Welcome to Torfield School

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!

Last March we changed how we teach phonics at Torfield and introduced Sounds-Write lessons for pupils across the school. We are really pleased with how Sounds-Write has improved phonics lessons at Torfield and we know from feedback from parents and carers that they are seeing a real improvement in how well our children can decode words and how accessible the Sounds-Write reading books are which children bring home. Sounds-Write has been such a success at Torfield that we have been included on their list of Success Stories. You can read all about it here: https://sounds-write.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/Torfield-Special-School-UK-October-2023.pdf

We have a new job vacancy on our website. Please click to see Our Current Vacancy

We are very excited to announce that we will be running an after-school football club for girls and boys in Key Stage 2. If you would like to register a place for your child or find out more about it please message the school office on Class Dojo.

To begin our Careers Week activities, we were pleased to welcome a special visitor to the school - Sally-Ann Hart MP for Hastings and Rye.

Ofsted inspectors visited our school on the 22nd & 23rd February. In their new report, they found Torfield’s pupils are ‘immersed in literature’ and that ‘their special educational needs are not seen as a barrier to learning or to full participation in all that life has to offer.’

This term our Year Five pupils enjoyed a one-night residential staying in the woods at Mallydams.

This term many of our classes have experienced educational visits to local bookshops.

This term children at Torfield have been using their PE lessons to develop their knowledge of dance. To celebrate and share everything they have learned we held a dance showcase so that each class could perform the routines they have been creating in their lessons.

This week children at Torfield have been getting ready for the Hastings Umbrella Parade.

This week Asia Class enjoyed an educational visit to Bedgebury Forest. They used this visit to develop their understanding of seasonal change and experience being in a forest. The children also had a lot of fun improving their team-building skills using Bedgebury’s obstacle course.

This term Badgers Class have been enthralled by their lessons about space. To help develop their understanding of space they have enjoyed an educational visit to the Observatory Science Centre in Herstmonceux.

GONG HEI FAT CHOY! Our children have been having a wonderful time learning about and celebrating Chinese New Year as part of our programme of activities to promote spiritual, moral, social and cultural development.