Newsletters

A reminder that we have a celebration with Bayton on Thursday 18th May from 3.45pm to 5.45pm. We will play a football match and basketball match and enjoy some other games together. It would be brilliant if all of our year 6 children could join us.

Bayton is just the other side of Clows Top. It takes less than ten minutes to get there from Abberley.

We hoped you all enjoyed your Coronation weekend and extra bank holiday.  We enjoyed hearing the children's stories about how they celebrated, and we think their crown artwork looks fantastic outside the school.  Well done to all the competition winners.

This week, Reception studied the results of their growing experiment.  We were very excited to discover 2 of our beanstalks had grown and we discussed why we thought this had happened. We then wrote our own set of instructions of how to plant a seed and used this knowledge to plant our own bean stalks.  I wonder if they will grow as tall as Jack's!  In phonics, the children are continuing to make good progress and are beginning to read some really long words like shampoo and chimpanzee.  We have learnt the importance of chunking the word (breaking it into smaller parts) and saying all the sounds when blending.

Meanwhile, Year 1 completed their descriptions of the giant using some fantastic adjectives and similes.  We then looked at the next part of the story where Jack steals the hen that lays golden eggs.  We imagined a conversation between Jack and his mother when he returned with the chicken.  We also wrote a crime report so that the giant could report the robbery to the police!  In maths, Year 1 completed their work on arrays and are now much more confident using the rows and columns in an array to count in groups and record their work as a number sentence.

Reception have been learning some football skills in PE and we have been very impressed with their dribbling and passing skills.  We have been practising keeping our heads up and using our eyes to watch the ball and locate our teammates.  We are hoping to put some of these skills together over the next couple of weeks to play a game.

Please remember to send your child with a coat as the weather can change very quickly at this time of year.  Thank you.

This week we have been writing royal letters to send to the new king. We have thought of questions we would like to ask him about his coronation day and have told him things we would change if we were the new king or queen. We hope he enjoys reading them and we are excited to see if he writes back to us!

In maths, we have been learning to tell the time using o'clock, 1/2 past, 1/4 past and 1/4 to. If you have an analogue clock at home, please ask your child to read the clock at these times. 

In science, we had fun investigating the different parts of a plant. We used magnifying glasses to look carefully at the different parts so we could draw and label them.

This week in Geography, we have been learning about food miles and exploring whereabouts in the world our food comes from.  The children were amazed to find out Mrs Lightfoot's bananas had travelled over 5000 miles to get to Abberley! We thought about the reasons food comes from different parts of the world and how we could reduce the food miles we eat. Why don't you have a look in your cupboards and see how far your food has travelled?

Please can all Skylarks make sure they bring their reading books into school every day. Thankyou.

This week in English,  the children have been focusing on producing a diary entry as Jim. They began the week by getting into the mindset of Jim and deciding what he would be thinking and feeling. Then they planned their entry in order to include all the main features that are included in diary entries. They also had to decipher which parts of the story were important to include in their entry. Afterwards, the children began to write their final diary entries.

In maths, Year 3 have continued to focus on mass. They made their way around the classroom finding objects to weigh. Before weighing the objects, the children had to make an estimate of how much they thought it would weigh before finding the actual mass. They then had to order and compare the mass of these objects. This week they have also been adding and subtracting mass. Year 4s have continued with their work on decimals. They have been writing decimals accurately and identifying the value of each digit. Year 4 have also been comparing, ordering and rounding decimals. 

In geography, we have been focusing on coastlines. We recapped on the types of coastlines and then moved onto exploring how the shape of the coastline is changed through erosion and deposition. 

In science, the children have been learning about electricity. Today they learnt what electrical circuits were and experimented with circuits. They had to create different circuits in order to make a bulb light using only a few components. They used their scientific reasoning to explain why some circuits were successful and other not.

In English this week, the children have used the plans they created last week to write their newspaper reports based on a scene from Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief. They have also been working on their comprehension skills using texts based on Greek myths.

In maths, we have been learning about symmetry. The children have been identifying shapes with a different number of lines of symmetry and completing half-drawn shapes ensuring that their results are symmetrical. Some children found using a mirror helped them whilst others decided they preferred a method of counting squares to help them.

In PSHE, we discussed playing games online and which games the children played. We talked about how they could keep themselves safe online and the children showed fantastic knowledge and judgement around this. 

In PE, Y5&6 were focussing on shot putt this week, particularly on the technique needed. You could see the children gaining confidence and by the end of the lesson, most of the children were putting the shot, rather than throwing it. Hopefully, these improved skills will bode well for Sports Day!

The kit list for the Y5&6 children was sent home today. This will also be emailed to parents so that you have an electronic copy as well. The children will be doing a lot of walking, so it is important that they bring comfortable shoes. Also, it would be a good idea to make sure that your child has a waterproof coat with them even if it's packed in their case. If you would like any more information about the residential, please come and see me at any time.

I want to take this opportunity to say a huge well done to Year 6 who have had such a fantastic attitude towards their SATs tests this week. They have all come to school each day in a great frame of mind and have showed such resilience in the face of such a demanding week.