Dear Parents,
This week we have continued our friendship theme and have thought about what it takes to be a good friend to others and that ‘Two are better than one, because if one falls over the other one will pick him up’ as referred to in Ecclesiastes. We talked about different ways of ‘picking each other up’ or helping friends and came up with caring, listening, respecting, being trustworthy and understanding along with smiling and sharing. When we tried to put these in order of importance, we found it very difficult as we thought that they were all really important in a friend. Thank you to Olivia who shared a prayer for her neighbour, Ava for her lovely picture that showed us lots of ways of being a good friend in the playground. Thank you also to Daisy who shared a beautiful poem about the preciousness of friendship, and to Katie for her prayer for being a good friend:
Dear God,
Please help me be a good friend.
If my friend falls over let me see if they are alright and take them to the teacher.
If someone is lonely help me to be their friend.
If someone is in trouble let me help them.
Help me to be kind to people and understand them.
Thank you for looking after my friends and me.
Amen.
Rabbits Class have been thinking further about God’s creation and have been going outside - looking to see what they like best about our world. They have been busy measuring this week – indoors measuring dinosaur tails and worms using rulers and tape measures. Outside they have been solving a problem to help Roger to cross the playground using a bridge that keeps him off the frost and to help him they created an ingenious bridge made out of crates and wooden blocks.
Otters Class have been learning about money this week, looking at the value of different coins and adding them together to make set amounts, seeing that there are different combinations of coins that can add up to the same amount. In RE they have been learning about how Jesus chose his first disciples from fishermen and they are creating some fish by weaving paper to remind them of this story. They are busy writing their Hansel and Gretel stories in their best handwriting ready to go up as a display in the hall, something for us all to look forward to reading. They have been learning some basics about internet safety such as always asking an adult before using a computer, tablet or phone and to never give details such as name or address, or to make friends online.
On 13th March we are working with Childnet to run a parent workshop for all parents about internet safety at 9am and following this will be a teaching session for years one and two.
Badgers Class have been reading Little Red Riding Hood, exploring the characters and deciding what they would write to them in a letter in response to their actions. Some children wrote to Little Red Riding Hood and advised her to be more careful and to stay away from wolves. Others wrote to the Big Bad Wolf telling him to mend his ways – there has even been a suggestion from Daisy that he maybe could switch from meat to greens
in the future. In maths they have been adding 5 digits together, thinking hard about what maths skills they know already that they can apply to help them to do the additions - such as doubles, number bonds and known facts.
Our staff walking competition has got off to a good start. Everyone is being very creative in finding ways to walk those extra steps, and there is an enthusiasm and sense of team spirit and humour. My dog is doing a lot more steps than she is used to and Sue took a very roundabout walk to get a pint of milk! We are looking forward to getting the children out walking in the fresh air next week for a quick 15 minute jaunt around the common. They will put on their wellies after lunch and get some exercise before going back into their classroom energised and ready for an afternoon’s work. We are all going to be very ready for the upcoming St Matthew’s 5k or 10k run on 21st May. Hopefully you all have this date in your diary to join us in this great community annual event – further information will be coming out next week.
Next week we are starting our RSPB Big Bird Watch. We will talk about it in Monday’s assembly and our eco team will meet with me to sort out resources that will help us to identify local birds and to find ways of attracting them to our environment. In a week or two we hope to have attracted lots of birds to the area around our school so that we can then identify them and do our big bird count, and then send our findings to the RSPB.
Please can I remind parents not to use the staff car park, even if ‘just for a minute or two’ – this is a safety issue and can also cause parking problems for staff who are arriving at lots of different times. The only exception to parents using the staff car park is for after school care club after 5pm.
Well done to Ollie V, Jack W and Thomas M for finishing their sticker charts!
Have a lovely weekend
Mrs Hutt
AWARDS OF THE WEEK
SUPERSTARS
Rabbits: / Loki for amazing RE work and writing in great detail about how he is grateful for the world.Otters: / Rania for always sitting so beautifully and setting such a great example with her amazing listening skills.
Badgers: / Lahna for working really hard in Maths AND English this week.
Enterprise Award
/ R – Isaac and Mylo for not giving up and working incredibly hard on spelling some tricky words.
O – Thomas J for contributing so well in our class discussion and group work on internet safety.
B – Giselle for working so hard in maths this week.
Environment Award
/ R – Loki and Sam for exploring our outside area and investigating the ice outside.
O – Navid for helping tidy up the classroom.
B – All of Badger’s class for great team work tidying all of the playground toys away.
Spiritual & Moral Award
/ R – Ant for describing in great detail what he loves in particular about our world.
O – Jack for being such a lovely friend to everyone in Otters class.
B – Emily for being a great friend at playtimes especially to the Rabbits.
Golden Ticket
/ Bea E and Ollie V in Otters Class
DIARY DATES
Friday 27th January / INSET DAY – staff training day / no school for the childrenGATE DUTY w/c 23rdJanuary 2017, Parents of:
Mon 23rd Mylo W, Tue 24th Keira W, Wed 25th Austin A, Thur 26th Evie B, Fri 27th Natalia B
Notices
Inset Day – If anyone would like childcare on the inset day Friday 27th January, Laura Butler is available. Please contact her on 07875 750509