Dear Parents and Carers

A Warm Welcome Back

I very much hope that you had a wonderful and restful break over the holiday period and some time together with family and friends. It has been lovely to welcome the children back to school and they have already impressed us with their hard work and positive attitude to learning in this first week. I also hope that your children have come home excited about their new learning for the term ahead and the many opportunities to come. Class newsletters have been sent home today, please spend some time reading it with your children to help to prepare them for the term ahead.

Learning Environments

Our staff INSET day on Monday enabled us to spend the day considering the importance of the learning environments in school and how they support the learning journey for every child. We are now working to further develop and improve the ways in which we celebrate and share our curriculum, the impact of learning support material in the classroom and the value of published learning outcomes for all children.

RE Workshops

Years 5 & 6 took part in our Encounter Christianity workshop on Thursday, exploring Christianity and how church is a place for collective workshop.

We also taught the children about Epiphany that takes place on 6^th January every year, and shared the meaning with the children in collective worship.

Notices

As we are experiencing some colder weather at present and in preparation for any adverse weather to come, I would like to reassure you that as a school we have a clear plan and procedure in place in the event of any necessary school closure. This will involve the need for us to communicate clearly with you any arrangements required. The school would only be closed if one or more of the following conditions apply:

1. Insufficient staff are able to come in to keep the school running safely.
2. Conditions on site are assessed as dangerous or unfit for purpose.
3. Conditions are considered to be or are anticipated to later become too hazardous for travel.

If the school has to close we will endeavour to communicate with you urgently and in the following way. Parents who have opted into the Schoolzine and SZapp scheme will be alerted to the closure using the email and SZapp platforms. The information will also be shared on the school website. Please ensure that any changes to your mobile number and email addresses are shared with the school office at all times and that your Schoolzine accounts are updated.

Wishing you a wonderful weekend.

Kind regards

Mark Oldfield

Headteacher

Inset and Academy days for the rest of the year (these are days when school staff are in training involved in other school oepration - children are not in school on these days):

• Friday 23rd May - Academy day
• Monday 21st July - Inset day
• Tuesday 22nd July - Inset day

Happy New Year!

On our first morning back we headed outside on a wonderful wintry walk around our school to explore the question ‘What changes do you notice in winter? We have been learning about the season of Winter and have shared our fantastic knowledge. We also loved exploring water, ice, freezing and melting in our outdoor area and in our classrooms. The children enjoyed the challenge, using their fine motor skills to build an igloo from ice cubes and also enjoyed creating snowy scenes using chalk and white crayons or paint.

We used both fiction and non-fiction books to enhance our learning about Winter and enjoyed listening to ‘Snow’ by Sam Usher and ‘Winter’.          

It has been lovely to hear about the different holiday experiences the children enjoyed. They shared their news enthusiastically with their classmates, practicing their communication, listening and turn taking skills                                                

In maths the children have been introduced to the importance of zero and further subitising (recognising not counting) using objects and dot patterns to 5.

Welcome back and Happy New Year!  We hope that you all had a relaxing and enjoyable Christmas holiday.

This week in Year 1 we’ve enthusiastically jumped straight back into our learning, starting with our new topic, Exploring the African Savannah. We delved into our new topic through the book "One Day on Our Blue Planet…In the Savannah by Ella Bailey. We donned our safari hats and went exploring through the book to identify some of the rich and diverse wildlife found in the African Savannah.

In maths we have been learning to name a range of 2D and 3D shapes and identifying the number of sides, faces, and corners each shape has.

In year 2 this term we will be focussing on the theme of Africa and we will be looking specifically at the countries of Kenya and Nigeria where our new texts are set. 

We began by reading "Lila and the Secret of Rain".  

The children were then asked to think carefully about what happened in the story which lead to a discussion about the book, its setting and the main character.  They were then given a list of questions to help provoke and generate ideas to create a wordle.

The children filled their pages with wonderful vocabulary which links directly to the story and to Lila as a character.

Year 3 have enjoyed learning about their new History topic this week-Stone Age and Iron Age. They have impressed their teachers with what they already know about this period in history.

The book we are using to inspire our writing is called "Stone Age Boy" and will support our history learning with the story of Om and her friend from a different time….They have already shown superb acting skills during their lesson where they role-played life around a Stone Age camp-fire.

Year 3 are looking forward to a Stone Age day on January 20th - letter to follow with further information.

This week, Year 4 have divided and conquered in their maths lessons, showing they are truly in their element with division!

In Literacy, they have been exploring the depths of the Amazon Rainforest through our new book, “The Great Kapok Tree”, crafting work so impressive it Is tree-mendously good!

Most of all, we are just thrilled to have them back—our roaring Year 4s are bringing energy, enthusiasm, and a forest of fantastic ideas to 2025!

Year 5 have been straight back to the new term and the new year with a week of RE. Their key question is: “If God is everywhere, why go to a place of worship?” and within this topic they have been looking at Christianity, Judaism and Hinduism. They have compared and contrasted Anglican and Baptist Churches, learnt about what happens inside a synagogue and thought carefully about Hindu Mandir and practices. Added to this, they have discussed what worship is, how people worship outside of holy buildings and the importance of festivals for worship.

Here are some Year 5 children showcasing their work on different types of Christian churches.

Year 6 have made a great start to Term 3. This week one highlight has to be our RE workshop. A huge "thank you" to our visitors from Encounter Christianity for sharing their time, knowledge and enthusiasm with us – the workshop was brilliant!

Our visitors involved Year 6 in five interactive activities to help us explore the question: “Why Do Christians Go to Church?”

Reflecting on our learning after the workshop Year 6 summarised that a church isn’t just a building—it’s a community of people who love God and each other. To Christians, the church is like one big family. Some of Year 6 were surprised at the range of activities that Christians experience in a church.

Year 6 have also enjoyed learning about the British artist L. S. Lowry (1887–1976) famous for his distinctive “matchstick men” figures and industrial landscapes. In our sketchbooks, we have copied his work and will paint these sketches in a subsequent lesson.

"Happy New Year" from the PTA committee!

We hope you all had a lovely festive break.

Please save the dates for our upcoming events and keep an eye out on your class groups for more information about the events and how you can volunteer or come along! Thank you for your continued support.