Newsletter - June 2022

Dear Parents and Carers,

It has been another few busy and exciting weeks at St Helen's. Below we share with you some of those moments. Please remember that you can also see updates on the school website News & Events page.

This term many children have been through assessments to measure their progress. The children have all worked extremely hard and tried their best and we are extremely proud of all they have achieved. Year 2 & 6 completed their SATs assessments, Year 1 took the Phonics Screening Check and Year 4 the Multiplication Check. Other year groups have been assessed by their teachers.

One of the highlights of this term was having the swimming pool in school. Our swimming teachers; Miss Morgan, Miss Cascayan and Miss Miranda, worked so hard to ensure that all of the pupils experienced the pool, as well as ensuring that Year 5 pupils made amazing progress the National Curriculum Objectives. We will continue to fund raise and work hard to ensure we have the pool next summer too!

Reminders

As we approach the end of term, children still need to wear their school uniform and school shoes. Grey shorts and summer dresses are encouraged.
Children should bring a water bottle to school each day as well as a cap and sun cream!
We have noticed an increase in packed lunches this term and have noticed that these sometimes contain sweets! Sweets and fizzy drinks are not permitted for packed lunches, this includes school trips. If you need help and advice on healthy packed lunches, please let us know and we can assist you.
Thank you to all of those who park safely at the schools gates when dropping off or collecting. Please can we remind you all, for the safety of all of the pupils, parents and staff, please do not park on the yellow zig-zag lines, near the zebra crossing or in front of car park gates.

Upcoming Dates

Please join us for these upcoming events

Sports Day - KS2 Monday 27th June / Rec & KS1 Thursday 30th June - from 9:15am
Arts Weeks Carnival - Tuesday 28th June - from 9:15am
Year 6 End of Year Production - Friday 8th July 6pm
End of Term Mass - Friday 15th July - Convent Chapel 9:15am

We have some Educational Visits coming up this term. We are always grateful for volunteers. If you are able to volunteer to assist on one of these visits, please do let the office or class teachers know.

Transition Day

On Monday 4th July, the year 6 pupils will be off on a transition day with the other Catholic Primary schools in Newham. A day to celebrate all they have achieved, and celebrate the next chapter they are about to embark on. They will have activities throughout the day and finish with a Mass.

The rest of the pupils will be in school, spending the day with their new Teachers and Teaching Assistants for September.

As always, we thank you for your support.

With love and blessings to you and your families

Miss Doherty xx

Jubilee Celebrations

To celebrate the Queen's Platinum Jubilee, we spent the week looking at the history of our Monarch and learning about each decade she has been on the throne for. We ended our week with a special Mass of Thanksgiving, afternoon tea and games whilst dressed as Kings & Queens or in our party clothes!

Thanksgiving Mass

Dressed to Impress

Afternoon Tea

Activities

Highlights from Nursery

Repeating Patterns

We had such fun doing this the first time, we asked our teachers if we could do it again. Demonstrating our understanding of repeating patterns by making fruit kebabs. We loved trying new fruits, some of the blueberries were sour, we pulled a funny face.

Remote Control Toys

Look at the fun we had programming our remote control toys. We learnt to recognise and make connections between the control and making car or bug move purposefully. We laughed a lot as we learnt through trial and error all the different buttons that steer the toys in different directions.

Highlights from Reception

Doubling

To help the reception children learn how to double, they used digestive biscuits, icing and smarties.

However many smarties were given to them; they had to double the amount and stick them onto their biscuit.

The children were all very confident with doubling numbers to 10. They especially enjoyed eating their hard work!

Halving

The children have been learning about halving. The children were set a sharing task to see if they could share a picnic basket between them equally and fairly. They then enjoyed their picnic food!

Highlights from Year 2

History

Year 2 met with Florence Nightingale and found out all about her childhood, her career as a nurse and all of her achievements. One of her biggest challenges was making improvements at the Scutari Hospital during the Crimean War. She valued her nurses and her friend Mary Seacole who was also passionate about her vocation as a nurse. The children engaged in role play and discussed how hospitals and nursing have changed.

Art

Year 2 have been using watercolours to create pictures. The children practised making splatter marks to make their pictures more dynamic, using brush strokes to represent animal fur and explored the different effects of watercolour paint on wet and dry paper.

Highlights from Year 3

Design Technology

These are pictures of 3B making their mechanisms for DT. They were looking at a simple mechanism of how the peg moves around the central pivot. It gave the image of an animal opening and closing its mouth. This would lead into creating the pop-up books.

Highlights from Year 4

Science

To end the unit electricity children created a circuit making sure they had connected the parts correctly to light a bulb! They challenged themselves to add switches, motors and extra bulbs to their circuits and checked they all worked.

Design Technology

Children used their artistic skills to draw a cross section of a torch. They recapped prior learning by labelling their diagrams with scientific vocabulary for the torch parts.

Music

All children in Year 4 have been learning how to play the recorder. They have made amazing progress this year. They’ve learnt five notes and are able to play their pieces musically. They performed at our school concert last term, showcasing their work. Soon, some children will be taking their Copper Music Medals, so they’re working very hard towards this award.

Highlights from Year 5

Judaism - Jewish Museum Visit

Year 5 had an amazing visit to the Jewish Museum in Camden. We had a series of interactive and multi-sensory workshops. This encouraged us to learn about the vibrancy of Jewish religion and culture today. We also explored Judaism through key objects, contemporary films and guided discussions to understand what it means to be Jewish in Britain today.

We also discovered the story of the Exodus from Egypt through storytelling and the symbolism of the Seder plate. We learnt why Jewish people eat matzah (unleavened bread) during the week of Passover and why Seder night is different from all other nights.

Highlights from Year 6

Residential Visit - PGL Shropshire

Year 6 enjoyed a fun filled week in Shropshire, taking part in a huge range of activities!

Celebrating Achievements Outside of School

Karate

Earlier this year, Kaira also won two trophies at her Karate Competitions. She trains twice a week and works extremely hard. We are so proud of her and hope that she continues to shine and develop in her skills!

Music

Emily has been working hard to achieve well in both her piano and violin lessons. She practises throughout the week and works very hard. This weekend she had a recital and was awarded her certificates.

Watch Emily play the Piano here

Watch Emily play the Violin here

Chess

Mary took part in a chess tournament at the weekend and won Check and Mate Chess Tournaments.

Latvian Culture Day

Mary and her brother Eduards (a past pupil) took part in a Cultural Day, to celebrate the Midsummer Festival!