Newsletters

Lunches

The menu up until Easter is now available to book lunches. The last day to place an order for the first day back after half-term is Wednesday 22nd February.

World Book Day - 2nd March

Our theme this year is down the rabbit hole. Whilst this could be a link to Alice in Wonderland it does not have to be. We encourage children to think outside of the box regarding stories linked to visiting a new world or a new place. Children may dress up as someone from another country, another time or an imaginary world. Children can come in a costume they already have or be creative to make something new. We will be using the costumes the children come in for our activities during the day.

Big Schools Birdwatch

On Tuesday 7^th February Years 1 and 2 kept very quiet and counted the birds that came into our garden to feed. We saw a variety of birds including Blue Tits, House Sparrows, Blackbirds, Long tailed Tits and Great tits.

The children enjoyed watching the birds feeding and their acrobatics on the bird feeders. We have reported our findings to the RSPB and have now received our certificate for taking part.

G'day!  This week the Wrens have been visiting Australia with Emma Jane and her aeroplane.  We enjoyed learning all about this amazing country with a particular focus on its fascinating wildlife and the Great Barrier Reef.  Year 1 completed some descriptive writing about the Great Barrier Reef and then picked an Australian animal to research some facts about and write an information text.  Did you know that koalas sleep for 18 hours a day and kangaroos can't hop backwards?  Meanwhile, Reception explored aboriginal painting techniques with Mrs Postlethwaite and produced some brilliant artwork featuring different Australian animals.   

In maths this week, Reception have enjoyed meeting Numberline number 6 and completing different activities associated with this to explore the composition of 6 and different ways how this can be represented.  We enjoyed reading the story "Six Dinner Sid" about a cheeky cat who has 6 different owners so he can have extra dinners!  Year 1 have been looking at number patterns and exploring how they can apply their knowledge of doubles to solve near doubles and number bonds to solve subtractions.  We were very impressed with how well they picked up this tricky concept.

In PSHE, Reception finished their Dreams and Goals topic by revisiting the challenge they had set themselves earlier in the term and seeing how well they had got on with meeting their goal. Quite a few of the children had chosen getting faster at running as their challenge and have enjoyed practising in our daily morning "brain break" runs.  We are hoping all their hard work will pay off in the house cross country tomorrow!

It was lovely to be able to see and chat to parents this week and celebrate the progress the children have made.  They have all worked hard and should be very proud of themselves.   Reception will be bringing home their WOW moments sheet so please complete these with any special achievements, milestones or experiences over half term.   We are also missing some of our school reading books so please can you check at home if there are any that have been missed. Thank you!

I hope you all have a very happy and restful half term holiday.

Happy Half Term Skylarks. It was lovely to speak with so many parents this week and hopefully you enjoyed looking at the marvellous work your children have completed. All Skylarks have made progress in their learning, and we look forward to seeing this flourish further next term after a well-earned break from school. 

This week we have been busy editing and writing our set of instructions about how to make the world's most delicious hot chocolate. We enjoyed making and drinking some, just so we know exactly how to make one! 

In maths, we have been using our investigative skills to solve problems involving money and investigating all the different possible arrays we could make which total 24. 

In science, we learnt some new vocabulary (rigid, transparent, opaque, flexible, waterproof) and then made houses, like the three little pigs, to investigate which house was the most rigid and waterproof, and what materials were the most transparent for the windows. 

In art, we continued to work in the same style as Eric Carle and create larger pieces of artwork which resembled the illustrations from the book the hungry caterpillar. We painted sheets of paper with different colours and textures and then used them to make animal collages. 

In PSHE, we discussed the different challenges we set for ourselves this half term and if we have achieved them. It was lovely to hear how many of the Skylarks are working hard on the school challenge to raise £20.23 and all the different ways pupils are achieving this. 

This week there are no spellings for the year 2's. Enjoy your holiday. 

In English this week, the children composed their own set of instructions on how to capture the Iron Man. They began by compiling a mind map of ways that they could capture him (some of which were pretty gruesome), thinking about how they could lure him in enough to be able to catch him. In pairs, the children then drafted a set of instructions, ensuring they used the features of instructions that they had learnt, for example imperative verbs and time adverbials to sequence the instructions. After drafting these, they wrote them up beautifully in their book. To finish our learning on the Iron Man, they did some wonderful artwork of the Iron Man.

In maths, we finished our learning of short division and dividing with remainders. We then moved onto our new topic of measurement. We have been looking at length and the different ways we can measure this. The children have been identifying equivalent lengths for cm, m and mm. Using metre sticks, they went on a measuring mission around the classroom. Measuring an item that they came across and then converting this into centimetres and metres. 

In geography, we have been learning about weather patterns and extreme weather along with Asia. The children created some beautiful double page non-chronological reports this week, that presented their new knowledge from this half term. They worked very hard on these and should be proud of what they produced. 

In English this week, the children have finished writing their narratives based on Alice in Wonderland. Their stories culminated with the exciting and terrifying chase by the Bandersnatch. The children have typed these out and added illustrations to create their own book. They should have brought these home today. All of the children have very much enjoyed this English topic and this is shown in the work they have produced.

In maths, we have been looking at the relationship between fractions and decimals. We have been using a place value grid to help reinforce the values of digits to the right hand side of the decimal point. After half term, we will be moving on to percentages and having a secure knowledge of the links between fractions and decimals will help tremendously with this.

In science, Y6 were investigating the affect that the temperature of water has on how quickly sugar dissolves. The children collected very accurate results which meant that the conclusions they were able to draw were more meaningful.

Kestrels were very excited on Thursday to host a PSHE session with the Y5 children from Bayton School. They showed excellent collaboration, working together to find out each other's dreams and goals and then finding clues around school to solve a puzzle. It was lovely to see how quickly the children were able to form friendships.

This week in Merlins class, we have completed our poems inspired by the Jabberwocky and have written these up in best. Last week, we painted a picture of our creatures and we have used this as our background on our final piece. Some of the children have managed to learn their poems off by heart and these have been performed in class and as part of a poetry 'battle'. 

In maths, we have continued with algebra. This week the children have been forming expressions using numbers and letters and have solved problems involving substitution: where a number is substituted for a letter. Many of us have overcome our fear of algebra and now realise there is a lot of logic to it! 

In PE this week, we rounded up our football topic with a class tournament where the children were split into four groups that went head to head. Children were extremely enthusiastic throughout this tournament and showed great support to their peers regardless of whether goals were scored or not. In dance, we went back in time to the 1970s and practised our newly learnt disco dancing moves to create a fantastic routine to Chic's 'Le Freak'.