On Thursday we were visited by Paul Hay who taught us about the importance of staying safe online. In advance of Safer Internet Day 2022 next week (see below) we shared the variety of games we play online and discussed how much fun they are but also the important tips we need to remember to keep us safe. Paul taught us the 4 Top Tips, which include being kind to people online, not talking to strangers and keeping our private information private. He told us that passwords and private information is just like our toothbrush, which should not be shared.

For further information, including links to Paul's presentation and the 4 Top Tips poster - as well as lots of other useful websites, please take a look at our E-Safety page on our school website (below).

Paul is also very happy to be contacted directly via email, should you have any questions: paul.hay@pclstraining.com

We will be learning more about staying safe on-line next week in school as Tuesday 8th February is Safer Internet Day 2022. Safer Internet Day is celebrated globally in February each year to promote the safe and positive use of digital technology for children and young people, and to inspire a national conversation about using technology responsibly, respectfully, critically, and creatively. The theme this year is ‘All fun and games? Exploring respect and relationships online’.

We have been really excited to launch our new phonics programme 'Essential Letters and Sounds' (ELS). The children have really been enjoying the daily sessions which have helped us to build upon our existing excellent practice in school.

Thank you to all who were able to attend our ELS information sessions today. Please take a look at our Home Learning Resources page on our school website for lots of useful ELS resources as well as the presentation slides.

Our Bumblebees, Caterpillars and Dragonflies have been busy celebrating and learning about Chinese New Year. They made tiger masks, painted good luck messages and experimented with noodles! The children learnt how to say Gong Hei Fat Choy and and sang the song together. They practised using chopsticks to develop their fine motor and hand eye coordination skills.

The children have found out lots of information about animals through sharing our new non-fiction animal books. They have been sorting books in the reading area into fiction and non-fiction and discussing the differences between the two. They have all made a 'What am I?' fact sheet about one of their favourite animals and have impressed us all with beautiful pictures and descriptions.

As part of our project 'Emergency!', we have been thinking about people who help us. We were very fortunate to have a special visit from Cillian's Dad, Dr Rory Chin-Barr, to talk to us about the role of a doctor. With his assistant (honorary-doctor Cillian), he demonstrated how doctors check our reflexes, heart and eyes with special instruments. He also explained that there are different kinds of doctors like psychiatrists who help us with our thoughts and feelings as well as doctors who help us with our physical body. He helped demonstrate the skills you need to be a doctor such as kindness, mathematics and good listening. He also answered lots of poignant questions posed by the children about how rewarding it is to help others. The children were incredibly inspired and many have now decided to become doctors themselves!

Our children in Year 1 have also been visited by Thames Valley Police. This was a great opportunity for us to learn more about the different things the Police do to help us. We got to try on some of the uniform and even climb into a police van! Some of the staff were arrested by the children too! It was a great opportunity to learn about all the different things that the Police do to help us. Thank you to Thames Valley Police for coming in to visit us, we had a great time!

We have continued to explore the theme of dragons as part of our 'Fire, Fire!' project. After a surprise visit from a dragon onto our playground we decided to prepare, make and try some soup for our dragon. We made tomato and red pepper soup, we learnt how to use equipment safely to prepare and cook food. We decided that it looked like fire and tasted "divine"!!

We have also been busy creating our own dragon sculptures using clay. We spent a long time using different tools to help us create detailed patterns on our dragons too.

As it was Chinese New Year this week we thought it would be a great opportunity to explore the significance of dragons within this celebration. We made our own Chinese dragons thinking carefully about how we could include the colours red and gold.