for the foodbank from Monday. They are looking for the following items:
 
Tinned Fruit 
Tinned Meat 
Tinned Pulses 
Tinned Fish 

Dear Parents/Carers, 

Please find attached a letter from Mrs Yay-Walker regarding the proposed industrial action on Thursday 2nd March. Please read the letter carefully and if you have any queries, please contact the school office. 

Strike Letter for 2 March

Thank you and best wishes 

Burlington Infant & Nursery School 

Wishing all the children a lovely half term break. We hope they have lots of fun and a good rest. We look forward to welcoming them back to school on Tuesday 21st February.

Spark Book Awards

Burlington Infant and Nursery School are taking part in the SPARK book awards again this year. At home you can listen to Mrs Davies read the four shortlisted stories (see videos below) and vote for your favourite on the google form here.

We will also be reading the stories to children in class and having a class vote. 

Why Oh Why Am I Crocodile?

The Night Flower

The Bear and Her Book

The Drama Llama

SPARK Poetry Competition

This year your child can enter the poetry competition by writing a poem based on the front cover of one of the shortlisted books.  Please give the poem to your class teacher and put it in the special box by the office. Any type of poem is great! For more information follow this link:

https://www.sparkbookawards.co.uk/get-involved/pupil-competitions

Congratulations to the 'Wow writer' winners for January. These children have been chosen especially by their teachers for their great effort in writing. They all enjoyed a special treat on Tuesday lunchtime as a reward.

This half term, the Year 2 choir had an exciting trip to the Rose Theatre on Friday 27th January, taking part in the annual Malden and Coombe Cluster Concert.  34 children in the Year 2 Choir sung and danced with such confidence and enthusiasm two songs on stage in front of an audience of 800!  They performed brilliantly with their two songs - Singing in the Rain and Let’s dance. Well done to all the children - we are so proud of you!  

A big thank you to everyone who bought books at the recent Usborne Book Sale. The sales have raised £450 worth of new books for our school!

You should have received your boxes of raisins by now. Children, once you have finished your raisins, don't forget to fill your empty box with coins in exchange for doing helpful chores around the house! Please bring your filled boxes to your classroom after the half term break. 

A big thank you to the PTA for organising the recent cake sale and a HUGE thank you to year 1 parents/carers for the delicious donations! The cake sale raised a whopping £400! 

This Tuesday 7th February was Safer Internet Day. To mark the day, our digital leaders led an assembly focusing on ways to stay safe while online.

The theme of this year's Safer Internet Day was 'Want to Talk About it?' which encourages children to talk to trusted adults about the internet. Below is a link for parents with tips, guides and resources to keep your child safe online. ​

https://saferinternet.org.uk/guide-and-resource/parents-and-carers

We have a lot more information and useful resources on our web page: 

Keeping Your Child Safe web page

A big thank you to everyone who has donated to the DEC Turkey-Syria Earthquake Appeal. You can still donate online via your School Gateway account. 

There are lots of other charities who are also taking donations: 
https://donate.redcross.org.uk/appeal/turkey-syria-earthquake-appeal
https://www.oxfam.org.uk/oxfam-in-action/current-emergencies/turkey-and-syria-earthquake-appeal/
https://www.savethechildren.org.uk/how-you-can-help/emergencies/turkey-syria-earthquake
https://turkeymozaik.org.uk/

We would also like to thank some of our children who wanted to write letters about why they felt it was important to donate to this cause. Well done. 

HENRY provides a wide range of support for families from pregnancy to age 12 including workshops, programmes, resources and online help. All of their support for families is underpinned by the HENRY approach to supporting behaviour change which helps parents gain the confidence, knowledge and skills they need to help the whole family adopt a healthier, happier lifestyle and to give their children a great start in life.

For more information please visit their website here - https://www.henry.org.uk

Click here to read their February newsletter.

At the recent parents’ forum/coffee morning, a parent asked if we would consider having the 2 Y1 classes who usually eat in the small hall be swapped with the 2 that eat in the Great Hall so that they have the chance to experience eating in the Great Hall in the summer term before they move on to Y2. We thought this was a good idea and would like to try this in the summer term. They will keep the same lunch supervisors, but do a swap with the other 2 classes. So Sapphires and Emeralds will eat in the Great Hall and Rubies and Diamonds will eat in the small hall in summer term 2. We will build in a class visit to start with, at the end of summer 1. Thank you to the parents who attended our parents forum, we had some wonderful feedback and some really helpful suggestions!

Eco Council, School Council and Learning Council children are elected through a democratic process!

Children are asked if they would like to be a council member and put their names forward. Children who have put their names forward are asked why they would like to be on the school/eco/learning council and they speak to the class about what they would do for the school.

The class vote for children for each council. The children with the most votes are then elected to represent the class. 2 children are put forward for each council to represent their class. So there are 6 children chosen each year.

Look out for Art Council and Digital Leaders who will also be selected to represent their class!

Also, we have been learning about Individual Liberty in assembly and about how we have the right/freedom to make our own choices, but that those choices have consequences. We have been linking this to recycling and deforestation. Check out this week's Picture News which is all about 2 students in Japan who have created a new sustainable cement made entirely out of food waste! 

The lost property basket in the office will be emptied over half term. Please check the box before then if you are missing any items. Any items that are not named will be discarded. 

The children have been learning all about Lunar/Chinese New Year at school. We were very lucky to have the amazing Earth Song team in school to run an interactive workshop for the children. Storm, Angela and Gill brought along all of their wonderful props and costumes to help the children to learn more about the special New Year festival. The children were excited to play traditional instruments. All of the children participated through music, movement, singing and dance. Some of the children even had an opportunity to wear the spectacular dragon costume! I wonder if the children can remember which one of the twelve zodiac animals is celebrated this year in 2023?

A huge thank you also to the Mummy’s of Andy, Lingxi, Sia, Jasper, Vince and Evie in Blue Nursery for celebrating Chinese New Year with us. They helped us learn about how we celebrate, about saying goodbye to the year of the Tiger and welcoming the year of the Rabbit. We said happy new year in Mandarin and had a dance to a special song. Then we had art and craft time and all made fire crackers! 

The children also participated in lots of fun and engaging Chinese/Lunar New Year learning activities in their classroom. 

Celebrating at Home...

Children at Burlington have been having a fantastic time celebrating the Chinese/Lunar New Year at home with their families. Here are a few photos:

This girl celebrated the Lunar New Year by wearing her special Korean dress. Her great auntie made a crochet rabbit as a gift from Korea as it’s the year of the Rabbit.

This girl visited a Korean friend's house to celebrate the Lunar New Year. They made Korean style dumpling for the dduk gook (rice cake soup with dumpling). On Lunar New Year morning, she enjoyed eating the "Dduk gook" with dumpling for breakfast. Yummy!

This girl had a great Chinese New Year with her family. She made sticky rice cakes as a treat then helped her mummy to cook some rice and different dishes for a big feast! She even got some red pocket envelopes. We wonder what was inside?

A big thank you to Elliott's Dad who came into the Nursery to celebrate Burns Night with us this week. Elliott's Dad is from Scotland and Burn's night celebrates the famous Scottish poet Robert Burns. He told us all about it, read some books and even gave us some Scottish shortbread to try that he had made with Elliott. Thank you it was great fun and the children loved learning about a different country and culture.

 
If you would like to come and celebrate a special day in your country or religion with us please let your teacher know. We would love to have you.

School Council children are the champions for British Values. They have been testing out Democracy at Burlington Infants.

School Council Project 1: Playground Improvements!

School Council have been working with their classmates to make some big changes in our school. They voted on some of the areas that they wanted to improve in our school.  The most votes were for the reading den, and the sandpit. The School Council wrote a shopping list of things they wanted to improve the Sandpit and the Reading Den. They went on a trip to New Malden High Street to buy some of these things. They have put these things into the reading den and the sandpit. Look out for them at playtime, but please look after them.  

Project 2: New School Catering Company!

The school was looking for a new catering company to provide our lunches. The School Council was asked to help! They were asked to taste some food cooked by each company. It was so delicious and fun! After they tasted the food, they had to vote for their favourite. They chose a company called Nourish. They will be starting after the half term break. Look out for the new tasty menu! 

We learned that we can make big changes to improve our school through democracy. We voted on which areas of the school to improve, and what we wanted to do to improve it. Our ideas and opinions mattered. We helped decide which company would be our new catering company. Through democracy, we learned that our voices were important. 

A big thank you to everyone who attended the reading and writing workshop this week. We hope you found it useful.
If you were unable to attend, please click below to see a copy of the presentation. 

Reading and Writing parent workshop presentation Jan 2023

We are honoured to have been gifted these magical, anamorphic art installations, designed by Mike and Cindy @unitlab, which formed part of the ‘Shape, Mirror, Play’ exhibition at Orleans House Gallery, last summer. They now sit proudly in our Nursery outdoor learning environment and in our newly designed KS1 playground for the children to explore and discover the joy of science and art combined!

Read a good book recently? 

Want to share it with others?

Then please take a photo of the book or you with the book and tell us a little bit about it and why you liked it so much? Was it funny? Did it have good pictures? How did it make you feel? Was it a good story? Was it full of fun facts? Was it a great poetry book? What happens? Who are the characters?

All entries will be displayed as a leaf on a special Reading Tree in the Library, mentioned in Assembly and put in the Newsletter.

A huge thank you to everyone who donated during our Christmas Concerts. We raised a whopping £541.87 for St Raphael's Hospice. 

Please find attached a letter from Mrs Yay-Walker regarding the proposed industrial action on Wednesday 1st February. Please read the letter carefully and if you have any queries, please contact the school office. 

Strike letter to parents

Thank you to everyone who attended this morning. We hope you found it useful. We were really pleased to host our first parent forum and a huge thank you to those parents who left their feedback and suggestions. We received some really lovely and positive feedback as well as suggestions of what we might improve on. We will be going through each suggestion and will feedback shortly on the actions we will be taking.

If you were unable to attend this morning, please see below for a copy of the presentation. 

Parent Information Morning - presentation from 20 January

This week we have taken delivery of over 200 new decodable reading books linked to our phonics scheme, Little Wandle Letters and Sounds. We hope you enjoy reading them with your children at home. There are wonderful story books but also fascinating non-fiction books linked to our science, art, geography and history curriculum. 

In school we use Zones of Regulation to help children to recognise their feelings and emotions and develop and use strategies to get into the appropriate zone at the appropriate time. Feelings and emotional states are categorized into four colour zones as above. You may find this useful at home too, to help manage your child's emotions in a way that they understand. 

Here is some helpful information to explain this further: 

Zones of Regulation slides for parents

Dear Parents

I wanted to take this opportunity of introducing myself to you all. My name is Matt Martin and I have returned to Burlington Infant and Nursery School in the capacity of Chair of Governors. Having worked for the Governing Body from 2009-2018, I have a very close connection with the school and I am delighted to be back.

As governors, we wanted to establish an opportunity to engage with parents and as such we will be providing a termly update via the medium of the weekly newsletter moving forward.

On behalf of the full governing body, I would like to thank you all for your ongoing commitment and support to Burlington Infant and Nursery School.

Please can we remind parents that pets including dogs are NOT allowed on the school site during drop off or pick up times. Thank you for your cooperation.

A reminder that reception children once they have turned 5 no longer get free milk. If your Reception child has recently turned 5 and you would like them to continue to get milk, please register them on the Coolmilk website. You can pay online directly through Coolmilk. 

Link to register for Coolmilk

You can find out more about Coolmilk on our web page

School Milk web page

What a busy Burlington Biscuit Bonanza Science Day we have had! After reading the book The Gingerbread Man, Nursery made their own gingerbread men and found out what happens to gingerbread men in water. Reception found out what happens when you pour water on different biscuits and discussed which biscuit needed the most water to make it soggy. These investigations were great for encouraging the children to start thinking scientifically and draw on their current knowledge to make predictions. 

Year 1 investigated which biscuit is the softest when you add water and Year 2 investigated which biscuit, filled or plain, is the best for dunking! These investigations encouraged the children to make predictions, think about fair testing, how they could record their results and write a conclusion.

Thank you to all the parents who joined us this morning to take part in science activities and a special thank you to the parents who shared their science related job and hobbies with the children.
Parent feedback - “it’s helped inspire and instill confidence for me to do fun science activities at home”.​

We loved seeing your children dressed as scientists and wearing science themed tops, and it was great to see our staff taking part too!

Please remember to return your KS1 and YR Science Day Quiz sheets to your class teacher by Friday 13th January. You can find the quizzes by clicking on the below links:

Reception Family Science Quiz 2023

Years 1 and 2 Family Science Quiz 2023

Burlington Infants is very excited to be part of the SPARK book awards again this year. 

During December the shortlisted books feature on the Spark website:

Spark Book Awards - Early Readers

Soon, there will be a further shortlist of 4 books, that Mrs Davies will read to you all on video. We then get to vote for our favourites, listen to author talks and enter competitions! More information coming soon! 

Last term, the Eco Council went out to the local park to pick up litter. They worked really hard and collected two bags of rubbish.

Last term, some of our School Council children were selected to help Burlington schools find a new catering company. The children did an excellent job with food tasting and giving their honest feedback about what they liked and disliked about each one. Their views have been taken as part of the selection process and we are excited to say that we have found a new catering company. Look out for news on the new caterers this term! Well done School Council!   

Many children will have received a new tablet, games console or other digital device as a Christmas present. We strongly recommend that you set parental controls on all devices in the home to ensure your child is only accessing age appropriate content.

Below is a useful quick start guide to setting controls: 

You can also find lots more useful information about keeping your child safe online on our web page: 

Keeping your child safe web page