Furze Platt Infant School

Newsletter - 5th May 2023

A Super Start to the Summer term!

With Brilliant Beginnings and Coronation Celebrations, the Summer Term here at FPIS has got off to a super start.

Our new projects for the Summer Term have begun with events and experiences to engage and inspire our children. From journeys to Oaken Grove Park, celebrating adventures around our world and exploring wonderful watercolours, our children have been very busy learners indeed! See our Year Group articles below for more about what our children have been doing in and out of school recently...

This week, our focus has also been upon the Coronation, with the children learning about the importance of this event as a key moment in history - as well as finding out some very interesting facts about the traditions behind the ceremony itself. Read on below to find out more about our celebrations in school today...

The key dates for the rest of this academic year have been added to our school calender - and are also listed below for your reference. With lots going on in school and several important events for parents and families to attend over the next few weeks, we very much want to make sure you don't miss a thing!

However you are choosing to spend this special Cornonation bank holiday weekend, I hope it is a very enjoyable one for you all.

With warmest wishes

Jane Indge

Head of School

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Diary dates - coming up soon!

Here is a brief look at what's going to be happening in school this term:

Monday 8th May - Bank Holiday for the Coronation of King Charles III - school closed

Monday 15th May - Early Years: Visit to Windsor and Boat Trip on The Thames

Monday 15th May - Friday 19th May - Walk to School Week

Friday 19th May - Wear your walking shoes (or trainers) to school - Celebrating Walk to School Week

Tuesday 23rd May - Happy School Bags collection

Friday 26th May - Term ends

Monday 29th May - Friday 2nd June - Half term holiday (school closed)

Monday 5th June - Term starts

Monday 12th June - Friday 16th June - Healthy Eating Week

Monday 12th June - Friday 16th June - Year 1 Phonics Screening Check

Tuesday 13th June - Class Photographs

Friday 16th June - Early Years Exhibition @ 2:30 pm

Saturday 17th June - FPSA Summer Fair: 11:30 am - 2:30 pm

Wednesday 21st June - Y2-Y3 new parents evening at FPJS: 6:30 pm - 7:30 pm

Friday 23rd June - Sports Day: 1:30 pm

Friday 30th June - End of Year Reports to parents

Friday 30th June - Sports Day: 1:30 pm (reserve date)

Wednesday 5th July - Early Years and Year 1 Parents Meetings: 8:00 am - 4:00 pm

Thursday 6th July - Year 2 Parents Meetings: 8:00 am - 4:00 pm

Thursday 13th July - Year 2 End of Year Performances: 9:30 am and 2:30 pm

Friday 14th July - Year 2 End of Year Performance: 9:30 am

Friday 14th July - FPSA Year 2 Leavers Disco: 4:00 - 5:00 pm

Tuesday 18th July - Early Years Graduation: 9:15 am

Wednesday 19th July - Term ends: school finishes @ 1:30 pm

Thursday 20th and Friday 21st July - INSET day (school closed)

Coronation Celebrations!

To mark the Coronation of His Majesty The King and Her Majesty The Queen Consort, we have had a very special day in school today. With everyone dressed in red, white and blue colours, the scene was set for our celebrations here at FPIS.

In the morning, we all gathered together for a Coronation Celebration Assembly, where we discovered 5 things to look out for during the Coronation Ceremony tomorrow. We also sang 'Crown The King!' a song written especially for the Coronation, before ending with The National Anthem - a version adapted to incorporate sign language.

Throughout the day, the children were busy with lots of Royal-themed activities and in the afternoon enjoyed icing their own Coronation biscuits which were definitely fit for a King (or Queen!)

Coronation picnic lunch

The wet weather earlier in the day certainly did not dampen spirits during our (indoor) Coronation picnic lunch today. With the ground very soggy outside, the children sat together in our school hall and very much enjoyed their food whilst listening to Coronation music and songs.

A gift to commemorate the Coronation

Thanks to the FPSA, our children across the Furze Platt Primary Federation have each received today a very special bookmark to celebrate the Coronation, which we hope will be a special reminder of this significant event.

School Attendance

SAM - our School Attendance Mascot is off to Early Years this week as Dragonfly Class had the best attendance overall, with an very impressive 100%! Well done everyone!

Our latest school attendance figures for each class are shown in the table. Our school attendance target is: 97%

Dragonfly 100.0%

Oak 98.3%

Beech 96.0%

Bumblebee 96.0%

Hazel 95.0%

Willow 94.7%

Silver Birch 94.3%

Caterpillar 93.5%

Holly 93.3%

FPIS SEND Signpost

Early Years

Our Bumblebees, Caterpillars and Dragonflies have been super busy since returning from their Easter holidays!

All of the children (and grown ups too) were enjoyed our Brilliant Beginning, which was a journey to Oaken Grove park! We discussed how we were going to get there and talked about being safe on our journey. Mr Wallace ensured that we were extra safe when crossing the road by being our lollipop man and stopping oncoming cars. Despite a rainy start to the day, we were all absolutely thrilled that the sun shone for us in the afternoon, which meant the children could make full use of the park once we had arrived. It was wonderful to see so many of our children's grown-up's come along on our journey too - thank you for coming! The children thoroughly enjoyed their first school trip and are excited for their next!

Our Early Years explored a range of maps and discovered why they might be helpful. Following this the children also went on a journey around our school using maps of the school to help them on their journey. Once the children had returned back to their classroom they 'had a go' at designing their own map of the school. On their map they drew parts of the school that they noticed such as, the log park, pond, woodlands and more! We used directional language and our senses as we travelled around. Many of the children were inspired by the different map's in our classroom and chose to create another one during busy learning. The pirate map was very popular and the children used tea bags/coffee to add effect to their map before using them in their role play games.

Our Bumblebee's, Caterpillars and Dragonflies have been making good use of our planting area outdoors. Before the Easter holidays the children planted a variety of vegetable seeds and much to their delight, they were thrilled to see how much they had grown during the holidays! With the help of the grown ups, the children re-planted the vegetables in our growing area where they can continue to grow until they are ready to eat!

In maths with have been using our suberising and composition knowledge to make '5 and a bit'. The children have been making links and using different representations to explore the composition of numbers to 10. Last Friday the children took part in a measuring morning. Following a recap on length they had the opportunity to use lots of different resources to measure whatever they wanted. This prompted lots of discussion around what the best resources are when measuring, including cars, blocks, hands, rulers, string and tape! This week they focussed on weight, ready for our Gingerbread baking next week!

Early Years 'Our Town Map' Painting Workshop.

Our Early Years children took part in a painting workshop with Amanda from Norden Farm Arts Centre on Monday. The workshop, Our Town Map, helped us to launch our Summer Term project on Journeys. The children worked collectively using colour and shape to produce Bumblebee, Caterpillar and Dragonfly Towns. They were extremely proud of their creations and are looking forward to sharing them in our Early Years Exhibition.

Year 1

Year 1 have had an exciting start to the Summer Term! We kicked off our new project ‘We’re Going On An Adventure’ with our Brilliant Beginning called 'Let's Celebrate our World!'. It was an exciting opportunity for the children to dress up or bring in objects and tell their friends about a place that is special to them. We were left amazed with how many incredible facts the children knew about countries far and wide!

We also had a special 'Around The World Day' where we went from class to class and learnt about a country from a different continent on every visit. We buckled up our seatbelts and filled in our passports with the fun facts we had learnt about the different climates, animals, and cultures whilst also receiving our special stamps from the six countries we visited. Phew!

In preparation for the Coronation Celebrations, we learnt how to play the tune to the National Anthem on glockenspiels! We worked really hard to learn the lyrics and Makaton actions to go with the National Anthem and we hope you enjoy the video of our performance on Seesaw! :-)

Year 2

We have had an exciting start to our project 'Wonderful Water!' which we launched with our Brilliant Beginning. We called this our Water Creative Day and enjoyed two creative activities. We explored Hokusai and recreated our versions of his artwork The Great Wave and also created our own class collages of the ocean, thinking about the different marine animals who use the ocean as their habitat.

Continuing with the artistic theme we have also been exploring the work of J.M.W Turner and paying particular attention to his use of watercolour paints. We have been experimenting different techniques we can use to help us in creating our own piece of artwork.

We have also been busy learning about the five different oceans and the different layers of the ocean, creating our own information sheets with illustrations to show what we have found out.

Plastic Pollution has also been a theme we are beginning to investigate, thinking about the impact of this on our oceans, humans, and animals. We have been taking part in our own rescue missions using tweezers and a water tray in our classrooms!

Finally, as mathematicians we have been busy collecting data and learning how to use this information to interpret what we have found out.

FPSA Year 2 Quiz

Last Friday (28th April), the hall was busy with children taking part in the 'Year 2 Quiz'. Mr Thompson was the quiz master asking general knowledge questions which covered geography, history, sport, literature, science & nature and more. In addition to 3 rounds of questions, the quiz included 4 picture rounds with one called 'famous people' although there was plenty of discussion on why Mr Wallace was included!

The winning team was 'The Lions' followed by 'The Crocodiles' as runners-up and 'The Bears' in third place.

The FPSA would like to thank everyone who attended and made it a fun afternoon. The event raised ~£250 for the school.

Nurture Group

In nurture, we have had a great start to the summer term. We have been scientists with experiments involving water. The first involved some glasses containing food colouring in water, with paper towels linking the glasses. We observed the primary colours mixing. The second experiment involved adding increasing amounts of salt to water containing an egg to see what happened. The third was to add different things to water to see which would dissolve and which didn't dissolve. Some of the things we used included coffee, sugar, sand, candle wax, plastic, vinegar, jam, playdoh and oil.

We have been busy planting out some sunflower plants in the front playground growing beds together with some carrots and beetroot seedlings. We are looking forward to caring for them and watching them grow.

Eco Team

We are taking part in 'Great Big School Clean 2023' and have encouraged everyone in our school to recycle and to pick up litter. We have spent some time during our club sessions picking up litter and were surprised at how much litter could be found hidden in one area.

Next time we meet we are going to make posters to remind everyone to reduce waste and increase recycling.

Please can we encourage everybody in our school community to be a 'Litter Hero' and to log your litter pick on www.keepbritaintidy.org

We have been really pleased to see our growing bed springing into life! Our radishes have really grown and the mixture of rain and sun have meant that our carrots will soon need thinning out and our tomatoes will need to be put into bigger pots!

School council

Over the past few weeks we have been busy taking a look at some new outdoor musical instruments that we are hoping to add to our main school playground. As school councillors we helped to search through some different options and whittle down the choices. We then presented these to our classes to help choose our favourites as a school!

Wonderful Wildlife!

In this edition, Mr Vogel shares some of his images of butterflies that he has spotted in our local area.

Wonderful Wildlife#13 Butterflies

Britain is home to 59 species of butterfly, which all play an important role in pollination.

The average lifespan of a butterfly is short, with most adult species only surviving for two to four weeks – many species have even shorter lifespans. Butterfly populations in the UK are affected by adverse weather conditions such as drought, wet and windy or unseasonably cold conditions.

Interestingly, a group of butterflies is called a kaleidoscope.

Did you know? Butterflies don't have noses. Instead, they taste and smell food using their legs and feet!

Awesome achievements!

Congratulations to Maya who received her football medal for the hard work that she had put in last term at her football club. "I also got my belt and certificate for passing my grading in kickboxing." Well done Maya!

Well done Myles for being awarded two medals! "I got my medals because I was helpful at football and worked hard all term." Congratulations to you Myles!

Congratulations to Isaac who received his football medal for the hard work and team work that he displayed at his football club. Well done Isaac!

Freya is very proudly sharing a certificate from The Little Princess Trust as she donated some of her hair to charity! What a lovely and inspiring achievement! Well done Freya!

Jack is proudly sharing his certificate of achievement from his Rugby club. "I got it for helping my team mates and doing hard work on my rugby tackles." Well done Jack!

Luke is proudly sharing his Level 1 drumming certificate he was awarded with merit! "I completed my grade 1 examinations, I had to play 3 songs including 'Another one bites the dust'. I had to try really hard!" Well done Luke, we are really proud of you!

Ben has been awarded a medal for working hard in football and never giving up. Well done for being such a determined athlete Ben!

Isla received her Level 2 swimming award for swimming 5 metres. Well done Isla!

Lillie received her Level 5 swimming certificate for swimming . Super swimming Lillie!

Rocco received a football medal for working hard as a team member and for scoring goals. Keep it up Rocco!

Benjamin has received his ultra-marathon wristband for completing 50 park runs! We are all super impressed with your commitment to running, well done Benjamin!

Bonnie was extremely excited to share her new haircut with us all! We were very inspired when she told us that she had donated her hair to the 'Little Princess Trust'. She told us "It is for children that don't have any hair, they will make a wig using mine". What a kind gesture to do Bonnie, we are very proud!

Farrin is proudly sharing two awesome achievements! Her medal for The Maidenhead Easter 10 and a star of the week gymnastics certificate! Well done Farrin!

James was very excited to share his two football medals! "I was really good at football!" Well done James, keep up the brilliant effort!

Avneet is proudly displaying her Brownie certificate. She recently made her Promise and was very excited to share this with everyone! Congratulations to you Avneet!

Congratulations to Abby who shared two of her badges she was awarded at Rainbows. "The first one was First Aid Stage One. We had to bring in one of our teddies and put plasters on them. Then the Fruit and Veg one I had to make smoothies, fruit sculptures and I had to make up a poem about fruit and veg."

Sebbie proudly shared the team trophy he had won during the FPSA Year 2 Quiz last week. "It was quite hard and on the science round we got all the questions right!"

Well done to Sebbie and everyone in team Lions!

Maisie was excited to share her level 5 swimming award. She can put her face under the water and blow bubbles and swimming on her own! Well done Masie, what super swimming!

Lilly was proud to share her gymnastics award and badge. She was showing good listening, forward and backwards rolls and a backwards flip over the bar! Amazing Lilly!

Joshua was excited to share his gymnastics certificate that he received for joining his bothers group when he needed him! His teacher was so proud of his kindness. Well done Josh!

Sienna received a swimming certificate for swimming 500 metres. Wow Sienna, you are a super swimmer!

Sophie received a gymnastics award and badge for doing a forwards and backwards rolls and cartwheels. Well done Sophie!

Lucy T gained her Level 2 Swimming certificate for bubbling bubbles under water.

Amazing Lucy keep it up !

Kara received a Karate certificate for excellent effort in her Karate sessions. Well done Kara!

Deekshana showed exceptional courage and passion by learning and performing at the Tamil New Years Celebrations this week. Well done Deekshana!

House Points

Head of School Awards

Every Friday, during our whole school Celebration Assembly, Head of School awards are given out to a child or children in each class. The certificates are presented by Mrs Indge to those children who have consistently demonstrated excellent behaviours for learning.

Head of School Awards 5th May 2023.pdf

Super-PoWeRs!

Miss Dexter pops on her Superhero cape each week during Celebration Assembly to present our SuperPoWeR awards. The awards are given to children who have been demonstrating excellent behaviour through our school values of Passion, Well being and Respect.

Book Bingo!

Every week, during our Head of School Assembly, a bingo ball is selected from our special red bag. The bingo balls are numbered 1 - 30. Each child in Year 1 and 2 with the corresponding register number to the ball chosen will have the opportunity to bring their Maths book and Project scrapbook to share with Mrs Indge, Miss Dexter and Miss Edmondson later that week. During the Book Bingo session, the children spend time looking through the books together with the adults, whilst discussing and explaining what they have been busy learning about.

FPSA update

Year 2 Quiz

Congratulations to team 'Lions' who stormed home in first position with team 'Crocodiles' in second place. We hope all of the children enjoyed the quiz which raised ~£250 for FPIS (see article above).

Dates for your diary.....

Junior Discos - Friday 19th May

The Junior School discos are back this month (the years 3 & 4 disco is 4-5pm and the years 5 & 6 disco is 5.15-6.30pm). Tickets are now on sale at www.pta-events.co.uk/fpsa.

Summer Fair - Saturday 17th June (11.30am - 2.30pm)

Please keep this date free for our biggest fundraising event of the year.

We are pleased to announce that Oakwood Estates (based in Queen Street, Maidenhead) are sponsoring our summer fair this year. If you would like to have an estate agents board outside your house advertising the fair, then please complete the simple form using this link: https://forms.gle/99Z7WHA3C1zJKK358. The FPSA will receive up to £10 per board so we hope lots of Furze Platt parents can join in to help advertise the fair whilst helping to raise lots of money.

Year 2 Leavers Disco - Friday 14th July (4-5pm)

Year 2 children are invited to a fun-filled hour of music and dancing in the Infants Hall with 'DJ Dexter' playing the tunes!

Useful Information for Parents and Families

smartwatches.pdf

uSports May Half Term & Summer Holiday Camps.pdf

The pupils of Cookham Rise have been tirelessly raising money to build their pen pals in Uganda a lovely new school. Brainstorm School started as a street school for the orphaned and abandoned children of Kampala. We are now officially recognised by the government as a fully registered school, providing the children with an education that they would never have been able to afford and a chance for these destitute, unwanted children to release themselves from poverty.

So far, we have raised enough money to buy 2 acres of farmland, which not only keeps all our orphaned and street children fed but also helps to provide the school with extra income for books and stationary by selling surplus produce at market. Last year we invested in a piggery for the farm and all sales of piglets again go directly into the schools’ upkeep.

Land for the new build has been purchased and cleared in preparation of the first phase of building work.

We desperately need to continue fundraising so that we can complete the build and give the Brainstorm School children a school fit for purpose.

Please support us by buying tickets for a fabulous night of music by popular local cover band, A Blink of an Eye, who will be performing at Pinder Hall on May 13th. Every penny raised will go directly to the school build fund.

Pop Up Toy Shop A4 Flyer.pdf

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