Author Dan Freedman Visits Highlands

On 31^st January 2019, author of the Jamie Johnson series, Dan Freedman, visited Highlands to take part in a video conference with several other Redbridge Schools. The conference was an opportunity for our children to meet one of their favourite authors, listen to him speak about his inspirations and share their own unique abilities.

Prior to the conference, Dan asked several schools to create a football chant and then prepare it for performance during the VC. The winners would be chosen by Dan and presented with a bundle of some of his books. Always ready for the challenge, 20 of our most creative year 6 Highlands family, wrote, practised and perfected a chant ready for Dan’s ears.

Fighting off nerves, our children performed their chant with typical Highland’s gusto. Although we didn’t win, Dan was impressed and praised the children for their lyrics, which tied into their World War 1 learning from the Autumn Term.

After the competition, the children had the chance to ask Dan some questions about being an author and his own life. Dan imparted his inspirational message of never giving up on your dreams and to chase them like Jamie does in his books.

All good things must come to an end and Dan finished with a reading from his new book, Unbreakable, which isn’t even out yet! Smiling and feeling inspired our children thanked Dan and returned to class grateful for experience.

On behalf of the Highlands Family we’d like to thank Dan for giving our children such a brilliant opportunity.  

Visit to Redbridge Faith Forum 

On Tuesday 29th January, Miss Boateng and Miss Kheejoo had the delight of attending the Redbridge Faith Forum. The focus of the discussion was on homelessness and what we, as Redbridge community, can collectively do to aid the current dire situation. It was a very eye opening, insightful forum with many key figures in the community including: spokespeople from Salvation Army, religious figures from the local church and mosque, figures from Redbridge Council, founders of The Malachi Project and spokespeople from The Welcome Centre.
It was brilliant and helpful to hear, not only of all the wonderful doings from: members of the community, schools, families, groups and businesses, but also of all the steps that we, as a school, can do to aid the challenging problem of homelessness on our doorstep. 
Moving forward, we have absorbed the many suggestions we received from the forum and are feeling extremely passionate and enthused about putting these motions into practice. As ever, we hope to have your ongoing support in our endeavours to help the growing homelessness in Redbridge and beyond.
"It is our duty to help. Humanity is the centre of everything."

Eco- Schools Update

It is with great pleasure that the hard work of our Eco-Committee, with the help of Mrs Chipperfield have successfully secured a Bronze Award for Highlands. 

Over the course of the term the committee have completed a whole school Eco review, have enhanced our recycling schedule, organised the Eco- board and raised awareness of the dangers of plastic. 

In the coming weeks they will be leading assemblies to launch our 3 priority projects which will look at; litter, energy and marine life. 

A physical area of the school the committee will be looking to develop is the school garden. If we have any parents that are keen gardeners, please get involved and come in and speak to the school about how you could help.

Get involved in leading a new generation of eco warriors :)

Over the course of the year we are looking to achieve 'Green Flag Status'. Watch this space...

Civic Holocaust Memorial Event @ Valentines Mansion

Today representatives from Year 5 and 6 attended the community Holocaust Memorial Civic Event at Valentines Mansion.

There was such a sense of respect and deep reflection. It was inspirational to see faith leaders from all communities laying a wreath to mark the event. 

It was powerful to hear the message that our presence today ensures that we are taking actions to ensure such inhumane acts can never happen again.

A touching ceremony to remind us of the importance of living in harmony.

SCIENCE DAY 2019

Highlands Primary School celebrated Science Day in style with the whole school community dressed in the most creative scientific ways.
We were greeted by doctors, astronauts, robots, scientist in coat labs and even a water molecule :-)
All children across the school have taken part in scientific investigations over the course of the day from making slime to observing changes in matter from baking.
As a school community we reflected on how Science helps us in our lives and the children responded with, "It helps mankind understand the world. Without Science we could not understand the weather or cure diseases for example".
Science is truly all around us. Please see the wonderful pictures to reflect our learning day.

Visit to Annual Council Town Hall Chambers 

On Friday 25th January 10 of our children attended the Annual Council Meeting at the Town Hall Chambers.

Our children had the opportunity to hear first hand the plans for their local area for the coming year which included; the library expansion, maintaining our park areas, tackling youth crime and gender inequality.

It was an inspirational opportunity and experience for our children and they shared what a memorable experience it was.

Thank you to our local council for being so welcoming and inviting us to the chambers.

We are looking forward to launching our blog, where we will update you regularly about all the wonderful things going on in school each and every day!

Check back very soon.