Awake for Christ

Happy New Year! - This week we looked ahead to the First Sunday of Advent, the start of the Church's year. As we move into liturgical Year B (Mark's Gospel) we also see our seasonal colour change from green to purple. Purple represents a time of waiting and preparation.

In this week's Gospel, Jesus warns his disciples, "Stay awake!" He has spent time explaining to them the nature of God's Kingdom, and now he reminds them that God will one day return - the second Advent. We too spend time remaining alert and awake to Jesus' arrival, not just in the celebration of Christmas but in the anticipation of his coming again.

Advent traditions, like calendars and wreaths, are a brilliant way to demonstrate to children how we can stay awake and alert this December, ready to welcome Christmas and ready to welcome back Christ.

B - 1st Advent

Netball News

Congratulations to all of our Year 6 netball players who have been so committed and determined in their pursuit of success over many seasons. Here is a team photo from the Wey Valley indoor netball tournament last Friday afternoon. The team came 2nd out of nine schools competing and all of the girls represented the school beautifully.

All Greek to me!

Year 4 had a fantastic day learning about all things Greek! This morning the children came in excited for the day ahead dressed in their traditional Greek clothes. The children started with having the opportunity to taste a variety of Greek foods including feta cheese, greek honey yoghurt and olives. Mixed feelings were had about the different foods! After break, we learnt about Greek writing and how letters and sounds were formed before moving onto using an abacus to count and try to solve maths calculations. In the afternoon, all of Year 4 enjoyed an active session led by The Rainbow Theatre Company. The children learnt about a number of different Greek Myths through drama. A brilliant day was had by everyone.

Feel the stretch

This term in Science, Year 2 have been learning about materials and their properties. The children have been investigating the best materials for different purposes. This week saw us investigating the best materials for a gymnastics class. The children had to stretch and twist different fabrics including t-shirts, towels, leggings and shirts. We made predictions before our investigation and then all concluded that leggings were certainly better as they were the most stretchy and they take their original shape back after stretching.

Beware the Bear!

On Wednesday a sea of bears entered Reception, the children had put on their furry ears and packed their bear hunting supplies!

After looking at the last page of the book (We're Going On A Bear Hunt) Reception children realised that the bear was lonely and just wanted to be friends. The bear left us a clue and then we set off to find him. The clues took us all over the school, until finally we arrived back in our classroom where we found our bear and some special bear biscuits!

The children had so much fun and it created such a buzz and love for storytelling.

Advent Preparations

This week in Year 3's RE lessons we discussed "preparing for the Lord"; this phrase comes from the prophet Isaiah and we talked about how we would need to prepare our hearts and have no obstacles in the way of letting God into our heart. We then looked at Jesus' family tree and made our own class Jesse trees - remembering Jesus' ancestors - where we drew the symbols for each member onto a bauble. Our Jesse trees are proudly displayed on our classroom doors for everyone passing to see!

Tap-tastic!

Congratulations to Lucie for tapping along for charity this week! Her dance school participated along with many others nationwide, in a World Record attempt Tapathon in aid of Children in Need. The aim was to have the most people dancing the same routine, at the same time, to the same piece of music (Wham) across the country.

We know that collectively they have raised in excess of £35,000, we are awaiting to hear from the Guinness Book of Records if they have been successful. Good luck!

Tech-know

In Computing, Year 1 have been exploring technology around us. First, we posed the question, "What is technology?" and the children quickly came to the conclusion that technology was iPads, phones, computers, tablets. Once we explored the definition 'technology is anything made by people to help us', we realised that it went much wider than that! Technology can include pencils, glue sticks and even chairs!

After this, we started to explore the different parts of a computer before learning how to use a trackpad on a Chromebook. Further practice with the trackpad led to some wonderful pictures created...

Mary, Mother of God

This year in Year 6, we have embarked on a fresh and inspiring new RE curriculum under the careful and diligent guidance of our Diocese. It has been a real privilege to see the children getting excited for their RE lessons and the focus for us during this half term has been on the Old Testament promises and more recently how Mary played her part in the fulfilment of those promises. This week, we reflected upon Mary’s title of Mother of God (Theotokos) and what this means for us, as she is also our mother. We learned that in the early church, special artworks called icons were made that held lots of symbolism and meaning that helped to teach people about the Gospels and the faith. This tradition was very important for the early Church - but in later years the western Church lost some of the importance of these images. Today the Catholic Church is beginning to return to this most important tradition - encouraged by Pope John Paul II - to learn what icons and our eastern orthodox brethren can teach us. One of the most prevalent icon images is that of Mary as Mother of God and we can learn a great deal about her role from the meaning of these icons. The children took time to reflect on one particular icon and created their very own guide to its symbolism.