Miss Hamalis’ Bulletin – Monday 24 March 2025

You can view all events for the year in the school calendar via our Parent Portal: SchoolBase login. Your calendar view should already be filtered to display the Junior School events and events which are specific to your daughter’s year group. 

The ‘School Calendar Parent View’ button shows the complete calendar, which can be viewed by each month, week or day. Events also appear on the right-hand side of the home page under ‘Forthcoming Events’ and the monthly view of the calendar also appears at the bottom of the home page.

As a reminder, the final day of the Goodwin House food bank drive is Friday 28 March. All donations will go to the Alexandra Wylie Tower Foundation’s food bank. If your daughter is in Goodwin House, we ask that donations are placed in one of the blue, labelled Food Bank collection bins in the courtyard. There will be collection drives for all the Houses throughout the year, with girls from each House asked to contribute. However, donations from all members of the community are welcome at any time!

Suggested items for donations include: washing tablets, tinned/canned produce, pasta (and sauces), rice, spices, olive oil, juices, stocks, cereals, sugar, salt, tea and coffee. This term, AWTF are particularly in need of the following items: long-life milk, tinned fruit, pasta and cereal. Please ensure all items are long-life produce, as regrettably, fresh items cannot be donated. Additionally, all donations must be within their sell-by and use-by dates, as AWTF cannot distribute expired food. We ask that you kindly check dates before donating.

Many thanks in advance to Goodwin House for all your support!

We are delighted to share that on Thursday 27 March, our Year 2 and Year 3 pupils will have the exciting opportunity to take part in a hockey masterclass led by GB hockey player, Martha Taylor. This is a fantastic chance for our pupils to learn from a professional athlete and develop their hockey skills.

To ensure everyone is fully prepared, we kindly ask that:

• All pupils in Year 2 & Year 3 bring their shin pads and gum shields to school on this day.
• If possible, Year 2 pupils should wear their shin pads to school to allow their lesson to start promptly.
• Pupils in 2M will be joining the Year 2 hockey masterclass on Thursday 27 March. As a result, their usual Friday PE lesson will not take place.

We are sure this will be an inspiring and memorable experience for our pupils, and we look forward to welcoming Martha to the Junior School.

Thank you for your support in ensuring your daughter is ready for this special day.

On the last day of term, as per tradition, we invite the girls to take part in our much-loved Easter Bonnet Parade! In keeping with tradition, they are encouraged to bring in a homemade Easter Bonnet to wear with pride. A simple sun hat decorated with flowers, bunnies, eggs or chicks is perfect – and reusing a favourite from previous years is absolutely welcome! We can’t wait to see their wonderful creations as they parade with their friends. Please ensure all girls come to school in their full uniform.

As the end of term approaches, please make a note of the dismissal times and locations below for the last day of term, Friday 4 April:

There will be no Late Owls on this date.

11.45am: Rec (side gate)
11.55am: Year 1 (side gate)
11.55am: Year 2 (main gate)
12.05pm: Year 3 (side gate)
12.05pm: Year 4 (main gate)
12.15pm: Year 5 (side gate)
12.15pm: Year 6 (main gate)

We have collaborated with TooledUp Education: an invaluable digital library of evidence-based resources on all aspects of parenting, education and family life. Founder, Dr Kathy Weston, has collated the best and most up-to-date research from around the world and distilled it into usable, easy to understand resources which can be instantly applied to daily life. Channing Pin: cha0706

For more information about this resource, see the dedicated section below. 

For upcoming TooledUp courses and events please click here. 

• Friday 28 March 4.30pm ~ Neuroinclusive Teaching Practices for Sport & Physical Education
• Friday 4 April 1pm ~ Ask Prof Adam Fox Anything About Allergies
• Monday 2 June 7pm ~ Starting Nursery or Pre-Prep School: A Parent’s Guide to Starting on the Right Foot
• Tuesday 3 June 7pm ~ Starting Prep or Primary School: A Parent’s Guide to Hitting the Ground Running

Please find the email contact details of the staff: JS Key Contact information. Please could we ask that your specific query is directed to the appropriate individual and anything of a more serious nature is directed to a member of the Senior Team. Please note that Miss Hamalis needs to approve all requests for absences so please send them via the Junior School Office: jsoffice@channing.co.uk. 

In order to prevent unnecessary awkwardness and/or embarrassment, please remember to address members of staff by their title and surname. 

Please be mindful that staff may not pick up emails immediately (teachers will, of course, not be checking emails when they are teaching, running clubs or supervising pupils at break and lunchtimes) and may choose to take time to investigate the matter before responding. However, they will endeavour to answer your queries within 24 hours. Please do not think that a lack of instant response means a lack of interest on the part of the member of staff. 

Please note that staff are not expected to reply to emails outside normal school hours, weekends or during school holidays. If you have an emergency which needs to be dealt with before school next opens, please email: jsoffice@channing.co.uk. Please do not send communications or information to communication@channing.co.uk or info@channing.co.uk. 

Let’s Leap would like to thank those who have recently shared feedback regarding after-school care timings. They truly value this input and have been working with us to further explore ways to better support families. In response, Let’s Leap will introduce an additional timeslot, a shorter session running from the end of the school day until 4:15pm, at a reduced price of £13. It is hoped that this new option will provide greater flexibility for families who may not require the later finishing times. Let’s Leap has worked hard to offer a solution that meets the needs of the school community while ensuring the long-term sustainability of the care provided. This additional slot is available to book on their online booking system from Monday 24 March. Thank you for your continued support.

We have noticed an increase in girls bringing in notebooks and toys from home. While we encourage creativity and a love of writing, these items can often become distracting and are sometimes used for purposes other than learning during the school day. Unless there is a pre-agreed arrangement with your daughter’s Form Teacher, we kindly ask that notebooks and toys remain at home to help maintain focus in the classroom.

We have noticed an increase in girls bringing in items from home to sell at school, whether for charity or personal profit. Please remember that this is not permitted. Girls should also not be bringing money from home unless there is a specific, pre-arranged reason, such as the Sustainability Book Sale earlier this year. We appreciate your support in reinforcing this message with your daughters.

This June, Years 2 – 4 pupils will have the opportunity to participate in the online First Mathematics Challenge (FMC). Your daughter must be aged 7-9 in the week commencing 16 June, in order to take part. 

The FMC is an annual and national mathematical challenge devised to challenge reasoning skills and to encourage pupils to think outside the box. The questions asked are not necessarily topics that have been covered in the curriculum by this time, but they can create a great starting point and lead to discussions later in the year. They will encourage your daughter to show her perseverance and to approach problems in a logical manner.

The FMC will be taken online, during one Mathematics lesson within your daughter’s timetable in June. There will be a total of 20 multiple choice questions, beginning with easy questions to encourage pupils in their own ability and gradually getting harder throughout the challenge. Alternative work will be planned and supported for this lesson, for girls in each form who do not wish to take part. 

In the FMC, pupils get:

• the chance to take part in a national challenge
• 45 minutes to answer the questions
• 10 easy questions to start with (to boost their confidence)
• certificates for effort and achievement presented by the school

Additionally, in preparation for the FMC, practice papers and answers will be provided to those pupils wishing to take part, so they can work through these at home. This will be in lieu of the weekly Mathematics homework set by their teachers.

This year, the FMC is open to pupils in Years 2-4. However, please be aware that it is devised to be a challenge. As such, we would not encourage pupils to sit it unless they feel comfortable and confident. 

If you would like your daughter to take part, please complete this google form by Friday 4 April. Form Teachers will review the entry list and nominate any extra girls, who they think would both enjoy and excel from taking part in the challenge.

The school is excited to announce that we will be introducing Tomplay, an interactive music practice platform designed to enhance pupils’ learning and engagement. This is an optional resource that parents can choose to subscribe to, and a recent pilot project showed excellent results in both pupil engagement and practice frequency.

To help you explore what Tomplay offers, please take a look at this [virtual tour]. All of our Visiting Music Staff will have access to Tomplay, enabling them to support families who choose to use it. Please sign up [here] if you would like to use this resource from September 2025. 

As we approach recruitment for instrumental lessons, this is also a great time to consider signing your daughter up. If you are interested, please complete [this form], and our Admin Team will be in touch with details about trial lessons. To give you a taste of what is on offer, please see the videos of our fabulous Visiting Music Staff in action [here].

If you have any questions, please contact Mrs Munro (Head of Music) via email at mmunro@channing.co.uk.

The CA is delighted to invite your girls and their families to ChanFest 2.0 this May! Buy tickets now: https://buytickets.at/channingjuniorschool/1596217

The Junior School will again be transformed into a festival, hosting: a dance challenge party with Sharkey & George (KS1), a theatre show from The Rubbish Shakespeare Company (KS2), hair braiding, nail painting, glitter tattoos, a tombola, flower planting, badge and bunting decorating, mask making, a bouncy castle, an inflatable obstacle course, bumper cars, a surf simulator, a bucking bronco and of course, games and prizes to be won. They will also have food and drink stalls.

We look forward to welcoming you to ChanFest!

The CA is running a preloved uniform sale on Wednesday 30 April from 8am until 8.30am in the courtyard. If you would like to help set up and/or help with the sale, please email jschanningassociation@gmail.com. 

Please leave donations of unwanted, clean and unlabelled uniform items (especially PE kit) in plastic bags in the blue bins in the courtyard!

• Wednesday 30 April, 8:00 – 8.30am: Preloved Uniform Sale held in the courtyard

• Sunday 18 May, 1.00 – 5.00pm: Summer Fair ‘Chanfest’, held in the Junior School grounds, tickets now available to buy: https://buytickets.at/channingjuniorschool/1596217