Newsletters

If you have not already done so, please download our school app. It is called schoolnews. Once you have entered the school details, you will be able to access the newsletters, news feed and calendar. If you log in using the same details as you have done for parent's evening, you will also see all the communication which has come through either via text message or e-mail. 

More details can be found here: https://www.abberley.worcs.sch.uk/parent-portal-info

Bonjour!

This week the Wrens have been visiting Paris with Emma Jane and her aeroplane.  We have really enjoyed finding out about all the amazing landmarks in Paris and were inspired to build our own Pompidou Centre out of the marble run.

Year 1 enjoyed sharing the book "A Lion in Paris" by Beatrice Alemagna which is based on the Lion of Belfort statue. We explored the language used in the book to describe the lion's view of the Paris monuments and then had a go at producing our own piece of descriptive writing.  

Meanwhile, Reception looked at the Impressionist style of painting and produced their own collaborative piece of artwork featuring the Eiffel Tower.  It looks fantastic on our classroom wall!  We even had our own French patisserie on the playdough table creating croissants and pastries.

In maths this week, Year 1 have been beginning to explore tens and ones in place value and Reception have been consolidating their understanding of one more and one less.

On Wednesday, Year 1 had a lovely afternoon at The Chantry for the Multi Skills Festival. The children were able to try out a range of sports and activities and joined in everything with great enthusiasm.   In PE, Reception have been learning the correct vocabulary in gymnastics to describe different body shapes.  We challenged ourselves to try these out on the large apparatus.  

This week in Skylarks, the children have continued their work on 'A Squash and a Squeeze'. They have used speech marks to write sentences that the little old lady might say. These sentences ended in all kinds of different synonyms for the word 'said'. They were wonderfully interesting and exciting; they really gave the reader lots of information on how the character was feeling. On Tuesday, the children sorted through different sentence types. These were statements, questions and exclamations, and then they wrote their own based on parts of the story. On Wednesday, the most fun was had when the children were split into groups of 6 to create their very own dramatic version of the story. There were some super old ladies, wise men, hens, pigs, goats and cows in the classroom! On Thursday and Friday, the children have used all their English skills from the start of the week to plan and write a diary recount from the perspective of the little old lady.

In maths, the children have been remembering names for 2D shapes and counting the sides. We know lots of new information such as a nine-sided shape is called a nonagon. We have been comparing the different number of sides on shapes and even put them into simple maths questions, such as a square minus a triangle is 1 and a one-sided shape is a circle. 

In RE, the children learnt about reasons why Christians might pray to God. There are 4 types of prayer; prayers for forgiveness, asking, praise and thanks. The children wrote a prayer in their books.

In geography, the children thought about their own journey to school and how they travel to school. Everyone drew a map of their journey and labelled the different places they pass. On your next journey to school, have a close look at the different buildings or things you pass every day, as we often don't look carefully at our local environment. 

In science, the children were investigating which metals were magnetic by exploring our school environment. We found out that steel is a magnetic metal.

We all had a fantastic time at the multi skills festival and had plenty of opportunities to develop jumping, running, catching and throwing skills. 

This week in English, Kingfishers have been focusing on suspense and action writing. We have examined techniques used in stories that make us want to read on and know more about what is happening. The children planned out their suspense writing using DADWAVERS which is a form of organising creative writing. They then spent two lessons composing their action sequence inspired by Hogarth, the farmer's son, first spotting the Iron Man. The writing that they produced was fantastic and they should be very proud of themselves.

In maths, both year groups have been learning and revising their multiplication and division facts for the x8 and x9 times tables. Year 3s have been revising all of their facts including x2, x3, x4, x5, x6, x8, x10 and also applying their knowledge to solve word problems. Year 4s have been learning and practising their recall of the x7, x11 and x12 multiplication and division facts. It is vital that both Year 3 and Year 4 are practising their times tables frequently at home so that they improve the accuracy and speed to which they can recall the answers.

In geography, we have been focusing on the weather. This week specifically we were examining the effect that the weather has on daily life for humans. The children then learnt about different types of extreme weather and how these can have a devastating impact on human and natural life.

In science, we continued with our topic of sound. The children have learnt about changing sounds and understanding how and why this happens. They had great fun doing different experiments with sound. They started with the vibrating ruler experiment and were able to explain why the sound changes as the ruler is moved. They also composed their own music using glass bottles with different levels of water in. They identified how the different depths of water changed the pitch of their tunes. 

In English this week, the children have continued writing their own nonsense poem based on The Jabberwocky. They have worked extremely hard to create their own seven verse poem using their own monster as inspiration. The children were very excited to write these out in their best handwriting ready to go on display in the classroom. Next week, the children will be learning a poem by heart to perform in the classroom, so prepare yourselves for your child to be reciting a nonsense poem over and over again to be performance perfect!

In maths, we have moved on to division. The children have learned how to use formal division to solve word problems and have worked on dividing 4-digit by 1-digit numbers both with and without remainders. They quickly got to grips with the fact that division is the only one of the four operations where you start with the largest place value column. We have also been working a lot on times tables, as this knowledge is invaluable when dividing and working out remainders.

In science, Y5&6 have been planning an investigation which they will carry out next week. Their challenge was to come up with a way of testing the absorbency of different brands of kitchen roll to be able to establish which is the best. I am sure they will thoroughly enjoy putting their plans into action.

In PHSE, we were discussing dream occupations and what the children have planned for their adult lives. The children then spent time researching their dream job and finding out what they would need to do or study in order to achieve this. We talked about how it can be difficult to know what you want to do in your future life and how these ideas can change as you get older. The question I asked the children was "How many of your parents are doing the job they thought they'd be doing when they were your age?" just in case you were wondering where your child had got that question from!

It is less than a week now until the children take part in the Young Voices concert. There have already been performances at the Resorts World Arena so we watched some clips of these earlier in the week. I wanted to give the children an idea of what they were going to be part of and I think they were extremely surprised about the amount of children taking part (usually 6500) and just the scale of where they would be singing. Everyone is very much looking forward to this amazing experience next Thursday.

This week in Merlins class we have been writing our own narratives, but with a twist. We have been using the story of Alice in Wonderland to write our own stories about an original character entering Wonderland and being chased by the vicious Bandersnatch. The children have produced some brilliant writing. Next week, we will be recording and creating an audio book, retelling our stories. We hope to share this on the school website as soon as they are complete.

In maths, we have been converting metric units. We have had to think carefully about how big measurements are in relation to each other and use our understanding to convert between different units of length, weight and volume. Some of us have moved onto reasoning and problem solving with metric measures.

In geography this week, we have been exploring the processes that take place in the factories which produce what we see in the world around us. We began our lesson by comparing the site of a factory to that of our school. We then learnt about the processes that go into making everyday items such as paper, pencils and apple juice. We considered the raw materials that went into making such objects. We then explored the variety of jobs that people may take on in any given workplace. We looked closely at the different jobs people may take on at a harbour and thought carefully about the equipment involved and the special skills required.

Flu vaccinations 25.01.23

Vaccination UK will be in school on Wednesday 25th January.  Vaccinations will start at 9.00am.  Please look out for a message from them.