Summer Term Dates

July
22nd - YN, YR & Y1 Party Day
22nd - Saturn Class Leavers Assembly 9.10am
22nd - Jupiter Class Leavers Assembly 2pm 
23rd - Venus Class Leavers Assembly 9.10am
23rd - Mercury Class Leavers Assembly 2pm
24th - SCHOOL CLOSES AT 1.45PM for the summer break (NO Yellow or Purple nursery)

Autumn Term Dates

September
2nd - INSET DAY - SCHOOL CLOSED
3rd - INSET DAY - SCHOOL CLOSED
4th - TERM BEGINS
6th - Welcome to Year 2 Parent Meeting 9.00-10.00am Infant Hall 
6th - Welcome to Year 1 Parent Meeting 2.50-3.20pm Infant Hall
13th - Parent Information Morning - 'Everything you need to know about Burlington' + Esafety talk 9.00-10.15am Infant Hall - All parents welcome 
13th - PTA AGM 2.00-3.00pm Great Hall 
20th - Welcome to Nursery Parent Meeting 9.00-10.00am Great Hall 
20th - Welcome to Nursery Parent Meeting 2.40-3.30pm Infant Hall
27th - PTA Non-Uniform Day (more details to follow) 

Reception, Y1 and Y2 children have had such a fun week going on their pretend holidays. They have travelled to France, Italy and Australia! It was an absolute joy to see the children totally immersed in this activity and to see their imaginations come alive.

Today Faith’s Dad Mr Bramwell came to teach Blue Nursery tennis! We met Billy ball and had a great time doing warm up exercises and then having a go at tennis skills. Thank you for coming and well done children! 

Year 2 children had a special visit today from the ice cream van as an extra special treat before they leave us to move up to the junior school. A huge thank you to the PTA who kindly funded it. 

We are really going to miss our lovely year 2 children and we will be giving them a proper send off next week in their assemblies. What a truly wonderful bunch of children, we wish them so much luck in their new classes at the junior school where we know they will continue to thrive. The junior school are very lucky to have them! 

We look forward to welcoming Year 2 parents to the leavers assemblies on Monday & Tuesday. Please see timings below for your class. 

Monday 22nd July
Saturn - 9.10am
Jupiter - 2.00pm 

Tuesday 23rd July
Venus - 9.10am 
Mercury - 2.00pm 

Eco Council children have had such a busy year! They have helped with the following:

Litter picking in school and the local area

Completing the Great Big Battery Count and delivering a whole school assembly. The final count of batteries was 442!

Completing the RSPB Big Bird Watch

Supporting with the WWF Copper Mile and delivering a whole school assembly

Collecting plants from B&Q, planting out the planters and making sure that the plants are well watered

Helping Mrs Docwra and Mrs Easty with other Eco tasks that arose

As a thank you for their efforts, the children had strawberries and ice cream. The strawberries had been grown on plants that Hugo brought into school. Each child also received a certificate so that they could keep it as a memento of the great work that they have done throughout the year.

Amazing work Eco Council and thank you!

We would like to say farewell to lovely Miss Dixon who will be leaving us at the end of this term. Miss Dixon will be relocating and teaching at a new school in September. Miss Dixon has been teaching in year 2 since she joined us and has been a wonderful addition to our Burlington Family. We are going to miss her so much but we wish her every bit of luck and happiness at her new school, they will be very lucky to have her! 

Please click here to read an important update regarding a change in cost to the school milk scheme that Cool Milk provides. If your child is already 5 years old, it is especially relevant as you will be able to take advantage of the current price for the next academic year if you register now. 

If you are taking part in science learning at home, please take a photo and email it to the school. It could be a photo of you trying out an experiment, sharing something that you have created or an interesting find. You could be with an animal, reading a book, feeding the birds, at your allotment or visiting a science museum. Please add comments and quotes from your child explaining what your science selfie is about and what you were learning.

Please email your science selfie to admin@burlingtoni.org.uk.  We look forward to seeing your Science Selfies!

Here are some of the Science Selfies we've received!

Science Selfie Challenge Photos

Holiday Activities

Today is all about having fun, I am going to give you some recipes for slime, playdough and coloured spaghetti, children (and adults) can play with these for hours on end, it is calming, therapeutic and very enjoyable.

Slime
 - Add 1 teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda to 100mls of PVA glue.
 - Add the food colouring of your choice and give it a good stir.
 - Finally, stir in contact lens solution, small amounts at a time, keep stirring and before your eyes, slime will appear.

If you want clear slime you can use clear PVA, if you want sparkly slime you can add glitter, if you want fluffy slime, try adding shaving cream. One tip is make sure that you are actually using contact lens solution and not saline solution or you will just end up with a gooey mess! 

Playdough
This is such an easy recipe and really cheap to make. You will need: 

1 cup of plain flour
1 cup of salt
1 cup of water
1 tablespoon of oil
1 teaspoon of cream of tartar (this is a dry powder that can be found in the baking aisle)
Food colouring of your choice

Put all the ingredients into a saucepan and stir it all together over a very low heat, if you have the heat high it will not work. As the mixture slowly heats up, you will see it turn into a lump of playdough, tip it out of the pan onto a heat proof surface, when it has cooled down it is ready to use. 

Coloured Spaghetti
The children love this one in school, you could use any out of date dried spaghetti or pasta, put it in a pan of water to cook along with food colouring of your choice. Once cooked, pour into a colander and add a tablespoon or two of cheap cooking oil. When cool it is ready to play with. If you are feeling really brave, make 2 - 3 different colours. Give your children a selection of plastic knives, forks, spoons. play tea sets, saucepans etc and let their imagination run wild. This can be quite a messy activity, so don't forget to protect their clothes and the surface they are playing on.

All of the above can be stored in the fridge and  played with again another day. Good luck, your children will give you 'The Parent of the Year Award' for this!

Sending best wishes for a fun filled summer and don't forget to post all those slimy messy pictures on Tapestry.

And finally, our positive thought of the week:

Childhood memories are the threads of our soul.

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

Please click here for a programme of activities being held during the summer break at local Children's Centres.

Please click here to read the summer newsletter from our catering provider Nourish. 

If your child needs to use the toilet after pick-up, please walk back to your classroom door and ask for your child to go back through the classroom to use the toilet. Parents are not allowed in the toilets. This is to safeguard the other children we have on site after school in clubs and at Acorns. 

Thank you for your cooperation.

Thank you to everyone who has contributed to the school fund, we are well on our way to reaching our target with £6,626 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. 

The money we raise from these contributions goes towards enriching experiences for the children such as Earthsong, Big Breakfast, Don Rae Music and pretend holidays. This academic year, we have also used the funds to buy new iPads and laptops for the classrooms, cameras for computing and fantastic workshops run by Kiddirama for Black History Month.

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

School Fund web page

Just letting you know that Burlington Infant & Nursery School are now registered with easyfundraising, which means you can raise FREE donations for us every time you shop online.

Over 7,000 brands will donate to us when you use easyfundraising to shop with them – at no extra cost to yourself! These donations really mount up and make a BIG difference to us, so we’d really appreciate it if you could take a moment to sign up and support us.

It’s completely FREE and only takes a moment. You can find our easyfundraising page here.

Thank you so much!
 
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.

A reminder to all parents that the yellow zig-zag lines outside our school at both the front and back gates indicate the length of road where stopping or waiting is strictly prohibited. If you park on these clearly marked, yellow zig zag lines you are putting the safety of our children and their families at risk.

Cars should not be parked on the zig zag lines for any amount of time - even if it is just a minute or two to drop off children.

Thank you for helping us to keep our school community safe.

Please can we remind parents that children are not allowed to ride scooters on the school premises. Please use the scooter stands provided or carry your child's scooter once inside the school gates. We really appreciate your support.
Thank you

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 recommend parents read: 

Medical Conditions Policy
Attendance Policy 
Parent & Visitor Code of Conduct 
Behaviour & Anti-bullying 
Complaints policy
School Uniform

In the autumn term last year, we received the IQM Flagship School Award. This award is in recognition of the amazing inclusion work that all staff including the SEN team do for our children. We recently welcomed one of the IQM assessors, who came in to review the work we are doing. Please have a read of the report we received from this recent review - we are so proud of everything we do here at Burlington and it is lovely to have this acknowledged. 

IQM Assessor Report - June 2024

Hello! My name is Jennifer Saxby and this was my first academic year as Governor for OPAL, Music, Art and D&T. 

At the start of this academic year, OPAL (Outdoor Play and Learning) was introduced to Burlington Infants as a way to create richer play experiences for our children. Our OPAL Team have worked so hard (and fast!) transforming play at Burlington this year. 

This week, I had the opportunity to visit school during play time and see OPAL in action. It was wonderful to see everyone having fun outside in all areas of our school grounds. Children were enjoying a range of activities – from dressing up and performing on the stage by the Year 2 classrooms to science experiments and bug collection in the Rainbow Garden to constructing fantastic spaceships and houses in the playground and sports in the new MUGA. It was great to see everyone from Reception to Year 2 having fun, but also playing together so nicely.  At the end of the play time, the children did an impressive 5-minute tidy up and then made their way back to their classrooms! 

When we return to school in September, OPAL will continue to introduce new play opportunities to the children, and we’ll look forward to welcoming you into school to experience play time too. Until then, have a wonderful summer and a BIG thank you to Mrs Leech, Miss Biscoe, Ms Farr and the whole OPAL team for all their hard work bringing OPAL to life in our school.

Welcome to Year 1 - Save the Date! - New to Year 1 Parent Talk

Friday 6th September

2.50pm Infant Hall

Find out all about Y1, including the topics your child will learn and how you can help at home. We look forward to meeting you! We will not be inviting parents into year 1 classes after the talk.

Welcome to Year 2 - Save the Date! - New to Year 2 Parent Talk and Visit to your Child’s Classroom

Friday 6th September

9am Infant Hall

Find out all about Y2, including the topics your child will learn and how you can help at home with maths, reading and writing.  Afterwards you can visit your child in their new classroom!  We look forward to meeting you!

As per our Attendance Policy, please note the following as our summer holiday time approaches:
 
If your child is off for 3 days or more, for medical or sickness reasons immediately prior or after a school holiday and no evidence is provided, this will be an UNAUTHORISED absence.

Your child is invited to sign up for this year’s Summer Reading Challenge.

What is the Summer Reading Challenge?

The Summer Reading Challenge encourages children to keep reading during the school summer holidays – and to enjoy reading anything they like! Children aged 4-11 are invited to set a reading goal and collect rewards for their reading. It’s completely FREE to take part. 

It is an amazing way to boost children’s confidence – last year 72% of children taking part felt more confident reading.

How can my child take part? (Library OR online)

IN THE LIBRARY: Visit the New Malden or any other local library and sign up. Your child will:

·         Set a reading goal for the summer and borrow and read any books, eBooks and audiobooks.

·         Receive a Challenge poster and collect special stickers and rewards for reading.

ONLINE: Take part online at summerreadingchallenge.org.uk

·         Sign up on the official Challenge website.

·         Set a reading goal and get book recommendations and tips.

·         Unlock digital badges and online rewards, including a printable certificate.

There will be a special Assembly in September to celebrate so please bring your certificates into school. 

Don't forget to take part in the reading tree challenge! Please encourage your child to participate - click here to see this month's challenge. 

Dear Parents/Carers,

The children had an assembly today where they found out their new class and teachers for September. They were all very excited! 

Please find attached information regarding your child's new class. If you have any questions, please contact the school office. 

New Classes for September 2024

Thank you and best wishes, 

Burlington Infant & Nursery School

The children have had great fun this week taking part in lots of energetic activities! They have had brilliant dance and fitness sessions with Don Rae, a healthy breakfast, sports day, football sessions with Mr Wilson and ending with a skipping rope workshop today! Well done everybody! 

Last week year 2 children had an exciting visit to the Shree Ganapathy Hindu temple in Wimbledon. We travelled by train and the children did a great job of walking to the station in New Malden and from Wimbledon station to the temple. We arrived at the temple in time to see the end of the puja ceremony performed by the priest. The children sat and watched as offerings of flowers, fruit, incense and candle light were made to the different deities in the temple. Once puja had been completed, we were able to walk around the temple and look at the different deities and how they had been blessed. After a quick drink and snack, we had a short discussion with one of the temple staff. We learned the importance of engaging the five senses in Hindu puja and the children were able to share how they had seen this done.

We hope you enjoyed watching Mrs Davies reading the Spark Book Award Books. Thank your for voting for your favourites. The results for our school are as follows:

First place

Second place

Third place

Fourth place

Please click here to read a letter from the UK Health Agency regarding your child's pre-school immunisations. 

Our Year 2 choir performed in the Kingston Music Service Primary Singing festival on Wednesday at the Rose Theatre. The children performed a wonderful rendition of The Bare Necessities from the Jungle Book. They sang with such passion and enthusiasm, all while remembering the actions and some really tricky lyrics! The choir also performed 3 other songs together with the other schools who were taking part. One of the songs was actually composed by our choir children with the help of James Redwood, a composer and music leader who came into school earlier in the term to work with the children. James was so impressed with the ideas that the children came up with and was blown away by their song writing skills! We are so proud of the children, they sang beautifully and really were one of the standout performances on the day. We would also like say a huge thank you to Mrs Williamson, our music teacher and choir leader who has put so much effort into the choir this year, leading the children in some amazing performances and encouraging their love of music. 

On Wednesday, 10 of our Year 1 children took part in the annual swimming gala at Coombe Hill Infants. All the children tried really hard across a number of races, including relays, noodle races and more. We all had a great time and couldn’t have asked for nicer weather! Well done to the Year 1 children for representing Burlington!

On Thursday, 10 of our Reception children attended a mini athletics festival at Corpus Christi School where they took part in a variety of running, jumping and fielding events with other schools from the borough. Everyone tried their best and cheered their team mates on. Well done to all who participated!

The classes across the whole school voted for the WWF endangered animal that they would like to adopt. The most voted for animal was the turtle! Burlington have adopted a turtle for the year. The children are delighted!

Year 2 this week have been revisiting their learning about instruction writing. They carried out an exciting, explosive experiment using mentos and diet coke. They have written some instructions so you can recreate this experiment at home!

On Wednesday the engineers returned to our school. They visited the classes of the Y2 children who took part in their competition at home.

The children presented their own solutions to climate change and reaching net zero at home.

The children were very creative and confidently explained their ideas. They answered questions from their friends and from the engineers.

All the children who took part received a certificate. Well done everyone! 

In our KS1 assembly on Monday, Mrs Yay-Walker introduced the importance of saying goodbye and that in September Year 1 children will move into Year 2 and Year 2 children will move into Year 3 at the junior school. We will be saying goodbye to Year 2 children in July. She shared lots of photos to celebrate the fun times we have all had!
As a leaving gift every year the Year 2 children are given a special leavers t-shirt. This year they have been kindly bought by the PTA.

The children can now wear their special t-shirts on their PE Days, Mufti Days and during Healthy Living Week! We are really enjoying seeing the children wearing them!

The children have been so busy this week campaigning for which animal they would like to adopt this year through the WWF. They have made brilliant posters and will be voting for their chosen animal soon!

We would also like to say a huge thank you to everyone who donated their loose change to the Copper Mile on Thursday. Over the next few weeks, Eco Council children will help to count the coins and the total amount will be donated to the WWF.

Every class took it in turns to come out to the playground to lay down their coins for the Copper Mile!

Watch the Copper Mile 2024 on YouTube

Top Secret Mystery Readers Wanted!
Please sign up with your class teacher!

What is a Mystery Reader? 

Mystery Readers are special guests who come to our classroom at story time (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. Please fill in the special form on the classroom door.

A huge thank you to the lovely team from AXA XL, one of which is a parent and governor at our school, who come in every year to volunteer as part of the company's 'global day of giving'. The team worked incredibly hard on Thursday, painting 2 new sheds and the reading den as well as clearing up the Rainbow Garden. We are so very grateful for their time and generosity. 

Please click here for a programme of activities being held this term at local Children's Centres.

Kingston Adult Education has a number of courses starting after half term, most of which are government funded so are free to learners. Take a look at their latest course guide for further details - https://bit.ly/KAE-JuneJulyGuide24.
 
Courses include:

How to be happy in your life

Digital skills

Job search support 

Explore your business potential 

Introduction to GCSE maths and English 

Preparing to work in schools

Their classes take place throughout the week at various times, both online and at centres across the Royal Borough of Kingston.
 
If you are looking to start a course in September, Kingston Adult Education is hosting an Open Day at the Rose Theatre in Kingston on Thursday 20th June from 10am to 4pm.  Go along to find out about next year’s adult learning programme, which includes wellbeing, vocational, maths, English, digital as well as creative courses.  You will also be able to meet some of their tutors and see their learners in action.  Full details can be found on page 8 of their current course guide - https://bit.ly/KAE-JuneJulyGuide24.

For further information, please contact Kingston Adult Education directly on 020 8547 6700 or at adult.education@kingston.gov.uk

What a wonderful week we have had celebrating our rich diverse community! The children have had great fun with Earthsong and Don Rae Dancing. A big thank you to all the parents who came in to volunteer to speak about their home country. 

We rounded off the week with a parade this morning of everyone in their beautiful clothes plus a huge multicultural picnic! Thank you so much to everyone for all the amazing food - we are so grateful! It was wonderful to see our whole school community come together. 

The Coram Family and Childcare charity held their Parent Champions annual conference this month. 

Part of this conference is the Parent Champions Awards which are an opportunity to recognise volunteers’ achievements and valuable contributions.

Kingston and Richmond were nominated for scheme of the year and two of our SEND parent champions were nominated for "Biggest Impact" - Misha Patel and Linda Nystrom.

We are honoured to say Linda Nystrom won this award. Linda has been working hard for SEND parents in her local community and local schools.  She received 20 nominations including parents from her groups.

Linda would like to thank any Burlington parents who voted for her - well done Linda and congratulations!

Every week we will be sending home an exciting picture to discuss and share at home which will hopefully inspire your child to write and draw. There will be a post-box situated in the corridor by the school office which children can post their entries in. All entries must be brought into class by the following Tuesday. Children can write and draw anything which comes to mind after looking at the picture. Every week in Assembly, winning entries will be shared with the school and stickers/rewards will be given. Please encourage your child to participate in this weekly challenge. We’d love to see all of your ideas!

Click here to see a copy of this week's Inspiration Station. 

Burlington are a very globally-minded school! For last week’s inspiration station the children shared their favourite countries and interesting facts about them. Every continent was represented and we loved travelling around the world through the children’s ideas!

Inspiration Station Entries 2023-24

Please click here to see a list of activities taking place at local children's centres during the half term break at local Children's Centres.

Keep your science good deeds coming! If you haven't yet taken part in this term's science homework, why not give it a go. 

Take a Science Selfie while you are completing your Science Good Deed and post it on Tapestry!  If you would like to have your photo included in our weekly school newsletter, please e-mail your photo to admin@burlingtoni.org.uk

Our Eco Council need your help!  They know that Burlington children enjoy taking care of the world and would like you to take part in a Science Good Deed this half term!  You might do the activity for one day or you might try to do it everyday for a week. 

Science Good Deed

Here are a few ideas for you to choose from:

Go on a litter pick

Walk to school

Turn off the tap when you are brushing your teeth

Turn off the lights when no one is in the room

Create a Bug Hotel in your garden or at the park

Help with the recycling at home

If you have a garden, plant some bee friendly plants

Donate old toys, clothes and books to charity or organise a toy swap with a friend

If you have a garden, collect rainwater to water your plants

All year groups from Nursery to Year 2 are welcome to take part!

=======================

This girl helped gather all the children's clothes in her house which were in great condition and donated them to disabled children in need. She also placed her old family kettle on the curb and wrote a note on it to say it was free to take for anyone who needed one. 

We are looking for more reading volunteers to help out in our year 2 classes.

If you are able to spare 20 minutes on either a Monday or Tuesday (or both days!) from 9am, to help read with the children in class, please get in touch with Mrs McEvoy via the school office. 

Thank you!

Our parenting course is in full swing and we would love to share a poem that one of our parents wrote for us following his time on the course. Such meaningful words and really captures the essence of why we continue to run this course - thank you.

Mrs Docwra and Mrs Easty

It’s Friday morning, we’re here again
To share our Mummy/Daddy pain
The week just passed, we’ve got things wrong,
But this is not a guilt trip song.
We’re here to share, to laugh, to cry,
To learn and grow is what we try.
As parents we know this for sure.
Our life with kids, it ain’t a bore!
Our feelings, can’t help but come out
And sometimes we can scream and shout!
And when we do, we don’t feel proud
But here’s our silver lining cloud…
Here in this group, we understand
That we all need a helping hand.
Michelle and Terri they’re the best
They give us tips, put minds at rest
Kindness, praise and empathy
Are three great things they love to see!
They share their wisdom, lend an ear
For all of us, there’s healing here!

Last half term the year 2 children took part in an engineering challenge - to design and make a vehicle from a shoe box. Two children from each year 2 class had the opportunity to attend a Primary Engineer Construction Celebration Event in London to speak to engineers and test the vehicles they had made down a ramp. Our children were competing against pupils from other schools. Gabriel and Kitty were the overall design winners and Lingrong and Zelda won best vehicle for distance and for communication. It was a fantastic opportunity for the children. We are excited that we will continue working with the engineers this term too to take part in another project!

Our Multi-Use Games Area (MUGA) is officially open in the infant playground! The children have been enjoying playing lots of different ball games during playtimes. The MUGA was installed by Morgan Sindall, the contractors who are undertaking the expansion work at the junior school. We have been wanting a dedicated space for football, basketball and other sports for a long time so we are delighted to finally be able to offer this to the children.

Ten Project is back and excited to welcome new and old faces to their FREE Community Family Sessions. They are also delighted to be welcoming a new set of children and families to their School & Community Initiative this summer term. They are set to teach well over 1,200 children and their families over the course of the next 10 weeks and they can't wait to meet you all! 

All of their FREE Community Family Sessions are back and starting either this weekend or next, so what are you waiting for? Book into your FREE session now! 
 

Register Now