We have been excited to welcome the return of SAM, our School Attendance Mascot, into school. 

After the recent review of our Attendance Policy and with the hope that school closures and COVID disruption is behind us, monitoring attendance across our school is a key focus once again.

During Celebration Assembly, SAM is presented to the class with the best attendance overall. This week, it was Holly Class, with an overall attendance figure of 99.7%.  

Our Bumblebees, Caterpillars and Dragonflies have been continuing our project about 'Me and My Family'. We have been sharing books about what makes a family unique and special. The children have enjoyed sharing their 'All About Me' posters and creating their own family pictures, which led to some lovely conversations about why their family is so wonderful.

We have focused on the story of 'We're Going on a Bear Hunt' by Michael Rosen. The children made their own story map of the Bear Hunt and they used it to retell the story in the woodlands.  During Busy Learning time, the children also had the opportunity to create their own small world of the Bear Hunt story, using a range of different materials to support key language. 

This week, we have been learning about what a home is and the different types of places we can live. The children discussed how their house looks and if it was similar or different to their friends. They had the chance to create a model of their house using their own choice of construction materials. Some children built their home independently whereas others decided to work as a team. They challenged themselves to create windows, doors and even a roof! We are so impressed by our brilliant builders! 

Supertato and his friends have once again taken over the Year 2 classrooms!  We have been reading the story of 'Supertato Veggies in the Valley of Doom'.  This time, we were surprised when Evil Pea came to the rescue by pulling Supertato and the veggies out of quicksand.  We have spent time planning, drafting and re-writing the story.  

We have been inspired by Supertato and other superhero stories to create our own pictures using our sticky knowledge how sketching different lines can change the effect of the picture.  We have also been investigating how materials are suited to different purposes by creating our own objects fit for a superhero.

Our sticky knowledge about materials has also come in very useful when planning, building, testing and evaluating the Sukkahs we created when we learnt about the Jewish festival of Sukkot.  Our brief was to build a shelter using either paper art straws, Lego, wooden blocks, paper or lolly sticks which had three walls and a roof (that had to be open to the sky).  We tested it by using a hairdryer to simulate the wind to see if it would be strong enough to remain standing.  We had great fun testing our predictions!

In Maths we have been looking at part-part-whole models to help us with our understanding of number bonds to 20.  We have also been learning that we can find four different addition equations from three set of numbers by thinking carefully where to place each number.

This half term in PE we have been busy improving our standing leg balances, by standing still on our dominant and non-dominant legs, doing mini squats, bending down to pick up equipment as well as sometimes doing this with our eyes closed!  You could hear a pin drop in the hall as the children concentrated so hard on this important skill!

We are very proud to be supporting our local foodbank again this year as part of our learning about Harvest.  We are very thankful for all of your generous donations which we know will be gratefully received by Foodshare Maidenhead and all those who use their much needed service. Thank you!

Today the KS1 children welcomed Emma from St Peter's Church to lead an assembly all about Harvest.  We played an exciting quiz where we had to say whether particular vegetables grow below or above ground.  We also learnt sign language for the words: celebrate, share and thank you and learnt about why Harvest is an important festival in Christianity.  We ended our special assembly singing the songs we have learnt about Harvest during our singing assemblies. 

Last Tuesday morning our families from Year 2 were invited to spend the morning with us getting busy with our learning.  It was fantastic to see so many grown-ups attending and our year 2 children confidently sharing their classrooms and the way we learn at FPI.

Thank you so much for all your continued support!

On Tuesday 11th Holly Class were chosen to participate in the 'Active 60 Festival' organised by the Ascot and Maidenhead Sport Partnership.  We travelled to Altwood School and spent the afternoon participating in a range of multi-skill activities to help us keep active for 60 minutes everyday. 

The children were fantastic representatives of our school and showed passion, resilience and respect. Well done Holly Class! 

We have elected our representatives for the new academic year.  We are now meeting regularly and thinking about ways we can look after our school environment and reduce our waste, recycle more and use less energy.

This week we were given our Eco Badges and we made posters to remind everyone to turn off the lights.  Keep an eye out for our posters around the school!

The goldcrest is a dull greyish-green. They have a pale belly and a black and yellow stripe on their heads, which has an orange centre in males. Their thin beak is ideally suited for picking insects out from between pine needles.

Did you know? The Goldcrest is the UK's smallest bird.

Congratulations to everyone in Phoenix for earning the most house points overall this half term. 326 in total - well done! 

A big thank you to all parents and carers who dropped off a Happy School Bag last week. Together we raised a very impressive £229.50.

Dates for your diary:

• Friday 18th November - Mr T's Quiz Night, 8pm-10.30pm

Tickets available at www.pta-events.co.uk/fpsa. Our last quiz raised over £1,500 so we are hoping for a good turnout again for our 10th in-person quiz night. Food from Palmieri's is included in the cost of the ticket price.

• Saturday 3rd December - Christmas Fair, 11.30am - 2.30pm