Y5 were treated to an afternoon at the theatre on Monday 14th February, as they were invited to watch the dress rehearsal of "Matilda" at Furze Platt Senior School. It has been a while since we have visited our senior school partners, due to covid of course, and we were incredibly amazed by the fantastic new theatre and the high quality production. The set was fantastic, the lighting, special effects and choreography were also top class and we forgot we were only visiting a secondary school show- we could have been in the West End! It was also brilliant to see some familiar faces taking part from our ex-students. Hopefully, the visit will have given our Y5's a great insight to all that the senior school has to offer when they move on from the juniors.

"This house believes cats are better than dogs" - What I can hear some of you cry or maybe you agree ? This was the topic for our debate in year 6 on Tuesday as the semi-finals of the debate house competition took place. Each team of 2 had to prepare both sides of the debate and a toss of a coin decided who would debate who and the order. Some fantastic speeches followed and the winning houses will now go on to debate in the final early next term.

Ancient Greek Day has been a huge success! The children came to school looking excellent in their ancient Greek outfits and got involved in lots of hands on activities. These included tasting a variety of Greek foods and learning more about the food the ancient Greeks would have eaten. Particular favourites included the figs and feta cheese. Some of the children were less fond of the olives!

We also explored a variety of ancient Greek artefacts including vases, plates, coins and masks. The children studied these and researched what they could be and who might have used them. This included determining if the artefacts were primary or secondary sources. Following this they then created an evidence file to explain the importance of each of the artefacts.

Finally, the children learnt that the Olympic games are thought to have started in 776BC in Olympia as a religious festival in honour of the king of the gods, Zeus. They then took part in some of the events that would have taken place during the time of the ancient Greeks. These included shot put, sprints, discuss and javelin.

The children have thoroughly enjoyed our history unit and have leant a lot about the skills needed to become a historian. We are looking forward to revisiting these skills when we start our unit on the Mayans in the summer term.

On Wednesday 9th February, year 4 had a visit from Al Sylvester. Al spent years in the RAF mountain rescue service and has also visited Mt Aconcagua, Mt Everest and even ventured across the South Pole. Listening to Al was a fascinating experience for us all. He told us about his 3 visits to Everest base camp in 2003, 2012 and 2017. He showed us the facilities that are available in different places on Everest and how he sometimes had to go to the toilet in a hole on the floor! We were able to make strong comparisons to Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay’s climb in 1953 and saw how difficult this must have been without the modern day equipment that Al Sylvester has been able to use.

Al told us how important religion is to the Nepalese people and how Mount Everest is a ‘messiah’ to them and is even called Mother Goddess of the Earth.

We were shown pictures of Al's arrival in Lukla on a small plane and his landing on the scariest runway in the world! It was amazing to see how scary the expedition can be before even setting foot on Mount Everest.

It was so interesting to hear about how important it is to acclimatise when climbing the mountain in order to avoid altitude sickness and Al explained very clearly how this acclimatisation process is the reason that it takes approximately 2 months to climb Mount Everest as a climber has to make so many stops along the way and spend time getting used to the lack of oxygen.

It really was a great talk from a really inspirational individual!

As part of World Book Day, our teaching teams have planned a range of book related activities throughout the day to enjoy. Children may dress up on world book day or wear something of a “hint” of a character e.g. a hat, glasses or prop, but this is entirely optional and there is no expectation to do so.

We would also like to encourage children to take part in our half term inter-house competition linked to World Book Day. This year we would like children to get really creative with a potato and turn it into a book character! Please bring any entries to school clearly labelled with the child’s name and class and the book character and hand to the class teacher. Each teacher will choose the top 3 from each class who will win house points for the inter-house competition. There will also be a special prize for the overall winners of each year group. Entries need to come into school by Thursday 3rd March.

School Council Update

The FPJS School council are working towards the Eco Schools Green flag - an internationally recognised accreditation that celebrates the ecological achievements of young people. We have had to survey the school on 10 different criteria including litter, energy usage, how we care for our school grounds and healthy living. Once the School Council have analysed the results we will be forming an action plan and hope to share this with you early next term. In the meantime we have been looking at top tips to help you save energy saving and recycling tips you might want to try at home:

• Remembering to turn your appliances off standby mode can help you save electricity!

• From drink bottles, to food bottles and even beauty product bottles – they can all go into your recycling bin! You can also recycle tubs and pots that are plastic as well.

It's been busy, busy. busy in year 3!

Our English lessons have seen us finishing our stories on Tarragon the Dragon Slayer and moving onto fables. First, we practiced our ability to re-tell the story of The Lion and the Mouse from memory before moving on to write our own version of the 3 Little Rain Drops.

In maths, we have been learning about measurement, length and perimeter. We've learnt that perimeter is the distance all the way around the outside and have been using cm and mm to measure items inside and outside the classroom.

We have been learning more about the similarities and differences between the UK and Italy in topic, thinking about how the topology and temperature are different and what our life might be like if we lived there.

Our afternoons have also been filled with learning on magnets and pulleys as well as investigating friction and seeing how far a toy car can travel in science as well as creating our own spectacular Georgia O'Keeffe inspired watercolour paintings.

Everyone in year 3 has given 100% this term and we are so proud of them all. Enjoy a well deserved rest and we'll see you back and re-energised after the holidays!

Mrs Lawrence-Davis Y3 Team Leader

It has been another jam packed few weeks in year 4!

We have enjoyed a visit from Al Sylvester MBE (a mountaineering expert), we have created our own lands in English, completed scientific investigations to find out the best materials to muffle sound and learnt about climates in different mountain ranges!

Our persuasive writing unit has been a really enjoyable one. Based upon the book 'Weslandia' by Paul Fleischman, each child has created their own 'Landia' and written persuasively to encourage people to visit. Some of them sound incredible!

We have learnt lots about improper fractions as well as adding and subtracting fractions in maths. Using dominoes, we learnt to convert between mixed numbers and improper fractions.

In science, we have been carrying out a range of fun investigations to look at how sound travels through solids, liquids and gases as well as how to muffle sound in order to protect our ears.

The children in year 4 have worked so hard this half term. We hope they enjoy a well deserved break, in preparation for a fun-filled term 4!

Mrs Barbosa Y4 Team Leader

With such a jam-packed few weeks, it's hard to know where to start! What with musical writing, decimals in maths, internet safety in computing and re-creating famous pieces of artwork, it's been amazing that we've been able to fit in our trip to the senior school to see Matilda and Ancient Greek Day! So, as we have been focusing on summarising in our reading lessons, here is my summary of two of the "best bits" of the last few weeks.

We've had a fantastic term of science experiments which have all been focused on discovering the properties of materials. This has been rounded off with each of the children making their own scented and colourful bath bomb to take home. We have very much enjoyed the Seesaw photos and videos showing the irreversible, chemical change taking place when the bath bomb was placed in water.

We are also now coming to the end of our history unit on the Ancient Greeks. The children have been developing both their historical research and presentation skills by going on a fact finding mission about Alexander the Great before presenting their research using the app of their choice. Greek Day was also a huge success, more about this elsewhere in the newsletter. Thankfully, the children still have the opportunity to explore and enjoy the Greeks further by completing their homework during the half term holidays!

Wishing you all a relaxing half term break.

Miss Moakes, Y5 Team Leader