Dear Families,
It’s another busy and exciting week at SSQ!
Thank you for your support during last week’s very warm weather—we really appreciated children coming in with water bottles, sun hats and sun cream already applied. This week looks to be a bit cooler… fingers crossed it’s the perfect weather for our SSQ Festival! We’re really looking forward to seeing the amazing talent on stage and the values of community and enjoyment in full flow. There will be lots of brilliant stalls with games, activities, food and treats to enjoy. Please remember to bring small change—especially 20p and 50p coins—so you can get involved, have a go on the stalls, grab an ice cream or get your face painted!
Let’s see how much we can raise together to enhance our music offer even further at SSQ. Wristbands are still available on the playground at the end of the day and also on Arbor. Children will go home as usual at 3:30pm and .gates for the festival will open at 4:30pm. Please note that ALL children must be accompanied by an adult. 4:30pm clubs will go ahead and you will need to collect your child from the EYFS gate at 4:30pm and then join the Festival queue at the main entrance.
A huge thank you for all the bottle donations last Friday—they’ll be a big help in making the festival a success!
Last Thursday 19th June was Sickle Cell Awareness Day, which we marked in assembly on Friday. We reflected on the value of compassion and the importance of understanding invisible conditions. Some members of our SSQ community live with sickle cell, and it’s vital that we continue to raise awareness and learn how we can support one another.
Throughout the year, we mark many awareness days, cultural celebrations and religious events that reflect the richness and diversity of our school community. We’d love to hear from you about what matters to your family—see below for more information about this and how you can give your thoughts.
Have a lovely week ahead!
Matt
SSQ Community Calendar: Celebrating Identity, Culture & Awareness
At Surrey Square, we’re proud to be a diverse and inclusive community. Each year, we aim to recognise and celebrate a range of special days and events that reflect the identities, cultures and experiences of our school family. These might include religious festivals, awareness days, or community celebrations.
We’ve created a Community Calendar (click here) that outlines the key days we currently mark at school – through assemblies, special events, or themed activities. Alongside this, children continue to learn about a wide range of religions and worldviews through our RE curriculum. The calendar focuses specifically on days that are part of our shared community identity and experience.
We’d love to hear from you. Are there events or celebrations that are important to your family which you think we should consider including?
While we aren’t able to mark every possible day or event – and need to balance this with the time we have available across the school year – we want to ensure that what we do include is meaningful and representative of our community.
Please take a moment to share your thoughts via this short form:
👉 Give Feedback on the Community Calendar
Thank you for your ongoing support in helping us make sure every child feels seen, valued, and celebrated.
I am available in school from Monday to Wednesday – do get in touch (fcarrick-davies@ssq.org.uk) if you have any questions in the meantime.
We were delighted to be re-accredited as a School of Sanctuary last week. Look out on our website and social media for more information about that soon! As you know, Family Early Help plays a vital role in supporting refugee, asylum-seeking, and migrant children and families, guided by a Children First approach—recognising that all children and young people in Southwark, regardless of background, should be seen and supported as children first and foremost.
I am pleased to share that Family Early Help will be participating in Refugee Week’s Family Fun Day, hosted by the Southwark Community Refugee Forum. The event will take place on: Saturday, 28th June 2025, 11:00 am – 4:00 pm (Please see the leaflet below for full details.)
Further information about the event can be found here.
Please see below for our long-standing resource with Kineara for those who are living in temporary accommodation and may need support.
Keep an eye on my information page outlining advice from me about various issues that may concern you plus many opportunities that are available to you and your family here in Southwark, also check out the numerous opportunities in and around our area at the bottom of this page!
Fi
CONGRATULATIONS TO ALL OUR CORE VALUE CHAMPIONS FROM LAST WEEK!
NEWS – Wednesday’s Word on the Gate!
Get ready for this week's linguistic challenge! This week's word, displayed on the EYFS gate, will be 'Summer'.
Let's see if we can get even more languages represented this time! Thank you to everyone who contributed to last week’s Word on the Gate which was ‘Flower’.
NEWS – Flower Competition Blooms Winners!
Thank you to all the children who entered the Flower competition; lots of great entires – all children were awarded a golden certificate for effort from Diana our flower judge.
The top 3 Winners were Leila in Soanes Class. Kamara in Tams Class and Loki in Lansiquot Class.
Prizes will be winging their way to classes when they arrive!
NEWS – SPORTS WEEK IS COMING!
Sports week will begin on Monday 7th July here at SSq.
See below for all the key dates and when your child will have their sports day:
- Reception – Monday 7th July – 9:10am
- Year 3 – Tuesday 8th July – 9:10am
- Years 4,5,6 – Wednesday 9th July – off site at Reeds School – All Day returning at 4.00pm
- Year 1 – Thursday 10th July – 9:10am
- Year 2 – Friday 11th July – 9:10am
- Simmonds classes – Monday 14th July – 9:10am
- The Hive and Scheffler classes – (different parts of the playground) Monday 14th July – 11.00am
News – Year 5 launch ‘Clean Air Map’
As part of their Community Project, Year 5 researched air pollution on our streets. They then created a ‘Clean Air Map’ as their final outcome that we want to share with you below:
This is what air pollution can do to you:
Have you ever wondered that you could be breathing in bad types of gas? Do you walk along a place with lots of traffic? Do you want to walk along a nice clean area with clean air? Then why are you still walking through areas with lots of traffic? Start to look for new areas to walk through.
It can affect
Did you know that 790,000 people died in Europe last year from the air pollution coming out of cars? The car's gases can affect your lungs with infections and diseases and it can give you asthma and make you sick. Do you want to be scared your whole life and never want to go outside? Well then tell your parents to stop driving non electric cars and stop harming the environment and children's lives.
It's very important
Take care of your health because it could be endangered! If you walk along Old Kent Road or through a place that has lots of cars and it is always busy, take a new route so that you can keep yourself safe and not go through horrible things from the car's gases.
You should know
It is a worrying fact that lots and lots of people drive non-electric cars and the gases come from those cars. A lot of that gas is breathed in and that could make you die or get ill. Tell all of this to your parents and warn them air is not what you always think it is.
Ella’s law
It's so upsetting that a nine year old girl died from just walking to school and breathing in the air like a normal person would do. Unfortunately the girl died from getting asthma from the cars.
You can do it
You can start walking through estates that have less cars around the area, take walks through the parks and get to breathe in the fresh air and not endanger your health.
What you might have to worry about
Children start to get worried about going outside to play because they are scared to breathe in the dirty air because they don't want to get sick from the car's gases that comes into the air.
Routes you can take
Kinglake is a great route to take, they even blocked the area from cars going in.
Surrey Square park is good because the area has lots of grass and no cars can go through there.
Burgess Park is amazing. There's a lake, there's grass, there's a park no cars go through there.
Thurlow Street is very good too.
Fremantle street is perfect, it's lovely.
Now you can breathe in clean air and these are not just the only places to walk along with clean air
Text by Raheema, Bellos Class.
Summer Term Homework
Key Dates including next academic year
Please see our updated Key Dates summary for the rest of 2025 PLUS next academic year.
Attendance Last Week
Well done to Year 6 John-Baptiste Class who had 98.7% attendance last week. Keep it up folks!
Please contact us daily if your child is off ill or for another reason.
Email attendance@ssq.org.uk or phone 0207 7033049 (option 1)
After School Clubs Update
A huge thank you to Afruja from Burgess Sports and her young leaders for another year of running Burgess Sports Reading after school club. Various children in Y3 – Y6 got the opportunity to attend to give them an extra boost with their reading.
These reading clubs are ending this week but will hopefully be back next school year!
Click here to read this month’s Burgess Sports’ newsletter which talks about the project in more detail.
MENU for next week:
Week beginning Monday 30th June (Scroll to week 1 Menu)
THIS WEEK @The Walworth Living Room!
Follow @pembrokehouse on Instagram to stay up to date with everything happening at The Walworth Living Room – just over the road from us at SSq! Also, discover more from Pembroke House and the Walworth Living Room here!
Free Football sessions from Mentivity
