The Courier

In RE, Class I learned about Saint Valentine and the origins and traditions. We discussed who he was, how he secretly conducted marriage services, why we celebrate Valentine's Day on the 14 February and why we might sign our cards 'From Your Valentine'. The children thought about the people they love and made Valentine's cards for them.   

We made the most of a beautiful sunny morning by looking for and making our own shadows in the playground. We had fun exploring funny shadow shapes and making shadow monsters. We talked about how shadows are created – when an opaque object blocks the sun’s rays.

Our computer lessons this half term have seen Class I children introduced to coding. By working through a series of puzzles, they have learned how to write code and debug a programme when the code is incorrect. By writing code to programme games that include Scrat from Ice Age and Star Wars, the children have not only built their coding skills but also developed problem solving, patience and perseverance skills as well. 

Classes I & II have been challenging themselves by climbing and swinging on the wall bars and ropes. They have shown a high level of confidence and ability. Also, they have made creative routines with synchronisation and canon.

The week kicked off in style for Class II children as half of the class were joined by their parents to experience a typical English lesson. 

The parents and their child read a poem together before picking out their favourite bits.  We all then thought about what we value most and brainstormed ideas before writing our own creative version of the original poem.  Teamwork, learning talk and quality of writing was evident throughout and both parent and child benefitted enormously from the experience.

Class II and III have also looked deeper into the story of St Valentine this week and enjoyed completing activities to share with their friends and families.

Class III enjoyed composing melodies, rhythms and conducting each other to give the impression of a condor soaring and gliding through the skies and mountains. Higher notes for flying high, lower notes for dropping down and long repeated notes for soaring. They produced some great results and all took turns beautifully. 

Class III have been learning how to stay safe online by completing the activities on the Thinkuknow and Childnet websites. Whilst following the games and short videos the children had to complete a series of questions in order to keep the characters safe help them make the right decisions.  There are activities for all ages so if you would like to check them out go to:

www.thinkuknow.co.uk and www.childnet.com/young-people/primary

https://www.childnet.com/

In PSHE, we have considered how different people overcome different obstacles in their lives whether it be due to physical, emotional or educational reasons. It prompted some good discussions and we were able to identify people whom we admire, that have found ways to overcome challenges and achieve their goals.

Every now and again, children complete such heartfelt work that it really must be shared and celebrated! Forgiveness is a tough subject at whatever age, but the insight and reflection of Year 5 has shown maturity beyond their years and an honesty we can all learn from. I hope you enjoy reading their work; they have given permission for their work to be shared.

As Head of English I thought I should challenge myself to teaching all those who signed up for the English for Parents sesson in Year 5 - all at the same time!

So 22 parents with 22 children filled the hall and we learnt about relative clauses. Not many of the parents knew about relative clauses at the start of the lesson but I am pleased to announce by the time we had used talk time, white boards and a written exercise they felt a lot more secure in their understanding. The children thoroughly enjoyed sharing their learning with their parents and particularly liked it when they knew more!!

The feedback from the children and the parents was super, the parents were impressed by the level of understanding that the children had and enjoyed the way that we learn together in an active manner. The children told me that they liked their parents knowing what they are doing and being able to share and show their learning; they took great pleasure when they knew more than their parents!

Thank you to all that attended, I hope you enjoyed it as much as the children and I did.

Years 4, 5 and 6 took part in a team gymnastics competition. Each team were given a country name and they performed in parallel bars, vault, pommel horse, rings, beam and floor (with some adaptations). The judges marked them out of 10 for each performance. Ireland were the overall winners.

On Thursday I welcomed a number of Class VI parents to join us for an English lesson. Together with their child they learned about prepositions, adverbs and conjunctions that show time and cause. The children showed how their prior learning could be used and built upon and many used their mastery skills to help the parents to obtain the objective. All felt more confident in their skills by the end of the lesson and achieved some good work and progress.

Lego, magnetix, k’nex, mobilo and other construction equipment covered the classroom and imaginations ran wild as the children were invited to make something around a ‘space’ theme.

Some children chose to work individually while others collaborated in pairs and small groups to create aliens, space buggies, space stations and shuttle launchers.