​A local group of parents and residents in Aldgate are planning to present a national petition to the Prime Minister to convince her to act on air pollution. As you will know, our area of central London suffers from poor air quality and the school is very supportive of any action to help things improve.
 
You can support this local campaign by visiting: http://www.wecanwin.co.uk/my-son-cant-wait.
 
The group are also making a film on air pollution in the City of London with Munsur Ali, an ex student from Sir John Cass’s Foundation Primary School and resident on Mansell Street. They aim to launch this in the new year.
 
There are lots of measures we have in school to help mitigate the effects of poor air quality. We monitor the air with stations around the school site and inside the school building. This helps us to make decisions about physical activity in the outdoor spaces. We’re also fortunate to have the support of the City of London Corporation who have recently made available a grant of £50,000. We plan to use this to install air filtration systems into the basement among other measures.
 
Ultimately, the only way to really improve things is to improve air quality across our City. I strongly encourage you to get involved.
 
Our children have been making their voices heard recently by writing to Sadiq Khan about this very issue. You can see some of the writing on the head’s blog.

It has been such a busy term and year so far– but one filled with much learning and exploration in all of our class groups. It’s interesting at this time of year reading through all of the termly reports, getting a picture of how children are grasping the demands of their curriculum in each year group and mastering new skills or having new experiences.
 
Reports
We’ve updated the formats of our reports once more. I realise for parents, it may seem like we are continually revising the way we give information to you about learning and progress. In a sense we are, but with all the curriculum, assessment and testing changes in recent years it’s necessary to keep on our toes. We’ve set the most challenging targets for each of our year groups this year because we want to continue to improve the excellent performance of every child at our school. I do hope you read the report carefully and spend time with your child’s class teacher to discuss in greater depth how you can work with us to support learning at home. I encourage you to read our guide to understanding your child’s report carefully. It’s available on our school website: http://www.sirjohncassprimary.org/key-information.html
 
One key thing to remember about the new curriculum is we monitor children's mastery of the curriculum in the year group they are in– we don’t use artificial levels any more which are separate from the knowledge and understanding in each age group. It’s perfectly normal for children to still be emerging or developing their understanding of the curriculum at this stage of the academic year.
 
Happy Christmas!
We’ve had so many lovely Christmas events this year. It has felt like a very special time. The children have been out and about singing around the City, but we’ve also enjoyed the Christmas Market, the Nativity, an activity morning, lessons and carols, Christmas lunch (right) and more! Our Christmas Market– run jointly by the school and the PTA raised over £1,500 this year. Thank you so much for your generosity. This is the most we’ve ever raised at this fundraiser! Every penny will be used to support extra curricular activities and other special things in school.
 
I really do hope that all of you– children and adults alike- have a joyous, relaxing and peaceful Christmas break and I look forward to welcoming you back in the new year. We’ll see parents and carers on Wednesday 4th January, 2017 for progress meetings and children on the day after.
 
Happy Christmas!

​For several years the governing body and the City of London have been actively pursuing one-form entry expansion and a major capital building project to invest over £5 million into the school site.
 
The City of London have worked with us to try to secure the necessary permission from the Sir John Cass's Foundation, the school’s trustee for the project to go ahead. At their board meeting in October the Sir John Cass’s Foundation considered the representation made by the City of London and have decided not to consent to grant a licence to build on the school site to enable it to expand. They have decided to await the opening of the new City of London Primary Academy Islington before re-visiting the situation in the 2017/18 academic year.  
 
The bulge class admitted this academic year, at the request of the City of London, has been a great success, but governors did not feel able to open the school to a further bulge class in 2017.
 
The governing body remains keen to secure the long term future of our school and is enthusiastically committed to providing outstanding education for our children 
 
If you'd like to find out more about this topic or have further questions or comments please don't hesitate to speak with a member of the leadership team.

BBC Newsround filmed a debate about homework at school earlier last week. The team were joined by some of our pupils and representatives from the ATL and the Campaign for Real Education who were presenting their arguments for and against homework in schools.

​You can find out what our children thought after the Christmas holidays when this will be featured on Newsround. 

During our Holiday Playscheme, we ran a workshop with the children exploring the sounds that can be found in different spaces around the school. Children recorded footsteps, claps, bells and rhythms to create a unique piece of music reflecting the building. The music inspired them to create a strange story to accompany it, about a Lion and a Horse on the loose in the school.

The music, story and sound effects were performed and recorded by the children involved:
Isabella, Harrison, Joshua, Mary, Ilka, Ryan, Veronique, Ossie, Arthur, Florence, Oliver, Fermin, Marley,  Amanda, Matas and Iris

During both Holiday Play schemes and term-time Playcentre, we have been running a Stop Motion Animation workshop using whiteboards, plasticine, models and 3d objects. The children's animations were made independently and they also learnt to use Dragonframe software to capture their work.


Thanks to the following children for their brilliant animations: 
Raya, Yasmin, Fermin, Oliver, Ravi, Kush, ​​Lily-Rose, Niya, Layth, Amelie, Maya, Freddie, Philip, Bradley, Georgia, Joseph, Gabriel, Romilly, Harper, Tristan Archibald, Veronique Seymour, Nicole, Harrison, Fermin, Joshua, Zackand Harvey.