Top tip for the week!

You will have noticed our new sign and yellow lines outside school. To support the initiative, please swot up on The Highway Code so that we can have a safe road environment.  Thank you.

Pantomime

We are off to the pantomime on Tuesday and would like to share some details with you. 

The children will be having a slightly earlier lunch and hot dinners are available. We will be leaving school at 12.30pm and should be back at school by 4.30pm. If we are going to be later than 4.45pm, an email will be sent out to let you know.

The children will need a drink and a small snack to take with them to the theatre.

When we return to school, it would be appreciated if parents could collect children from the usual places on the playground. Please could parents not park on the road opposite school as it makes it difficult for the coaches to get through and turn around. Please do not take your child as soon as they get off the coach as it will be dark and we need to ensure that all children have been collected safely. The gate will be unlocked on our return so you have access to the playground. The children will come into school so they can collect any belongings and leave via their classrooms.

Carol Service

We look forward to seeing you at the Carol Service on Wednesday 20th December.  There will be services at 2.00pm and 6.00pm.

We will be walking the children down to the church on Wednesday morning for a practice.  Please ensure that your child is at school on time that morning.

For the evening service, please could the children be at the church for 5.40pm.  Prior to this we will be setting up and the door will be opened then.  Thank you.

I am sure you will all agree that the children performed fantastically yesterday in our nativity "A King is Born".  They have worked so hard to learn their lines and all the songs.  We were incredibly proud of them all and we hope you enjoyed the performance as much as we did!

Our nativity play has formed the basis of our RE learning over the past few weeks and we have been exploring why this story is important to Christians.  The children demonstrated really good knowledge of the characters in the story and could recall the key events.  We also talked about all the different things we do to celebrate Christmas.  We made links between Christmas and our own birthday celebrations as we talked about Christmas being a celebration of Jesus' birthday.

In maths this week we have been exploring shape focussing on circles and triangles.  We talked about the properties of each shape using mathematical language.  We then printed our own wrapping paper using repeating patterns of circles and triangles.  We also had great fun spotting circles and triangles around the classroom and outside in the playground.  Maybe you could go on your own shape hunt at home - we would love to see photos of what you find.

Please can you ensure all reading and library books are returned to school this week.  Green phonics books will be sent home next week with details of the phonics learning for the first week of next term.

This week at school has been assessment week. This gives the children the opportunity to show off everything they have learnt this half term.

Skylarks have worked really hard with the assessments and should be very proud of themselves for their efforts, especially on such a busy week!

We hope that you enjoyed the nativity on Thursday. The children had practised lots for this and we were very impressed with how well they learnt their lines and the song lyrics. I know they were very excited to show you all. 

Year 2s will have their spelling test on Wednesday or Thursday next week as we're not in on Friday. Year 1s do not have any homework or reading books this week due to breaking up next week.

In addition to our usual learning, this week was assessment week. The children have done fantastically and can all be really proud of their hard work. 

In maths, we have moved onto multiplication and division using the 8 times table. The children have used concrete resources and arrays to demonstrate understanding of how to multiply and divide by 2, 5, 10, 3, 4 and 8.

In English, we looked at building suspense to make our narratives more exciting and the children have begun to think about how this can play a part in their final pieces.

Timetable

Tuesday: Whole School Panto Trip to the Swan theatre

Wednesday: KS2 Carol Service

Thursday: Last day of term

Friday: 1^st day of holidays!

On a final note, it has been a pleasure teaching both Kingfishers and Kestrels this term. The children have worked really hard all term and can be very proud of all they have achieved. I hope you all have a very happy holiday and see you in the New Year.

To end our topic of food chains in science, the children were finding out more about carnivorous plants. They used facts they found out last week to create mini fact files about three different plants that eat insects. Thanks to a certain Christmas advert, the children could already give an example of one of these types of plants but were fascinated to find out that there are many others as well.

In geography, we located different rocks around the school site and marked them on a map. We then identified them as igneous, metamorphic or sedimentary. 

This week we have continued to work hard to prepare for our carol service as well as our usual learning. The children have been spending time finalising their knowledge of the carols and readings for the service and it is sounding fantastic! It should be a great day next week. 

In RE, we investigated the story of Ganesh and the role he plays for Hindus in understanding their relationship with God.

The children have been completing assessments in reading, writing and maths this week and have worked hard to show all that they have learned this term. 

In maths, the children have also been showing off their skills by solving maths puzzles and investigations. It is always rewarding to see that moment when the penny drops, and they can see how their knowledge can be used to solve what seems to be a tricky problem!

This week at school has been assessment week. The children have carried out a reading and writing assessment as well as two maths assessments. I have been impressed with their attitude towards these assessments. In English, we have continued to build up a bank of interesting ideas to help us write our battle scenes next week. This week, the children have used 'show, don't tell' to help describe a characters traits and behaviour towards others and they have been practising writing using short and long sentences to build suspense. 

In maths this week, we have completed our fraction topic and moved onto measurement. This week, we began by reminding ourselves of the units of measurement used for length, volume, capacity and mass and we were able to convert between these units of measure and even carry out some problem-solving tasks using our new knowledge.

In science this week, we have been learning about how to keep our bodies healthy. We discussed how exercise, eating healthily and good hygiene can help our bodies. The children gave lots of examples of how they could do these things and started designing a poster to share these ideas with others.

In geography, the children completed their learning of the topic 'What is life like in the Alps?'  In our final lesson, we used all of our learning regarding the ph.