Marble run excitement gripped school today, utilising recyclable materials from home and Scrapstore the children in Reception to Year 6 set about creating a marble run that would have the slowest marble descent. In the afternoon the whole school gathered to find a KS1 and KS2 marble run to represent Christ Church at an inter-school competition at the Wills memorial building at the end of term. Our school is part of a STEM enthuse project (Science Technology Engineering and Maths) with 8 local primary schools.

In March 2023 our school enrolled in the Primary Science Quality Mark PSQM to raise the profile of science at our school. The PSQM is designed to give children access to high quality primary science education and exciting experiences. This year long programme has been a whole school effort from both staff and children and therefore it feels important to share some of our achievements to date and upcoming events. Miss Riddiford is our Science subject leader, she has been preparing our scientific portfolio. We are awaiting our final award result and will keep you updated. However, whatever the outcome, we have achieved so much in STEM already and excited for more to come! We know we have many parents/carers in our school community working in, or passionate about STEM, and we look forward to continuing to utilise your skills, knowledge and enthusiasm.

Next week- STEM week -A whole school STEM event focusing on the theme ‘Time’ ranging from time capsules, space travel, animations and water clocks. There will be STEM ambassador visits from experts in their fields including: Air Bus, civil engineers, renewable energy specialist, geologists, dinosaur experts from Bristol University and more to come!

Online Safety

It is always a good idea, every so often, to stop and think whether parent controls are in place on devices that children can access. Do you know if these are in place when your children visit friends and family? Or have you recently got a new device that may not have the controls set up? Advice and support can be found here.

https://www.nspcc.org.uk/keeping-children-safe/online-safety/parental-controls/ 

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 

The theme for our World Book Day this year was ‘Once upon a Time’ in preparation for our STEM week next week and the theme of ‘time’ we felt the story language of time was a perfect theme for celebrating books and stories. Each class chose a traditional tale or fairy tale to explore. Children enjoyed listening to different versions of traditional tales, exploring good v bad characters and what they liked the most in the different tales. We hope you enjoy finding out what each class got up to during World Book Day.

The children had a treat on Thursday morning for World Book Day, with a special and fun assembly. Mrs Petters had the important role of twisting the fairytales for the teachers to read, act out, with a huge amount of dramatic flair and expression. Well done!

After hearing the story ‘I will not ever Never eat a tomato’ by Lauren Child, Reception were challenged to write a sentence about foods they like and dislike using ‘like, and, but, not’. Some children used some simple adjectives to describe their chosen foods and everyone was encouraged to use their finger spaces between words.

Learning more about healthy food the children created their own ‘healthy plate’ and this week the offering at the tasting table was salsa – which was a hit!                             

On Thursday Reception enjoyed a wonderful World Book Day on the theme of ‘Once upon a time…’ beginning with an assembly led by Mr Campbell about ‘Mixed-up Fairytales, followed by a range of book orientated activities including making your own bookmark, drawing the front cover of a favourite book and acting out a favourite traditional tale. There was also the exciting opportunity in the afternoon, to share a book with their buddy – which is always a special time for both year groups!             

Maths saw the children exploring number bonds to 10 using two parts – or which two numbers added together make 10! This was done in a variety of different ways to ensure numerical thinking and physical challenge! This might have involved cars parking in the car park, eggs placed in an egg box or combining 2 Numicon tiles together to equal 10.

The end of the week saw a fantastic ‘Marble run’ challenge in the outside area and around the classroom. How can the ball be slowed down enough (without stopping) to make it the slowest timed run? This involved some scientific thinking, observing, experimenting, testing  and evaluating as a group.

https://www.worldbookday.com/our-activity-bank/ 

This term Year 1 are observing changes in nature and the weather as we move from winter to spring. This week we have been watching the weather closely and keeping a record in our weather diaries. We also went outside to search for the first signs of spring and found blossom on trees, birds’ nests, fresh green leaves and even some bees buzzing about in the flowers! In Art, we have continued looking at the work of Claude Monet. We took a closer look at the brush strokes used in some impressionist works and tried to use a similar approach when recreating Monet’s garden. 

To celebrate World Book Day and the theme of traditional tales, Year 1 looked at the story Rapunzel by Bethan Woollvin. In this twist on the classic fairy tale, the prince is removed altogether and Rapunzel takes control of her own destiny. We worked in groups to act out the story and then recreated some of the distinctive illustrations to make a forest backdrop for our character puppets. In the afternoon, Year 1 were visited by Year 5 and loved sharing favourite stories from the book corner with them.

To celebrate World Book Day year 2 have been looking at the traditional tale 'Jack and the Beanstalk'. We spoke about how Jack is seen as the hero of the story and discussed the reasons for this. We then considered an alternative point of view in which Jack entered the giants home without permission and stole his harp and hen from him! Is it possible that the giant is in fact the victim in all of this? We wrote our ideas on sugar paper in groups which led to a debate where we role played as either Jack or the giant and shared our points of view. 

Later we focussed on the idea of the beanstalk and the mystery which awaited Jack at the top. In an alternative story we wondered what else Jack could have encountered as he reached the top. We shared our ideas and went on to create pastel and watercolour pictures of our own magical lands above the clouds.

It feels like these weeks are going by in a complete whirlwind! With our Marble Run event fast approaching, we got the children to plan some ideas and make prototypes to encourage some scientific thinking. We were so impressed with the children’s innovative ideas on how to slow down their marble. We are trying not to get too competitive, it’s the taking part that counts of course however….go year 3! Ukulele lessons have continued this term and the improvement in the children’s skill has been amazing! They have now learnt a collection of chords and are starting to play a range of songs. With only a couple of lessons left, we will try and record a final performance for you to enjoy. Finally, world book day was a roaring success. The focus was ‘Once upon a time’ and we chose the traditional tale ‘Hanzel and Gretal’. We asked the children innovate their own ending and what weird and wonderful ideas the children came up with! Some amazing creative thinking this week, well done year 3!

Year 4 had a wonderful day celebrating World Book Day and reading for pleasure. We started the day with 'Book Tasting', where we moved around the classroom trying books from different genres and writing 'tasting notes' about what we thought of them. Lots of children discovered new books and areas of interest as a result! We also enjoyed creating a carousel of book related activities such as designing book tokens and book marks.  

In Geography, the children have been practising their map skills and have been learning about why different locations around the globe have different climates. 

Year 5 really enjoyed their World Book Day this week as they story mapped, story boarded or wrote traditional tales but mixed up the characters. We had Little Red Riding Hood climbing the beanstalk; The Three Bears trip trapping over the bridge and The 3 Billy Goats huffing and puffing to blow houses down! After lunch the Year 5 children really enjoyed heading down to Year 1 and sharing books together. There was much talk about favourite stories and it was lovely to see the children working together and the older children were really impressed with the Year 1's reading skills!

Years 5 and 6 had a brilliant science workshop this week ahead of their animation planning for the story of the sad demise of the dinosaurs.

They were very lucky to have a visit from three scientists from Bristol University Life Sciences outreach department.

In fossil handling they were talked through some of the animals and plants that can be found around the UK and shown how things have changed over millions of years. They also handled real specimens.

During the EvoArcade 'point and click' game teh children started as a para-reptile in the Permian period 300 million years ago. They had to make decisions to guide their evolution, the aim being to evolve into an animal in the present day, and not to become extinct. 

The children loved adding to their knowledge of dinosaurs and evolution and were a shining example of fantastic behaviour with visitors to our school.

The Year 6 children are raising funds to support their end of primary school journey acitivities in the summer term. 

Easter Egg Hunt on Tues 26th March after school

Easter Egg Raffle, drawn on Thurs 28th March (20plus eggs to be won!)

Tickets will be on sale in the playground at drop off and pick up.

Our Year 5 girls performed superbly well in their first ever league matches, demonstrating enthusiasm and energy, whilst having lots of fun! We look forward to next week's matches, where they will put their experience from Week 1 into practice. Thank you to parents for supporting with transport to the event. It was also brilliant on Monday after school to see the girls take part in a training session - the rain did not stop them. Thank you Mr Curry for leading this. There will be another training session next Monday (11^th March 3.30  - 4.15pm). 

We are thrilled to announce that there were five winners in the Victoria Methodist Church Art competition. The theme was ‘From Pollution to Solution’. Five pupils in total won prizes for their artwork – four pupils (Saskia, Jibril, Amalia and Isobel) had work which was highly commended and won a prize of a £10 voucher each to spend at Cass Art Supplies, located on Park Street. Eloisa, won second prize overall for her artwork and won a £30 voucher. Our prize winners have been invited to an award ceremony; prizes will be given by the Lord Mayor. We are really proud of our artists.

It was Salsa Time on Tuesday's Tasting Table this week. Our team of chefs from Reception made a healthy and tasty salsa for their eager 'customers'. It has been so lovely to see the children trying new vegetables for the first time, and also great to hear the conversations taking place about the dishes on offer. Butternut squash and cauliflower next week!!! Don't forget there is a super banquet on offer during the final week of term, to the class with the most uploads on Google Classroom, of the children eating the different vegetables that are in the spotlight.