10th October

Another busy week! Firstly, well done to all the children who read their welcome speeches to the Robins in the church and to the children who lead the teaspoon prayer for the whole school. Also, congratulations to all the children who now have their leadership roles. It was hard to decide but we feel like we have matched each child to their perfect role. Next step - deciding what they need to do to start to fulfil their roles.

In class, learning has continued! In English, our focus has switched to non-chronological reports. We were able to explore the first three tools that we will need to use in our own reports next week – semi-colons, fronted adverbials and varying sentence length. The children were able to write our introductory paragraph and paragraphs about our mythical creature’s appearance and habitat. In Maths, we were practising adding and subtracting and learning about bar models. We used them to show how parts come together to make wholes, to represent word problems and to construct our own problems. This learning will continue next week.

In Science, we completed our unit on materials and their properties by thinking about thermal insulators that we use and why it was useful that these items were thermal insulators. Our next unit is ‘Living Things and their Habitats’. We also completed our Geography unit; we looked at the human features of both the South East of England and Santorini in Southern Greece. We could pick out the features and significant landmarks and then look for similarities and differences between the two. Next up is the Ancient Greeks in History. In PE, we have been working on our coordination this week and investigating how it impacts our ability to play a game that involves passing, catching and scoring. In Computing, we are ready to build our own quizzes but first we had to plan our different questions; making sure we had a variety of question types. We decided to base our questions on our Geography – all about Greece. Next week, we will use 2Quiz to create them for our users.

In our worship and RE, we have been talking about community and sacrifice. As part of our learning we discussed the sacrifices that Jesus made and had some in depth conversations about other forms of sacrifice. From this, we have decided as a class that we would like to participate in the Christmas Shoebox Appeal this year. We will be collecting items over the next month to fill shoeboxes as Christmas gifts for children who do not have as much as us. We will be filling a box for a girl and one for a boy (possibly more than one of each if our donations allow). The following items are requested by the charity:

Toys:

Include a special toy that will capture a child's attention as soon as they open the box. Ideas include: 

Cuddly toy
Football and pump
Toy truck
Doll
Musical instrument
Toy cars
Animal figures
Building blocks
Skipping rope
Tennis ball
Yo-yo
Spinning top
Mini frisbee
Fidget spinner
Finger puppets
Slinky
Travel games
Small musical instruments
Small puzzles etc.
 

School equipment:

Pens
Pencils & sharpeners
Crayons
Felt tip pens
Ruler
Eraser
Writing pads or notebook
Solar calculators
Geometry set
Glue stick
Pre-inked Stampers
Colouring books
Watercolour paint set (solid only)
Safety scissors 
Craft kits

Self-care items:

Comb
Hairbrush
Toothbrush
Flannel
Bar soap (packaged and/or in a container)
Sponge
Reusable plastic containers: cup, water bottle, plate, bowl, blunt-edged utensils (Fill an empty container with non-liquid items such as sunglasses or flannel to make use of the space)
Non-liquid lip balm
Nail clippers and file
Stick deodorant
Compact mirror

Accessories and other items:

Hat
Gloves 
Sunglasses
Cap
T-shirt
Socks
Flip-flops
Small backpack, handbag or drawstring bag
Hair bows or clips
Friendship bracelets (woven with yarn or embroidery thread)
Watch
Wind-up Torch
Necklace or bracelet
Stickers 
A personal note and photo

Please note, no toothpaste, lotions, liquids, sweets or food items.

This is a wonderful way for the children to see our Christian values in action. Thank you for your support and if you have any spare shoe boxes, please bring them in too.

And finally… in PSHE this week, Steve and Laura came into school to discuss vaping. The children asked lots of sensible questions and Steve gave us lots of information about the negatives of vaping. The children enjoyed using Steve’s quote: “Just say NO!” They were all extremely mature and we are very proud of how they behaved for our visitors.

Have a great weekend.