Welcome back to the start of term 4. With just over 5 weeks until British Summer time when the clocks go forward an hour and the first day of Spring on 20^th March we are looking forward with hope to the term ahead. This period in the Christian calendar is known as Lent, a time of reflection. During Lent which began on 14^th February, lasting for 40 days, Christians sometimes choose to give up something or try something new. 

On Thursday, Year 2 represented our school impeccably at the dance festival held at Ashton Park Secondary school. Read about it in Year 2’s update. 

We are looking forward to the PTA disco after school we will let you know about the fun we had next week. Thank you to our PTA for providing this for our children.

We have lots planned for the term ahead as lots of events fall or begin within the next few weeks. We love to participate in these national events but we are mindful of keeping things simple and straightforward in order to not overwhelm our diary with too much and stretch our resources too far. 

National Science Week

The week commencing 11^th March is National Science week and our school is taking part - we have planned, throughout the school, many STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths) activities. Next week, we will write separately with more details but one of the whole school activities is to design and build a marble run, with the challenge of designing the run with the slowest marble descent. We will be entering our ‘slowest’ marble runs to an inter-school competition at the Wills memorial building at the end of term. For starters, please start collecting cardboard inner tubes, we are only allowed to use recyclable materials.

Wrap Around care provision in schools.

The Department for Education has now shared guidance on their plans to expand wrap around childcare in Primary Schools. Bristol City Council would like parents/carers to complete the survey below about access to current wrap around care provision.

Term 4 Parent/carer meetings

Wednesday, 28^th and Thursday, 29^th February. Bookings have now closed, if you haven’t made an appointment please contact the class teacher directly as they may have an available slot.

During the evening there will be several of our school partners in attendance. Our school Governors, AiP - school caterer (Wednesday only) and the School Nurse-please see message below (Wednesday only).

School closure due to bad weather

In the event we had to communicate with our community regarding school closure due to bad weather we would do so via Szapp and our school website at our earliest convenience on the morning of the closure.

Inset and Academy Days:

Monday 22nd July - INSET day, children not in school

Tuesday 23rd July - INSET day, children not in school 

Monday 2nd September - INSET day, children not in school 

Tuesday 3rd September - INSET day, children not in school 

We look forward to seeing you all at the Reception & KS1  and KS2 Discos this evening!

VegPower is back for 2024 and Tuesday was the big launch day. It started with a special assembly to introduce this amazingly cool and healthy project. The two vegetables in the spotlight this week are broccoli and cabbage. Mrs Richardson kindly created some tasty broccoli muffins. Mr Campbell did a live pickling session of the tasty red cabbage (recipes will follow on Google Classroom). Lunchtime saw the return of The Tuesday Tasting Table, where the children had the opportunity to taste the delicious dishes.

You can read the schedule of which vegetable we are focussing on each week below (it is also included on Google Classroom).

Look out for the assignments on your child’s Google Classroom. For example, this week there will be two assignments - broccoli and cabbage. All you need to do to earn a point for your class is upload a photo of your child eating the vegetable. You might also add a photo of them preparing the vegetable(s). We will include our recipes from The Tasting Table – if you have any cool dishes to share, then add that to the post. The assignments will stay ‘live’ for the whole project. i.e. broccoli and cabbage won’t disappear next week, when carrots and courgette are in the spotlight.

The class with the most uploads (as a percentage of their full class size) will be invited to a special lunchtime banquet to celebrate the vegetable power they have displayed this term!!!

Healthy Snacks Reminder

Please can we remind you that children should only be bringing healthy snacks to school. A great option is to bring fresh fruit and/or vegetables as a snack. Children are encouraged not to be bringing crisps, biscuits or chocolate to school.

Thank you

Mr Campbell

Wow what a busy first week of term 4 we have had. We have loved learning about farms, farm life and farm animals. We started the week with a clip of ‘Down on the Farm’ where we learnt about milking cows and making cheese. We enjoyed reading Farmer Duck and Pig in the Pond and using non-fiction books to learn about the different animals on a farm. We watched a science clip about how to make butter. We were so interested in this process that we used the method of ‘churning’ to turn cream into butter. We all had a turn at churning until we made butter. We enjoyed a snack of bread and ‘reception’s unsalted butter.’ It was delicious! 

In phonics we revisited our vowel digraphs and tricky words and used our sounds to write our half term holiday news. We impressed our teachers by using finger spaces and trying hard to form letters correctly.  We were set a challenge to write about farms and to write about a farm picture. 

In maths we have been learning about doubles to 8 and adding numbers together. We explored the Numicon and loose parts whilst looking at ladybird spots to make our doubles. We also continued to practise accurate counting of objects and developing our fine motor skills by matching a peg to the correct numeral. 

We have continued to develop cutting with control and accuracy and used chosen materials to make pigs that can stand. We drew a pig and carefully cut it out. We used wooden pegs for the legs so out pigs could stands. 

We have really enjoyed spending time with our friends after a week off and even managed to escape the rain and enjoy the outdoor area. In the outdoor area we have been using the resources to work on our balance and using large crates and materials to create.

This week Year 1 have been exploring the story Stanley’s Stick by poet John Hegley. In the story, Stanley's stick is not just a stick. With his imagination and his stick in hand, Stanley flies to the moon, goes fishing, plays a whistle and rides a dinosaur. Year 1 started the week by finding a favourite stick outside and using their imaginations to turn it into something else. We loved hearing the creative ideas– from seahorses to sailing boats and stegosaurus to saxophones! Then we stepped into Stanley’s shoes and wrote thought bubbles for the character on his adventures. 

In Maths this term we are working on addition and subtraction with numbers to 20. Year 1 have worked hard on learning number bonds to 20 this week, using Numicon and tens frames to help, and have started to notice links between number bonds to 10 and 20. Well done for a fantastic first week of term!

Year 2 have started term 4 full of enthusiasm and were buzzing with excitement when we announced that our topic this term was going to be about space.  It appears that we already have many children in Year 2 with a huge amount of knowledge to share!  We introduced our new book, Man on the Moon: A Day in the Life of Bob which the children really enjoyed.  It was fun learning more about Bob by doing our ‘Role on the Wall’ activity. 

Of course the biggest highlight of our week has been performing our amazing dance routines at the Dance Festival at Ashton Park School.  There were a lot of nervous tummies on arrival at school but it seemed to soon be taken over by excitement.  The children were fantastic and the effort that they had put into rehearsals really paid off. Both classes performances were incredible and we are so proud of them.  We hope you enjoy watching their dances - links below:

2KH:

https://youtu.be/cW06r80jKys

2CB:

https://youtu.be/mnf9cFxyZRQ

Welcome back to term 4, it feels like the time with year 3 is zooming by so fast! We therefore have jumped right in with our new topics and Literacy Book. We have started ‘Wild Robot’ by Peter Brown this term which is one of our favourites! The children as suspected, are hooked already and absolutely loved doing their own research into robots, their uses and how they’re made. As ever, we teachers even learnt new things from them! We have also started our new Geography topic of ‘Megacities’. This has involved a lot of map work which the children thoroughly enjoyed as they were hunting for familiar places, countries they had visited and also where they’re from.

Year 4 have had a fantastic start to Term 4. In Maths we've been learning about length and perimeter. We have worked hard at finding the perimeter of rectilinear shapes and have been drawing our own shapes with missing values for other classmates to complete. In Literacy, we have been looking at stereotypical 'bully' characters in books. The children have generated amazing vocabulary about Miss Trunchbull and The Aunts from James and the Giant Peach. In R.E. we have been learning about the important Hindu ceremony of 'Upanayana' and reincarnation. 

Years 5 and 6 have started their new RE topic this week and have been thinking about the big questions in life. We discussed questions with straightforward answers and questions which were more philosophical and required consideration and thought. We then read the book called "Heaven" by Nicholas Allan and imagined ourselves as Lil, whose dog died, and then asked questions as Lil, around the subject of death. Year 5 and 6 came up with some fantastic questions, which can be seen in this picture.

Year 6, have started their new Literacy text Rose Blanche by Roberto Innocenti and Ian McEwan. Roberto Innocenti is an Italian illustrator who was brought up as a child during the Second World War. He aimed to devise a story for children based on his own childhood experience which would reflect a child's incomplete comprehension of war:

“In this book I wanted to illustrate how a child experiences war without really understanding it…I was a little child when the war passed in front of my door. My father did not want to answer any questions, but I knew something terrible was happening.” 

The story is being revealed over a number of lessons – so we have only read the first three pages this week and are looking forward to finding out more next week. So far, we have observed, wondered and inferred what might happen in the text by looking at the front cover; we have used drama then written an imagined short conversation between two characters using an illustration from page 1 of the text and we have written a diary entry from Rose, when she joined the crowds in her town to wave the soldiers as they went off to fight for Germany. The story has already produced some thoughtful ideas and stunning pieces of writing. 

This story fits in beautifully with our topic of WWII and adults have been busy planning a number of exciting events linked to this history unit which will happen towards the end of the term!

After being drenched in Week 1 of the Year 4 Football League, yesterday saw some sunshine in the sky, and a bitter chill in the air. The cold, however did not stop our team from producing a superb set of results; two victories, one draw and a hard fought defeat. We are looking forward to next week's final session. Thanks to our family and friends for their support at the event.

On Thursday 7^th March we will be celebrating World Book Day. Our theme this year is “Once Upon A Time.”

We will launch the day with a special assembly and then a day filled with different activities that will be based around the celebration of books and reading. Each class will be looking at Traditional Tales and Stories from other cultures. There will be opportunities for paired reading and visiting other teachers to listen to a story. We will not be dressing up for World Book Day this year.

We will be giving each child their World Book Day token next week so look out for those in book bags. These can be spent in any book shop and Waterstones on Regent Street and Heron Books in Clifton Arcade. We will also get some of these books to add to our classroom bookshelves for children to enjoy in school. 

Book Request

Do you have any children’s books that you have finished reading and are in good condition for others to enjoy? If you do we would love to have them at school. If you have any to donate they can be given to your child’s class teacher or dropped to the school office.  Thank you for your support with this.