News
Newsletter for the week ending 3rd December
Christmas has ‘landed’ in school with rehearsals underway everywhere and our Christmas hoops up the corridor. As per previous years, children can wear a Christmas jumper for the remaining Fridays this term for a small donation. The children and staff are working hard rehearsing their nativities and carols and thank you for supporting the learning of their words. We are working hard to ensure this can continue under challenging and shifting circumstances and with the help of technology we hope you will be able to enjoy them too.
We have had a few more cases of Covid in school and sent a letter to parents about this. The numbers are relatively small and in classes where the number of cases meet a trigger point of 10% of the class we are required to inform the DfE and follow their guidance. Any additional measures we are required to take will be communicated to you. We are finding that some of the symptms of the children testing positive are very similar to a cold, so if your child displays cold like symptoms please try to lateral flow test as frequently as possible to rule out Covid.
Earlier in the week we sent to you the details for the nasal flu vaccination for children at our school. If you missed the letter, please click here to view the letter.
If you want to book your child to attend our before and after school club, please ensure they are booked in first because we must know in advance numbers attending for staffing. On many occasions sessions are fully booked and we will have to turn away childrne not booked in. If you need to cancel so we can offer the place to another, please do so before 3.30pm the day before to avoid being charged. Please be aware that we will not be running a holiday club for the foreseeable future and that we will review future provision again after the Easter period.
Various funds are available through local or central government to help households financially at Christmas. For more information, please click here.
Our best wishes to you all for an enjoyable weekend
From Jeremy Cooper and all the children and staff
AROUND THE CLASSES
This week in Turtles and Dolphins we have continued to practise our Christmas Play. We have read the Christmas Story and related the story to our play. We have changed our role play areas into the Christmas Story and Santa’s sleigh. We have also decorated the trees in The Unit. We have also looked through Learning Journeys ready for your visits next week.
As another week in Year 1 draws to a close, I have been reminded about the importance of the festive period to both children and adults. This week marked the start of Advent, and it was lovely to listen to the children talk with job about the countdown to Christmas. In class, the children have finished their writing sequence and produced some lovely non-fiction writing about special hats. We have also finished our current maths topic on addition and subtraction. I was really pleased with the amount of information the children have been able to recall and use. On Thursday the children took part in an outdoor learning session, where they were able to apply their mapping skills to a different context. The children were able to view an area of the school from a bird’s eye view and construct their own maps. In computing, the children used a program that they have been learning to label and locate places on a map of the UK. Have a fantastic weekend.
Lundy Puffins have had another great week. They have made Christmas angels which are now hanging in the main corridor. They have started to look at a Christmas advert for their English work and thought about how the characters are feeling. In Maths, they have continued to look at money and have looked at how to work out change. Christmas rehearsals are underway and we will let you know when and how you can watch the recording.
Year 6 worked incredibly hard this week to incorporate the props and costumes into their performance. Thank you for all the help with learning the words. The effort was very impressive and helped significantly with the running of the rehearsal. All other year groups have also done extremely well with learning the words to the songs and are singing beautifully. All children will need to bring their Christmas jumper to school on the day they are being filmed and we will confirm when that exactly is for your child. Years 3, 4 and 5 will also need hat, scarf and gloves for the filming. Thank you for all your support with the performance. We are doing all we can to make it magical for the children despite these difficult times.
This week in Maths, Year 3 have been learning how to round to the nearest 10 and 100 to estimate answers and how to use inverse operations to check answers. In English, the children have been practicing their speech skills and writing prepositional phrases. For Philosophy, we watched the clip ‘The Present’ and discussed how the dog was determined. We then discussed our big question ‘Should you ever say no to a friendship?’. In Topic, learnt about the different climate zones and then summarised where we thought Denise lives based on the climate.
This week, HMS Echo have been working hard in Maths to present their thinking using bar models. They have taken numbers from worded problems and used bar models to decide if they need to add or subtract. They have the used column addition and subtraction to find the answers. It has been great to see them work together and support one another to understand as well as using good vocabulary in their explanations. In English, we are working from a book about The Great Fire of London. They have continued to develop their vocabulary skills, selecting ambitious words and phrases to describe scenes from the fire. FInally, in our science work, we have been working on investigation skills, exploring the best place to dry washing as well as the place where ice cubes melt fastest, The children have been great explainers, using their scientific knowledge and vocabulary to suggest reasons for their discoveries. Violet wrote, ‘The best place to dry wet washing is somewhere hot. I think this is because when water is exposed to heat the particles separate and evaporate. They change state into gas, which allows the water particles to separate and float around the room.”
Beechcroft (year 5) has been finding out about Viking sagas, and the story of how Odin created the world. They know about Midgard (home of the humans), Asgard (home of the gods) and Jotunheim (home of the giants). We have been using our writing skills to write detailed descriptions of these lands. In our topic work we have been finding out about how good Vikings were as sailors; they made very strong long ships to sail in. In maths we have continued with our multiplication skills, securing the long multiplication method. We have been sewing robins as part of the school Christmas display. They will come home at the end of the term to go on your Christmas trees. We are really pleased with the Christmas cakes we have finished this week. We hope you enjoy eating them.! A reminder that we are going to RHS Rosemoor next week.
Year 6 have been busy writing diary entries with emotion this week in Literacy and recapping fractions in Maths. Science has moved to evolution and inheritance, where they are trying to secure some key vocabulary. In topic, they were trying to see what Hitler needed to do to try and win the Battle of Britain and evaluated several sources of information. As part of our value, determination, they also worked on making Christmas decorations using a compass accurately which required a lot of perseverance. Please keep asking timestable questions to speed up recall.
