Summer term begins with sunshine and hope!

It has been lovely to see the children return to school for the summer term with much excitement and enthusiasm! The sun has been mostly shining which has blessed us with more opportunities for outdoor learning once again- with Y3 children having a "mini picnic", the track and field being constantly in use by all year groups and lots of visits to the pond to see the huge variety of wildlife that is blooming.

As we have now moved to Year group bubbles, we are also very excited to have started "live" assemblies once again in the hall. It has been such a long time since myself and Mr Wallace have been able to interact with the children in the flesh! We can't wait to start singing- hopefully later in the term! Our assemblies have focussed on the science of happiness and we hope the children have been completing some "random acts of kindness" at home!

We have many things to look forward to this term, especially with lock-down easing and the hope that we will be able to do the residential trips, the all important Y6 play, and even sports day! See the calendar link in this newsletter with all the updated dates for the rest of this term. Of course, all of these are to be confirmed, subject to the lifting of government restrictions.

We will also be holding an optional parents consulation by zoom in the week before half term. Full details will be sent by email shortly.

Following feedback from parents, we have included some book reviews written by the children. All children who have book reviews published in the newsletter will receive 50 house points for their team. We also hope this will help parents in their quest for great books for the children to read! Please also see below for a chance for our school to win £5000 worth of new books- support us by nominating our school!

Mrs Clark - Head of school

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Staffing update for term 6- Class CHDP

From Tuesday, 8th June (the beginning of term 6), we welcome Miss Scott back to Furze Platt Junior School after a period of maternity leave. Miss Scott will take over from Mrs Paldi and join with Mrs Hooper to job-share the current class CHDP. Class CHDP will then become CHJS for the remainder of the year, with Miss Scott teaching Monday to Wednesday, and Mrs Hooper from Wednesday to Friday. Miss Scott will be popping into the class in the next few weeks to get to know the children better and ensure a smooth handover with Mrs Paldi.

We would like to thank Mrs Paldi for her fantastic support over the last year as a maternity cover. She has been a fantastic teacher to class CHDP, and a great job-share with Mrs Hooper. She has worked incredibly hard despite the challenging circumstances- she began her first few months at the school without even stepping inside the building- teaching the class remotely! She has been a great member of the team and will be sad to see her go.

Help us win £5000 for our School library!

Our school needs you! Help us win £5,000 of National Book Tokens for the school library - and get £100 for yourself! Just enter the competition online, it only takes a minute- please click on the link below, scroll down the page to nominate Furze Platt Junior School. The more nominations, the more chances of winning, so please do share this with others!

Thank you in advance! We are passionate about children's reading for pleasure at Furze Platt Junior School and would simply love a boost of funding to buy more books!

Click to nominate FPJS

Captain Tom 100

On Friday, 30th April, FPJS celebrated Captain Sir Tom's 101st birthday by taking part in the Captain Tom 100. All classes acknowledged the life and legacy of Captain Sir Tom by completing a challenge related to the number 100. In Year 3, the children ran or walked a combined 100 laps of the track, whilst in Year 4, the children attempted 100 different Yoga Poses! In Year 5, the children took the challenge of writing a story in 100 words only, whilst in Year 6, the children completed 100 star jumps as part of their track time. Well done FPJS for taking part!

Although this was not part of a fund-raising event, parents are welcome to donate to the Captain Tom Foundation if you wish, by clicking on the button below.

Donate to Captain Tom Foundation

The Big Ask

The new Children’s Commissioner for England, Dame Rachel de Souza, has launched The Big Ask – the largest ever consultation with children aged 4 to 17 in England. It aims to find out children’s concerns and aspirations about the future, so that we can put children at the heart of our country’s recovery from the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak.

The results from this survey will help the Children’s Commissioner identify the barriers preventing children from reaching their potential, put forward solutions and set ambitious goals for the country to achieve.

If you have time, please can you support this by asking your child to complete the questionnaire, using the link below. They are seeking both children and adults views.

The Big Ask

Y3 Zoolab

Zoolab had to be postponed in January due to school closures so it was a real treat to finally have them visit us. Linked to our topic on the rainforest, year 3 children got to see and touch a variety of fascinating creatures including: giant snails, stick insects, a millipede, a corn snake and more.

"I loved Zoolab because the animals were really cool and interesting. It was the first time I’ve ever seen a scorpion." Aari, class JF

Y5 Natural Disasters day

"Natural Disasters Day was AMAZING! We built shelters and made the Earth's layers out of playdough." Adam

"During the Volcanoes and Earthquakes workshop, we learnt where the tectonic plates are on a map. We had to act out how it would be like to be in all the levels of an earthquake from 1-12. Level 12 was insane, it was like all the buildings were collapsing! The day was absolutley brilliant, it was so much fun!" Tillie

Baroness Floella Benjamin Live Zoom!

Furze Platt Junior School has once again been incredibly lucky to have secured a live zoom session with a famous author! Baroness Floella Benjamin will be talking live to all the children at FPJS on Tuesday 11th May and we are very excited to hear her story, based on her experiences of moving from Trinidad to London as part of the Windrush generation. We are very fortunate to secure this for free, with the help of Chiltern Bookshops and hope that many children will be inspired to purchase her book, "Coming to England". Please click on the link to buy a copy!

Buy a book!

Oaken Grove Parking Plea

We are still experiencing a high number of complaints from local residents and parents in regards to the behaviour of a minority of our parents when dropping off and picking up children along Oaken Grove. We have repeatedly asked parents to park considerately along Oaken Grove, avoiding the area if at all possible and walk to school. Despite our pleas, we are very concerned to hear of some parents who are parking or manoeuvring dangerously along Oaken Grove, or even intimidating other parents as they do so. Unfortunately, the school has limited powers to take action against individuals. However, we would suggest that any parent who experiences abusive or intimidating behaviour from another parent in regard to this contacts the police and ensures they take note of the car registration plate. Please do let the school know too as it may help us to identify the perpetrators to enable us to keep all of our children safe as they walk to and from school.

Stars of the week

Star of the week newsletter 7th May

Well done to all our stars this week!

Our stars are chosen from following the values of the school: Passion, Well-being and respect.

We also chose children who have made exceptional effort in their work or attitude to learning.

Our stars are in a downloadable format if you want to print to keep!

TT Rock stars Update

Take a look at our Top Ten boards this week for each year group and our top progress children in each year group!

Well done to everyone who is moving up the TT rockstars charts!

Keep up the great work FPJS!

Sports Update

PE Lessons

Over the last few weeks lots of different sports and physical activities have been taking place during PE lessons. The main sport we have been focusing on has been cricket. Mainly due to the fact it is outside, is a big space and very covid friendly. Not only this but a few classes have been working on their netball skills involving shooting and passing drills. Year 5/6 have been looking at positioning and tactical play in a game situation and then putting this into practice.

Lastly some classes have been lucky enough to try out and experience a Tri-Golf lesson in PE. With the use of a plastic golf club, children were to swing their club whilst concentrating and staying focused on a tri-golf ball with plenty of eye contact. The aim was to strike through the ball to gain as much distance as possible. This is definitely a lesson we are looking to expand and do more of at FPJS!

By Mr Kemp

PE Stars

(23-04-21 / 30-04-21 / 7-05-21)

Year 3

JF - Freddie Y, Bronwyn, Jimmy

NH - Samuel, Libby, Betsy-Rose

KJS - Katherine, Kimberley, Dylan,

Year 4

JSF - Patryk, William G,

RL - Alexa, Harsha, Nicola

KE - Richard, Shlok,

Year 5

KM - Maryam, James, Sumayyah

CHDP - Isla, Alfie, Isabel

FK - Rosemary, Malakai, Eve

Year 6

PM - Grace, Tyler C, Bethany

HJ - Josh, Lilianna,

RTSS -Ben B, Shaina, Thomas

PE in Action

Year Group Updates

Year 3 News

Time sure flies when you're having fun! I can't believe we are already half way through term 5. We have been extremely busy in year 3.

This week, we completed a 3 week unit on recounts in English. In week one, we had a class picnic. The teacher started by reading the children a story sat on the field in the sunshine, after that they were all given a snack and finally they got to play on the new log park for the first time. The following week, children wrote recounts about this fabulous fun afternoon and then this week they independently planned and wrote their recounts about Zoolab.

In maths, we are learning about fractions. Important learning includes knowing that all the parts must be equal size and the bigger the denominator is, the smaller the piece is.

We've started new topics in both Science and Topic. In science, we are learning about plants. We started with a plant walk where children looked closely at just how many different types of plants grow at our school and also how plants manage to grow everywhere. In Topic, we are learning about Ancient Egypt. We have looked at this on the time line and we are linking our art by designing and making sarcophaguses. We started by closely observing and drawing Egyptian style patterns and then moved on to designing.

In RE this term we are learning about Sikhism.

By Mrs Fitzgibbon

Year 3- What are we learning?

Ask your child the following questions to see what they have learnt over the last few weeks!:

Explain: the bigger the denominator is, the smaller the piece is.

Tell me about all the different parts of a flower and what their job is.

Why was most of the Egyptian artwork, that we can look at now, found in tombs?

Year 4 News

Another newsletter and so much to talk about!

This week in English, we completed our learning on resolutions. We first read the story of Sami, a child living in a war-torn country, and picked up where the author left off, creating imaginative endings to his story.

Our maths learning has seen us tackle time. All children made good progress and we've been grateful for continued support from home. If you get the chance to chat about what time you follow your daily routines, focussing on analogue clocks, this would be extremely valuable for consolidating learning!

In topic and science, we have started our new learning on the Tudors and changing states; with lots of experiments and group work going on. We've also been learning about self-portraiture in art; focussing on the proportions of the human face and how we can improve the shape and symmetry of eyes, noses and mouths. The difference between our cold task and our 'uplevelling' was phenomenal! Eventually, we will use our skills to create portraits of ourselves as Tudors and will make our own fantastic frames to put our portraits in.

So many exciting opportunities on the horizon, we can't wait to experience them all.

By Miss Lawrence

Year 4- What are we learning?

Ask your child the following questions to see what they have learnt over the last few weeks!:

What rhyme can you use to help remember to read and plot coordinates correctly?

Tell me about the difference between a solid, liquid and a gas.

Show me the techniques you can use to draw your face more accurately.

Year 5 News

This term in Year 5 is all about Natural Disasters, our brand new, exciting topic! You can read all about our fantastic Natural Disasters Day earlier in this newsletter. So far we have had great fun learning the different types of volcanoes and using our understanding of latitude and longitude to plot their locations worldwide. Next we will be moving on to earthquakes.

Meanwhile, in maths, we have started by recapping our understanding of fractions. The children have done a great job of demonstrating their knowledge by finding fractions around the school and linking these to their understanding of decimals and percentages.

In English, we are writing a biography of the life of Ole Kirk Kristiansen, the danish carpenter who founded Lego. The children have done a great job of including adverbials and conjunctions for cohesion in their writing and will be presenting their work as beautiful, double-page spreads in their books.

We are continuing to work on our cushions in technology and have now drawn out our designs on fabric. Science has involved dissecting plants to understand the different parts that are involved in their life cycle along with learning about the different types of plant reproduction.

Over the coming weeks we have some awesome experiements lined up along with some exciting news about a new Year 5 school trip! Watch this space!

By Miss Moakes

Year 5 What are we learning?

Ask your child the following questions to see what they have learnt over the last few weeks!:

Where in the world are you most likely to find an active volcano and why?

How can you prove to me that 5/6 of a cake is more than 3/4?

What are the two different types of plant reproduction and how do they work? Is one better than another?

Year 6 News

We have our cast! After weeks of auditions (thank-you to the teachers who gave up every lunch-time for the last month to hear the call backs) , the roles have now been handed out and year 6 are busy learning their lines and the songs ready to perform to audience (fingers crossed) in July. The standard this year was exceptional and we were so impressed with the confidence of the children and have high hopes it will be the best ever!

Year 6 have been exploring the problems associated with palm oil production and how it can impact on wildlife and delicate rainforest ecosystems. They have prepared letters for politicians and we will be looking at which ones to send to them that give the best persuasive arguments that we should all take a look at our shopping habits.

In science, Y6 have been studying micro-organisms at a time when you may have heard about them in the news over the last year or so! However, if they were in any doubt about why hand-washing is so important , they are very clear now why it is so important and how germs can be spread through touch. On the positive side , we also looked at how micro-organisms are really useful and that not all bacteria is bad.

Every year 6 can now measure and saw wood accurately as they prepared their frames for their CAM projects and next it is the drilling and assembly before the final design touches that will hopefully lead to a display of colourful automata toys in each classroom.

We are now looking forward to so many exciting things - Rhos, film-making and Oscars and even some sculpture work before the year is out. With the weeks ticking by, we are filling every minute and having lots of fun in the process!

By Miss Johnson

Year 6 What are we learning?

Ask your child the following questions to see what they have learnt over the last few weeks!:

What is the nth term ?

What are micro-organisms and what are the different types?

What products use palm oil and why might it be a problem ?

Book Reviews- What can my child read next?

Y3 Book Review

Honey the sweet fairy by Daisy Meadows

Reviewed by Sophia D, Class JF

An awesome adventure book! When the two girls Rachel and Kirsty go out they find a magic fairy friend who helps them. It’s action packed. If you like fairies, I recommend it for you to read. They always succeed and they are very brave when the evil goblin comes. If you love sweets you will love this book. It is trouble in the sweet shop.

My favourite character is the fairy because they are magical people who have courage to try there best and believe.

I highly suggest this book to read. I will mark this book as 10 out of 10.It is great fun and has great advice to have courage.

Y4 Book Review

The Storey Treehouse Collection

Reviewed by Will B and Ajai D, Class KE

The Storey Treehouse collection is perfect for adventure seeking pioneers. If you enjoy adventure, then you have struck gold as it is perfect for adventure lovers.

These books are extremely funny and are worth the laughs.

52 Storey Treehouse is about two children who go on an adventure to find out how they can get to vegetable castle.

These books are great for children aged 6-10. So what are you waiting for? Jump in and let your imagination take you forward!

Y5 Book Review

A Pinch of Magic by Michelle Harrison.

Reviewed by Sunny, Class KM

In this book are three sisters. Fliss, who is kind and cares about others, Betty who is brave and a rule breaker and Charlie who loves food and is always coming home with a new furry friend. The three sisters have been trapped on Crowstone Island by an ancient curse. They try to break the curse but have to deal with a missing sister and one more prisoner than they wanted!

I like this book because it's quite mysterious. I can't stop reading it because many of the chapters end with cliff hangers. I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who enjoys adventure and mystery stories.

Y6 Book Review

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by JK Rowling

Reviewed by Sienna C, Class PM

Star Rating: *****

This mysterious book is part of the best selling Harry Potter series. It's a new year at Hogwarts and a very special one too, Hogwarts is hosting the TRIWIZARD tournament. It holds 3 challenging, mind - puzzling events, the winner will have eternal glory but you must be 17+ to enter. Like every year there is a new defence against the dark arts teacher, Mad Eye Moody the famous dark wizard catcher. When announcing who will be competing in the tournament 14 year old Harry's name floated out of the cup. He seems to be having extreme luck with the challenges especially from moody...

Mad Eye Moody is crucial to the story. He wears the same clothes, is always drinking something out of a small bottle. He may not be who he claims to be.

I loved this book, it is one of my favourite in the series. I would recommend this to people who like mysterious or magical books. I would also recommend reading the whole series to understand the characters and story of what is going on.

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