No.3-8th October 2025
Headteacher's Message
Good Afternoon,
What a beautiful time of year! Our visit to St. Mary’s for the Harvest Festival was the perfect way to welcome autumn. The morning was crisp, the sun was shining, and the church was just as beautiful inside as out, adorned with autumn colours and the fruits of the harvest. We were delighted that Rev. Cathy, Rev. Johnny, and Curate Kirsty were all able to join in with the celebrations.
David from Home-Start reminded us how fortunate we are to be part of the Walton-on-Thames community, where support is available when needed. He sends his heartfelt thanks for your generous contributions and donations.
Friday’s conker competition was a flying success! In a world full of screens and gadgets, it was refreshing to see strategy, creativity, and courage come to life in this low-tech tradition. Just string, a conker, and some good-natured rivalry—what a brilliant way to build resilience and have fun!
Our Playleaders have been out on Sports Crew training and are already putting their new skills to great use. We’re proud of their enthusiasm and leadership on the playground!
We hope you had a chance to explore your child’s new (or new-ish!) learning environment during our first VIP event of the academic year. It was wonderful to see so many of you taking the opportunity to celebrate the children’s achievements so far. This half term, we’ve been focusing on the foundations of grammar and punctuation, and we hope you noticed how our working walls reflect current learning. These displays are not just decorative—they serve as valuable reference points to support the children in their day-to-day work.
Mrs Garrick - Assistant Headteacher
Reminders -
To ensure the safety and wellbeing of all pupils at Ashley CofE Primary School:
- Please keep your children with you at all times during drop-off.
- Each child must be accompanied by their parent/carer all the way to their classroom or drop-off point.
- Do not allow children to walk through the school grounds unsupervised.
Thank you for your cooperation in helping us keep all our children safe.
SICKNESS ABSENCE - Not every illness will require a child to stay away from school. During term time, your child should attend school regularly unless he or she is ill or the school has authorised their absence. If your child is too ill to come to school, you must let the school know before 8.30am on each day of absence. If you are unsure if you should keep your child home from school due to illness, please look at this useful website "Is my child too ill for school? Click here. If you child will be absent due to illness please report via the study bugs app ONLY.
Study Bugs App -Get the app or register now (https://studybugs.com/about/parents)
Please ensure that you state the nature of your child's illness (e.g. headache, vomiting, etc.) If you state that that they are under the weather or unwell, we will call you to clarify.
If your child will be absent for a prolonged period of time, the check-in and absence reporting frequency will be agreed by a member of Ashley's Senior Leadership Team and communicated via the School Administration Team.
All absence is recorded and monitored by the attendance team and a strict procedure is followed.
PUNCTUALITY- Frequent lateness can negatively affect your child’s mental health, learning ability, concentration and friendships. Children who frequently arrive late are at a significant disadvantage compared to those who arrive on time, every day. Children who arrive on time are able to settle quickly into class and apply themselves more successfully to their learning.
PERSONAL APPEARANCE - Hair should be neat and tidy and tied away from the face. Shoulder-length hair must, for safety and hygiene reasons, be tied back daily. Hair accessories should be plain in style and in school colours. Dyed, gelled, highlighted hair or braiding with coloured cotton and beads is not allowed. Patterns should not be shaved into hair.
Nail varnish, make up and temporary tattoos etc. should not be worn in school.
No jewellery should be worn to school. We prefer no earrings at all, but if necessary small flat, plain, metal stud earrings should be worn. There should only be one earring in each ear. On PE days, children should leave their earrings at home and not wear them to school.
If a child has just had their ears pierced, they should wear their earrings to school but must remove them by themselves for PE and should replace them immediately afterwards. Staff members at Ashley will not attempt to remove earrings.
Watches may be worn (not smart watches) although Ashley accepts no liability for any items that are lost or damaged.
NO SMOKING/VAPING - Please can we remind all parents that there is NO SMOKING or VAPING on the school premises, this includes playground and school car park.
SCHOOL LUNCHES - The school lunch menu will continue up to October half term. If your child/ren normally has a school meal, please can we remind you to order a school meal in advance. Ordering closes on the Friday before and meals cannot be ordered after this time.
gst menu spring summer 2025 ashley primary 002 .pdf
CLUB PROTOCAL - To help ensure the safety and smooth collection of children attending extra-curriculum clubs, please note that all children who attend extra curriculum clubs should be picked up from the car park gate. Please arrive at the car park gate at the time that your child's club finishes.The After School Club collection will still be at the main door entrance to the school as it presently being done.
This change will help us manage pick-up more efficiently and keep all our pupils safe. Thank you for your cooperation and support.
Dates for your Diary -
SUBSCRIBE - To our School calendar to keep in the loop with all your child/ren's events.
Inset Day - FRIDAY 17th OCTOBER
SCHOOL CLOSED TO PUPILS
The Past Fortnight -
Harvest Festival -
A BIG Thank you Ashley community for all your generous donations.
The children enjoyed a lovely service at St Mary's Church and we were very lucky to have David from RentStart to talk to the children about how their donations help the Walton community. David's engaging talk also helped the children to understand homelessness. Faith Group have put together 2 hampers to donate to RentStart and the rest of the donations have been donated to the Walton and Hersham Foodbank and The Bridge. This year have donated 148.65kg of food and household products plus a generous monetary donation for the Foodbank.
- Mrs Nawaz
Y6 -
What a busy week Year 6 has had! Many of the children have been learning about road safety in their Bikeability sessions which they have really enjoyed. We're looking forward to seeing them demonstrate their new skills in the mountain biking session on our residential! We have been collecting ideas for and planning our war poems which we will be sharing with you on our Great Works day next Thursday. It was lovely to see our House Captains and Ambassadors showing prospective parents around the school. Well done, Year 6!
- Miss Bardel
Y5 -
Year 5's learning theme this half term is 'What journey does a river take?' so we ventured down to the river as a year group on Monday. The children had the opportunity to sketch their surroundings, take observations as well as measuring the depth and flow of the river. We even got to see a heron, an egret and the Fire & Rescue team training along the way! The children thoroughly enjoyed the trip and produced some informative posters upon their return, along with a graph that represented their data.
- Miss May
Y4-
Year 4 had an amazing time on their residential at Sayers Croft this week! They took part in so many brilliant activities from pond dipping, to shelter building and orienteering to navigating a maze and blindfold trail. They have truly shown the Ashley values over the last 3 days, especially our value of courage where they stayed away from home. It was a fantastic experience and the children showed resilience, perseverance and enjoyed time being out in the fresh air and woodland. On both nights, we did some great activities. On our first night, we went on a nightwalk where we had to follow a reflective trail all the way to a meeting point. This really took courage and teamwork! Last night, we had a campfire and sang some songs as a year group. This was a wonderful way to round off what has been a brilliant residential trip. All of the children have come away with some new skills, more belief in themselves and knowing that they can do things that they may have never experienced before. A huge thank you to the team who came away to support the children. We are sure that all of the children will sleep well tonight!
- A (very tired) Mrs Ready and the Sayers Croft team
Y3 -
This week in science the children have been looking at parts of a flower and identifying their function. They then drew the parts in their books and labelled them.
- Mrs Whitby
Y2 -
This week Year 2 have been printing using their Styrofoam template with a yoga pose of their choice. This piece of work has been linked to Art, where the children have been learning about Keith Haring and PE, where they have been doing yoga this half term.
- Mrs Van Der Schaff
Y1 - 
In Art this half term, Year 1 have been exploring the collage work of Henri Matisse; experimenting with organic shapes to create their own pictures but also working in Learning Zones on large collaborative pieces. The project has got children working on their fine motor skills, particularly cutting with scissors - so keep practising this skill at home! Pictured is a Rainbow collage that the children worked on together, showing their understanding of overlapping to complete bright and bold colour blocks. We look forward to teaching you more about Matisse at our Great Work next week!
- Mrs Luxford
Reception - 
We have been learning about harvest time, talking about where food comes from and celebrated harvest in a special assembly with year one. We had a conker rolling competition in our outdoor area which was great fun! In our creative areas the children have enjoyed the sensory sensation of rolling conkers in paint to make artistic images! It has been lovely to see the children developing gross motor skills and turn taking skills using our trikes in the outdoor area.
- Mrs Lulham
Trim Trail -
We would like to say A BIG THANK-YOU to the FOA for the new KS2 Trim trail. The children having been enjoying using it this week.
SENDsational News -
sendsational half termly newsletter 1 .pdf
sendsational half termly newsletter 2 .pdf
Staff Charity -
"Year 6's Mr Grace is on the charity trail! He has dusted down his musty walking shoes and moth-ridden rain mac and joined DementiaUK's 'Walk 62 Miles in October' event. He has started strongly, already clocking in an impressive 21 miles in just under a week. He has hit his initial fundraising target (a whopping £250), but he has bravely (possibly foolishly) raised that to £500! Yikes!
He is calling on the magnificent Ashley community to roar him on to not only hit 62 miles, but to potentially smash that target halfway across Ashley Park! Rumours of a potential 100-mile effort cannot be confirmed at this time. If you see him on the gate in the morning or and about in Walton, please do say 'hiya' and give him a cheer - it all helps.
If you would like to sponsor him, please visit his fundraising page at https://fundraise.dementiauk.org/fundraisers/neilgrace
For more information about dementia, please visit https://www.alzheimers.org.uk/about-dementia/types-dementia/what-is-dementia"
Mrs Luxford and Mrs Morgan are pleased to announce that a grand total of £630 was raised for Rentstart! A big thank you to all who donated!
Community Notice Board -
Well Done!
Well done to Madeleine, Holly, Olivia and Nevi Y5 who attended a Reeds rugby festival last Sunday. The sun was shining and the girls played so well.