Storytelling with Santa Claus at Walthamstow Wetlands

Come and meet Santa Claus at Walthamstow Wetlands!

Activities will include storytelling with Santa Claus in the Victorian and locally-listed Turbine Room as well as a festive-themed nature trail through the site where children can explore nature, discover minibeasts, birdwatch and track mammals both large and small. Each ticket will include a gift from Santa and there will also be a photo opportunity.

1 hour sessions taking place on 9th, 16th, 22nd, 23rd and 24th December
Cost: £10 per child to include one gift per child. 
Tickets can be purchased via www.walthamstowwetlands.com/festive-season or purchased directly at the Engine House.

We're joining in with the Hour of Code

This week, 4th - 8th December, students and teachers at Earlsmead will join tens of millions of people all around the world taking part in an Hour of Code. The Hour of Code is a one-hour introduction to computer science, designed to demystify code and show that anybody can learn the basics.

You can take part in the event at home by using the fantastic choice of tutorials available at code.org.

Our work at Walthamstow Wetlands

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Europe’s biggest urban wetland has just opened right by our school and if you visit you will see some of the fantastic art our students made. Pink and Yellow class created animal models which are now hanging from the ceiling making a big, colourful chandelier.

Walthamstow Wetlands is open seven days a week between 9.30am to 4pm (October to March) and 9.30am to 5pm (April to September) and entrance is free!

Learn more about the Walthamstow Wetlands on their website.

Information about our organisational changes

Dear Parents / Carers,

You will know from our newsletters and our campaigning around school budgets that our school has experienced significant cuts. We are not alone in this and for some time schools both nationally and locally have been expected to meet increasing costs whilst their budgets have either remained the same or reduced each year.

Here at Earlsmead, we are looking at potential cuts of £121,564 in 2018-19 and our financial projections show that this will increase each year unless we make significant changes to our spending now.

When considering what changes to make, our main priority is always to ensure that the school is a safe and positive environment for children to learn and grow in and to achieve excellent learning outcomes.

Over the last 18 months we have made a number of changes to reduce our costs but unfortunately these have not been enough and we now have to look at reorganising the school’s staffing structure in order to meet the financial challenges all schools are facing. With this in mind, this week we began a process of Organisational Change at the school. Obviously in any school the largest part of our spending is on staffing and therefore we have had to make the difficult decision to propose to reduce the number of support staff on our team so that we are able to achieve the necessary savings.

This decision has not been taken lightly and is driven entirely by difficult financial realities. It is in no sense a reflection on how we value our support staff or the valuable contribution that they make to the life of the school.

Within the proposed new model we are committed to ensuring that we have enough highly qualified staff to ensure that the needs of children are met and that the school achieves the ambitious outcomes it has for every child.

The process of Organisational Change is a formal process and involves a consultation period for those staff who will be affected by the changes. During this time it is only affected staff who are invited to comment on the proposal and ask any questions that they might have in response to it.

I will write and let you know exactly what the new staffing model looks like early on in January.

Yours sincerely,

Hina Shah
Headteacher