Welcome to Torfield School

Flu vaccinations for pupils at EYC and Croft Road, will take place on 3rd October 2024.

This week's Celebration Assembly was extra special. This was because as well as recognising and rewarding each class's Reader of the Week we also had a special certificate for one pupil who had completed the Marvellous Maker Summer Reading Challenge 2024 by reading six books over the summer holiday. We are very proud of this pupil's achievements and it was wonderful to celebrate their reading success with the whole school!

As part of our commitment to improving pupils’ physical health, and increasing the range of sporting activities on offer at the school, we have recently introduced cycling to Torfield. A group of children visited Hastings Cycles to help pick out new bicycles for the school and, of course, helmets! The children really enjoyed their special visit and were given lots of support and advice by the friendly staff at Hastings Cycles. One pupil was even offered a job fixing bicycles when they are older. We are starting our bicycle lessons with a small group of pupils to begin with, but plan to offer this to all pupils in the future.

At Torfield observing and understanding seasonal change is a topic which runs throughout the year. Each class has chosen an outdoor environment which they will visit four times throughout the school year so that they can compare the differences which come with each season. Last week Oceania class had a wonderful adventure to St Helen’s Wood and carried out their observations of the wood in autumn.

As a special school, we alternate between a Year A and Year B curriculum so that all of our pupils enjoy a breadth of study and avoid repeating topics and core texts. This year we are learning from our Year B curriculum and you can get an overview of every subject your child will be studying at our website here: https://www.torfieldschool.org/curriculum/your-childs-curriculum/class-overviews  

Building on the success of our music curriculum at Torfield we have exciting new opportunities for our pupils this academic year.

We hope you have all enjoyed reading your child’s end-of-year report which came home with them today.  As a school, we think it’s very important to share a report with you that covers all the subjects covered at Torfield as well an overview of your child’s year.  We also really value your comments so if you would like to share them please complete and return the enclosed form. If you would like an extra copy or an electronic version, please contact the school office and we will arrange that for you.  

Please don't worry if you saw a fire engine at Torfield today. It was a specially arranged visit from the fire brigade who came to Torfield to talk to the children about fire safety and how to pursue a career as a firefighter.

We are really excited to launch our new PE homework bags! Each class will have two bags and the children will each have the opportunity to take one home. We would love to see the creative ways you use the homework bags so please share these with us on dojo. There are some important safety points to note before using the bags. So please take the time to read these through. Torfield's PE bags were inspired by Leechpool Primary school in Horsham and we are grateful to them for sharing their wonderful ideas!

Thanks to Miss Inkster making contact with Hastings Adventure Golf, Torfield was able to enter this year’s Hastings Inter-School Golf Tournament. Our team, the Torfield Tornadoes, really did us proud and demonstrated the values of our Rainbow Awards throughout the competition. This was the first time these pupils had competed against children from other schools and they were great sports from start to finish. We are grateful to Mr Dobson, Miss Booth and Miss Abraham for supporting the children and keeping score. Mr Dobson even represented Torfield in the Teacher’s Competition!

We are noticing an increase of school bags with the child's name on the outside, as in the picture below. We appreciate that this is a good way to help children identify their name and their bag.  

This week our three upper Key Stage Two classes enjoyed a very special trip to London’s West End to see a performance of The Lion King at the Lyceum Theatre. Each class is learning about plays and playscripts and this educational visit will give them a clear understanding of what a professional production is like. The classes will also be studying William Shakespeare’s and will be identifying differences and similarities between Hamlet and the Lion King. This was an incredibly valuable experience for our pupils, many of which were visiting London for the first time and enjoyed seeing so many famous buildings. We are looking forward to giving other classes the experience next year.

The School Meals Summer Menu has been updated.

You may have noticed some changes if your child brought home a smiley face certificate today. From this week, when a pupil receives a smiley face for achieving one of their personal development targets this is now celebrated with a new Rainbow Award smiley face sticker. We have also introduced ten out of ten attendance stickers, these are given out each Monday to the children who benefitted from 100% during the week before. At Torfield we are really proud of both the progress our pupils make in their personal development and their fantastic attendance. This is why we are pleased to be able to celebrate these successes through their smiley face certificates which are awarded in each week’s celebration assembly.

We’ve had such a fun World Book Day this year! The children enjoyed learning about ‘The Crayon’s Love our Planet’ and completing a variety of engaging activities to support their understanding of this. As ever, the costumes were amazing across the school and there was a real buzz and a sense of excitement everywhere! The children enjoyed the hunt for golden tickets hidden in books and they had some great guesses for the ‘Masked Reader’ video! The day was a great opportunity to celebrate reading across the school. At Torfield, we recognise the importance of reading as a medium for language, communication and understanding of the curriculum and wider world. With this in mind, this is just a reminder to continue to encourage reading at home! Thank you and happy reading!

Torfield had the joy of celebrating Chinese New Year together. It was a festival of colour.  Miss Daniell and Miss Tang planned an amazing selection of activities for the children to take part in.  Children wrote their name in Chinese script; they made some beautiful Chinese lanterns and the highlight of the week was the dragon parade. Miss Daniell and a team of children worked tirelessly to form the dragon.  Parker Road had their dragon visitor in the morning and were a little surprised when he began dancing for them.  At Croft Road, it was a real joy watching the children take turns as classes to dance the dragon to the drum beat around the school hall. The artwork the children had completed during the week added life and colour to the spectacle around the school.  Sweet and sour, noodles and prawn crackers for lunch added to the day’s experience, as did the fortune cookies enjoyed in class.  The children really enjoyed the holistic look at Chinese New Year.

This term the children at Torfield have been choreographing and learning a wide range of dances from different cultures and traditions. Each class performed the dance they had learnt at our annual Dance Showcase which saw all the Croft Road children coming together to watch and enjoy each performance. Miss Booth also used the Dance Showcase an opportunity to help pupils learn and understand about different careers they could pursue in the creative industries, including working as an usher and being a professional choreographer. It was a delight to see all the children enjoying watching and performing dance, we can’t wait for next year’s showcase! Parents and carers can see their child’s performance on their Class Dojo page.

In our celebrations assemblies this term we have been recognising and rewarding our pupils’ fantastic attendance. This has included celebrating pupils with attendance above 95% for the year so far, pupils who have achieved ten out of ten attendance each week, and pupils who have shown the biggest improvements in their attendance over the term. All of the pupils received extra smiley faces for their achievements which they were able to exchange for prizes!

This month Antarctica and Europe classes enjoyed a very special visit to the Bright Foundation’s Barn Theatre to benefit from a workshop and screening of The Snowman by The Enchanted Cinema.

Earlier this term, our School Council had the important job of choosing which Christmas designs would feature in the 2024 Torfield Art Calendar. Today, they got the chance to see how the designs they chose look. They also got to see their class artwork and as you can see they were suitably impressed!