FPJS Updates
Welcome to our second edition of our FPJS Newsletter 2021! It has been an exciting couple of weeks with our elections for House Captains in Year 6, our parent tours for new Year 3 parents and without doubt, THE most brilliant author visit from Jacqueline Wilson. I cannot tell you what an honour it was to meet such a well-know children's author: she was utterly inspiring to the children and had such a kind and gentle manner with everyone she spoke to. Jacqueline was very keen to meet children and to see how schools have changed as it has been a number of years since she has had an opportunity to visit schools. We were thrilled that she chose to come to FPJS and hopefully her stories will inspire our children to read even more!
It has also been very exciting to show parents around the school once again! We really do want parents to be part of the learning journey alongside the children, and it was great to hear such positive feedback about how well the year 3 children have settled into the school.
We are keen to ensure this bi-weekly newsletter is useful for parents! We have added a section of "Diary Dates....coming up soon" which will summarise any events coming up in the next few weeks. You can find all of our events for the year on our website, with the link in the quick links section below. Please do let us know other things that you would find useful that we can add- just email our office!
Anna Clark
Head of School
Diary Dates... Coming Up Soon
Weds 6th October: School photos (Class Heron and Class Kestrel to come to school in school uniform and bring in PE kit to change into)
Mon 18th October: Y3 Science week
Weds 20th October: Talk and Tour for Y2 parents (booking essential)
Thurs 21st October: Parents evenings- 3.30-7.00pm Face to Face appointments (more details about booking out next week)
Fri 22nd October: Inset Day
Monday 25th-Friday 29th October is Half Term
Jacqueline Wilson Visits FPJS
Furze Platt Junior School was honoured to receive a visit from one of the children's top authors on Friday 24th September. Dame Jacqueline Wilson spent a full afternoon at the school talking to children about her latest book "The Primrose Railway Children" as well as explaining to children how she goes about writing her stories. She also answered many questions from all the children who were inspired by her thoughts about writing and creating stories.
Our head students, Zack, Shreya and Jess also had an opportunity to meet her individually and found out about all the famous people she has met- including the Queen! They said "She was absolutely lovely and listened so carefully to everything we said. We found out some really interesting things about how she writes- I can't wait to read her new book!"
We were thrilled to have the opportunity to meet such a children's writing icon, and were very impressed with her ability to connect with all the children. Having written over 100 books and still writing every day (including Christmas!) Jacqueline certainly is an inspiration to us all and we would like to thank Chorleywood bookshop in Rickmansworth for organising such a fantastic opportunity for the students at Furze Platt Junior School.
Goodbye to Mrs Scothern
We are very sad to announce that Mrs Scothern, who works as a TA in Year 6, will be leaving us on Monday as she takes up a role as an equine lecturer at BCA. Mrs Scothern has been an absolutely fantastic TA at FPJS in the 3 years she has worked at the school, always going over and above in everything she does. Every day Mrs Scothern has a smile on her face and such a positive outlook in every situation! We will miss her very much but wish her all the best in her new role. We know she will be fantastic!
With Mrs Scothern leaving, we do have a vacancy for a teaching assistant/HLTA. If you are interested, please click on the link below:
Harvest collection for Foodshare
Thank you to all of generous parents who donated to FoodShare this week as part of our harvest celebrations. Our local church, St Peter's led us with the celebrations and explained to the children why harvest is a time to both celebrate and be thankful for everything we have.
Recommended Reading for Pleasure at FPJS
Please find attached all the recommended reads we currently have in our library and classrooms. Please note, these are suggestions only and they may not suit all children in each year group! Children are welcome to select books from ANY year group.
Y3 recommended reads.pdfY4 recommended reads.pdfY5 recommended reads.pdfY6 recommended reads.pdfQuick Links
Stars of the week
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
Well done to all our children who have started using TT rock stars regularly to practise times tables!
Keep up the daily practise everyone- it is scientifically proven that practising a little and often will ensure you master those times tables as soon as possible until they are automatically recalled from memory.
Sports Update
PE Lessons
With a lot of changes in the weather over the last few weeks, it's been a rollercoaster of events in the PE department. With year 5 and 6 they have been taking part in plenty of Netball, and developing skills to use in a game situation. We have been working particularly hard on netball positions, as well as attack versus defence in a game situation. Not only this, some year 3,4,5 and 6 pupils have managed to use the Gymnastics equipment and apparatus for the very first time in many months, developing their knowledge and skills at Jumping and balancing. Also over the last few weeks every pupil has been using our 351m school track to keep up with fitness levels and take short exercise breaks to keep our minds and concentration levels high.
COMING UP: On Friday 15th October as a whole school we will be participating in an event called One Run Schools Day. This event will be allowing our pupils to be active for a continuous 15 minutes. We aim to have each class and different year groups to be running/walking around our school track non stop for the entire duration of 15 minutes. This event is to get children and adults ACTIVE in school.
By Mr Kemp/Mrs Winter
Year 3/4 Dynamos Cricket
On Thursday 30th September FPJS took a team of year 5 and 6's over to Altwood School, for the lower year groups to compete in there FIRST school competition for over 18 months! The event was called Dynamos Cricket Festival, held by Berkshire Cricket Club. This particular festival was all about inclusion and participation. Each team was challenged by different cricket stations which tested their Bowling, Batting, Fielding, Throwing and Catching skills. Every player involved certainly impressed the cricket coaches, not only with their dominant cricket display, but also with great teamwork, encouragement to others and showing great sportsmanship. Mr Kemp was very happy with all the children involved, and it was safe to say the best part of the day was most definitely the Batting station!
A BIG WELL DONE to Amber, Inaaya, Daniel T, Joseph T, Dylan, Aidan, Nate and Daniel W for taking part in this fun and exciting event
PE Stars of the Week
Class Swan - Jay, Ethan S
Class Heron - Arwa, Ethan R
Class Comorant - Sunny, Amelia
Class Kite - Maisie, Alexa
Class Eagle - Emily, Hashim
Class Kestrel - Riley, Alice G
Class Swift - Daniel, Chloe
Class Kingfisher - Bronwyn, Sky
Class Skylark - Josh D, Alice A
Class Wren - Eva, Katie
Class Robin - Ellie, Lily
Class Finch - Amelia H-B, Aaradyha
Well done to all the PE stars over the last two weeks!
Year Group Updates
Year 3 News
We continue to be amazed by the year 3 children this week.
In maths, we've been continuing our learning on place value thinking about finding 10 and 100 more and less than a number. Using the equipment and working practically in groups has allowed us to discuss our mathematical ideas and has helped us with working independently too.
Our learning on descriptive writing is finishing this week with a description of a final picture from our focus book 'Flotsam' - a beautiful wordless picture book with lots of detailed illustrations.
Science and topic have seen us exploring rocks and investigating different types of settlements and we also loved having some of our parents and carers in for a visit at the beginning of this week too.
We look forward to starting our new English unit next week and finishing off our learning on place value too.
Mrs Lawrence-Davis Y3 Team Leader
Year 3- What are we learning?
Ask your child the following questions to see what they have learnt:
Describe the picture of the aliens from English to me.
How did you build your settlement in topic?
What different phrases would you use to greet someone in French? Which would we use to show more respect?
Name the different types of rock.
Year 4 News
Our year 4 children have been continuing to shine over the last two weeks! We have been furthering our place value learning in maths. Year 4 have done a great job learning Roman numerals!
In English, we have written a story based on the book Way Home by Libby Hathorn. We have been working on using 'show not tell' in our writing. The children have come up with some incredible vocabulary and portrayed their characters brilliantly!
In history, we have dissected Anglo-Saxon poo in order to find out more about how they lived!
We have also been using different materials in electrical circuits to see which are insulators and which are conductors.
Keep up the great work, year 4!
Mrs Barbosa Y4 Team Leader
Year 4- What are we learning?
Ask your child the following questions to see what they have learnt:
What symbols are used to make the numbers up to 100 in Roman numerals?
Explain how conductors and insulators are used around our homes
What are some of the different ways that you can greet someone in French?
Year 5 News
We've had another brilliant couple of weeks in Year 5. The children have thoroughly enjoyed their descriptive writing from the short film, Francis, and have done a great job of using a range of figurative language.
In Maths, we are concluding our work on place value with learning about roman numerals and how to show mastery in our understanding through answering reasoning challenges. Geography has included sketching maps whilst in Science we have learned about phases of the moon using Oreos. We even got to eat them afterwards!
We are very much looking forward to continuing our art project in the coming weeks when we will be making our space tiles!
Miss Moakes Y5 Team Leader
Year 5- What are we learning?
Ask your child the following questions to see what they have learnt:
What is the difference between a metaphor and a simile and can you give an example of each?
Using roman numerals, how would you write your birthday?
Explain the phases of the moon. What is happening to make the moon look smaller and bigger?
Year 6 News
After the fun of head student speeches we were inundated with potential candidates for house and vice captain roles. The standard this year has been so high and we look forward to finding out who has been chosen! There will be more opportunities for leadership positions before the year ends.
Science has been a big hit the last few weeks with our circus of experiments, looking at all different aspects of light including kaleidoscopes and periscopes and even fibre optic cable.
The work on maps has begun in Geography in preparation for Rhos - only a few weeks away and the hope we can give them some skills before they go so they don't get lost !
Miss Johnson Y6 Team Leader
Year 6- What are we learning?
Ask your child the following questions to see what they have learnt:
What types of maps are there ?
What is a periscope and how is it used?
What is the most common error people make when adding decimal numbers ?
Housepoints:
Useful Information For Parents
