Keep up to date with all the latest news happening in school at the moment.

• Autumn 2 Antics in Reception

  Fri 18 Dec 2020

  The first week back after half term was a roaring success and the children loved learning all about dinosaurs.  They really enjoyed using their fine motor skills to make dinosaur masks and then used them to role play stories with their friends. The children demonstrated great understanding of the different dinosaur diets when they discovered what herbivores, carnivores and omnivores eat. They did a great job at using their phonics to give dinosaurs real names and describe them in their books. They even posted letters to the Terrifying T-Rex from ‘Dear Dinosaur’. We also made our very own frozen dinosaur eggs and had so much fun making them hatch in the water tray. The children were amazed as they melted in front of their eyes.             

  Next we embraced looking at different cultures and religions through the celebration of Diwali. The children enjoyed exploring the ways in which Hindus celebrate the festival of light. We read the story of ‘Rama and Sita’ and the children made their own clay Diya’s just like the ones that lined the streets to welcome Rama and Sita home. They enthusiastically got their hands messy and moulded their Diya’s perfectly, finishing them off with lovely patterns. They experimented with lots of different colours and materials to make Rangoli patterns inside and outside.

  Then all of a sudden the classroom became a jungle and the children got out their binoculars to search for African animals. As they went on safari they discovered the natural habitats for lions, tigers, elephants, giraffes and many more.   They made lots of lovely animal finger puppets and used them to tell the story of ‘The Ugly Five’ in their very own puppet theatre. On the painting table the children produced some amazing pictures of their favourite animals too.

    The last two weeks we entered the magical world of Princesses, wizards, dragons and knights. The children really enjoyed reading ‘The Princess and The Wizard’ and this inspired them to write their own powerful potions. They came up with incredible invisible potions, ones that turned people into unicorns and dangerous fire potions. The children loved becoming wizards themselves and bringing these potions to life mixing snakes (grass), fairy dust (sand) and snails (rocks) in the tuff spots outside and bubbles, paints and glitter in the water tray inside to cast their spells. The Knights then arrived to restore order in the classroom and slay the dragons with the fantastic shields and armour they made in the junk modelling area. Although the children quickly learnt that Zog was not a dragon that needed to be slayed as he was the friendliest dragon of them all. The children loved becoming Zog in our hot seating game and wrote all about who they would give their gold stars. You will be pleased to hear mums and dads your names were mentioned a lot as you help them so much and they love your to pieces, their words!

   

  We really can’t believe that autumn term is already over but cannot wait for all our spring adventures to start in January. We have enjoyed every minute of this term and loved getting to know your children and see their personalities shine as their confidence has grown every week. We could not be prouder of the progress they have made, all the fabulous work they have produced and know they will keep progressing as the year develops.

  Have a wonderful Christmas everybody, stay safe and have lots of fun creating magical family memories together.

  Mrs Hobley, Mrs Cole, Mrs Hillsdon, Mrs Potter, Mrs Shirran and Miss Wilmot

• Year 4 December 2020

  Fri 04 Dec 2020

  Year 4

  The children continue to impress us with their energy and love of learning.  Some recent highlights include:

   

  Design and Technology

  The children have been learning to make an apron out of old sheets and clothes (many thanks for the donations). This involves looking at a variety of designs of aprons and deciding with a partner which type of apron they would like to construct.  They then recycle material from the old items to create their new apron. At the time of writing, we are just beginning the constructions process – this involves cutting, sewing, etc. Good teamwork is an especially important when the children are working in their pairs.

   

  Some quotes from the children:

  “First we made the template, then we put it onto the material and cut it out, then we started to make the hem with pins, string and needles.” – E.G. “Our first attempt didn’t work out, but looking at our second attempt it now looks great!” - M.H.G.

   

  Science

  In our science lessons we have been learning about what sound is, what causes sound and how it can be measured. In recent investigations, year 4 have constructed a replacement telephone, using only string and coffee cups. The idea behind this experiment was to look at the impact on the loudness of sound when the distance from the source of the sound was varied.

   

  Here are some quotes from the children:

  “I thought it was really fun because we got to make telephones and it was fun investigating the phones to see if they worked or not” – F.G.

  “I enjoyed this lesson because it was fun making phones!” ­– R.S.

   

  Maths

  In maths year 4 have been learning about perimeter. As part of that, they have been measuring various distances within school – which has included both in the classroom and outside on the playground.

   

  Here’s what the children had to say about their maths lessons: “I think learning about perimeter was quite fun, I liked how we got to go outside to measure the playground - every time we had different answers!” – I.Y.  “I liked measuring perimeter because it was an extension to maths and it made maths fun because you got to use the equipment.” - L.J.

• Year 3 December 2020

  Thu 03 Dec 2020

  YEAR 3

   

  The children in year 3 have been working really hard and amazed us with their learning attitudes over this term. We think they are looking forward to having a rest though over the holidays! We wish you all a very happy Christmas!   English During this half term the children have been doing writing based around the book “George’s Marvellous Medicine.”  They have started to learn how to use speech marks or inverted commas to show direct speech or dialogue between characters in stories. They have also had fun writing instructions to make a simple no cook cheese cake and are in the process of writing instructions for making a Christmas card.

  Maths For most of this half term the children have been learning how to add and subtract numbers and how to use different strategies such as number lines and column methods. We have now started work on multiplication and division and how times tables can link both these operations.   Remembrance Day On Remembrance Day children talked about the reasons why we have this day each year and produced some lovely artwork based around silhouettes and poppies.

  Science In science children have been very excited to learn about different types of rocks (igneous, metamorphic and sedimentary) and how they are formed. They have learnt that petrology is the scientific study of rocks and have been very active petrologists investigating the appearance and properties of different rocks to try and work out what type of rocks they had been given.

  Geography The children have learnt about the structure of the earth and how mountains can be formed which affects the shape of mountains. They have been developing their map reading skills by finding the locations of different mountain ranges around the world. None of them thought that living on top of Mount Everest would be a good idea because it is too cold and it takes too long to boil water for warm drinks!

• Year 1 December 2020

  Tue 01 Dec 2020

  We have been really proud of the progress our children have made since the beginning of the year.  The children have worked so hard and are really showing us what they can do.  Well done!

   

  Our topic this half term has been Ice Cold and we learnt about Robert Scott’s exploration to the South Pole.  We have also learnt many amazing facts about penguins and all our art work has been based on cold colours. 

  In art, we have created Ice Cold works of art.  Over the half term we have used ready mixed paint to create cold colour paintings.  We really enjoyed ‘painting’ with powder paint.  However, the paint was so thick and textured we had to spread it with lollypop sticks.

  We have also practised our sewing skills to create our own textile tile!  Finally, we practised our cutting skills to make a cold collage! 

   

  In English, all our books have been based on our Ice Cold theme.  We particularly enjoyed learning about penguins.  We write our own information texts using all the facts we found out!

   

  In phonics, we have been learning new graphemes linked to the sounds we learnt in reception.  For instance, we now know that the ‘ai’ phoneme can also be written as ‘ay’.  We will continue all this new learning in the next term.  Look out for the new graphemes in the children’s reading books.  May we also take this opportunity to thank you for all the reading you do with the children at home.  It is making such a difference to their reading abilities.

   

  What a great term you have all had in Year One, we are very proud of you 

  
  We wish you all and your families a very Merry Christmas and we look forward to seeing you in the New Year.

   

  Miss Jackson, Mrs Geach, Mrs Clark, Ms Francis and Mrs Merlino