Furze Platt Junior News
12th March 2021
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Welcome to our updated newsletter!
Welcome to our updated newsletter!
Furze Platt Junior School has moved with the times, and over to a new format for our newslettters! Our mobile and tablet friendly format should make it easier for you to navigate through the newslettter and quickly click on relevant links. Please let us know what you think of our new format by completing our quick questionnaire at the end of the newsletter. This will help us to ensure the content of the newsletter is relevant and useful to parents!
FPJS Welcomes everyone back!
FPJS Welcomes everyone back!
On Monday 8th March, we finally welcomed all pupils back into school, sincerely hoping our remote zooming days are well and truly behind us. It was lovely to see the children's beaming faces, eager to get back to their classes and to see their friends and teachers in 3D again! Year 3 and Year 4 pupils were in for a treat with brand new chairs in their classrooms. As I stood by the entrance gate I heard one of the children say, "I really love school. I didn't realise how much I loved being here until now".
One of the children in Y5 said "SCHOOL.... do you know what it stands for? Six Cool Hours Of Our Lives!"
Welcome back everyone!
Anna Clark- Head of School
World Book Day 2021
World Book Day 2021
World Book Day this year may have been during lockdown school, but it didn't stop FPJS from celebrating all things book related! Well done to the Y6 team for organising a brilliant book trail around the local area for everyone to enjoy as part of their permitted daily exercise. Well done to all the children in the school for taking part in a number of different book challenges, including making a food related book character or item, dressing up for WBD and taking part in lots of fun quizzes and activities. We hope parents and children alike enjoyed "The Masked Reader" and worked out the mystery staff readers! We would also like to thank Gerrard's Cross Bookshops for organising three fantastic authors into school (virtually). MG Leonard, Ross Welford and Katherine Rundell were all brilliant at inspiring the children and enthusing children about their reading. It's not too late to order books... click on the link below as part of our Online Book Fair! We will be receiving 20% commission for all books purchased we would really like parents to support us if they can!
Online Book Fair open now!
Online Book Fair open now!
Buy a book to support our school! Order deadline 26th March
Buy a book to support our school! Order deadline 26th March
Comic Relief 2021
Comic Relief 2021
Next Friday, we are celebrating Red Nose Day in style at FPJS! Come dressed as you like (within reason!) and donate to this amazing charity via our justgiving page. We would love to smash our target of £360 to support many individuals who are less fortunate than ourselves. Don't forget you still have time to enter our virtual talent show too- see your class Seesaw for more details! Many thanks to all the parents who have already donated!
Well-Being at FPJS
Well-Being at FPJS
At FPJS, Well-being is incredibly important to us. We are constantly looking at ways to improve well-being for both pupils and staff. We have recently bought into a well-being subscription package which gives some absolutely brilliant well-being top tops for pupils, staff and parents focusing very much on Here is our first parental video for you to watch. It's only 10 mins and we hope it will give you some food for thought on how to be a brilliant parent. The video refers to teenagers, but the content completely fits for the 7-11 age range too!
Lateral flow tests for parents & Carers
Lateral flow tests for parents & Carers
About 1 in 3 people with coronavirus do not have symptoms but can still pass it on to others. Regular testing of people without symptoms is important to help stop the virus spreading and protect your loved ones. As lockdown restrictions gradually ease all parents and carers now have access to regular rapid lateral flow tests. Click on the link below to find out more information.
Stars of the week
Stars of the week
TT Rock stars update
TT Rock stars update
Take a look at our Top Ten boards this week for each year group. Particular well done to Alice, Thomas, and Karina in Year 4 for making it into the top 5 of the whole school! You rock!
We have moved up to 9th position of surrounding schools, but we can do more! Keep up the hard work everyone!
Shout Outs
Shout Outs
During half term Edward (Y5, Class CHDP), his sister and a few other children on their road took part in their own half-term challenge – as no one was allowed to travel or go on holiday – they planned to virtually ‘travel’ all the way from Maidenhead to Paris (over 360 km) by walking, running or cycling.
All the kids went out every day, come rain or shine, to hit their personal targets and keep fit & active. Amazingly they smashed their initial target and managed to ‘travel’ over 680km between them - and in the process, raised over £500 for a great local children’s charity The Link Foundation, who really make a difference to so many children’s lives. Well done, we are very proud of you!
Shout out to Jude and Annabelle in Y5 who used their daily exercise time to go on a trail run together (supervised from a distance of course!). It meant they got some much needed social contact as well as some exercise, and it was warm enough for shorts and T-shirts!
Well done girls!
During February, Daisy (Y6 PM) and Katie (Y3 KJS) took part in “The February rainbow race” along with 60 other children, raising money for young minds. The aim was to get children out walking, running or cycling, wearing rainbow colours and raising money and awareness for young people’s mental health. Daisy and Katie walked/ran over 10k each. And received a lovely medal at the end.
Sports Update
Sports Update
PE Lessons
A big warm welcome back to all our pupils at FPJS. Mr Kemp and Mrs Winter have had an extremely busy but positive week, getting the pupils back into the PE routine! Lots of laps around the track, challenging skipping tasks completed and lots of interactive outdoor sessions.
A big well done to everyone for working hard in such difficult weather conditions this week. We are really happy to have everyone back at school!
The Berkshire games results for event 3 (marial arts) will be announced in the next edition of the newsletter on 1st April.
PE Stars
Year 3
JF - Immy
NH - Sienna
KJS - Dylan
Year 4
JSF - Karina
RL - Aayan
KE - Matilda
Year 5
KM - Amelia
CHDP - Jessica
FK - Uzair
Year 6
PM - Evie
HJ - Ziva
RTSS - George
Mr Tom skipping.movBerkshire Games Skipping Challenge
During lockdown, the Berkshire School Games send out a staff skipping challenge for all staff to participate in. The only thing that was needed was a rope!
You had to count how many skips you could do in 30, 60 and 90 seconds and I am pleased to announce that FPJS won this virtual challenge by many skips!
A big virtual high five to Mr Dearnley who smashed both the 60 and 90 second challenge out of the park, with an impressive 187 skips- 30 seconds and 289 skips- 90 seconds.
Also well done to Mrs Tisshaw who finished 3rd place and took a bronze medal, with 127 skips in 30 seconds!
FPS School Skipping
Throughout the first week back at school, Mr Kemp and Mrs Winter have been working a lot with all the children on their skipping technique and co-ordination during PE lessons.
Mrs Bryant (pictured) enjoyed taking part with the Y3 pupils on practising the correct way to skip on the school playground.
We had pupils skipping backwards or on one foot, which was truly amazing! Well done everyone!
Year 3 News
Year 3 News
It has been such a joy to welcome the children back to school this week.
Last week, we had a wonderful week celebrating Book Week and World Book Day. All week, the children were creative, imaginative and full of energy. Children were able to share their favourite books, dress up as a character, choose various options of activities and many also entered the cooking competition. We were amazed by the quality of what the children produced as you can see from the photos.
This week we continued with the maths and English we had started remotely. In English, children designed their own animals and have planned and written non-chronological reports. In maths, we have returned to multiplication and division, focusing on the 3 times tables and worded problems.
We used the afternoons to get creative: tasting smoothies, tasting different fruit (in order to design our own smoothies) and doing some artwork using camouflaged animals. Pictures to follow when these are complete.
This week, we have also been lucky enough to start our music lessons with Berkshire Maestros. Over the next few weeks the children will have a samba lesson each week which I have no doubt they will thoroughly enjoy.
Year 3 have made a brilliant start being back at school. Keep up the good work!
Year 4 News
Year 4 News
It has been an absolute pleasure to welcome Year 4 back to school this week and we have loved seeing their smiling faces in our classrooms!
Last week, we enjoyed exciting author visits and many children participated in a variety of different activities for our World Book Day competition. Our pictures for this newsletter show some of the fantastic entries we received. There were loads of house points up for grabs and our first place from each class even received a sweet treat too! The three first place winners were: Toby, Alice G, Karina D.
This week, we have been continuing our learning on fractions and have been so impressed with how much the children have retained from their home learning - well done parents and pupils!
We've also been writing our spooky stories and are looking forward to recording them over some spooky music by the end of the week.
As well as an introduction to our new science topic of living things, a noisy (but exciting!) lesson on garage band and getting back into the swing of school we've been thoroughly busy.
Well done to every child in year 4 for showing such amazing resilience over lockdown and amazing us with how adaptable you are!
Year 5 News
Year 5 News
All of the Year 5 team are so pleased to have welcomed the children back to school this week. We have been impressed with how well the children have been getting on with the online learning, but we are all thankful to be back in our classes without the ever present struggle with technology!
We have been very lucky over the past few weeks as we have had several guest come to speak to us.
Firstly, George from the Antarctic Fire Angels joined us to tell us about her expedition as part of the first, all female emergency services team to cross Antarctica by mind and muscle power alone. Her talk inspired us to think about the goals that we have in our lives and how we can go about achieving them. It was also a great introduction to Shackleton's Journey by William Grill, a book we are using to help us with our writing, reading comprehension and even artwork. The children have already created some wonderful work modeled on illustrations from the book.
We also had a fantastic session with the Education Team from the UK Government who explained the process of passing laws. The children even had the opportunity to debate the details of a new law as if they were in the House of Commons! From this they then continued their research into women who have impacted British law and presented their work in a variety of ways from YouTube presentations to baking!
In maths the children have been doing a great job of understanding different forms of transformation including translation and reflection. This has built on their previous learning into co-ordinates. Since we have been back at school, the children have been focusing on recognising patterns and mathematical reasoning. We have been particularly impressed with their levels of perseverance with their Alice in Wonderland maths challenges.
For World Book Day, the children made a character from pieces of fruit or vegetables they had at home. We had some very creative entries!
The children have been very enthusiastic during their first few days back at school. We are looking forward to the weeks ahead and more great learning.
Year 6 News
Year 6 News
The year 6's have done us proud over the lockdown with fantastic effort in all the subjects but we are very glad to have them back in school and hope it wasn't too hard changing loungewear and pyjamas for their school uniform again !
We particularly enjoyed the last few weeks when we have been exploring the children's book "The Day The Crayons Quit". We took this stimulus as a basis for our own writing on why stationery items might quit the classroom. This produced some very funny work and we even tried writing in Shakespearian language and using idioms.
The patterns in nature work has led to some amazing abstract interpretations of nature but we now leave art for a while and are beginning the very exciting world of making a CAM - an off-centre mechanical system that transfer rotary to linear motion: Loads of sawing and gluing ahead and all that measuring work in maths we have done during lockdown will be particularly important to ensure it all fits together properly.
Music has also been something we have done a fair bit of during the last few months and have loved the body percussion videos children have sent in - sometimes with added brothers/sister or pets making impromptu appearances.
And now it is back to school and we are starting to learn the songs and dances for the school play - yes, this year there will be one - we are not sure exactly what form it will take but we are hoping by July we will be able to perform in front of an audience.
Marlow.pdfTech easter holiday camp
Tech easter holiday camp
Junior bake off competition
Junior bake off competition
Channel 4 have recently opened applications for the 7th series of Junior Bake Off; a Channel 4 programme that celebrates the culinary talent and ambition of the younger generation in Britain.
They are looking for young budding bakers between 9 -15 years old.
Filming would take place from July 2021, but our applications close on Sunday 28th March 2021.
Interested bakers can apply online at - WWW.APPLYFORJUNIORBAKEOFF.CO.UK
FOL_LTS_Layman's guide.pdfRBWM LIBRARY UPDATE
RBWM LIBRARY UPDATE
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