Acorns Bunny Hop

All the children will be taking part in a sponsored bunny hop for Acorns Children Hospice on Thursday 21 March 2024.  Sponsor forms will be coming home in the children's book bags and sponsor money raised can either be sent into school or paid directly to Acorns (details of how to do this are included on the sponsor form).

Easter celebrations

Key Stage 1
Key Stage 1 will be joining with Pre School in the Village Hall on Thursday 21 March 2024 for a bunny ear making workshop and their bunny hop challenge. This will be followed by the children performing a few Easter songs.  The event will start at 9.15am and finish at approximately 10.00am.  Parents are welcome to join in the festivities.

Key Stage 2
Key Stage 2 invite parents to join them for an Easter service in St Marys Church, Abberley on Thursday 21 April 2024.  The service will start at 2.15pm and last approximately half an hour.

Comic Relief

We will also be holding a Comic Relief themed house baking competition.  All entries will receive a house point and the top 3 entries in each class will earn additional house points.  We will be selling all the lovely creations in a cake sale after school and all the proceeds will be donated to Comic Relief.  Please bring your bakes into school on the morning of Friday 15 March 2024.

We will also be selling red noses in school at breaktime during week beginning Monday 11 March 2024.  The red noses cost £1.50 each.

Abberley Acorns Invoices

We have been notified by Worcestershire County Council that there are a large number of invoices for Abberley Acorns that are now overdue.  These invoices are for wraparound care and clubs in November and December 2023.

The invoices for January and February 2024 are now being sent out and the March invoices will be going out over the Easter holidays.

Please could you pay these outstanding invoices as soon as possible as we want to avoid parents mounting up large debts and the Abberley Acorns policy states that if your debt is over £100 your child cannot attend Abberley Acorns until your debt is cleared.

The children started the week by completing their brilliant Tinga Tinga artwork with Mrs Postlethwaite.  The paintings have created a fantastic display in the classroom.  Please see the news article for more information.

We were also very excited to celebrate World Book Day this week. The children looked fantastic in their costumes and thoroughly enjoyed a day taking part in lots of different themed book activities across the school.

In maths this week, we have started to learn about number bonds to 10 and have found that our fingers are really good at working out which 2 numbers we can add together to make 10!  Next week we will be playing some games and carrying out other practical activities to consolidate this knowledge.

In PE, we have started a unit of work on dance and are learning to use the movement of our bodies to tell a story rather than our voices.

In music, our new theme is space and last week we listened to some pieces of music associated with space themed films.  We imagined we were travelling through space and thought about what we would be seeing as the music was playing.

The children have really enjoyed our topic "Life on the Savanna" but next week we will be moving on to look more at the seasonal changes in our own local environment with a particular focus on spring and Easter.  Maybe you can spot some signs of spring whilst you are out and about over the weekend.

This week in English, the children have been working really hard on their newspaper reports. They have done really well with these. Year 2s have included some direct speech and Year 1s have had a big focus on capital letters and full stops.

In maths, Year 1s have been developing their counting skills by counting from 20-50. They have also been learning about multiples of ten to 50 and counting using these. Year 2s have been making equal groups by sharing. They have also focused on multiplying and dividing by 2. They have begun to halve and double numbers.

In history, the children had a special visit from the explorers 'Charles Darwin' and 'Neil Armstrong'! They told the children all about what, where and why they explored. The children then completed a carousel of activities around the room where they were finding out about other explorers. They had to examine the clues about each explorer and try to figure out where they explored, before watching a video of the explorer explaining what they did and why they became an explorer. The children really enjoyed this lesson and acted like true historians.

In music this week, we have been singing different folk songs including Round and Round and Three Blind Mice.  We have been singing them as a round.

In English, we have completed our setting description of Castle Grotteskew from our book, Stitch Head. The children have really enjoyed letting their imagination go when describing the spooky setting.

In maths, we have started our work on fractions.  We have looked at unit fractions and understood that fractions are always equal parts of a given shape.

In history, we looked at the rise of the New Kingdom from the old Kingdom of Ancient Egypt. We looked in detail at how the New Kingdom's army changed and how the Pharoahs of the New Kingdom increased the span of the Egyptians empire up the Mediterranean coast towards Anatolia. Finally, we analysed how the increased size of the empire led to change in Egyptian culture and trade.

The children had a fantastic time completing a practical in this week's science lesson. We were studying the role of roots and their functions. We spent the majority of the lesson identifying weeds in the school garden and then the children completed scientific diagrams of the root systems they had discovered.

In RE, we are continuing to look at the traits of the people of God. We looked in more detail at the promises made in the story of Noah and how these form the basis for how people of God feel about God.

In English this week, we have started working on our police reports. We have looked at formal and informal language and which we should use. We are basing our police report on the fire that takes place at Alfie Monk's home (a character from our book, 'The 1000 year old Boy').

In maths, we have continued with our work on fractions and have moved on to subtraction. The children found this much easier to pick up as they were able to apply their understanding from addition and use these skills to subtract.

This week in Merlins, we have been writing newspaper reports detailing the events that have happened so far in Camberwell, London. In this part of the city, buildings have been mysteriously falling and people have been unexpectedly dying. The children have been planning and begun writing a newspaper report on these strange happenings, offering their own theories as to what the cause of the chaos may be.

In maths, we have been finding fraction, decimal and percentage equivalents. We began the week by converting between just two representations of a value and, by the end of the week, the children were able to confidently interchange between most decimals, percentages and fractions, some even solving complicated problems using their knowledge.

In history this week, the children have been learning about how the police force evolved from the start to the end of the 20^th century. We discussed and explored how communication, technology and the introduction of vehicles positively and negatively impacted policing. The children then went on to evaluate whether they felt policing was better at the start of the 20^th century or whether it is more effective today.

In DT, the children continued to create their model playgrounds using a variety of materials. Children have been practising their sawing skills, their use of a hot glue gun and assembly of their structures. Slowly but surely, their playground apparatus has begun to take shape and we look forward to when we have the finished product.

In science this week, we were learning about microorganisms. We discussed how these can be both useful and harmful and where we might find them. The children used their prior knowledge of life processes to say what all living things do. We then focussed on respiration and how we could test whether yeast (as a microorganism) was a living thing. The children then carried out an investigation involving plastic bottles, yeast and balloons to see if yeast is alive!

Please see below information from within but independent of the school