Newsletters

As we reach another half term holiday I want to say a huge well done to all of the children who have worked incredibly hard over the last 8 weeks. Our EYFS children have settled into school life really quickly and we have been so impressed with thier independent skills and how well they have adapted to the routines.

Over the last few weeks children have been applying for lots of the pupil roles that are on offer across the school. We have recently appointed a new head boy and girl, house captains, anti bullying ambassadors, playleaders and junior leadership team. I am looking forward to see how they get on with these roles and what an impact they can have across the school.

Finally I want to say a special goodbye to Miss K Robinson who is leaving us today. Miss Robinson has been given a fabulous opportunity to take on a SENCO and senior leadership position at another school and we wish her all the best with this. We look forward to welcoming Mrs Tolley to our team after half term as she takes over this class.

Have a plesant half term break.

Mrs Richards 

 

EYFS

Our EYFS children have settled really well into their first year at school and we are very proud of them!

 

This term we have been focussing on routines, our school values and getting to know each other. We have started to make some new friends and have also enjoyed continuing to play with children we knew before starting school. This term has been very busy for us and we have especially enjoyed being outside and exploring sensory play in foam, paint and water. We have learnt about the story owl babies and lots of us are able to predict what might happen next in stories that we share. As we move towards the next part of the Autumn term we are excited to be going on an Autumn walk and to explore celebrations including Diwali and Christmas.

Year 1 

 

We have certainly got off to a flying start in year 1. We are working so hard and Miss Willoughby is really proud of us all. We are working hard to establish and maintain consistent routines in our classroom as they help us to flourish and shine. We have been really proud of our use of ‘show me boards’ so that we can show Miss Willoughby our thinking, they make sure we all contribute and think independently.

 

In our Literacy work this term we have been writing some fiction and non-fiction together. We have written instructions for how to grow a unicorn and even completed some independent writing based on our fun experience of how to grow an axolotl. We were shocked and surprised to find our instructions must have been good as we ended up with an axolotl that grew in our cups!

 

We have also been writing a story all about an eventful journey of a hat that blew off the Queen’s head! It did a huge tour of London before landing on a baby’s head when the wind died down. We are using this to inspire some more story writing too.

 

In Maths we are working hard to understand the value of numbers and compare them using < > and =. We are getting very good at this! Next we are moving on to addition and subtraction including number bonds and we are learning that adding numbers can be done in any order and the answer won’t change! We are using a part-whole model to support our understanding of how numbers are made.

 

Understanding our locality has been our focus in Geography. We have been learning about aerial photographs and discovered the delights of Google Earth, though some of us were disappointed to learn we could not see ourselves through the sky lights after we identified our classroom using Google Earth, Miss Willoughby had to explain it was not live and was a picture taken which we were looking at. Following this  we had great fun building ‘messy maps’ of our classroom. We used classroom resources to represent the parts of the classroom including drawer units, chairs and tables!

 

It really is no wonder we are all so tired, there has been so much to learn. Miss Willoughby and Miss Gardner have been really proud of us and can’t wait to see what we get up to next term!

 

Year 2

It’s been a very busy start to the year!

In Literacy, the children have been looking at the story of ‘Little Red Reading Hood.’ The children enjoyed finding out what would happen when the wolf got to the library and writing their own version of this. The children then made us very proud by writing their own story of ‘The Ginger Read Man!’ We were very proud of their efforts! Following this, the children have looked at a poem called ‘If I were in charge of the World!’ They have had a visit from the Queen, who has told them she is going for a well-earned rest and needs one of them to be in charge for her! The children are currently writing what they would do, if they were in charge of the world and have come up with some very creative ideas, including never having to tidy their bedrooms again!

In Maths, the children have been working very hard to secure their numbers to 100 and have been counting in number patterns of 2,5 and 10. We hope the children have enjoyed practising their times tables on times tables Rock stars! We have already managed to give out an award for the highest scorer so keep up the good work with this!

In Science, we have been learning about materials. We have been doing lots of investigations to test different materials and their properties and carried out lots of investigations as to whether materials are stretchy, twisty and to test how strong they are! We have had lots of fun with this!

After a very long half term, I think all the children are very much ready for a well-deserved rest! We hope you all have a lovely half term break and if you enjoy the celebration of Halloween, enjoy a spooktacular day, which we know some of the children are getting excited for! We look forward to seeing you back feeling refreshed for the next half term!

Year 3 and 4

In year 3-4 we have been finishing off our science unit about rocks and soil by investigating the properties of soil. We have been performing practical experiments in class - this past week we mixed sand with soil to test if it made water drain more quickly. We talked lots about how to make our experiment a 'fair test' and we didn't get too muddy!

 

In history we have been learning all about the Stone Age, Bronze Age and Iron age. To finish of our unit and to showcase our learning we are spending some afternoons this week making miniature Stone Age villages - thank you to all the parents who sent their shoe boxes in!

 

 

Year 4,5 and 6

 

What a busy and long term it has been! Firstly, we would like to congratulate the children on how well they have settled in this term. It has been a jam packed 8 weeks of learning and we have achieved an awful lot.  

In literacy, we started off with the Anthony Browne story of ‘Gorilla.’ This is a brilliant picture book about a little girl and her love of gorillas. The children wrote their own adventure stories and we had some very inventive ideas! We have been busy writing speeches in literacy on various issues such as: litter, poverty, homelessness and healthy eating. We were really impressed with how mature the children handled talking about these topics.  

In maths, we have revisited place value and the four operations. After half term, we are focusing on fractions.  

Science has been great fun this year learning about Space. We have learnt about planets, satellites, gravity, sundials and ended the unit with designing our own machines to collect space junk!  

For PE we have started off with gymnastics and hockey. Thank you to the children who have helped us to model some more complex gymnastic moves! Much appreciated.  

We have loved reading Coraline for our VIPERS text and have finished off the term learning all about Martin Luther King.  

We wish all the children a restful half term and we will see them back after the break.  

Mr Stockwell, Mrs Bryan and Miss Robinson.

Harvest Cereal Challenge

This term in order to support the local foodbanks we completed the harvest cereal challenge. We spoke to the foodbanks who told us they were in desperate need for cereal which is why we focussed on this. We managed to collect 206 boxes of cereal which was an amazing amount but the fun part was completing the domini challenge which the children absolutely loved. 

Please see our school facebook page to see the video of this great event.

MP Visit

On Friday 24th October we were lucky enough to be visited by Sarah Bool MP. Sarah came to look around our school, chat to the children about her role in Parliament and speak to staff about the current issues in education. It was a pleasure to have her on site and she was very impressed with how well behaved our children were and what a lovely enviroment we have. 

Congratulations to Kai and Mabel who have recently been appoined as Head Boy and Head Girl after a fantastic interview process.