Cobham Montessori School

Newsletter W/C 13th July 2026

Dear Parents and Carers,

NOTICES

First of all, thank you very much for attending Sports Day on Friday, in the sweltering heat. We realised shortly afterwards that we had completely forgotten our usual tradition of the family races, for which we expect you were rather grateful! If any siblings were disappointed by the omission, please give our apologies for the oversight.

End of Term

Our last day of term will be Wednesday 15th July. We finish at 12 - please can children bring a bag to take home their work, slippers, wellies and any other clothing which has found its home here! For those returning in September, feet and bodies will be bigger and we will have a big clear-out over the summer ready to start fresh again for the new academic year.

We have three planned inset days: 2nd,3rd & 4th September and we look forward to welcoming the children back on Monday 7th September.

Photo Consents

For many of you, it may be forgotten in the mists of time, but when you joined our school you were asked to confirm your consent to our use of photographic images for various purposes. The following are the questions which we include in our new starter forms and most of you have given consent for us to use images (without any names) as set out below. We hope to refresh our website over the summer and so we invite you to please let us know if there is any change to the responses given when you joined.

• May we use your child’s photograph (unidentified) in the school prospectus and other printed publications that we produce for promotional purposes?
  
• May we use your child’s image (unidentified) online? (for example, on the school website/social media feeds)
  
• May we use, if selected, your child’s work online? (for example, on the school website/social media feeds)
  
• May we record your child’s image (unidentified) on video or webcam?
  
• Do you consent to your child’s image (unidentified) being published with a press photograph?

Parent-School Association

The above plan to improve our web presence was prompted by our lovely parent community and we are in the process of exploring how we can create more opportunities to get parents involved in school life as much (or as little) as you wish. We really look forward to sharing more information on this initiative with you, in September.

Invoices

Now that we are obliged to submit regular VAT returns, it would be enormously helpful if you could ensure that all outstanding invoices for this school year are settled promptly. If, for any reason, you need extra time, please will you get in touch so we can agree a plan with you.

THE WEEK IN SCHOOL

Children's House

This week, the children took great pride in caring for their environment, leaving the Children's House spotless! Armed with spray bottles, dusters and brushes, our cleaning brigades worked together to clean every corner of the classroom. It has been wonderful to watch them collaborate, organise themselves and thoughtfully plan their work.

One child proudly announced, “We are cleaners” Another replied, “No, I'm not a cleaner. You two are cleaners. I am the material taker so you can clean.” A friend added with great satisfaction, “Yes, it's going to be spotless.”

Preparing and caring for their environment gives children a real sense of responsibility, teamwork and belonging within the community.

This week we have also been practising for Sports Day. We hope you enjoyed watching the races and celebrating alongside the children. In preparation for the event, the children worked together to create colourful bunting for the garden and beautiful paper Calla Lilies flowers. They carefully painted wooden skewers green, rolled and glued yellow paper to create the pollen, and thoughtfully selected paper for their flower petals. One child said, “I will make two—one for me and one for my brother.”

Music brought another lovely moment this week when Miss Angela introduced a new song on the ukulele, I Lava you. As the song finished, one child looked completely relaxed and said, “I am ready to sleep.”

Snapshot of the week
Working with the Map of the British Isles
Miss: “This is England.”
Child 2: “It won yesterday!”

Miss: “This is Wales.”
Child 2: “Why is it called Wales?”
Child 1: “Because whales live in it!”

Another child, patiently waiting for a presentation, proudly reflected,
Child: “I can wait. I'm very good at patience.”
Moments like these remind us how the children are developing not only independence but also self-awareness and emotional regulation.

Conversations in the Book Corner

Child 1: “Let's sit in the Book Corner!”
Child 2: “Yes, let's. It's empty!”
Child 1: (sitting down) “No, not empty anymore!”

We wish all of our families a wonderful weekend and thank you for joining us in celebrating such a joyful Sports Day.

Elementary

With the very hot weather we noticed that some of the children were getting a bit hot and bothered and there was a rise in squabbling and disagreement in the classroom. With so much to get done before the end of term, we looked to the NVC approach developed by Marshall Rosenburg and considered whether we were communicating like Jackals or Giraffes. Simply put, Jackals are characterized as using blame language, focusing on the black and white of who is "right" or "wrong". Giraffes however, have the largest heart of any living land animal (60cm across incidentally); this style of communication focuses on taking a step back, looking at a situation with compassion and consideration for emotional needs and connection with the other person. In helping the children notice how their communication style affects the ease of their relationships (and therefore how quickly work can get done without bickering!) we hope that this will become a useful part of their ongoing "soft-skill" toolkit.

In Yoga Hayley played the organ game with the children - demonstrating how essential each of our organs is for our health - a collaborative game which required the children to work together to not fall over! Then Hayley encouraged each of the children to pick an affirmation card some examples were: "I accept myself and my imperfections knowing they make me who I am", "I am enough". Hayley invited all the children to consider their affirmation over the summer break, to be mindful of our actions, to be balanced in our approach to situations; to feel our strength inside, to spread and share all the wonderful things that makes us unique and finally, to accept yourself with your imperfections.

The children all created some lovely wishes to give out at sports day, each one was heartfelt and individual, with each child deciding how to present it - some choosing pop-up designs and others making some quite intricately decorated creations!

We finished the week with an early sports session with coach Phil who had us playing chair football again, this time introducing more penalties as well as yellow and red cards! Thank you to all parents who kept up with our changing timetable and apologies for the last minute notice - we are sure the children greatly appreciated a slightly early start to the weekend.

We look forward to seeing you on Monday for our final few days before the summer holidays.

Kind regards,

Yvonne