Newsletters

It is beginning to look and feel a lot like Christmas in and around school. With carols echoing down the corridors from children practising for our annual service in the church and the youngest children preparing for their nativity, it is a joy to be in school. There is also a lovely buzz and children share stories of the gifts and family time that they will soon have. 

We are looking forward to sharing this Christmas spirit with you at our Christmas Fair next week and Nativity and Carol service on the final week of term.

Throughout this week, our children went to the pantomime and enjoyed a great performance, we have created decorations for and decorated our Abberley tree at Stanford Church, our Key Stage 1 footballers enjoyed a fantastic afternoon of sport at The Chantry cluster tournament, and we have had the first of our toast and hot chocolate mornings, raising money for The homeless people of Worcester through the Salvation army. 

Abberley Primary World Cup

To celebrate the world cup finals taking place, the whole school will travel by coach to the Astroturf at Abberley Hall on Wednesday 14th December. We plan to kick-off our house tournament at 1.15pm. KS1 children will compete, Key stage 2 girls will compete and KS2 boys will compete in three tournaments to see which house can come out as overall champions 2022.

Children can come to school in PE kit, including tracksuit, jogging bottoms or leggings and must bring a warm coat and a hat.

The tournament will finish at 3.20pm at which point collection will be from Abberley Hall school car park by the netball courts. Children booked into Abberley Acorns will be brought back to school. 

Tea and toast

This continues throughout next week. Children can bring £1 for a hot chocolate and toast at break time.  All money raised will be donated to The Salvation Army for the homeless of Worcester.

Monday - Skylarks

Tuesday - Kingfishers

Wednesday - Kestrels

Friday - Merlins

Christmas has arrived in Wrens this week! We have been busy playing in our Christmas post office role play and wrote some very important letters to Father Christmas to tell him our Christmas wishes. The children will be bringing home copies of these letters in their book bags and I am sure you will be impressed at how well they have applied their phonics learning in their writing. Next week Reception will be walking down to the post office to post all the letters from Wrens to ensure Father Christmas receives them in plenty of time before Christmas.

We are continuing to practise our nativity play and the children have done really well learning the songs. If your child has words to say it would be very helpful if you could read the line before your child’s words when they are practising so they know when to say their line. Thank you!

In maths Reception met Numberline number 4 this week and practised the skill of subitising (recognising the number of small groups of objects without having to count). Meanwhile Year 1 have been getting to grips with subtraction and learnt that we must always start with the largest number when writing our number sentences.

Yesterday we all enjoyed a wonderful trip to the Swan Theatre to see Cinderella. The children were fantastic and thoroughly enjoyed the show joining in enthusiastically to boo the ugly sisters and cheer on Cinderella and Buttons. It was a lovely start to our Christmas activities.

There will be no more phonics homework before Christmas as we have now reached the consolidation and assessment part of our learning this term. Please use the time instead to go over the sounds your child has already learnt this term. Thank you!

It is beginning to feel like Christmas in KS1 with the excellent visit to the pantomime yesterday and learning songs for the Nativity. Again, can I please ask that you learn line/s with your child as many pupils only have 1 or 2 lines to say and when lots of pupils are not confident saying their line it is very difficult to rehearse the Nativity. Thank you.

On Wednesday the glitter also made an appearance as all KS1 pupils made their Christmas decorations for the Christmas Fayre next Tuesday.  You will be able to purchase these decorations for £1 at the Christmas Fayre. 

Maths and English lessons this week have involved writing, reading, SPAG and maths end of term assessments. I am proud of all the Year 2 pupils as they have all tried their best to demonstrate how hard they have worked this term. 

Next week in English, we will be starting to read our new class Christmas book 'How to Catch Santa' and in maths we will be continuing to learn different strategies on adding numbers together. Year 2 will have the opportunity to buy 'Hot Chocolate/squash and Toast' during 1^st break on Monday to raise money for the Salvation Army so if you would like to take part please remember £1 on Monday.

This week in Kingfishers the children have been drawing on their prior knowledge and learning to complete a variety of assessments in maths, English and science. 

In English, the children finished planning their newspaper reports for the discovery of Charlotte's 'miracle' web. They then produced their own newspaper report using all of the key features of that we had learnt about. For example, ensuring there was a headline, reported and direct speech, photos with captions and factual language. 

This week in history, we examined who Boudicca was and why we still remember her today despite being defeated by the Romans. We also analysed historical sources that describe her character and appearance. From this information the children were able to draw their own impression of what Boudicca may have looked like. 

In PE, we recapped the previously learnt basketball skills. Then the class practised a new skill called 'slide defence'. We spoke about when and why this may be useful in a game of basketball. In pairs the children practised this new skill in a game of 'through the gate'. Towards the end of the lesson, the children put all newly acquired knowledge into practise and played a mini 3 vs 3 match. 

In science, the children continued with their learning about teeth. They used mirrors to examine their own teeth and tried to count how many they had and tried to recognise their incisors, canines, molars and premolars. We then began to learn about keeping our teeth healthy. 

This week in Kestrels it has been assessment week with the children completing tests in reading, grammar and punctuation, writing and mathematics. I have been very impressed with the attitude and diligence shown towards these and the effort the children put into them. 

The children have also continued to work on their Christmas artworks and they are very excited to be able to show these to you (and you purchase them!) at the Christmas Fayre next Tuesday. 

Everyone had a great time on the trip to the Swan Theatre on Thursday to watch Cinderella. As always, the children were impeccably behaved and thoroughly enjoyed the performance. They are always such a delight to take on trips and it was just the thing to kick off the lead up to Christmas.

In Merlins this week, we have completed the writing of our diary entries as Ruth Balecki. The children have written with empathy, describing her thoughts and feelings as she experiences such a scary and uncertain time. Also, we have completed an independent writing assessment where they were given the opportunity to demonstrate their writing skills and the many techniques they have been practising. 

In Maths this week, we have been continuing to add and subtract fractions with unlike denominators. We have also practised this with mixed numbers. The children have completed a maths assessment this week, designed to assess their understanding of many curriculum topics up to this point. 

In History this week, the children have learnt about the significance of the Egyptian gods to the ancient Egyptians. They have researched these gods and created fact files to describe their appearance and their function within the lives of the ancient Egyptians. 

In Art this week, the children have created a Christmas decoration for the Christmas Fayre. These will be sold at the fayre on Tuesday 6th December.