: Blog items
Date: 15th Nov 2023 @ 9:52am
With so many events to celebrate and recognise this week, it sure has been a busy one!
We arrived to school ready to celebrate Kindness Week on Monday, following a delightful weekend showcasing out Kindness Video to our loved ones at home. With the understanding that this week marked Kindness Week, Anti-Bullying Week and also Children in Need, we knew spreading kindness was our top priority throughout our week.
We love to nurture others in Year 4, so this week we decided to spread kindness in the community by donating our unwanted toys, games and books to Barnardos Children’s Charity. On Friday, we headed into the village to deliver our donations and we overwhelmed by the grateful response we were given by the volunteers in store. We are thrilled to see our unwanted items displayed on the shelves, ready to be purchased and given to a loving home. We truly hope our donations bring joy to other children in our community. We also arrived at school in our Pudsey ears in aid of Children in Need. After designing our own Pudsey eye patches, we reflected on those less fortunate than us and the gratitude we have for the lives we live.
In support of anti-bullying week, we designed our own image of a heart filled with bright colours and all things that make us smile. It was a shock for us to see how our hearts can become crinkled after hearing unkind words and even after attempts to smooth other the paper, the crinkles are always there. This reminded us of the importance of nurturing those around us and ensuring our choice of works leave footprints on others hearts and not a crinkle. Continuing our focus on kindness, we used a Diamond 9 thinking strategy and our yellow thinking hats, to organise statements about friendship to show those that are most important to us and those that are least important.
The children have worked extremely hard this week to complete assessments to showcase their learning so far this term. Our school value of Hope was certainly achieved by all as they tried their best and were determined to complete their assessments to the best of their ability.
Our Spanish knowledge is greatly developing with the understanding of how a phrase changes to suit a male or female person, we unpicked what the term ‘revolt’ means in History and recognised the causes and consequences of Boudicca’s revolt against the Romans. After exploring the components of the body that make up the digestive system, we used a double bubble map to compare and contrast the system inside a human and a cow.
We are so proud of all your achievements this week, Year 4! Have a wonderful weekend.
Reminders:
- Our final swimming lesson takes place next week. Following this, our PE lessons continue to take place on a Tuesday and Wednesday.
- As the colder days are upon us, please ensure your child arrives to school with a coat to wear on the playground.
- Weekly spellings continue to be uploaded onto Google Classroom every Friday and tested the following Thursday.
Date: 14th Nov 2023 @ 4:12pm
On Thursday we welcomed Caroline into class for our Godly Play session, Caroline talked to the children about Kindness and how God wants us all to be kind and look after each other. Thank you, Caroline, we do enjoy our Godly Play dates.
The children have enjoyed taking part in World Nursery Rhyme week. They have enjoyed singing different Nursery Rhymes and then completing various activities linked to them. Ask the children if they can sing any to you?
It was ‘Kindness week’ in school this week that was launched with our very own school video, please follow the link if you have not already seen it! The children enjoyed talking about the different people around the school who help them like Mrs Meredith and Mrs Higgins who work in our office. They decided they would like to say ‘thank you’ to them by inviting them to the Nursery classroom and giving them a nice cup of tea and a piece of freshly baked cake, everyone certainly enjoyed themselves. We ended the week by talking about ‘Children in Need’ and how they raise money for children across the country to help them thrive and be the best they can be.
Please can you ensure your child has a warm coat in school at all times and that it is clearly labelled with their name, thank you
Reminders:
Wednesday 22nd November – WOW Service 2pm @ St Peter’s Church
Thursday 23rd November – Team TSP Christmas Present Room
Friday 1st December - Team TSP Christmas Movie and Christmas Extravaganza
Wednesday 6th December – 9.30am and 2pm - Nursery Sing-a-Long
Date: 14th Nov 2023 @ 2:09pm
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We have had the most amazing week following the release of our ‘Celebration of Kindness Week Video’ for 2023. This jam-packed week tied together Kindness Week, Anti-bullying Week and Children in Need, which we have LOVED being part of!
To mark Celebration of Kindness Week, our main project was to spread kindness across our local community. To achieve this, we each designed an inspirational poster in class that contained a message of kindness. The aim for our posters was to impact positively upon whoever read it by motivating; lifting spirits or even just bringing a smile. When the posters were designed, we headed into Formby Village to display them. So many local businesses were so accommodating and were more than happy to display the posters when the children had described their aims for the project. We have received a few tweets already about our posters and we would absolutely love it if you could all keep an eye out for our posters and tweet us too when you find one.
A particular highlight this week came in the form of the ‘Book World Cup’. This involved 32 different books which all had the opportunity to be voted in as the next class novel for Year 5. The decision was entirely in the hands of the class! Before the voting could commence, the children had to familiarise themselves with the various books in the competition. This involved the children spending time exploring the different books, reading the blurbs and extracts to each other, looking at the covers and chatting generally about how they felt about them. Next, it was time to vote. After some close battles as each book went head-to-head, we were able to narrow down the 32 books to just one winner. As chosen by the children, our new class novel was crowned!
In Maths, we focused on finding the perimeter of rectangles and rectilinear shapes. Next week, we will be continuing to focus on the perimeter of compound shapes and will extend to problem-solving activities relating to real-life scenarios and the visualising of shapes. As it was also assessment week, we recapped all of our learning so far this term.
So our Celebration of Kindness week reaches an end but we are sure the messages from this week of positivity and kindness will be carried forward both within our school community and beyond.
Have an amazing weekend and see you on Monday!
Reminders:
-Year 5 school trip to British Music Experience on Thursday 7th December.
-Year 5 Swimming lessons will begin on Wednesday 29th November. Please ensure that children wear PE kits on Thursday and Friday next week (w.c. 20/11/23) as normal.
Date: 11th Nov 2023 @ 1:03pm
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We started our week by discussing the significance of Remembrance Day. The children designed some poppies which became a poppy wreath laid on the war memorial. As we created our poppies, it allowed us to pause and reflect and remind ourselves of the importance of this month’s value Justice and everything we have to be grateful for.
In English, we have continued to investigate our new story ‘The Winter’s Child’ and were intrigued by our new creepy, pale character and his mystical abilities. We compared him to our main character Tom, discussing not only how they look but also what their personalities are like. We have also been reading our new book ‘The Ice Palace’ written by Robert Swindells. To help us understand the story, we first had to unpick the language used with the help of our dictionaries, especially the word ‘celandine’, who knew it belonged to the poppy family? Next week we will continue to look at the 'Winter's Child' and will start by writing a letter.
In Maths, we have been working hard to develop our addition and subtraction skills in column form. We have been mastering the skills of borrowing, and working with tricky 3-digit numbers. Next week we will finish our addition and subtraction topic and will move on to multiplication!
In History, we started our exciting new topic Stone Age to Iron Age. This week we began to understand that Britain was once covered in ice and that the earliest settlers were hunter gatherers and lived in caves. The children made deductions about the lifestyle of Stone Age man from images. We also learned that Stone Age man was interested in art and ceremonials.
During Science, we continued to explore simple pushes and pulls. We used our new scientific vocabulary ‘variable’ to plan a fair test to investigate how an object's texture or surface can affect how an object moves. The children will carry out the investigation next week and record the results.
In Design and Technology, we learned that fruits and vegetables grow in different countries based on their climates. Next week, the children will understand that ‘seasonal’ fruits and vegetables are those that grow in a given season and taste best then and that eating seasonal fruit and vegetables has a positive effect on the environment.
The end of the week couldn’t have been better, the premier of the ‘Celebration of Kindness Video’. We loved watching all the year groups, and staff, and this year our fantastic TSP parents even made an appearance! The children cannot wait to dive headfirst into Kindness Week next week.
Have a super weekend Year 3!
Date: 10th Nov 2023 @ 1:50pm
What a week!
Firstly, we welcome Miss Osborne to Year 6. She will be supporting the children in class alongside Mr King and Mrs Martin.
As authors, the children are now on their final piece of writing, having finished the story, ‘Star of Fear, Star of Hope’. The children have now gone back to the start and are writing a recount of the initial events in the book, but this time from the perspective of the secondary character, Lydia. Next week, the children will then be able to link together all the shorter pieces they have written from Lydia’s point of view so far and use them to write up an extended piece in their author books. We can’t wait to read them!
In Maths, Mr King’s group has worked incredibly hard on a number of tricky topics. They have not only revised their understanding of long multiplication from last year, but this week had to apply it to difficult reasoning problems, which certainly tested their mindsets and resilience levels! They have also learned new concepts and methods, including long division (using the chunking method). Mrs Martin’s group will be learning this later in the term; this week, they have focused on rounding.
Our History topic continued this week – now focusing on WW2 - with the children firstly learning about the reasons for the outbreak of the war in Tuesday’s lesson. We were able to re-visit some of last half-term’s STAR vocabulary (such as trigger, factor and ultimatum), as well as learn some new terms in the lesson, including ‘reparations’ and ‘colonies’. On Tuesday, we were very fortunate that John from Formby Civic Society was willing to visit us to talk about how the wars impacted Formby. He showed us photographs taken at the time in Formby; local newspaper articles describing the war, and also explained what some of the shops and buildings we see today used to be. We may never look at Formby in the same way again! The children were so engaged that John ended up staying until home time…and he still had to cut his presentation short! The children asked brilliant questions throughout the session and it was wonderful to see them thinking like historians, asking questions about his sources and how he found lots of his information. Well done, Year 6!
On Wednesday, our young historians learned about all the key events of WW2, exploring a range of resources such as newspaper articles, maps, textbooks, local documents and equipment such as ration books and medical boxes. Next week’s lessons will see the children consolidating their learning by summarising what life would have been like in Britain during WW2.
A particular highlight was our visit from Callum from The Hammond, a renowned institution for performing arts education. On Thursday afternoon, we enjoyed a very active, theatre workshop, which explored storytelling, drama and some key elements of acting and adopting the role of different characters.
To conclude our week, the children were very excited to attend a special, whole-school assembly in the hall to watch the launch of our sixth ‘Celebration of Kindness’ music video! There were plenty of laughs in the hall as we watched ourselves, our peers, staff (and even parents!) dancing around school last week and having fun. This is always a great way to launch our Celebration of Kindness Week and we hope all the children have fun watching the video again over the weekend with their families. Remember, the video can be found on our Youtube and Vimeo channels!
The children are aware of how to access their homework for next week – either on SATs Companion or in their books. Spellings have also been set. If your child is accessing their homework through SATs Companion this week and needs additional support for long division, there are support videos and websites on Google Classroom this week.
We hope everyone has a fantastic weekend and is excited for the week ahead - celebrating kindness!
Date: 10th Nov 2023 @ 8:25am
Well done for another amazing week Year 1! We have had a great week.
We started the week by continuing our Maths topic on ‘Addition and Subtraction’. We introduced the subtraction symbol and focused on our STAR vocabulary – minus and subtract. We used a variety of practical resources to support us in subtracting numbers within 10.
In DT this week we created stable structures for our windmill project. We had so much fun designing and creating the bases. We then made some mice to go inside our windmills when they are complete! We can’t wait to see the finished result.
We started our new PE units this week as we focused on Dance and Target Skills. We began exploring the importance of teamwork, positive support and developing a good technique. We loved developing new skills as we practiced underarm throws and used our kindness to encourage our peers.
In Geography we had a great afternoon exploring our local area as part of our topic ‘Where in the world are we?’. We discussed that we live in the United Kingdom and located it on a world map. We then explored our local area and discussed some of the local features within Formby. We then explored the area by going on a local walk to pinpoint some of the physical and human features in our school surroundings.
Have a lovely weekend everyone, you have all worked so hard..jpeg)
Date: 9th Nov 2023 @ 9:27pm
Time certainly does fly but what a week we have had in the Year 5 classroom!
A particular highlight was our visit from Callum from The Hammond, a renowned institution for performing arts education. We were treated to an engaging and interactive theatre workshop which explored storytelling, drama and some key elements of acting and adopting the role of different characters. The workshop included various games and activities to achieve these aims and there was plenty of laughter throughout.
In our RE learning, we completed our focus on the Bible by linking it to other holy books in different faiths, such as the Torah in Judaism and the Guru Granth Sahib in Sikhism. We recorded these connections within a circle thinking map before then answering a range of 4C questions to demonstrate our understanding of our learning to date. Next week, we will begin our new RE focus…Christmas and the gospels of Matthew and Luke.
In Maths, our focus has been square numbers, cube numbers and prime factors. Next week we will move onto perimeter, including finding the perimeter of rectilinear shapes. It is also assessment week where we will recap all of our learning so far this term!
Take a breath now that a brilliantly busy week has reached an end. Though we wouldn’t have it any other way! Enjoy your weekend and see you all on Monday!
Reminders
-From Wednesday 29th November, the children will commence swimming lessons at Formby Pool. A letter with further information has been sent via School Spider.
Date: 9th Nov 2023 @ 4:27pm
As part of our theme ‘Special People’ we talked about different people in our community who help us. We discussed how the police, doctors, nurses, vets, dentists, teachers and people that deliver the post are such important people in our community for many different reasons. The children then thought of ways that we could thank these special people for looking after us.
This week we have also started our theme ‘The Gingerbread Man’, we were very excited to find the home corner had been turned into ‘Gingerbread Cottage’. We have enjoyed listening to the story and identifying the different characters whilst retelling the story through our play.
The children have enjoyed learning about ‘Remembrance Day’ and why we celebrate it. The children enjoyed lots of different activities such as making poppies from loose parts and paper plates, creating a soldier out of different pieces of paper and making poppy biscuits. The children also took part in a 2 minutes silence where they had time to think about and remember all of those who have been injured or died at war.
In Maths this week, we recapped what sorting meant and the children have been learning all about circles and triangles. The children had to describe the shapes and the different properties of them. We learnt that a triangle always has three sides and three corners. The children also began to recognise that a triangle can come in various forms. Well done everyone!
We hope you all have a lovely weekend and see you next week.
Miss Dalley and the Reception team
Reminders:
Friday 17th November – Children in Need – more information to follow
Wednesday 22nd November – WOW Service 2pm @ St Peter’s Church
Date: 8th Nov 2023 @ 10:46am
What a wonderful week we have had in Year 4!
We connected the value of Peace with Remembrance Day this week, as we created a WW1 newspaper article background and lay a mosaic poppy to rest on our created backgrounds. We then discussed how the poppy is a sign of both remembrance and hope for a peaceful future.
On Monday, we casted our votes at the TSP polling station using our very own polling card. We are so proud of all the children who put forward themselves forward to be nominated as a committee representative and the incredible speeches they delivered. Our school value of Hope truly shined through and with recognised the British Value connection we made to democracy by casting our votes.
In English, we have been focusing on ensuring we are using the correct tense in our writing and selecting whether it is best to use ‘was’ or ‘were’ in a range of sentences. Using a thesaurus, we located synonyms to uplevel our writing and focused again on the importance of precise detail to give the reader a detailed picture of the environment and characters we are writing about. We thoroughly enjoyed illustrating the high street outlined in our text ‘The shop from nowhere’, only able to draw what was heard in the given descriptions. Inspired by this text, when then designed our own, writing a descriptive piece to detail the shops that made up our high streets. Next week, we will be focusing on using an adjective and an adverb to describe the appearance of movement of different acts in the circus.
It has been all about the times tables in Maths this week. We first looked at the 3 and 6 times tables and the correlation between them, learning some catchy songs to help with our recall of multiplication facts. We created fortune tellers and used times tables wheels as methods to also support of recall and learnt a handy trick on our fingers to help us remember the 9 times table.
Using some real-life teeth moulds, we identified the names and functions of teeth in Science and even showcased our missing teeth along the way! We moved on to look at the parts of the digestive system and the primary function of this system within our bodies. In History, we created a conscious alley, to give our opinions on why Claudius should invade Britain and used our knowledge of feminine and masculine spelling in Spanish to distinguish sentences.
We also had our first Healthy Habit session this week, led by Active Sefton. We thought about eating a balanced diet and leading a healthy lifestyle. We discovered that foods we thought were healthy, turned out to have excessive amounts of sugar in them!
Our trip to Laurel’s Wood was simply INCREDIBLE! From roasting marsh mellows on a fire, building shelters and learning lots of survival methods, our smiles never stopped beaming throughout the day. We are so thankful to the wonderful instructors who taught us wood carving, how to signal for rescue, and some essential outdoor first aid skills.
On Friday, we had the delight of watching the premier of this year’s TSP Kindness Video. We cannot wait to get home tonight and share the joys of our filming and exceptional dance moves with our loved ones at home!
Have a lovely weekend, Year 4!
Reminders:
- Year 4’s last swimming lesson is Wednesday 22nd November. Following this, PE lessons will remain on Tuesday and Wednesday. Children should continue to come to school in their PE kit on Tuesday and Wednesday.
- Donations to Barnardos Children’s Charity, as part of our Kindness Project, should be in school by Friday 17th November.
Date: 7th Nov 2023 @ 4:42pm
The children are loving our Forest School sessions! In between the rain we decided to tidy the garden given the wind had blown down our sunflowers. We pulled them up and then Mrs Grayson cut the flower heads off so that we could harvest the seeds to plant in Spring and to use as bird food during the Winter. We enjoyed looking the seeds and heads through magnifying glasses. What great teamwork!
The children have enjoyed learning about ‘Remembrance Day’ and why we celebrate it. The children enjoyed lots of different activities such as making poppies from loose parts, collage materials and even decoration a biscuit to look like a Poppy. The children also took part in a 2 minutes silence where they had time to think about and remember all of those who have been injured or died at war.
The children have also spent time learning about the Diwali, the children shared the story ‘Binny’s Diwali and then spent some time thinking about similarities and differences between celebrations of light we may have experienced, bonfire night, lights at Christmas. The children then spent some time making Rangoli patterns and creating a diva lamp by folding paper.
Please can you ensure your child has a warm coat in school at all times and that it is clearly labelled with their name, thank you
Reminders:
Friday 17th November – Children in Need – more information to follow
Wednesday 22nd November – WOW Service 2pm @ St Peter’s Church
Thursday 23rd November – Team TSP Christmas Present Room
Date: 3rd Nov 2023 @ 8:52pm
What a fabulous and busy first week back we have had in Year 3. We have had so much fun, especially when filming dance clips for our whole school Kindness music video. We have some fantastic dancers in Year 3!
On Monday, we focused on working on our author books. The children were so excited to write their final piece of work from ‘The Seal Surfer’. Adding some fantastic artwork, the finished pieces look super!
For RE this week, we started our unit on Christmas. During this topic, we will be asking the question: How does the presence of Jesus impact on people's lives. The children discussed ways in which Christians believe that God us with us.
In English, the children were introduced to our focus text ‘Winter’s Child’. We have been describing the setting using adjectives and prepositions and investigating the relationships between the characters. The children loved using drama techniques to role-play a conversation between the characters ‘Tom’ and ‘Mum’. Then, they wrote their conversations down focusing on inverted commas and put our new spelling rule to the test using ‘a’ and ‘an’ correctly.
In Maths, we have focused on column subtraction where exchanges have been needed to enable us to calculate accurately using this method. This week, we concentrated on exchanging across the tens, next week we will move on to exchanging across the hundreds. The children were excited to use ‘Learning by Question’ to review their place value knowledge on their laptops.
In Guided Reading, we have begun our new text ‘Ice Palace’ and this week we have been clarifying new vocabulary by using our laptops to help us find and understand the meanings.
In Science, we started our new topic focusing on Forces and Magnets. During our introductory lesson, the children investigated how we make a variety of different objects move. The children could describe pushes and pulls as a type of force and explain how different objects move using these forces. Next week we will look at whether objects move the same on different surfaces.
We hope you have an enjoyable weekend and cannot wait to see you again on Monday.
Reminders
- Please ensure children bring a warm coat to school with them every day.
Date: 3rd Nov 2023 @ 1:34pm
Perhaps the main highlight for the children over the past week has been filming our whole-school music video for our Celebration of Kindness Week. The school has been filled with laughter as we have discussed different scenes to film, learned choreography and focused on our performing and acting skills. Our Year 6 pupils thoroughly enjoyed filming their scenes and that is certainly reflected in the video, which you will be able to watch next Friday!
In Maths, both Mr King and Mrs Martin’s group have been revising long multiplication and will be continuing with this next week. Mr King’s group will be moving onto long division next week while Mrs Martin’s group will revise particular terminology such as factors and multiples.
As artists, the children continued their learning of both World War 1 and 2 by creating their own propaganda art. They were given the opportunity to examine examples from these periods and discuss their meanings, working out the messages behind them. The children then had the task to either create their own poster or re-create an example from the past, using various media. Most children opted for pencils or paint on this occasion and the results were excellent!
We have also started a new class novel following a very close class vote between four potential books. We will now be reading ‘George’, by Alex Gino, although the novel has since been re-published and entitled ‘Melissa’. The book tells the story of a young transgender girl and although we have only read a couple of chapters, it has already generated so much discussion on equality, diversity, stereotypes and sense of belonging.
After all the dancing and performing this week, we hope the children have a well-earned rest this weekend!
See you all on Monday.
Date: 3rd Nov 2023 @ 12:30pm
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What a brilliant week we have had! As our Year 5 children returned from a well-deserved week’s rest, we really enjoyed welcoming them back and hearing about all of their family time and activities during the time off. As we commence this brand-new half term, we are very much looking forward to the many exciting opportunities and learning that awaits!
Could there be a better (and more fun) start to a new half term than filming for our Celebration of Kindness video? Without giving too much away ahead of the big reveal, many laughs were had between the Year 5 children as we were reminded to ‘Laugh More and Worry Less’. We are very much looking forward to watching the final version at the end of next week!
In English, we are reading a traditional tale…with a twist. ‘The Lost Happy Endings’ has stimulated some fantastic discussion from the children so far and we can’t wait to see what next week brings, especially as the story will soon take a dark and sinister turn. Wait and see…
In our Maths learning this week, we have focused on understanding and applying the Maths terminology of prime numbers. A lot of this learning relied on our times table and division facts knowledge and fluency! Next week, we will move onto square numbers, cube numbers and prime factors.
Our artwork focused on ‘retrofuturism’ where we explored how the “future” was depicted in earlier eras through various artwork. We then had to imagine our own predictions about what the future could hold before using collagraph painting in our final pieces. See the picture above!
A really enjoyable first week of this half term has been had. Have a great weekend everyone and enjoy any firework displays or bonfires that you may be attending. Stay safe!
Reminders:
Homework will also resume from this week and has been set on Mirodo for Maths and English on Friday (3rd) and is due to be completed on or before the following Wednesday (8th). Weekly spellings have also been set which will be tested next Friday (10th).
Date: 3rd Nov 2023 @ 7:50am
We hope you all had a lovely week off!
This week, the children have learnt about ‘All Saints day’ following on from ‘All Hallows day’. The children were presented with two identical looking bowls and had to taste what was inside them, some picked something tasty and some selected something not so nice. The children had great fun looking at each others reactions! We discussed that through life we experience good and bad things and God will always guide us through both.
We got our dancing shoes on this week and had lots of fun filming for our new ‘Kindness video’. We can’t wait to see the end result!
The children really enjoyed learning about Guy Fawkes and the gun powder plot. We discussed how people celebrate bonfire night and talked about the different food you might eat. We then discussed the importance of firework safety when visiting firework displays. The children thought of their own ways to stay safe during this time. The children then created firework paintings and a chocolate breadstick sparkler. What fun we had!
We had a very exciting visit from one of our lovely parents who came to talk to the children about how pumpkins grow and how they are harvested. We learnt that there are lots of different types of pumpkins and enjoyed noticing the differences between them. What an interesting talk this was.
What a busy week we have had in Reception and we look forward to seeing you next week!
Miss Dalley and the Reception team
Reminders:
Wednesday 8th November - School Nurse - Nasal Flu Vaccination
Friday 17th November – Children in Need – more information to follow
Date: 2nd Nov 2023 @ 5:05pm
And, just like that, we are back!
We can confidently say that filming for our Kindness Video, has been a major part of our week! It is safe to say that our classroom, hair and uniforms have certainly never been covered in more glitter than they have been this week. It is safe to say that we have enjoyed every minute of it, from the songs to the disco balls and we have certainly danced the night (day) away most days. We are so excited to see the final result, and cannot wait for the premier, next Friday.
We connected our learning back to before half term, and focused on solving addition sentences beyond 10, by first making 10. To do this, we had to recap our number bond knowledge, allowing us to make connections in order to find '10 and 'more'. Next week, we will begin by adding multiple 1-digit numbers together before moving onto subtraction.
In RE, we started our new topic 'Christmas Good News: Why was the birth of Jesus such Good News?' To start this, we explored the difference between good news and bad news and how the different types make us feel. We then discussed how we can share news, good and bad, and talked how news today, is shared differently now compared to the past. After this, we discussed how God shares news. We talked about how in the past, God would send his angels down to share news with his people, and disiples, and how nowadays, God shares news through different means such as Reverend Anne, and Mark.
In Science, we looked at Materials. To start this topic, we connected our learning back and identified what different materials could be made of. After, we discussed if materials could be described as 'strong' or 'fragile'. We then sorted different objects into the correct groups, based on what they were made of.
We hope you all have a wonderful, Bonfire Night this weekend and we will see you all on Monday!
Reminders
- Where possible, please can we ask for children to wear a coat to school especailly as the weather is getting cooler.
- PE days continue to be on a Monday and Wedneday.
Date: 1st Nov 2023 @ 11:55am
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Welcome back Year 1! Well done on a fantastic week back.
We have had a fun-filled week, we began this week with lots of excitement about Halloween, and we discussed some of the brilliant costumes and spooky activities we had all been doing over half term.
In Maths this week we continued our topic on Addition and Subtraction. We began looking at adding using our number bond facts, we used ten frames to support our learning. We have made fantastic progress in this topic, as we are now able to recognise number bonds quickly and use our knowledge to work out number sentences. We enjoyed our practical sessions as we used sweets to help us add on more, this was a fun and relatable way to practise our addition skills.
We began our new topic in Science this week as we explored Seasons. We went on a hunt around school to discover the features of Autumn. We found some fantastic examples such as orange coloured leaves, and empty branches on the trees. We then compared the Autumn season to Summer, as we discussed how in Autumn we need to protect ourselves from the cold, by wearing lots of layers, where as in Summer we need to protect ourselves from the sun by wearing sun cream, sunglasses and sun hats.
We have been getting extremely excited about Kindness Week, and have been practising our best moves in preparation!
Have a lovely weekend everyone! Well done for all your hard work this week.
Reminders:
Wednesday 8th November - School Nurse - Nasal Flu Vaccination
Friday 17th November – Children in Need – more information to follow
Date: 1st Nov 2023 @ 11:24am
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We are back, ready to start the new term ahead and we sure are having fun!
Our week began with a look at our new RE topic. With the knowledge that Jesus is the Light of the world, we unpicked how Jesus brings light to our world and what support and guidance Jesus brings. We popped our ideas into a candle, with a bright flame to represent the idea of light being brought into our lives.
Connecting our understanding of negative numbers, this week in Maths we completed missing number sequences spotting the numbers needed below zero. Our attention then turned to Word Problems, with a focus on problems that required us to count backwards to numbers below zero. Later in the week, we were introduced to Area and what Area is by measuring the surface area of objects in our classroom, using squares. We learnt that to measure Area in Year 4, we simply count the squares inside a given shape or object. We practised drawing our own shapes with a given area and connecting our understanding of arrays to support measuring area in a quick and efficient way. Next week, we will focus on individual times tables and pop songs in the charts that we can sign along to with a times tables twist!
In English, we had an exciting morning at the TSP Circus. We used our sense to stimulate some fantastic ideas for our creative writing, linked to our new book ‘Leon and the Place Between’. We learnt about the importance of using adjectives in our writing so our readers can understand just what it is like to visit a circus and can grasp what the atmosphere is like. By using a double bubble map, we were able to showcase adjectives to highlight the similarities and differences between two images of a circus tent. Laughter filled the air as we played a game of truth and dare, to help us understand what dare Leon might be undertaking as the sign appears in our story asking ‘Do you dare to go to the Place Between’. We made some great predictions about what the Place Between might be and next week, we will create a survival guide for anyone who dares to visit.
Our Science lessons brought an insight into the different types of teeth and their functions, giving us an opportunity to explore where they are positioned in the mouth with some real-life teeth moulds! Our term will also be filled with all things Romans! So, we began with a by deliberating the advantages and disadvantages Claudius will have considered when deciding whether or not to invade Britain.
There is no doubt that this week has been the best so far, as we filmed our Kindness Week Video. From sequins and glitter to disco balls, our hairstyles and props brought the disco theme to life as we sang, danced and boogied throughout the week to some classic disco songs. We can’t wait to see our joyful efforts be brought to the screen next week when our video premiers.
Rest those dancing feet this weekend, Year 4 and get ready for our Kindness Video premier next week!
Reminders:
- Recorders, PE and Swimming lesson remain the same as last term.
- Year 4 will be attending their School Trip to Laurel’s Wood next Thursday.
Date: 31st Oct 2023 @ 7:57pm
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We hope you all had an amazing half term and are ready for the excitement and fun that this next half term has to bring!!!
On Monday the children enjoyed another Forest school session. They took their seats and recapped on our Forest School rules. Using the story ’Christopher Pumpkin’ as a stimulus, the children worked together to collect leaves and create their very own class Pumpkin, it looked amazing and what great team work!
The children have really enjoyed our new role-play area based on the story ‘Room on the Broom’, by Julia Donaldson. The children love this story! They have enjoyed dressing up as the different characters and retelling the story in their own words. We also used different pictures from the story to create a ‘flow map’ to help us recall what happened at the beginning, middle and end of the story.
Please can you ensure your child has a warm coat in school at all times and that it is clearly labelled with their name, thank you
Reminders:
Wednesday 8th November - School Nurse - Nasal Flu Vaccination
Friday 17th November – Children in Need – more information to follow
Date: 20th Oct 2023 @ 8:59pm
What a fantastic final week of half term we have had in Year 3!
In Maths, we continued with our topic on Addition and Subtraction, which we will continue with after half term. We have been working hard on mastering the column addition formula before we move on to exchanging next term.
In Science, we completed our topic of learning about how the systems inside our body works to make a healthy human. This week we focused on understanding that animals, including humans, need the right type of nutrition. We were able to identify the five different food groups and create our balanced nutritional meal. Next term we will be starting our new topic investigating forces and magnets.
In RE, we finished our topic on what it means to be ‘Called by God’. We had a fantastic discussion considering what Prophets of today would speak in favour of or speak out against.
In Geography, we ended our topic by finding out about the human and physical features of a European country and as a class we chose Spain to focus on and used a variety of sources to explore the features of Spain.
During Computing, we had a fantastic conversation on how to stay safe online. We focused closely on 'our online identity' and how it is important to not share any personal information online even down to creating a lookalike avatar. We solidified our learning by creating 'Staying safe online' posters that we have displayed by our laptops in our classroom.
Have a wonderful half term Year 3!
Reminders
Our PE days will remain the same for Autumn 2 taking place on Monday and Friday.
Date: 20th Oct 2023 @ 2:46pm
What a brilliant final week of half term we have had, we certainly have earned the rest!
In Maths, we continued with our topic on Addition and Subtraction, which we will continue with after half term. We focused on developing our understanding of numbers by linking our number knowledge for bonds to 10, to 100.
In Science, we completed a range of experiments to explore firstly, if we all grow the same, and secondly, why exercise and a healthy diet is important. We started, by connecting our learning back to previous lessons, and identifying the stages of a human life cycle. After, we discussed how we are all different, and how, although we all grow up, we don’t grow the same. To do this, we explored the size of our peers’ feet, and were shocked to find that they were all different sizes! After, we explored how exercise changes our body physically and identified that by getting our hearts pumping harder and faster then, as a result, it gets stronger, and we get healthier!
In RE, we finished off our topic on the Bible, by first exploring another religion’s Holy book, the Torah in Judaism. We learnt why they find it special and also the special rituals they complete before they read it each week.
We had our final dance lesson with the wonderful Mrs Whitehead from Formby High School. We have loved these lessons, developed our dancing skills whilst simultaneously working as a team. It has been wonderful to watch the children develop and fingers crossed, we will have a visit from Mrs Whitehead again in the Spring!
From all of the team here in Year 2, we hope you have a wonderful half term!
Reminders
- Our PE days will remain the same for Autumn 2 taking place on a Monday and a Wednesday.
- Please explore the class Virtual Classroom and Oxford Owl over the holidays.
Date: 19th Oct 2023 @ 9:09pm
The end of the first half term already! Time has absolutely raced by and it is more than fair to say that Year 5 have worked extremely hard and have already achieved so much. It has been a pleasure to get to know each of the children and it genuinely feels like we have been a class team for longer than just these seven weeks. So this bodes well for the remaining five half terms to come!
In English, we completed our first Author Book work of this year based on our focus text, ‘Queen of the Falls’. The children completed their final pieces with such focus, care and pride and each was a pleasure to read. These diary entries have made an excellent opening page to our Year 5 writing journey. Well done, Year 5!
In Maths, we have focused on factors. We also had a particularly enjoyable session from the HMRC outreach programme which taught us all about tax. We learned about how taxation works, where taxes are spent and even the chance to become Chancellor too. After the half term break, we will be focusing upon prime numbers and prime factors.
In our Collective Worship work, we focused on our monthly value of ‘Thankfulness’. We took the opportunity to further relate this to our school value of ‘Enjoy’, considering how thankfulness, gratitude and appreciating our opportunities is central to this. Now that our first half term has drawn to a close, we reflected on all that we are thankful for, whether at home, in school or elsewhere.
Thank you, Year 5, for a great first half term where I have loved getting to know each and every one of you. There are plenty more highlights to come throughout the rest of the year but, in the meantime, go and enjoy the half term break!
Some reminders for after half term:
- Spellings have been set as usual via Google Classroom and will be tested at the end of the first week back at school after half term.
- There is no set 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 all 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.
- PE for Year 5 will remain on Thursdays and Fridays.
Date: 19th Oct 2023 @ 4:42pm
What a wonderful end to a fantastic first half term!
We started this week with a focus on our Computing topic ‘My Online Life’. We loved learning about online safety and how to be sensible when using technology. We discussed some brilliant ideas about how to ensure we are being responsible on our devices at home, we understood that asking permission is the most important part. We especially loved having the opportunity to use our school Ipads, as we explored search engines and how we use them to find out interesting facts.
We had fun in our Music lesson this week as we practised finding the pulse in more detail. We found it really tricky trying to hold a steady pulse whilst staying in time with each other! We followed a conductor as we continued to practice performing in time and as a team.
In PE this week we explored ball skills in more detail, as we focused on dribbling the ball. We focused on control and keeping our eyes on the ball. We loved playing 'croc chase' as we tried to catch each other out. We have some fantastic footballers in Year 1!
Our week ended on an exciting note as we attended our school Monster Disco on Thursday! It was amazing to see everyone having fun and trying hard to win some of the dancing games.
Year 1 have been absolutely amazing this half term, they have all settled in so well, tried their best every day and have made our classroom such a happy place to be. I hope everyone has a lovely half term break, it is very well deserved!
Date: 19th Oct 2023 @ 3:34pm
Well…we have reached the end of our first half-term in Year 6!
In Maths, Mr King’s group has focused on ordering decimals. This proved to be quite tricky at first – especially with numbers that use the same digits – but we appear to have mastered this now and even found time to move onto rounding decimals. Mrs Martin’s group have revised all of the different methods and topics they have done so far this half-term and completed some timed activities on these topics to improve their fluency further. Outside of these lessons, we were treated to a Tax Education workshop delivered by HMRC employees. They explained what taxes are, how we pay them and why. This then led to some interesting discussions on what tax laws the children would introduce and how they would divide the money between sectors. The children also took part in the North West Sumdog Contest, where they had one week to answer 1000 questions on the iOs app. After a closely fought battle with hundreds of schools, 8pm on Thursday soon rolled around and we found out that....we won! Amazing! 255 schools, 3107 pupils and we emerged victorious. What an achievement!
Our Science lessons this half-term have seen the children learning all about the classification of living things, building on their prior understanding from their animal topic in Year 4. Over the past couple of weeks, the children have classified different animals, recapped key vocabulary such as ‘vertebrate’ and ‘invertebrate’ and created fact files about different species. This week’s lessons saw the children learning about the classification of plants and microorganisms, as well as the benefits and dangers of the latter.
We have also continued with our historical knowledge this week, focusing on WW1 and how advancements in technology and use of animals in warfare would affect British citizens during this time.
Spellings have been set for the first week back; there will be no Maths and English homework set for over the break. However, Y6’s Virtual Classroom has been attached to this blog, which includes lots of relevant links for additional learning that can take place at home.
It is hard to believe that this half-term has finally come to an end. We cannot believe just how much we have packed into these past two months, but we have had many highlights, including:
- Meeting and spending time with our buddies;
- Our Robinwood residential;
- Winning the North West Sumdog Contest;
- Bikeability;
- All the different Maths games;
- All the lessons with specialist teachers, such as Spanish, Music and even Maths (Tax Workshop);
- 4-a-day: The Friday Musical!
So much enjoyment and laughter – we can’t wait for next half-term!
Date: 18th Oct 2023 @ 1:25pm
On Wednesday the children attended the final WOW service of the half term, Anne talked to the children about the creation story and three of the children stood at the front to say a prayer. Thank you to Anne and Caroline for a lovely service.
This week the children enjoyed another visit to Forest school where they recapped Forest school rules the calling sound and how we use the sitting circle. We discussed the signs of Autumn and the different things we could see and hear. The children were then encouraged to go and collect leaves to build leaf towers. We decided that the best leaves to collect would be large, flat ones. What fun we had!
For our theme we have loved listening to the story ‘Owl Babies’ we have learnt lots of fascinating facts about Owls and also thought about other Nocturnal animals. The children have enjoyed creating their own owl paintings, pinecone owls and we even made a dark den that we all sat inside together.
On Friday, for a class reward, the children enjoyed a movie afternoon with hot chocolate and popcorn. Well done to each and every one of you for being such super stars this week!
We hope you all have a lovely half term break and see you all soon.
Miss Dalley and the Reception team.
Reminders:
Monday 30th October - Return to school
Date: 18th Oct 2023 @ 9:52am
They say time flies when you are having fun and hasn’t it done just that!
To reflect on our RE focus this term, we outlined the main roles and responsibilities we have discovered David held from reading about him in Psalms and Bible Stories. He sure was a busy man! In Collective Worship, we took a look back at all we had achieved during the term and discussed what enabled us to reach those milestones and continue to do our very best. We explained how the things and people who support us in life are the most powerful assets we can have and those we are truly thankful for.
In English, we recapped our understanding of speech from last week, ensuring we understood the rules of creating a speech sentence and the punctuation needed. We then began to plan our very own Gorilla stories, replacing the characters, setting and plot with our very own, imaginative ideas. Consideration was made in our plans as to which fronted adverbials, speech sentences and adjectives we would use in our stories. As the week progressed, we began to write our stories in broken down steps and we look forward to finishing this next week before writing our stories in our Author Books.
Connecting our understanding surrounding Martin Luther King, we concluded the week with a recognition to Hate Crime Awareness Week by symbolising with handprints how we are all equal, no matter the colour of our skin. We also had a great Junior Tax Facts session, led by the HMRC. We were intrigued to discover what services our taxes pay for in the UK and what happens when we buy our favourite sweet treats at the till.
Our Spanish lesson was a spooky delight, as we entered the Language Angels escape room and tried to free ourselves from the haunted house by learning and recalling Spanish words and phrases. Thrills filled the air as children began to discover keys and learn new Spanish words for the spooky festive period. The spooky celebrations continued on Thursday night, as we danced the night away at our Monster Mash Disco and some of us even wore some rather spooky attire!
A huge congratulations to our fantastic readers how completed the Summer Reading Challenge. Your dedication to reading is admirable and we are so thrilled to see such a passion for reading in our class!
A reminder that spellings for the first Thursday back after half-term are on Google Classroom. The Year 4 ‘virtual classroom’ is attached to this blog and all the pupils' individual login passwords can all be found on Google Classroom.
Year 4, you have been a delight to teacher this term and it already feels like we have spent a lifetime together. Have a wonderful week and we look forward to hearing all your exciting news when you return!
Reminders:
- Year 4 PE lessons will remain on a Tuesday (PE) and Wednesday (Swimming)
- Recorders will continue every Monday. Children should continue to bring their recorder to school for their lesson.