Dear Parents/Carers,

This week it has been British Science Week. The whole week has been full of exciting investigations, experiments and bringing Science to life. I would like to say a huge thank you to Mrs Ryan for very kindly giving up her time and making this week such a memorable one. There has been such a buzz around the school and the children have enjoyed telling me all about their learning. This week demonstrates the importance of curriculum enrichment and providing hands on, experiential learning. Our hope is such weeks will spark curiosity and provide inspiration that impact future vocations.

Thank you for everyone who attended parent/carer consultations this week. I hope you all found them useful and I would also like to give thanks to all of the staff for all of their efforts that go into supporting your children to grow and develop each day. 

On Thursday, Year 1&2 enjoyed a very exciting visit to Ashridge where they explored woodland habitats, going on a minibeast hunt, creating bug hotels, measuring trees and also enjoying the beautiful surroundings. This trip supported the children to further their learning in Science.

Have a restful weekend.

With best wishes,

Mr M. Beach

Headteacher

🗓️Things happening next week:

• Monday- Y3&4 Verulamium Museum Visit

• Friday-  EYFS and Y1&2 Forest School PM

A few polite reminders:

• Please ensure your contact details are up-to-date and correct. We are unable to change this directly but approve any changes that are made. It is so important these details are correct should we need to contact you. 

• Bookings for Breakfast & After School club must please be pre-booked on Arbor. This is especially important as we must ensure that staff to child ratios are safely adhered to.

• If your child is going home with someone else other than a parent/carer, for safeguarding reasons please ensure the office are informed of this in writing ahead of time.

• Please ensure your child is collected from After School Club on time. Please be aware that in line with our Wrap Around Procedure and our Charging and Remissions Policy, we do apply a charge of £10 per 15 minutes for a late collection after 5:00pm. If you have booked until 4:30pm, late collections will incur the charge until 5:00pm.

Whole school attendance this week: 97.2%

Overall attendance so far this year: 94.6%

Well done to Early Years  for the highest attendance this week with an incredible 99%

We are also pleased to share that every class attendance was above 95% over the last week which is excellent. Well done everyone!

All absences must be reported to the school either by leaving an absence message (Option 1) or emailing Mrs Redman (Pastoral Support/Attendance Lead) via absence@greatgaddesden.herts.sch.uk

We politely ask that if you plan to take your child out during school time, a leave of absence form is completed. For appointments, we ask where possible that these are not during the school day. If this is not avoidable, please kindly share the relevant information for this appointment in order for us to be able to authorise this.

Please note: in line with the statutory guidance from the Department for Education which is reflected in our attendance policy, we are unable to authorise term time holiday.

Guidance: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/working-together-to-improve-school-attendance 

On Monday, Mrs Slater, our Co-Science Lead, lead an exciting assembly to introduce Science week and share the timetable of exciting activities.  

In the afternoon, it was Year 5/6's turn for their Science session. Their learning about the Circulatory System through the dissection of a lambs heart. There was lots of curiosity and great questions being asked.

Mrs Ryan said:

"I was amazed at how mature the students were for the dissection of the hearts. They were inquisitive, asked lots of questions and followed instructions perfectly well. I think they even handled it better than most GCSE students do. All of the children who participated got to experience hands-on live science, to understand how the heart works and what it looks like."

On Tuesday, it was Year 3&4's turn who enjoyed taking part in a chromatography experiment exploring seperating of colours.

Mrs Ryan said:

"The children seemed to really enjoy their activity: separating colours. They showed true scientific inquisition, experimenting with different colours to create different patterns on their chromatograms. I was very impressed! They were also very independent; once they knew the procedure to carry out the practical, they were able to complete more, on their own!"

And the excitement continued with some amazing home learning!

On Wednesday, it was Year 1&2's turn who were very excited to make their own bath bombs! Their classroom smelt delightful at the end of the day!

Mrs Ryan said:

"It was so lovely to see the children enthused and excited about making their bath bombs. They asked fantastic questions, made brilliant scientific observations and worked patiently and safely during the experiment. They came up with a set of safety rules all by themselves covering all aspects of safety, such as wearing goggles and not putting anything in their mouths. I really hope they will enjoy seeing their bath bomb in use over the weekend."

On Thursday , it was Early Years' turn who were really enjoyed making their very own lava lamps!

Mrs Ryan said:

"I was worried that I wouldn’t prepare an activity engaging enough for such young children however every single child was amazed at their own LavaLamp, fully engaged in every part of the activity and loved their creation. The children observed difference of densities in oil and water, correctly used vocabulary to describe observations such as sinking and floating, described objects in relation to maths such as semicircle and that two semicircles make a whole circle, carried out the practical safely and carefully and they absolutely loved counting down from 5 to place their tablet into their lava lamp. A really impressive observation was also made by one girl who correctly described the tablet as 'dissolving”'  They really impressed me "

The children also enjoyed exploring making craters on the moon with an exciting tuff tray activity!

The week ended with some very exciting experiements outside! The children were told that these experiments are not to be attempted at home!

Below are some ideas kindly shared by Mrs Ryan that you might like to try out at home with your child(ren).

Year 3 and 4 are having an exciting end to the Spring Term!

The text that we have been focusing on in our English lessons is ‘Sparky’ by Jenny Offhill and Chris Appelhans.

‘Sparky is a sloth.  A pet sloth.  And sloths don’t know how to fetch.  Or roll over. But they sure know how to play dead.  What’s an eager pet owner to do?’

So far we have researched facts about Sloths and written fact files about them.  We will be moving on to discussing common themes in different stories, using fronted adverbials in sentences and writing our own narratives about an animal.

In Maths, we started a new unit all about ‘Shape.’  So far we have learnt about different turns including whole, half, quarter and three quarter turns and we have used the vocabulary ‘clockwise’ and ‘anti-clockwise’ to describe movement.  We have also identified obtuse, acute and right angles and ordered them by size.

Today, we took part in a Speed Stacking festival hosted by Westfield School 

Next Monday we will be going on a trip to Verulamium to consolidate our knowledge and understanding of the Romans.

Awards we are working towards

House Points