Tree Tops Primary Academy Newsletter

November 2022

Message from Miss White

Here we are already into our second term. It has been a fantastic start to the beginning of the academic year. We have had numerous trips including the National History Museum, Science Museum, Port Lympne and more ! I am so proud of the children's behaviour when representing our academy.

Tree Tops has become the most popular school locally and we now have waiting lists for spaces across the school. Our school is a calm, kind, happy and successful place where everyone is so proud to be included. Tree Tops pupils are frequently commended on their excellent behaviour when they attend trips and visits outside of school and many visitors to the school have noted how well our children behave and how proud they all obviously are of their school. Our 3 school rules of Be Kind, Work Hard, Expect the Best are at the heart of what we all do and the children love receiving rewards for keeping to the rules and for helping others to keep to them too.

Miss White | Principal

Year 1

In year 1 our inquiry has been - Changes. The children learnt about how our emotions change. We can be happy, angry, sad, calm or scared. We read the story ‘The Colour Monster’ and made colour monsters from salt dough. We have also looked at materials, what we use them for and how they change. We built houses for a teddy to see if we could keep him dry by building the houses out of the correct material to make them waterproof.

Year 3

Year 3 have been learning all about the stone age. We have learned all about their homes, and how they changed over time, how they hunted for, gathered their food, how they made their clothes and also weapons. We have used what we have learned to build our own stone ages dwellings, create cave art based on our favourite things, and even made and tasted some stone age themed food.

The book we have been reading is 'Stone age boy' and we have done lots of work around this. We had a go at writing our own stories, based on this, but using ourselves as the main character, and including everything we knew about the stone age.

Magpie class did a trip to the Tate Modern in London.We chose sculptures and pieces of art to draw on to our special art cubes.

Year 4

Year 4 enjoyed a trip to Port Lympne in September. This was to support their work on habitats. The children enjoyed seeing the animals and they even went on safari when we saw Eastern Black Rhinos, Red Lechwes, Giraffes, Ostriches, Antelopes and more! It was a long day but a fantastic trip and the children were brilliantly behaved as always.

To further support their learning on habitats, year 4 also went bug hunting and made bird feeders.

Year 5

We are reading a book called Street Child. It is about a boy in the Victorian Era who lost his mother and sisters, lived in the Workhouse, escaped it and now is trying to escape an cruel, abusive man called Grimy Nick who enslaved him.

Nightingale class do weekly book reviews and currently are doing a challenge where they need to read a challenging book (like ones that have new words for our vocabulary, for example the book “When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit” or “Britain’s Secret Islands'').

Some opinions from other students in Nightingale -

“It is a truly interesting book with many surprises ,” said Daniel.

Ella reviewed the “extremely interesting book and would highly recommend it”.

“It gives people an idea of what it was like in the Victorian Era and that it is a good idea to read it,” said Hussain.

“It shows very good detail on how the Victorian times were and what the lower classes and upper classes were like,” said Azariah-Jayden.

Lola said, “I’ve read better books, it isn’t bad though, I would recommend it.”

In Art, they have been learning about Joseph Turner and other Victorian artists. They have been inspired by Turner’s art pieces, which are landscapes. Woodpecker class has been doing our own landscape drawings, using the outdoor learning environment of our school. Turner was born on the 23rd April 1795 in Covent Garden, London. His full name is Joseph Malford William Turner and he died on the 19th December 1851 in Chelsea, London. His parents were Mary Marshall and William Turner. He is known as ‘The Painter of Light’. We have also been inspired by William Morris, who made wallpaper based on nature because people missed the countryside when they moved to the cities.

Year 6

This term we were going to go on a school trip but sadly it got cancelled because of the death of Queen Elizabeth and the fact that London would have been very busy, it would have been very difficult to keep everybody safe and we would have ended up sitting in traffic for hours. We were all very sad for the Queen.

Hawks and Osprey are reading “Pig Heart Boy”. It’s about a boy called Cameron who had a disease like Covid-19 but it never went away so his heart was suffering from it and he has been picked for the very first heart transplant from a pig. Cameron’s mum and dad are always arguing about whose fault is for his heart because it must be one of the family members. We can’t wait to keep reading and find out if the operation is successful! We really hope it is!

In P.E, we are learning football and linking our PE to our reading book and science learning about the heart! The heart has 4 chambers; it pumps blood all around the body; it is usually about the size of your fist clenched together. We have used our learning to write a story about how red blood cells go around the body. We have planned a healthy meal that we are going to cook. Healthy doesn't mean just fruit and vegetables though, it means a balanced meal which contains all of the important food groups in the recommended proportions.

Blue Bird's Community Cafe

Blue Bird's Community Cafe runs once a week, on Thursday, from 8.45am - 10.30 am . We provide hot and cold drinks and snacks for a small donation. Toys available for small children to play with while you have a chat with your friends. We are very lucky to have it managed by one of our parents.

We are hoping for members of the community to hold 'surgeries' in the coming weeks. Keep an eye on our social media for more information.

With Immediate Effect We Are A Nut Free School

We have a number of children who have a severe, potentially life threatening nut allergies. The school is therefore now with immediate effect a NUT FREE zone. Please ensure that your child does not bring any nuts or food items to school which have nuts as a listed ingredient, thank you.

Absences/late arrivals

It is really important that children are in school every day.

All absences are being marked as unauthorised and could result in a fine.

Olive Dining

School dinners cost £2.45 a day (£12.25 a week) and Olive Dining have asked that this is paid on a Monday. Menus can be found on our website. Please pay in advance via the MCAS app.

Reminder:

Please only send in healthy lunches. No sweets and chocolate are allowed in school. Water only in bottles