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- Message from Mrs Jones
- News from the PTA
- Message from Christchurch Pre School
- Reception Lost and Found and Practical Maths
- Year 1 In the Savannah Poetry
- Year 2 Tapestries of Tammy Kanat
- Year 3 Stone Age Cave Painting and Writing a Diary
- Year 4 Why did the Anglo Saxons come to Britain?
- Year 5 Maths challenge, computing, French families and Hockney artwork
- Year 6 Fold Mountains
The frosty fresh air and sunshine has been welcome again this week to enable the children to get outside at playtimes. This is the first week we have seen a rise in staff and pupil absence due to the virus. We are fortunate that we had increased our provision of teachers this year so are therefore able to deploy staff flexibly as required to minimise disruption to learning. The staff team are all pulling together and as you can see in the newsletter have achieved a lot with the children this week. We are monitoring the levels across the school and will endeavour to keep classes open. Please remember to check Szapp and email for information in the morning before leaving for school and ensure you are contactable during the school day. Thank you to parents/carers for your support and vigilance, keeping children at home if they are unwell.
The Government updated the guidance regarding the period of isolation following a positive test for Covid-19. Please note: the isolation period can only be reduced if 2 negative results are achieved on days if not the 10-day isolation period should be followed.
Please see Government Stay At Home advice page -
There is a homelearning provision for the week readily available on Google Classroom should it be needed by your child. The class teachers will check Google Classroom at the end of the school day once their class have gone home. If you have any questions during the school day please make contact via the school office.
Our Art ambassadors have shared information about an art competition - see letter below. This is a great activity if you find yourselves indoors.
Uniform sale
Thanks for all your uniform donations, if you have any further donations please drop off to Mary’s Living & Giving Shop or the school office.
There will be a sale at Mary’s Living and Giving on Friday 28th Jan from 9-11.
We do not have a large stock of logo items at this time, we do however have a large stock of skirts, boys trousers, summer dresses and boys shorts. Please consider buying these items second-hand too!
If you are unable to make the sale and would like access to the uniform at another time please email [email protected]
Dates for your diaries - up and coming events:
- Quiz Night (adults) Friday 18th March
- School Disco (children) Friday 1st April
- Mile of Pennies Friday 20th May
- CampFest wekend of 9th & 10th July
Message from Christchurch Pre School
Christchurch Pre School currently have spaces and accept the 15hrs and 30hrs per week tax free childcare with no extra fees or top-up.
Contact us on:
Tel: 0117 325 1214
Email: [email protected]
Reception Lost and Found and Practical Maths
We have had a very busy week this week. We learnt about the differences between the North and South pole. We read ‘Lost and Found’ by Oliver Jeffers and talked about how the penguin felt being lost and why he was lonely. We learnt some new vocabulary and impressed our teachers with words we already knew. We used watercolour to paint the front cover and used our sounds to write what we found in our class lost and found box.
In the dining room we have learnt to now carry our plate and our pudding and to scrape our plates. We have enjoyed this responsibility and made all the adults who help in the dining room very proud.
We learnt that on Thursday it was ‘Happy Penguin Awareness Day.’ Thank you Arlo for sharing that fact with us.
In maths we learnt about capacity and we used beans and lentils to explore full, half full and empty. We looked and compared the size of containers and spoons and scoops to help us develop our knowledge of capacity. We really enjoyed pouring using the scoops and demonstrated great sharing of the resources as well.
This week in Literacy Year 1 have been describing the sights and sounds of the African savannah through poetry. We learnt about adjectives and tried to include lots of these in our poems. We have also been busy creating scenes of the savannah at sunset using watercolours.
Year 2 Tapestries of Tammy Kanat
This week Year 2 have been learning about features of poetry including alliteration, simile, and rhyme. We have been very impressed with Year 2's attitude to their literacy and reading comprehension. They've come up with amazing, expanded noun phrases to describe Anna Hibiscus journey and some have even written their own poems at home! Year 2 have also enjoyed learning more about where Anna Hibiscus lives using their atlas skills and Digimaps to teach us about the earth's climates.
This week, literacy and maths have even woven their way into our textile lessons. Both classes thoroughly enjoyed weaving with ribbon, and looking at the captivating and unconventional tapestries of Tammy Kanat. As we wove, we also discussed repeating patterns, columns, and rows.
In PSHE we've been thinking about our dreams and goals and which steps to success will help us to achieve those goals. Both classes have shown respectful listening as we continue to learn more about one another. We've shared our hobbies and reminded ourselves of the importance of a growth mindset and can-do attitude.
Year 3 Stone Age Cave Painting and Writing a Diary
This week, we have seen amazing progress in the children’s work. After spending half of our week learning all about adverbials of time, manner and place, then children wrote some fantastic diary entries all about the hunting scene in ‘Stone Age Boy’. They really got into character as they imagined themselves as the boy.
As part of our History topic, we explored cave paintings, which helped us to understand what life was like in the Stone Age. The children first planned their painting in their ‘cave’ under the table. They used paints which were similar in colour to those used in the Stone Age for their design. The outcome was very realistic!
This week, in French, Year 3 created a long bunting with items from a pencil case. They have been learning the names of items found in pencil cases. They drew the items and wrote sentences such as, Dans ma trousee, j’ai un stylo (In my pencil case, I have a pen). As a whole class, they made a beautiful French art work which now hangs in their classroom! Bravo Year 3!
Year 4 Why did the Anglo Saxons come to Britain?
Year 4 took a trip back in time this week, answering the questions: Who are the Anglo-Saxons and why did they come to Britain? We began with looking at where they fitted into England’s history and then discussed the reasons why they travelled to our fair shores. We then moved on to learn about King Alfred and argued whether his achievements made him ‘great’ or ‘not-so-great’. Have a look at our interpretations of early Anglo-Saxon settlements – they were so much fun to design!
We’ve also been getting stuck in with our division in maths lessons this week. Take a look at the different methods and representations we have used to help us solve some tricky calculations.
Year 5 Maths challenge, computing, French families and Hockney artwork
In computing this week, Year 5 have been putting their search engine skills to the test. We raced to find different websites and thought about how we could search for them. Discussions about the benefits and downsides of voice activated search engines followed as well as naming different search engines such as Google, Ecosia and DuckDuckGo. We also discussed biased results after we did an experiment searching for the same thing in three different search engines and compare the differing top results.
Geography saw us using Digimaps to conduct some fieldwork about the River Severn. We analysed the different points of the river before using some geographical terminology to describe the journey the river takes from its source to its mouth.
In Art, we have continued to enjoy studying the landscape paintings of David Hockney. Last week, we continued our sketchbook work and thought about perspective, foreground, middleground and background. We learnt about complimentary and contrasting colours which David Hockney used in his work, then had a go at completing a composition of our own.
In French this week, Year 5 learned the names of 14 family members. We looked at the similarities and differences between the French and English language. The children realised they could guess the meaning of some words, for example nièce (niece)and neveu (nephew). Some names were more difficult such as petit-enfants (grand-children) and belle-mère (step-mother). They really enjoyed playing the game Find the pairs. They had to match the cards and try to pronounce the name of the family member correctly using French phonics.
On Monday, 6 mathematicians headed up to BGS to take part in year 5 maths challenge. Working in pairs, the children had 8 minutes to complete a series of mathematical puzzles and challenges before moving onto the next task. The children were fantastic and thoroughly enjoyed themselves.
Year 6 have been learning about 4 and 6 figure map references and exploring symbols and keys on OS maps. They have used their new skills to follow a treasure hunt around a map of central London.
In their next lesson they learnt about the location and structure of fold mountains. They explored which continents contained examples of famous mountain ranges and considered the role of tectonic plates in their formation. They then used play-doh to make examples of their own colourful fold mountains.