King of the Cross

Our celebration of Christ the King marks the end of the Church's year. It fits remarkably well with the anti-bullying theme too: we hear of Christ mocked and belittled as he hangs on the cross. The key message we are exploring with children this week is that we are all different, that's the way God made us and that's how he intends us to be - so being remembered for our differences is important.

Difference should be an opportunity to celebrate and learn, especially when seen through the lens of the Fundamental British Value of Tolerance. We are a diverse and exciting community (something that we hope to celebrate through our cultural Advent Calendar this year!) We want the children this week to be remembered for their God-given differences.

C - Christ the King

Anti-Bullying Week

Our "Reach Out" anti-bullying theme got off to a colourful start, with odd socks on Monday. This beautifully visual symbol is a powerful reminder that no two of us are the same. Our difference offers us a great opportunity to reach out to each other and celebrate what makes us unique. We were blessed on Tuesday to benefit from a visit from Sammy - a local anti-bullying ambassador (fresh from a morning interview with a national broadcaster!) Sammy helped us to think about the impact of bullying and the need to reach out to the trusted adults around us.

Advent Expert

Year 4 enjoyed some time on Friday with a priest-in-training, Scott. He came to talk with us about the preparations people make for Advent and, in particular, how priests get ready to celebrate the birth of Christ. We learned about the Advent wreath and some special readings for Advent. The children asked some very probing questions and impressed us with their knowledge about the forthcoming season. 6 children then worked with Scott to prepare our class worship next week. We can't wait to see what they produced.

We're going on a...

Reception had a fantastic time travelling through different stations to act out the story, 'We're going on a bear hunt'. They then went on to recreate these on our playground during their learning time! We wove through swishy swashy grass, splashed and sploshed through the river, squelched in mud and stumbled through the forest. We swirled through the whirling snowstorm and tiptoed in the cave until we found ... Can you guess what we found?

It's a Blackout!

As part of our English unit based on the book War Horse by Michael Morpurgo, we asked the children to take an extract and create a blackout poem as a response to Joey's (the horse) first experience on the battlefield. A blackout poem conveys a message through purposefully picking out important and precise vocabulary to create a new message. The technique was first used by Austin Kleon in his Newspaper Blackout Poetry. Poems, sentences or phrases are created from the words of an existing text. Blackout poetry is a form of "found" poetry that allows the poet to use someone else's words to write a poem. Below are some of the incredible responses produced by Year 6; an absolute pleasure to read!

Number Stars!

Following on from last weeks maths week, the children in ladybird class have been really interested in numbers and numerals. We have been playing ‘numberblocks’ games on the computer, looking at the patterns that the numberblocks make as well as how they are arranged. We have also been counting bricks, putting them in a tens frame to identify number patterns and having fun singing numbered nursery rhymes.

Kindness in Year 1

Linking with Anti-bullying week, this week Year 1 have been exploring kind and unkind behaviour, how to show respect to others and how to ask for help if a friendship is making us feel unhappy. Children were challenged with drawing a scenario that they had been in recently that displayed kind behaviour. It was wonderful to see children take on this challenge with ease, many saying that there had been many kind situations just that day that they could draw! A couple also mentioned that an unkind situation had arisen but took time to reflect upon what to do next time.

It's raining, it's pouring...

The rain was a great topic of conversation in Reception on Tuesday! As it poured, the children popped their waterproofs and wellies on to explore the massive puddles forming. We had a great time scooping, pouring and comparing amounts of water we collected in our pots. The children even helped make a rain shelter to keep us dry! However, we had to problem solve as the water kept pooling on top of the tarpaulin. Using brooms, the children brushed the water out. Don’t worry, we have been singing lots of rain songs, to make the rain come back another day! Fingers crossed for drier skies.

Not Alone in Year 2

This week in Year 2, we have been teaching Relationships in PSHE, to align with Anti-bullying Week.

The children have been exploring what makes a good friendship and how to be a good friend to others. Children learned that loneliness does not mean that someone is on their own, but that it is a feeling inside that can come from a number of different actions.

The children enjoyed making the links between Odd Sock Day and the differences we all have as individual people.

Discoveries in Year 4

Year 4 enjoyed celebrating 100 years since finding King Tutankhamun's tomb by crawling through the tunnels (tables) in their classrooms and entering the tomb themselves! They only had 10 seconds inside the tomb before going back to their group to draw what they could see. This was due to the poisonous gases they thought existed inside the tomb.

Pupils then enjoyed analysing the contents and reflecting on why the pharaoh would have been buried with such items (golden sandals, a statue of a servant, a statue of the God Anubis were just some of the items). This will help with their lesson next week where we will be interpreting evidence.

Strike a pose...

This week in Year 3 we have been focusing on the sculptures of Swiss artist, Alberto Giacometti. The children examined a selection of his bronze figures and selected two to sketch. We discussed their exaggerated proportions and the children noted the different poses. They then recreated their own 'strong action poses' to inspire ideas for their own sculptures which they sketched out, selecting their favourite. The first step saw them create a prototype with just foil. When evaluating after, the children concluded that the foil alone was not strong enough to create a free-standing sculpture. We then brainstormed ideas to solve this problem. It was decided that a framework would be beneficial to build the foil around. Using pipe cleaners to form a structure of the figure, the children then embarked on sculpting their final piece. The children encountered some obstacles but showed great resilience in overcoming these to produce their wonderful foil sculptures. These are now on display in the windows of their classrooms.

Celebrating who we are

As part of anti-bullying and PSHE week, Year 5 had the opportunity to celebrate the children's cultures and promote the British value of tolerance. On Tuesday the children came into school wearing clothes which they felt represented their culture, they then spent the afternoon giving presentations on these, teaching others about traditions, languages and more!

Humbug!

St Oscar's Class helped us to see that it can be very easy to be remembered for the wrong reasons - retelling the famous tale of A Christmas Carol. We heard how Scrooge made some very selfish choices and earned a terrible reputation. However, once he had seen the error of his ways, he was eventually remembered for his transformation, much like the criminal on the cross who died alongside Jesus.

Remembered for the right reasons!

Congratulations to Joe, Lyvia, Edward and Rebecca, all of whom are being remembered for the right reasons this week: working hard and diligently following the school rules. Well done and God bless you!

Local Events...

Neurodivergent online course flyer November 22.pdf

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