Welcome to Gesher School’s Blog
See below fortnightly messages from our Headteacher, Tamaryn Yartu:
2nd July 2021:
As we count down to the end of the term, we look forward to an exciting few weeks ahead. These few weeks will include our first Gesher’s Got Talent on the 9th of July, transition days with children spending the day with their ‘new class’ and teachers, and graduations! It was lovely to see our current parents and some new ones at the new site on Thursday. It was great to have this opportunity to show the building, and we look forward to the rest of you seeing it very soon. Please remember to RSVP for your child’s class graduation to their teacher (up to 2 family/carers may attend), as this will be a great chance for us to all be together and share such a memorable day.
18th June 2021:
What a wonderful warm sunny few weeks we have had, giving us some fantastic opportunities to participate in outdoor learning. We continue to move closer to our final days here at the Hope Centre before moving to Pinner, and with this, we look at opportunities to bid farewell. You would have received correspondence regarding our end-of-year graduation ceremonies. We hope this will be one of those opportunities to reflect on our time here and celebrate the children’s achievements over this challenging year, who continue to surprise us with their resilience time and time again.
We have now finalised our Gesher School blueprint, which encompasses all the work we have done over the year to develop the primary school to include secondary provision. The blueprint features our outcomes, design principles, learning, infrastructure and people systems.
We have also created a ‘Day in the Life’ document, an example of a stereotypical day for a Gesher pupil and, more precisely, the outcomes of each session and how these will be delivered. We have broken the day into sessions, detailed what these encompass, and possible example quotes from parents, staff and children. We will schedule a video conferencing session to discuss this in the upcoming weeks, along with an opportunity to discuss this in person at the new site in September.
28th May 2021:
We are all very excited to welcome our families back onsite and share in some of our missed experiences over this past year.
Please keep the following dates in your diary and look out for correspondence with further information regarding these events in the upcoming newsletters and/or emails.
SPORTS DAY: Prepare your egg and spoons, as it’s time for our first Gesher Sports Day. This will take place on 25th June, with further details to follow!
GESHER GOT TALENT: We are very much looking forward to showcasing all of the children’s special talents! This will take place on 9th July. However, we will provide a Zoom option for those who cannot attend
GRADUATION CEREMONY and BREAKFAST: As we end our time at The Hope Centre and transition to our first Year 6 cohort, we felt it was important to acknowledge these two momentous occasions with a mini graduation ceremony and breakfast event. These dates to follow shortly, with plans for each year group!
We hope you will be able to attend some of these events, and we are all very much looking forward to being together again soon.
14th May 2021:
The children have had lovely fun-filled days getting ready for Shavuot, exploring all the aspects, including making cheesecake, edible flowerpots and flower garlands.
Thank you to those parents who joined our Zoom call to meet Seb, our Interim Executive Head. It was an excellent opportunity for this informal introduction, and we look forward to hosting other events in the upcoming months to continue this conversation. Starting next week, we will take each class to the new site. Your class teacher will inform you of the date beforehand, and we will prepare all children in advance.
30th April 2021:
It has been an eventful two weeks, as children took part in the Yom Ha’atzmaut ‘Walk a mile to Israel’ as well as some of the children taking part in our castle, knights and jousting play experience.
Following on from our letter detailing the supports we will be putting in place regarding the transition to the new school site, we are pleased to share that we will be confirming dates for class visits in the upcoming weeks. Class teachers will share these dates with the children and parents/carers. We want to thank you again for your continued support and look forward to a time when we can all be together again soon. I wish everyone a pleasant long weekend, and hopefully the sun shines for us all.
16th April 2021:
I can’t quite believe we are in our last full term here at the Hope Centre. This building has provided us with so many beautiful memories, and I look forward to the many more
that we will make before we leave in July. We are very much looking forward to spending more time outdoors, and as a whole school, which has been missed over this past year. We have started after school clubs this term and added two additional clubs – Pokeman and Girls Club, on Friday afternoons.
Following on from our correspondence this week, teachers and staff will start putting together transition packs for the students. We will endeavour to get all classes across to the Pinner site in the upcoming weeks to give children the opportunity to familiarise themselves with the building before starting in September 2021.
I lastly wanted to say a big thank you for all of your support over the last year in my acting role. I have thoroughly enjoyed and further developed with every minute and look forward to taking on this role permanently supporting the Gesher community.
19th March 2021:
We had a very eventful workshop were the children took part in creating and designing the new school as well as the outdoor areas. All the children greatly enjoyed this activity and have shared some fantastic and creative ideas for the new site. It was also a great opportunity to further share thoughts and feelings around the upcoming transition, which we feel is very important to the children’s individual processes. This week our Pesach celebrations were very festive, with the children taking part in model Sedars in their classrooms. We were very excited to receive a lovely video message from the Chief Rabbi, Rabbi Mirvis.
12th March 2021:
It feels like we are speeding through this very short term. It has been a very exciting ten days at Gesher as we welcomed the ducklings. Children shared their ideas of names, and we settled on ‘Red Paint, Moana, Cyclops, Quackermole and Debbie’. We watched the ducklings hatch, grow and learn how to swim.
The children have displayed a caring and nurturing attitude towards the ducks, which has been lovely to observe. This has also been a learning opportunity for children to explore the big feelings surrounding saying goodbye.
We would also like to welcome Mr. Mark who joined the Gesher Team as the new Tamar Class Teacher, after Miss Lauren’s departure. Please do look out for Mr. Mark and introduce yourself over the upcoming weeks.
26th February 2021: Welcome back to Spring Term 2, and although it is a short term, we have lots of exciting things planned for the weeks ahead! This week we celebrated Purim with a range of fun activities planned from quizzes to crown making and then Mishloach Manot making. Judging from my observations the week’s highlights were chocolate hamantaschen making and the Purim parade where the children strutted their stuff on the catwalk!! We are all looking forward to the arrival of our eight duckling eggs and the excitement of watching them hatch and learn how to swim! Watch this space to find out their names.
Wishing you and your families a joyous Purim!
12th February 2021: We can’t believe its February already, and we are heading into the half-term. We have had a busy term back, with the children going on many adventures through their learning with some of the themes including Ancient Egypt, London through the ages and in the garden!
We have two upcoming fancy events next term and thought the half-term would be an excellent opportunity to get these organised! On Friday 26th February children can come to school in fancy dress for the day as we celebrate Purim together. On the 4th March children will have the opportunity dress as favourite book character /author for World Book Day.
Wishing everyone a healthy and peaceful half term, and we look forward to welcoming the children back on Monday 22nd February.
29th January 2021: It has been a festive few weeks with many children and staff celebrating their birthdays, and it is so wonderful to see how happy the children are to share these important days with their peers. Following this and in line with our learning from Tu Bishvat this week, some children have suggested that we no longer use balloons in school as they are not environmentally friendly! As such, we ask for your support with this when providing decorations and party bags.
As we head into February and with the news of the lockdown extension, I wanted to take this moment to commend our parents for the multiple roles they are taking on at this time. We can only imagine the day-to-day challenges you must face and look forward to times when we can all be together again soon!
15th January 2021: These past two weeks have flown by with us welcoming most of our children back to Gesher! This term ‘s learning has started with some interesting topics from exploring life cycles of insects to the wonders of ancient Egypt. We look forward to seeing what the children learn and create, do remember to look out for their work on Seesaw.
17th December 2020: It has been so wonderful to have the hustle and bustle of school life continue this term! The children have all worked exceptionally hard, with great progress being made across the school. It was so lovely to hear that the children thoroughly enjoyed the end of term Chanukah celebrations, with all taking part in a range of activities including decorating doughnuts, designing gifts and bags, and lighting the candles of the menorah in the afternoon. As we approach the holidays, we want to thank you again for all your support and patience this term, particularly with the temporary school closure. We hope that you feel reassured knowing the staff at Gesher will continue to do all we can to support the children and families of the Gesher community no matter what the circumstances, and hopefully there will be less disruptions as the new year progresses.
Hanukkah Sameach!
13th November 2020: It has been a jam-packed two weeks where the children have been busy bees!! Some children have been learning division while others have been practising their addition. Some have had explorations of the Stone Age while others have been jetting off to Space. We look forward to what the next few weeks learning holds!
We continue to be amazed by the resilience of the children through this second lockdown and with the changes that have occurred to their daily routines. As a school, we have found storybooks to be a helpful tool to start conversations around the children’s worries. Please do contact your teacher for further books ideas. Some of the books included are: There’s a Volcano in my Tummy, The Worry Monster, The Worrysaurus, The Red Beast and Don’t Worry Be Happy.
Next week is Anti-Bullying Week, and the teachers have planned a variety of activities to cover what bullying is, how we can ask for help, as well as recapping our Gesher Kindness code. We will be inviting children to wear Odd Socks on Monday 16th November. Odd Socks Day is an opportunity to encourage people to express themselves and celebrate their individuality and what makes us all unique!
Keep well and safe
16th October 2020: To commemorate Mental Health Awareness Day last weekend, a large focus for the children this week has been the development of their wellbeing through the use of the creative arts. We are very proud of the levels of self-reflection and insight that our pupils across the student body have been able to demonstrate and look forward to seeing them apply these skills throughout the coming year and within their individual real-life experiences.
Have a wonderful half term break.
2nd October 2020: We can’t believe it is already October and we are well into the Autumn Term and what a term it has been! We are all thrilled by the announcement of The Through School and the addition of Secondary phase education. We do not doubt that within all the excitement, there are many questions with regards to this exciting venture. Please be assured that we will be putting transition plans in place for all our children, which will include a Zoom meeting with the Governors and a detailed plan from the school team. We will also be including a ‘Through School’ section in our fortnightly newsletter which will outline any key updates for the new site, so please do keep a lookout for these!
Chag Sameach.
To wrap up this weekand bring in Shabbat, the students at Gesher participated in a Challah Bake on Thursday. They measured, mixed, prepped, braided and baked their own challahs, which they used to celebrate Oneg Shabbat on Friday morning. It was a wonderful day, and the students had a fantastic time making their own individual challot for shabbat!
