: Blog items
Date: 5th Mar 2024 @ 10:53am
What a week we have had!
On Thursday, we had a tremendous World Book Day! The effort put into the children’s creative and varying costumes brought much fun and enjoyment to such a special school day. Our activities were wide-ranging and included an EXTREME reading activity where the children were tasked with getting a photo of themselves reading in strange and wonderful ways. Such efforts included reading whilst doing a headstand; reading in a tree and reading in a wheelbarrow. Many children also used their technology skills in order to ‘Photoshop’ themselves reading in the ocean or in space. We aimed to show how reading can be done anywhere and at any time…well, kind of!
Our fun certainly didn’t stop there as we took part in a ‘Guess the Book quiz’ from a range of picture clues within the classroom. We also took part in a World Book Day class quiz with every question linked to, you guessed it, BOOKS!
Another highlight was our ‘Masked Reader’ activity where the children had to guess both the identity of the staff member as well as the book they were reading. This was made even more of a challenge by the animal mask covering the readers’ faces and the distorted voices to really throw the children off the scent. A great laugh was had and we enjoyed hearing the various discussions and logic for the children’s answers too.
In our Collective Worship work, a new month welcomed in a new monthly value: Sacrifice. We have discussed the meaning of this word and how this also links to our RE unit, ‘Why do Christians believe that Easter is a celebration of victory?’, in the sense that Jesus had to sacrifice himself to bring people closer to God again.
In Maths, we have been tackling percentages and how to find percentages of amounts. Our learning will continue into next week where we will also tackle some assessments that will check our understanding of the Maths that we have encountered this year so far.
A fantastic and ever busy week in Year 5 and a well-deserved weekend awaits. Enjoy!
Reminders
-From next week, the children’s PE days will be Tuesdays (school PE) and Thursdays (school PE).
Date: 1st Mar 2024 @ 8:09pm
In English, we continued to investigate our book ‘The Big Blue Whale’. We started the week by discussing what we thought the two characters in our book would be saying to each other, creating speech sandwiches as they went through the book. Later in the week, we created our own poems about various sea creatures, ensuring each poem started with a command and used a range of similes. Next week, we will complete our assessments in SPAG, Reading and Spelling.
We have been going money mad this week in maths. We began the week by familiarising ourselves with coins and applying our knowledge of the value of each note and coin to convert pence into pounds and pence. We continued to add and subtract pounds and pence. Next week, we will continue to build on our understanding of subtracting money to find change. We will also be completing our Spring assessments in maths.
In Science, we looked at the incredible life and work of Marie Curie. We were fascinated to learn about her scientific ideas about how X-rays changed health and medicine for the better. We used our previous knowledge about the human skeleton and its function to identify different bones through a fun game of bone bingo. We ended our lesson by creating a model of an X-ray image.
We continue to explore the extraordinary features of the River Nile. This week, we recalled that the Nile travels from South to North and is the largest river in the world. We were introduced to the new vocabulary ‘source and mouth’. Starting at the source of the river we followed its complex journey to the mouth by arranging label cards in the correct order. We worked in groups to recreate the
We are continuing to enjoy our singing lessons with Liverpool Cathedral thoroughly and preparation is well underway to show off our vocals when we perform to our loved ones next month to showcase the incredible songs we have been learning.
Another busy week in Year 3. Have a restful weekend and we look forward to seeing you all on Monday.
Date: 29th Feb 2024 @ 4:20pm
What a busy week we have had!
On Wednesday we went to our Mother’s Day WOW service at S.t Peter’s church where Reception and Nursery performed three songs together and some of the Reception children said a prayer. We talked about how thankful we are for all the special people are in our lives. Thank you, Caroline, for a lovely service.
We are continuing to thoroughly enjoy our Forest school, this week we enjoyed a little bit of free time to explore the grounds outside. The children quickly noticed how a lot of new flowers had started to grow and were particularly interested in the feel of the bark on the trees and how it all felt different, the children were able to use some great language to describe how the tree bark felt.
We have enjoyed continuing to learn about ‘Animals from around the world’. This week we have learnt about animals from South America, we talked about where North America is and enjoyed finding this on our world map. We discussed the type of weather in North America and the different animals you would find living there. We also enjoyed playing a game of ‘What am I?’ where the children had to listen to 3 clues and see if they could guess the animal. What great fun we had!
We hope you all have a lovely weekend and see you all next week.
Miss Dalley and the Reception Team
Reminders:
Wednesday 6th March – Mother’s Day Present Room
Thursday 7th March – World Book Day
Date: 28th Feb 2024 @ 7:14pm
Another busy week!
As mathematicians, Mr King’s group have continued with ratio while also finding time to revise fractions, decimals and percentages. Mrs Martin’s group have moved onto shape this week; in particular, how to find the perimeter of different shapes.
Developing our understanding of the English language, we have focused on tenses: simple, progressive and perfect. Over the week, the children enjoyed listening to songs about each tense and also making another zine to record their notes. As readers, we have continued to explore a range of texts, including songs / poetry, letters and interviews. The more we practise, the more techniques we are picking up for answering various comprehension questions!
In Art, we continued to link our new topic on symbolic imagery to our Year 5 History topic on the Mayan civilisation. Firstly, we drew our Maya spirit companion and consider their meanings. We then took inspiration from other artist’s styles to generate a range of symbols, patterns and colours that represent ourselves.
Our Spanish lesson this week was all about general conversation and putting together all the vocabulary, questions and phrases we have been learning recently. Hopefully some of our families will be booking trips to Spain soon! Next week, we will be having a special one-off Spanish session linked to World Book Day.
In PE, we have continued with our tag rugby sessions. We recapped on how to hold and pass the ball and the rules for passing - before moving onto dodging. For this, we had to learn how to put a belt and tags on...and it was a lot harder than we predicted! By the end of Thursday's session, many of the children expressed their enjoyment of the sport and said that they liked it a lot more than they thought they would – which was fantastic to hear!
We have had plenty of visitors this week. Our school governors came into class on Tuesday and were very impressed with our mathematical knowledge. The following day, the Department for Education wanted to come in and film us in lessons as well...fortunately, we are becoming pros at performing in front of the camera now! We also welcomed Miss Phillips this week, who joined us 3 days as part of a short, teacher-training placement. She too had a lovely time visiting our Year 6 pupils.
The children are aware of their homework for this week and their weekly spellings have been set on Google Classroom as usual. Please do also encourage your child to also work through the practice assessments set on SATs Companion.
Have a great weekend, superstars!
Date: 28th Feb 2024 @ 5:25pm
Ahaargh me hearties! What a swashbuckling week we have had!
On Wednesday we went to Church for our WOW service where we celebrated ‘Mother’s Day’. The children have really enjoyed learning the different songs that they performed for the special people in their lives and Caroline spoke about why Mother’s Day is celebrated in Church. Thank you all for coming and we hope you enjoyed it.
We have continued to learn all about Pirates and spent the week looking at Pirate ships and the different features of them. We also looked at pictures of different boats such as a ferry, sailing boat, canoe. Spending time discussing, what is the same and different about the boats. The children then used the junk modelling to make their own boats and then using the water tray explored whether they would float or not.
On Tuesday we were very excited as it was our Pirate day we took part in lots of different Pirate themed activities such as walking the plank, scrubbing the decks, our pirate fitness challenge getting to skull island, mastering and handling our sword and finally our treasure hunt looking for gold coins that we could eat!!
Well done Nursery!
Mrs Molloy, Mrs Bevin and the Nursery Team
Reminders:
As of Wednesday 4th March – PE will be on a Wednesday please ensure the children are wearing Velcro trainers.
Wednesday 6th March – Mother’s Day Present Room
Thursday 7th March – World Book Day
Date: 28th Feb 2024 @ 10:14am
What a fantastic week we have had in Year 1!
We started this week with an exciting DT lesson as we discussed Puppets! We looked at a variety of creative designs and discussed our favourites. We then put our ideas into action by designing our own Puppet, we carefully considered the shape, colour and features of our Puppet. We cannot wait to continue this project, we are looking forward to seeing our designs come to life!
In Maths this week we began a new focus on Place Value. We built upon our prior knowledge of Place Value within 20 and started to count up to 50! We have been practicing our counting skills every day to support our understanding of more and less. In partners we used half hundred cubes to count forwards and backwards within 50. We enjoyed making our Maths hands on this week as we took part in a variety of activities to support our understanding of tens and ones. We used ten frames and different objects to group amounts into 10s and began using base 10 to represent tens an ones.
As a part of our RE topic we added some life into our classroom, we thought about how Spring life is similar to the life of Jesus. We looked at the life cycle of a plant in Spring, and discussed how plants grow from a small bud into a beautiful flower. We wanted to explore this in more detail so we created our very own table plants! We used gardening tools to prepare our plant pots and worked as teams to take turns in planting our tiny bud. We discussed how important it is for us to nurture our plant by giving it the correct amount of water, sunlight and space to flourish into a wonderful flower.
We had a fun filled afternoon on Wednesday as we began our new Music topic 'Dinosaurs'. We focused on Dynamics as we discussed how music can be played loud or quiet. We built upon our understanding of the Pulse by recapping how a pulse is a steady beat that keeps the timing throughout a piece of music. We created a steady pulse and then had the chance to practice dynamics on the drums! We had lots of fun making music in Year 1! We reflected on our music making and shared feedback as a class, celebrating our successes and considering ways we can be better.
In Geography this week we explored the beautiful country China! We learned about Chinese currency, culture, fashion, animals and more! We then created our very own Chinese Dragons using our Art skills.
We have had another brilliant week in Year 1, I am so proud of how hard everyone is working. Have a fantastic weekend Year 1!
Date: 28th Feb 2024 @ 9:21am
Another fantastic week here in Year 2! Although we are not sure how it is already March…
This week we have certainly shown our school value ‘Imagine’ whilst being creative in both DT and Science. In DT we look at the various materials we could use when we create our own Ferris Wheels. In groups we eliminated materials such as cocktail sticks as we agreed they would not be strong enough. After, we selected which materials that would use such as basal wood and yoghurt pots discussing how we would gather these materials for future lessons. In Science, we created our own greenhouses, with our partner. It was very tricky but we preserved and successfully planted a range of beans in our greenhouses!
In English, we continued without book, ‘Major Glad and Major Dizzy’. This week we took on the characters personas and ventured under the floorboards! We imagined what we could see and what we could hear under there and all agreed that someone needed to give it a good dust! After, we created some incredible writing based on what we could sense under the floorboards.
In Maths, we finished our topic on Multiplication and Division by exploring multiplication and division involving 10. Next week, we will be securing our number fact knowledge as well as completing a range of in-class assessments.
In History, we continued to learn about the incredible queens from British history. Building on our knowledge from last week, we focused on Mary I and created our very own fact files!
We have been incredibly lucky this week to have two music lessons! As usual, the wonderful Mrs McCardle from Sefton Music Services was in and this week, we began to practice our final piece, Hot Cross Buns! As well as this, we had the wonderful Miss Dilworth from Formby High School who over the next few weeks will be working with us on the Opera, ‘The Magic Flute’. Over the next few weeks, we will build up our acting skills and maybe even learn a song or two!
We also started our Yong Leaders Award this week. To start, we focused on identifying the qualities of a good leader and all agreed that they must be kind, listen and persevere even when things prove to be a little bit tricky! Over the next term we will continue to home in on these skills, developing our own, and our peers, along the way.
Reminders
- PE Days continue to be on a Monday and a Thursday.
- Please ensure your child has a recorder in school each Monday, we do not have spares. Recorders can be purchased on School Spider.
Date: 27th Feb 2024 @ 10:22pm
Reflecting back to the moments of betrayal and trust we identified in popular children’s films last week, we connected our understanding to help us identify when trust and betrayal were apparent in the Easter story. We recognised that Jesus trusted his disciples and they trusted him, yet he was betrayed to the Roman authorities by one of his disciples, Judas.
After reflecting on the daily chores the villagers undertake in the film Moana, we began to write diary entries to document their daily lives. We ensured each paragraph started with a fronted adverbial to indicate the time of day being referred to and structure our writing. We looked back at some of the STAR Vocab we learnt last week and set ourselves a challenge to incorporate our newly learnt words into our writing. Later in the week, our focus switched to writing speech and recalling the rules associated with using inverted comma’s. Next week, we will be working hard to ensure that when we are writing speech, we use a new line when a new character begins to speak.
In Maths, we have been converting improper fractions to whole numbers and identifying equivalent fractions. We made the connection that in order for a fraction to be equivalent, we multiply the numerator and denominator of the original fraction by the same amount. This has ensured we have not only been learning about fractions this week, but also recalling lots of our times tables. Next week, we will be converting improper fractions into Mixed numbers.
We are continuing to thoroughly enjoy our singing lessons with Liverpool Cathedral and preparation is well underway to show off our vocals when we perform to our loved ones next month to showcase the incredible songs we have been learning.
In Science, we constructed a simple series electrical circuit, to build a traffic light. After creating a 3D box, we fitted 3 light builds with a coloured film over the top before creating 3 circuits containing their own battery and switch to light the bulbs and display the coloured traffic lights. Our Football skills continue to develop in PE, as we pinpoint the three main coaching points to accurately dribble a ball and the inside and outside hook technique we can use to help us change direction and dodge a defender.
With our school value of Hope in mind, we continue to be determined to achieve and give our best efforts to beat out Multiplication Check score each and every morning.
What a busy week, Year 4! Have a restful weekend and we look forward to seeing you all on Monday.
Date: 27th Feb 2024 @ 10:41am
Yet another busy, busy school week! The Year 5 children continue to give their all and it’s time to share just some of our highlights…
In Maths, we have been practising converting between fractions, decimals and percentages. This has involved plenty of games, using LBQ and lots of hard work. Next week’s Maths will focus on problem solving questions involving the four operations.
As part of our Maths learning (also linking with our Science space topic), we focused on a particular date that only comes around once every four years – leap day! After learning more about exactly why we have leap years and the maths behind it, the children completed a range of problems to determine which years, both past and future, are leap years. There were also additional problems where the children had to apply their reasoning and even more complex maths to calculate their answers. So, a happy 29th February it was and we look forward to the next in four years’ time!
In our English work, we have continued our journey through the picturebook, ‘The Darkest Dark’. We have spent much of the week learning more about the moon landings in 1969 and using our research to build quality sentences including brackets. After finishing the story, the children have correctly predicted that Chris, our main character, is in fact a real astronaut who went on to achieve his childhood ambition of visiting outer space. We look forward to finding out even more about his life next week as we build towards writing a biography!
In RE, we have been focused on our key question linked to Easter, ‘Why do Christians believe that Easter is a celebration of victory?’ We discussed the meaning of this key word and connected various definitions and synonyms to its true meaning. To demonstrate our understanding, we each made a victory collage which included different images and representations of victory and being victorious.
Well done everyone on an another typically excellent week. Enjoy your weekends and see you on Monday!
Reminders:
-World Book Day is on Thursday 7th March. We look forward to an amazing day ahead and already can’t wait to see the different costumes on display!
-The children’s final swimming lesson will take place on Wednesday 6th March. The children will require clothing again for this session to complete their survival swimming assessment. Following this session, the children’s PE days will be Tuesdays (school PE) and Thursdays (school PE).
Date: 23rd Feb 2024 @ 3:35pm
We hope everyone had a lovely half term and are ready for the fun that lies ahead as we run up to Easter.
For RE this week, Caroline kindly came into join us for Godly play and told us a story ‘The Wise man and the Foolish man’. This taught us God’s message that ‘If you listen to me and practice what I say, then you will do really well in life.’ Thank you for a lovely session Caroline.
In forest school, Reception listened for environmental sounds and signs of Spring in our surroundings. We then enjoyed playing a game of ‘1,2,3,where are you?’ What fun we have had!
We began the week with the transformation of our role play into a safari jeep with explorer resources, as this half term we will be learning all about ‘Animals from around the world’. This week we began our journey in Africa, the children looked where Africa was on the world map and then learnt about the animals that live there. We particularly enjoyed exploring the different habitats that the animals live in. We can’t wait to see where our learning takes us next week!
What a busy and exciting first week back! Enjoy the weekend and we will see you Monday.
Miss Dalley and the Reception Team
Reminders:
Wednesday 28th February WOW Service at St Peter’s Church – Celebrating Mother’s Day
Wednesday 6th March – Mother’s Day Present Room
Thursday 7th March – World Book Day
Date: 21st Feb 2024 @ 9:35pm
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What an incredibly busy first week back, full of excitement!
When we arrived at school on Monday, we experienced a range of unusual sounds. Working together, we discussed and identified that the sound was coming from a school of whales and were amazed at how they communicated. After exploring the front cover of our first story, ‘The Morning I Met a Whale’ by Michael Murphurgo, we predicted what we thought the story would be about as well as its genre and book type. Before we started to read, we decided we wanted to learn more about whales, writing detailed letters to our chosen expert Sir David Attenborough to find out more information. Next week we switch books for a short period looking at the ‘Big Blue Whale’ by Nicola Davies.
We also focused on this text in our Reading sessions, exploring the interesting vocabulary within the text and how the author used this to create suspense and an interesting narrative. We compared this fictional story to an interesting article about three whales that got stuck in the River Thames. We focused on our comprehension skills in this session, retrieving information from the text.
In Maths, we have been continuing with measurement using mm, cm & m. Exploring equivalent lengths, comparing lengths and adding and subtracting lengths. Next week, we will be introduced to perimeter for the first time. We will learn that perimeter is the distance around the outside of a closed 2-D shape.
We explored the River Nile this week in our new Geography topic for this term. We began this topic by working in groups to assemble a jigsaw to reveal a picture of the River Nile as seen from space. We then discussed what we know already about the River Nile. Using ‘true or false’ statements we used our thumbs to indicate whether we thought the statements were true or not. The answers were never revealed so we were challenged to use our River Nile eBook and atlas to find out the answers to the statements. We are looking forward to learning lots of exciting facts about the River Nile this term.
Mrs Hughes was back this week for another incredible drumming lesson, it has been, and always will be, one of our favourite lessons. We continued to work together to develop our tempo and rhythm to create a fantastic piece. We cannot wait to see how we develop over the next five weeks!
In RE, we started our new topic, ‘Exploring the Sadness and Joy of Easter’. We had to first identify where the Easter story fell within the bible and also in relation to ‘The Big Frieze’. We focused this week on ‘Palm Sunday’ and looked at how and why we celebrate as we do we also enjoyed learning about how other cultures around the world celebrate ‘Palm Sunday.’ We identified that the Easter story related to the ‘Salvation’ part of the ‘Big Frieze’. This linked closely to our Collective Worship focus of ‘Joy’ and allowed us to fill our own jars full of joy thinking carefully about everything and everyone who brings us happiness.
Have a fantastic weekend Year 3!
Date: 21st Feb 2024 @ 8:06pm
Our ‘Spring 2’ half-term has officially commenced!
In Maths, Mr King’s group have reviewed their assessment papers from last half-term and now started a new topic on ratio. Mrs Martin’s group have worked hard on converting between fractions, decimals and percentages. In our Reading groups, all the children have used song lyrics throughout the week to decipher meaning and answer various inference questions. They seemed to really enjoy this!
In Art, the children have started a new topic and this week focused on experimental mark marking. This was a good opportunity for the children to revise last year’s topic on the Mayans as they explored expressive drawing techniques from this period before creating some of their own.
As athletes, the children loved starting our tag rugby sessions, which initially saw us focusing on our passing and catching skills. This was perhaps trickier than expected as many of the children had never held a rugby ball before; however, by the end of the session all the children were able to show a good understanding of the basics. They were able to pass down a line while still moving at a good speed. Well done, Year 6!
A special ‘well done’ to those children who competed in the athletics tournament at Greenbank High School on Tuesday. We were placed in the ‘bigger schools’ tournament and competed against the largest schools in Formby and Southport. After a long afternoon of track and field competition, the results were announced and…we placed second! Amazing! Back in school, the children were praised for their efforts, but also their sportsmanship and manners as they conducted themselves brilliantly. Well done, team! Another extra 'well done' to the girls' football team, who competed once again against local primary schools. They are continuing to impress us with their grit and determination. It is wonderful to see so many Year 6 children having already represented the school in a sports team this year.
The children are aware of their homework for this week and their weekly spellings have been set on Google Classroom as usual. Please do also encourage your child to also work through the practice assessments set on SATs Companion.
Have a great weekend, everyone!
Date: 21st Feb 2024 @ 12:59pm
And just like that, we are half way through the year!
The children have had an excellent start to the second part of the Spring Term and have persevered in everything they have done.
In English, we started the week by exploring the STAR vocabulary that we would find in our new story; ‘Major Glad and Major Dizzy’ by Jan Oke. We discovered that some of the vocabulary was quite dated, which means that it was used more frequently in the past, to help us understand the words further we found words with the same or similar meaning. Later in the week, we explored progressive verbs and using the images in the book to write a series of sentences to describe what was happening on the different pages.
In Maths, we continued with our topic ‘Multiplication and Division’, exploring the 2, 5, and 10 times table. The children also explored doubling and halving numbers linking this to their 2 times table. To finish the week, we explored odd and even numbers identifying how they link to the 2 times table. Next week, we will explore the 5- and 10-times table as well as dividing by these numbers. This will be our last week on Multiplication and Division.
In DT we started our new topic, ‘Mechanisms: Fairground Wheel’. The children started by exploring a series of images of objects with wheels and identified how the wheels were attached as well as what they needed to move and rotate. After, they were introduced to their project, they are going to make their own Fairground Wheel! Looking at a series of fairground wheels, the children identified the different parts; a wheel, pods, seats and an axel, to name a few. They then began designing their own, labelling it carefully.
In RE we commenced our study of Easter and discussed how Easter has many symbols such as the cross, Easter eggs and the Easter Bunny which represents it clearly. We discussed how the Easter story itself starts much earlier than Easter weekend and started by breaking the story down into smaller chunks. This week we focused on the middle part of the story, The Last Supper. We reflected on the story and identified that the symbols we can take from it are; bread and wine, which symbolise Jesus's body and blood.
Reminders
- PE days continue to be on a Monday and Thursday, please arrive at school in your full PE kit.
- Recorder lessons take place every Monday, children need to bring their own recorder to school each week. Unfortunately we do not have spares, if your child does not have one, they will not be able to take part in the lesson. Recorders can be purchased on School Spider.
Date: 21st Feb 2024 @ 10:24am
What a fantastic first week back!
With Ash Wednesday in our thoughts, we then reflected on how Lent allows Christians to remember Jesus’ fasting in the desert and the things we would give up as a test of our self-discipline. Our focus in RE is to focus on trust and betrayal and how this can be seen in the Easter story, but first we needed to understand what the two terms meant. To do this, we had such fun guiding our trusted friends around our trim trail… blindfolded of course! Continuing with our focus on trust and betrayal in RE, we watched clips from popular children’s movies and discussed the times we could see the characters displaying trust or moments of betrayal. Clips included the trust Wendy had in Peter Pan when taking her first flight and the betrayal Lotso showed to Woody in Toy Story 3.
Fractions have been our focus in Maths, reminding ourselves of how to represent a whole and beginning to find patterns on number lines to be able to count beyond 1, by adding and taking away fractions. It has been important for us to connect our prior knowledge to recall terms such as equivalence, denominator and numerator. Next week, we will begin to partition mixed numbers and compare and order mixed numbers. With a big focus also on Times Tables this term, we are working hard to complete a daily Multiplication Times Table Check and use our school value of Hope to beat our score each day.
It was time to discover what our new book is for the term and make predictions regarding the setting, character and plot in this term’s English book ‘When the Giant Stirred’. By looking at two variations of the front cover, we soon identified the importance of using expanded noun phrases to describe and specify. We found rich vocabulary to help us use topic specific nouns such as Macaws, Loggerhead Sea Turtles and the Pacific Ocean. Next week, we will use the Moana film to help us understand the duties of villagers and begin to complete diary entries, using fronted adverbials, to outline the daily goings on in the tribal village.
On Monday, we were introduced to our new musical instruments and Mrs McCardle discussed with us the different parts of the clarinet and how we can make a sound using the wooden reed inserted into the top of our mouth piece. She showed us how to put the pieces of our clarinet together and the way in which we need to blow into the mouth piece to make a sound. Each week, we will be working hard to learn some musical compositions which we can shared with our loved ones at home later in the year.
We also had a great afternoon creating a Science experiment that enabled us to create the effect of an erupting volcano. By mixing vinegar, Bicarbonate soda and fairy liquid… with a course a splash of red food colouring… our volcanoes bubbled up and out of our volcanoes craters and created a flow of lava trickling down the sides.
A jam-packed week, Year 4. Have a restful weekend!
Reminders:
If your child would like to take their clarinet home after their Music lesson each week, please confirm permission by emailing the Year 4 email account (y4@tsp.sefton.school).
Multiplication Times Tables Check Practise resources can be found on Google Classroom, alongside additional Maths and Reading learning that can be completed at home.
PE days this term are Wednesday and Friday therefore, Year 4 should come to school in their PE kits on Wednesday and Friday.
Date: 21st Feb 2024 @ 10:15am
What a fantastic first week back we have had!
We began our week with our new RE topic 'Easter'. We explored features of Spring and discussed new life around us. We went on a beautiful Spring walk to hunt for signs of Spring, we were amazed by the sprouting plants in our outdoor areas. We loved looking for different varieties of flowers and took some pictures to give us inspiration! We discussed how nature is coming alive after sleeping through winter, and recreated this in a beautiful piece of artwork. We looked at various plants as they grow through the seasons, and picked our favourite to draw. We took so much inspiration from our wonderful outdoor areas!
In DT this week we practiced some new skills by joining various materials. We explored the ways in which materials such as felt can be joined together using tools such as safety pins, staplers and glue! We had a go at developing our skills by trying each tool and discussing which one we prefer. We are extremely excited to continue developing these skills as we work on an exciting project!
In Maths this week we completed the last of our Addition and Subtraction within 20 topic, we consolidated our learning by using a variety of models to answer addition and subtraction sums. We used Part whole models, bar models and ten frames to support our understanding of addition and subtraction. We explored using number bonds to add and subtract as we looked for patterns, we learned how we can use our number bond facts to work out a variety of number sentences within 20. We then put this into practice as we completed lots of missing number problems!
We began our new topic in Geography this week as we focused on France. Our topic 'Around the World' allows us to explore wonderful countries all around the world! We began by discussing the most famous landmarks, cuisine and traditions within the beautiful country of France! We created our own French flags using a variety of materials, and tried to recreate the Eiffel tower out of straws! We enjoyed exploring this and can't wait to learn much more about our wonderful world.
Well done this week Year 1! Have a lovely weekend.
Date: 20th Feb 2024 @ 8:27pm
We hope you had a fabulous half term and are excited for the half term ahead.
We began the week by going to Forest school, we spent some time talking about the changes in our environment and how did we know it was nearly spring? The children enjoyed exploring the area around then to spot signs of spring, we saw Daffodils snowdrops and crocus. If you are out on a walk why don’t you see what other signs of spring you can see?
On Tuesday we were very excited to find a treasure map with some clues. After following the clues and finding all of the pieces we finally found a treasure box chest with a story book ‘Pirates are Coming’. The children loved listening to the story and then spent some time later in the week discussing what they knew about Pirates and also looking at and talking about their own treasure boxes.
This week we have also been learning all about ‘Dental Health’ we talked about our experiences of visiting the dentist and why it is important to look after our teeth. On Wednesday were lucky to have a visit from a local dental practice, they talked all about how to keep our teeth clean, gave us some facts about our teeth and what foods are good for our teeth and ones we should avoid or have a little at a time. We also took part in a colouring competition and four of our friends won prizes for their pictures. We all took home a goody bag for us to use at home this included a toothbrush, timer, disclosing tablet, toothbrushing chart, book and stickers!
Well done Nursery!
Mrs Molloy, Mrs Bevin and the Nursery Team
Reminders:
Tuesday 27th February – Pirate Day
Wednesday 28th February WOW Service at St Peter’s Church – Celebrating Mother’s Day
Wednesday 6th March – Mother’s Day Present Room
Thursday 7th March – World Book Day
Date: 20th Feb 2024 @ 10:44am
We welcomed back a well-rested Year 5 on Monday following our half term break and it was great to see them all! As always, we started the week by sharing our experiences during the week off and also familiarising with our new shoulder partners and table partners in class.
Following that, it was business as usual as the children picked up where they left off last half term by working with impressive resilience, effort and enjoyment across so many different subjects.
Our RE journey delved into the key concepts within Christianity. We explored a range of illustrations that represented a different aspect of our religion. The children connected their knowledge brilliantly to interpret what these pictures attempted to represent. After revealing the answers, the children were then tasked with ordering the Christian concepts according to the bigger story of the Bible itself.
In Science, we had a particularly fun and active lesson as we learned all about gears, levers and pulleys. As part of the lesson, we had to search the school hall to find a range of facts, diagrams and examples of different mechanisms to then sort into their correct sections. Great fun was had with excellent teamwork and scientific discussion on display throughout!
In a hard-working week of Maths, we have been practising finding fractions of amounts as well as adding and subtracting fractions. Next week’s lessons will move onto further understanding equivalences between fractions, decimals and percentages.
A really excellent and exciting week to begin this new half term. The weekend now awaits and we will see you all on Monday. Enjoy!
Reminders:
-Year 5 PE lessons will take place on Tuesdays and Wednesdays each week for this half term. Please ensure your child attends school in their full PE kit on these days. Swimming sessions will continue each Wednesday for part of this half term with the last session for Year 5 being Wednesday 6th March.
-A polite reminder that the correct PE uniform should be worn: Charcoal ‘V’ neck grey sweat shirt with school logo, charcoal grey jogging pants or black shorts, white T shirt or white polo shirt, black pumps or suitable trainers. Further information regarding uniform can be found on the school website - https://www.trinitystpeters.org/serve_file/8270897
Date: 11th Feb 2024 @ 1:15pm
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In English, we started to plan our version of the story ‘The Stone Age Boy’. We thought carefully about where and how our new character would end up in the Stone Age as well as our problem and resolution. At the end of the week, we used our plans to begin writing our new stories. The children ensured their writing was to a high standard by adding adjectives, adverbs, and prepositions throughout. We cannot wait to add them to our author books.
In Maths, we have been measuring mad this week. We understood that whilst metres are used to measure longer distances, it is still possible to measure these distances in centimetres or millimetres. We discussed why choosing the appropriate unit or measuring equipment is important before measuring an object or length. We will be continuing our length topic after half term.
We had a fun filled Science afternoon this week. The first part of the afternoon took a mysterious turn! Using torches and objects from around the classroom we investigated how shadows were formed using our scientific language of transparent, translucent, and opaque. We had so much fun. We then moved on to the final part of our topic ‘Mirror, Mirror’. We discovered that mirrors are good at reflecting light because they have a smooth surface, and glass sheet with a shiny metallic backing. We used our new scientific vocabulary to identify that mirrors are opaque.
Music went out with a bang this week! Continuing our drumming lessons we have been practising how to maintain a steady beat. Understand the connection between tempo and pulse and perform at different tempos. We are excited to continue our drumming lessons after half term.
This term we have had so much fun during our P.E. lessons in Dodgeball and OAA. We learnt the fundamentals of teamwork, problem solving and orienteering in our OAA lessons. During dodgeball, we worked hard to develop our catching technique against faster balls. Working on our ‘ready position’, making sure always to keep eyes on the ball and to pull the ball into our body as we catch it.
You have worked so hard this term well done Year 3! Have a super half term and we look forward to welcoming you back after a well deserved break.
Date: 8th Feb 2024 @ 7:49pm
What an exciting week we have had in Year 1! We have spent our last week of this half term having so much fun completing our topics and making wonderful memories!
We began this week with an afternoon focusing on all things computers! We explored the inside of a computer and discussed hardware and software. We then had a go on the iPads and learnt how to upload pictures. We practised using QR codes and discussed how to take photographs carefully and respectfully. We then enjoyed taking lots of beautiful photos of each other and loved uploading them to our class account. We even had the chance to share the pictures as a class and talk through our favourites. We discussed what email is and how we should communicate safely online. We had lots of brilliant ideas about being kind and being cautious when being online. We then had a go at writing our own email and shared it with our friends and family.
In PE this week we have had lots of fun! We completed our final challenge as a part of our Team Building topic, we used our communicative skills to keep balloons up in the air. We then used our teamwork to carefully move a balloon from one end to another, we found this really tricky and even came up with some tricks to not drop the balloon!
Our highlight this week was our Titanic-themed day, we enjoyed lots of activities on Thursday as we put all of our learning into a day of fun! We began by creating our own tickets for the ship, we then read a story about a tiny mouse on the Titanic, we found this fascinating! We enjoyed a Titanic-themed PE lesson as we played a game of islands but this time we were racing to get onto a lifeboat! We imagined what it would be like to be first class, second class and third class as we travelled around the ship. We had a wonderful lunch as we boarded the Titanic ship! We enjoyed a picnic and spent the afternoon creating newspaper reports, learning to draw the Titanic and recreating the impressive ship in our Block Play area.
You have all blown me away this week with your fantastic knowledge and brilliant attitude towards learning, well done Year 1! Have a lovely half-term everyone.
Date: 8th Feb 2024 @ 4:32pm
We cannot believe it is half term already. Reception you have been amazing!
This week the children have been learning all about ‘Chinese New Year’. We talked about how it is celebrated, enjoyed watching a dragon dance and read the story ‘The great race’. We then discussed similarities to how we celebrate New Year, such as having firework displays. We all sat together for a lovely Chinese banquet for the opportunity to try different Chinese foods whilst listening to Chinese music. It was lovely to see the children having a try of the different foods! We took part in lots of different creative activities such as Chinese writing, lantern making and making Chinese fans. What a fun week we have had!
In maths the children have been using their subitising skills when looking at different dot patterns of 6,7 and 8. They were challenged to match the ladybird images together with the same number of spots. We noticed that if we look on each side of the lady bird the two amounts of dots present a way that the number is composed. Great maths work everyone!
On Tuesday for 'Safer internet day' we welcomed our brilliant digital leaders to our class to talk to us about how to be safe when using the internet. They then kindly taught the children how to use the Beebots. Thank you so much digital leaders!
On Friday the children learnt all about Valentine’s day. We enjoyed listening to the story, ‘Guess how much I love you’ and talked about people that we love. The children then made heart shaped pancakes to enjoy together as an early celebration of pancake day.
We hope you have a lovely half term and see you all soon!
Miss Dalley and the Reception team
Reminders:
Monday 19th February – Back to School
Wednesday 28th February WOW Service at St Peter’s Church – Celebrating Mother’s Day
Wednesday 6th March – Team TSP Mother’s Day Present Room
Thursday 7th March – World Book Day
Date: 7th Feb 2024 @ 12:43pm
Wow, half term really has come around quickly. A big well done to Nursery you truly are super stars, we hope you enjoy the break and see you after half term!
We have enjoyed learning all about ‘Chinese New Year’ or ‘Lunar New Year’. The children have spent time listening to stories and comparing it to how they spent New Year. The children took part in food tasting and dragon dancing which they loved.
On Tuesday the children celebrated ‘Safer Internet Day’, they were thrilled to welcome the Digital leaders who have worked hard learning a special presentation for our class. We then talked about who we should tell if there was something that upset us on the internet and it’s good to talk about it.
Ahead of Valentine’s day next week the children enjoyed listening to the story ‘Guess how Much I love you’. They have created love bug biscuits using Oreo’s and made a special picture using their handprints to send to those they love. What a lovely way to end the week.
Please see or updated virtual classroom attached to this blog if you would like to explore any of the themes we will be exploring after the half term.
Well done Nursery!
Mrs Molloy, Mrs Bevin and the Nursery Team
Reminders:
Monday 19th February – Back to School
Wednesday 28th February WOW Service at St Peter’s Church – Celebrating Mother’s Day
Wednesday 6th March – Team TSP Mother’s Day Present Room
Thursday 7th March – World Book Day
Date: 7th Feb 2024 @ 10:54am
What a great final week of the Spring 1 term!
This week in RE, we identified how authority is symbolised in a range of different religions. We specifically focused on the Torah and discovered how it contains many laws that guide Jews on how to live a life that pleases God. We also connected our learning with the value of Wisdom, discussing how the Torah is the main source of wisdom to help Jews improve their relationship with God and to live good lives. To continue our focus on Joy, we created our own prayers in class to thank God for all the things around us that bring joy to our lives. Our prayers focused on showing our gratitude to God for the feeling of great pleasure and happiness when we are filled with joy - that feeling when you just can’t stop smiling or jumping about.
After unpicking the story ‘Escape from Pompeii’, this week, it was time to plan and write our own versions of the story. On Monday, we began by recalling the original story, splitting it into 5 parts; the opening, build up, problem, resolution and ending. We were great at retrieving key vocabulary and historical language from the text, that we could use in our own writing. Following this, we planned our story using the first-person point of view, writing as if we were Tranio, the main character in the story. We then took to our Author books to showcase our incredible writing this term. We sure did connect our understanding of volcanic eruptions to create our artwork, before carefully copying across our imaginative and historical stories.
In Maths, we have been focusing on perimeter and made our very own Peri the Snail to support us with our measurements. With our snails attached to a highlighter, we used the highlighter to leave a snail’s slithering trail around the edge of the shape to measure the shape’s perimeter on a grid. We then moved onto measuring the sides of a rectangle with a ruler, before recognising that the measurements of opposing sides of a rectangle are the same.
To celebrate National Football Week, we learnt how to play a game of Crab Football. Keeping in the crab position, we aimed for the bench in order to score a goal. Our TSP Sports Ambassadors have also been on the look out for a ‘Player of the Match’ during our breaktimes and PE lessons to award those showing great sportsmanship or skill development when playing the sport.
A huge thank you to our Year 5 and Year 6 TSP Digital Leaders who helped us to understand the importance of Safer Internet Day. They shared some great tips and tricks on how we can stay safe online, before we watched a remake of the Goldilocks story to spot some mistakes Goldilocks carries out when filming her actions in the three bears house. We also completed an Hour of Code, watching tutorials of how to use the programming software to code characters to complete different actions and support us in building our very own farms.
Attached to this blog is also this month's Virtual Classroom - once again with links to various websites that can further support home learning. You can also find the Year 4 Virtual Classroom on Google Classroom.
We wish you a restful and enjoyable half term!
Date: 7th Feb 2024 @ 9:16am
We now halfway through our final year of primary school!
As athletes, we concluded our gymnastics unit this week by bringing together all of the knowledge and skills we have learned this half-term and putting them into a short routine. All the children did amazingly well with this and some groups’ ideas for their presentations were particularly impressive. We had a ‘Mission Impossible’ themed routine and another that symbolised the parting of a friendship…all while including various movements, rolls and balances! Furthermore, we have enjoyed celebrating Schools' Football Week by taking part in a 'crab football' tournament during Thursday's PE lesson and concluding our art unit on photography by sketching a close-up photograph of a footballer of our choice.
This week included Safer Internet Day on Tuesday. We prepared for this on Monday by revising technical vocabulary linked to Online Safety (filtering, phishing etc) before discussing problems we may encounter online. On the day itself, we were treated to a presentation from our very own Y5/6 Digital Leaders, who highlighted how technology has changed over time and the pros / cons to this.
As authors, we completed our non-chronological reports on fictitious animals. The children continue to impress us with their finished pieces and have certainly shown this half-term that they are capable of writing for a variety of purposes and range of audiences.
Assessments have taken up a large part of this week with the children sitting past SATs papers for Reading, Maths and SPaG. We have had several discussions around these, highlighting that these papers are designed to be sat in May and that there are objectives we haven’t covered or revised yet; this is just an opportunity to see how we can improve on our results from September and December and to identify their own areas of improvement once they receive their scores back. The children have shown excellent focus and determination while sitting these assessments and should be very proud of their efforts; it has been fantastic to see them expressing their pride and sense of achievement when realising how much progress they have already made since the start of the year.
Please read the message on School Spider regarding Y6 home learning over the half-term break.
Have a great half-term break, everyone!
Date: 6th Feb 2024 @ 9:57am
What a fantastic week to end this half term! It has flown by in record time and there is much to be grateful for and to reflect upon.
Our week started with a particularly proud moment as families of the Year 5 children were invited into school on Monday afternoon to watch a clarinet showcase concert. The performance detailed the musical journey that the children have been on since first picking up their clarinets in Year 4. The children had the opportunity to showcase many of the pieces that they have been learning, of varying difficulty and styles, and were met with a well-deserved, rousing round of applause at the end. Well done to them! Thank you also to Mrs McCardle from Sefton Music Service for supporting the children so brilliantly throughout their time learning clarinet. Some of the children are keen to continue their tuition in extra sessions in Year 6 and they will have this opportunity should they wish.
As Safer Internet Day was during this week, we have had a range of different opportunities linked to promoting the safe and positive use of digital technology for children. The children explored their online lives and a range of discussions and online scenarios were presented to them where they had to apply their learning to reach a safe solution. This inspired many conversations about using technology responsibly, respectfully, critically, and creatively. A particular highlight of our Safer Internet focus was undoubtedly the chance to delve into the world of ‘Interland’. This Google-produced adventure game enabled the children to become fearless explorers of the online world across a range of islands including: Mindful Mountain, Kind Kingdom, Reality River and Tower of Treasure. Each island linked to a key element of online safety and the children had a blast working their way through each whilst thoroughly enjoying the journey. If you require any further information regarding Online Safety, please visit our Online Safety section on the school’s website.
In RE this week, we completed an evaluation of our learning throughout this half term which was focused around Jesus as a teacher. The children’s responses showed such deep, considered thinking and demonstrated the impressive learning throughout this topic.
In Maths, we focused on fractions and particularly ordering and comparing fractions with different denominators. As with so many aspects of Year 5 Maths, times table knowledge is so key for identifying these patterns quickly and efficiently. Remember, practice makes permanent so the best way to improve multiplication skills is to ensure full confidence in all times tables up to 12x12. After half term, we will continue to focus upon fractions whilst finding equivalences to decimals and percentages too.
Also in Maths, we have been busy participating in the North West Sumdog Contest where the children were challenged to answer 1000 questions before the contest door slammed shut on Thursday evening. The children displayed excellent determination and positivity and the team spirit throughout Year 5 was just amazing to see. We are over the moon to WIN the contest out of all of the schools in the north-west that entered. An amazing achievement!
In English, you could hear a pin drop in the Year 5 classroom as each child was determined to make their final writing pieces the very best that they could be. We were tasked with writing our own Norse-style myth, using inspiration from our class focus book, Arthur & the Golden Rope. The children also had the task of accompanying their work with some artwork and illustrations. The final versions are impressive and testament to the creativity as well as hard work and effort that the children have showcased throughout this half term.
So that’s that! Another half term passes by and a well-earned rest for this hardworking class of children awaits. Make the most of it everyone and I look forward to seeing you all in a week’s time. Enjoy!
Reminders:
-Weekly spellings have been set as normal and will be tested after the half term break.
-There is no set Maths and English homework for next week, however the Year 5 ‘Virtual Classroom’ has been updated and attached to this blog, which includes links to a variety of websites and resources. All pupils' individual passwords can be found on Google Classroom. Don't forget, there is also the ‘Practice’ section on Mirodo where the children can choose any topic they wish to practise for Maths, Reading, SPaG or Science.
-As per the message on School Spider, the Year 5 children will have their PE sessions after half term on a Tuesday and Wednesday (swimming). Children should come to school in their full PE kit on these days. Swimming will continue for part of the next half term and a message update will follow to confirm the end date when finalised.
Date: 3rd Feb 2024 @ 9:19pm
We have had a busy week in Year 1!
We started the week with a new Maths topic focusing on Addition and Subtraction within 20. We built upon our prior knowledge of Addition and Subtraction within 10, using our understanding of part-whole models and number bonds. We enjoyed lots more practical work as we practised adding by counting during a game of snakes and ladders! We explored patterns by jumping up and down number lines 1-10 and 11-20, we loved using the giant number line in class. We used number sentence lolly sticks to put our skills into practice by working out sums independently. We are growing so much in confidence!
In art this week we had an exciting project! We used lots of old newspapers to create a giant spider! We loved putting in lots of time and teamwork across the week to complete our class spider.
We celebrated National Storytelling Week by engaging in an imaginative activity. We read the story ‘You Choose’ and created our very own world on paper. We ‘Dreamt up a World’ by discussing and considering our dream home, clothes, form of transport and much more! We shared some fantastic ideas such as living in a big, beautiful castle, travelling in a hot air balloon, and having wild monkeys as pets! We created the most amazing pictures as we illustrated our dream life, we shared these with each other as we discussed the power of storytelling.
In History, we continued our learning on ‘Why we remember the Titanic’. We used our enquiry skills to work out why more people weren’t saved from the Titanic. We looked at multiple reasons and rated them based on their probability. We used a spectrum to place each reason based on which are the most and least plausible.
Enjoy a lovely weekend Year 1, you all deserve it!