Horbury Bridge CE J&I Academy

School is starting to feel very Christmassy! Our decorations are starting to go up in classes and the main entrance and hall, both have beautifully decorated trees.

Christmas Raffle

We will be sending tickets home next week for our Christmas Raffle. We have some exciting prizes including £100 cash prize, Christmas hampers, Meal at Casa Peri Peri, Body Shop basket, Darling Reads gift bag, free haircut, Whisky and lots more. Please support us by encouraging family and friends to buy as many tickets as possible.

Christmas Performances

We are excited that parents will be able to join us this year to see our Christmas Performances.

Foundation Stage and Class 1 will be performing their own versions of the Nativity story on the following dates:

Foundation: Tuesday 7th December and Wednesday 8th December at 9.15am

Class 1: Thursday 9th December at 9.15am and Friday 10th December at 2.00pm

Class 2 and 3 will each have a musical workshop day led by Wakefield Music Service with an after school performance for parents:

Class 2: Wednesday 15th December at 3.45pm

Class 3: Thursday 16th December at 3.45pm

:

The protective measures we are putting in place mean that: tickets are limited to 2 per family; the door will be open for ventilation so wrap up warmly; please wear a face covering and do not attend if you have any symptoms or are feeling unwell. We would also appreciate you taking a lateral flow test on the morning or evening before.

We thank you all for co-operating with these measures so that we can share the performances whilst helping to protect our children, staff and yourselves

We have contacted most parents in Foundation and KS1 to allocate a time. For children in Year 3-6, we will allocate 2 spaces to each family for the relevant performance.

Christmas Dinners

We will be having our Christmas Dinner on Wednesday 15th December and Christmas Party Lunch on Friday 17th December. If your child is normally on sandwiches but would like to have a school dinner for either of the special days , please inform the office via email enquiries@horburybridgeacademy.co.uk .

On our final day of term, children will be having class based celebrations. Party Lunch will be individual portions of party style food and children will be able to wear Christmas jumpers to add to the festive feeling.

Discos

The children are now very excited for the discos and will bring home their ticket on Monday. We will be asking children to handwash at the outside sinks which are connected to the hot water supply . When you drop your child off, please take their coat home with you so we do not have to store these in the hall.

The Discos will be held on the 9th December. Please complete the form if you have not already done so.

LINK TO BOOKING FORM

Tickets will be sent home next week

Staff News

Miss Painter has shared some exciting news with her class today. She is expecting her second child in April. Congratulations to her and her family as they start to prepare for their new arrival.

Mrs Thompson used to be our Foundation Stage teacher and has agreed to step back into this role to cover Miss Painter's maternity leave so that we can ensure the best continuity for the children and their learning.

Foundation Stage

Over the last couple of weeks, Reception have been working very hard in both Forest School and in our creative area to make their very own alien. All of the children selected their own pieces of wood, made holes with support and then constructed their model. When they had finished, inside they added smaller pieces of wood and chose what colours to use to paint them. Take a look at the children's finished masterpieces below.

Class 1

In Class 1 we have completed our owl topic work. The children finished their owl information leaflets together and then swapped with each other to find out about the different owls. We spent some time writing a recount of the owl experience from last Friday. The children thought carefully about sequencing the events and using some powerful descriptive vocabulary. Isaac said at first he felt nervous but a couple of minutes later he felt fine! Ben wrote, 'I went to bed with a happy smile on my face!' and George wrote ' Last week I saw five super owls!'

In our Forest School sessions, we became scientists and dissected owl pellets. We looked carefully with magnifiers at all the bones and matched them to an identification chart to find out what the owls had been eating. We even found skulls and jawbones! See all our photos here Owl Pellet photos

In maths we were challenged to draw snowmen using a range of 2D shapes. We had to make sure we included circles, rectangles, triangles and squares.

On Wednesday 1st December, we were excited to find Dave the Elf was back! He had brought us thirteen presents. He wrote us a note saying that they were Christmas books - one for each day we are at school until we break up for Christmas. Our favourite one so far is 'Father Christmas Needs a Wee!' To celebrate the beginning of December, we made paper chains in our table groups to help decorate our classroom.

Class 2

Class 2 have been getting very musical. Miss Spalding from Wakefield Music Service, has worked with the children each week exploring music linked to robotic sounds and movements. The children have created their own pieces using robotic noises. It has been brilliant to watch the children grow and develop their musical abilities and perform in small groups.

The children have also been learning to sing a song about a friendly robot. He can do the best he can because he is our 'electronic man!'

The children have also been getting used to playing tuned percussion by using the chime bars this half term. They have used them to learn to play some Christmas songs that they hope to perform for you very soon!

Class 3

This week, Class 3 have been learning all about Zimbabwe as a part of a British Council global learning project. The children began by using atlases and online mapping tools to look at the physical features of the country and predict what it might be like there: Where do people live? What jobs do they do? And what do they enjoy doing in their free time?

Next, the children were tasked with choosing 5 pictures that could be used to describe and represent Horbury Bridge and the local area so that our partner schools in Zimbabwe could find out a little bit more about us and what makes us special. They also came up with lots of questions to ask children in Zimbabwe so that they could find out more about their schools, sports and culture.

Finally, the children were asked to share any concerns or issues they had relating to climate change in our area. This was something Year 5/6 were very passionate about and are really looking forward to finding out what children in our link schools are worried about too.