Coming up in this edition of the newsletter...
- Ofsted visit
- All things Christmas... including a visit from the man himself...
- After School 'Book Look' and the next Learning Conversation Evenings
- School discos
- Parent Council update
What an interesting week at Friars!
As you know, on Monday we received a call to say that the school would be inspected on Tuesday and Wednesday. I spoke to the inspector on the phone across the Monday afternoon telling her lots of things about the school ahead of her arriving to us at 8:00am the following morning. Across the two days, the inspector saw lots of learning, popped out at break and lunchtimes, watched an assembly, talked to children, staff and parents (as well as reading surveys), explored children’s books and other work, amongst many other things. She even enjoyed a Christmas lunch in the hall sat with the children on Wednesday.
We really enjoyed the opportunity to show off our school and we wish we could tell you more but we have to keep tight-lipped until the report comes out in January. One thing I must say is just how impressed the inspector was with the children. She used some lovely words to describe them and their behaviour. We weren’t surprised by this 😊. Thank you to everyone who spoke with the inspector or managed to complete the parent survey.
Our Christmas events continued across the week with the Year 1 nativity on Tuesday, the Nursery Winter Wonderland and Christmas lunch on Wednesday as well as the Year 2 nativity yesterday. Thank you for supporting all of our wonderful family Christmas events over the past three weeks and thank you to the children and staff for pulling these altogether. It takes a lot of hard work. Another thing the inspector said was that she had a sense of the family feel of the school. We felt very proud when she said that!
Today, we had a very special visitor in school... Father Christmas! He gave every child a present and had presents to give each class too. Thank you to Father Christmas and his friends (the Friars PTA).
Only four days of school next week as there is no school on Friday. Enjoy the weekend and see you on Monday.
Mr. Chris McClay, Principal
After School 'Book Look' and the next Learning Conversation Evenings
On Wednesday 22nd January there will be an opportunity to visit your child's classroom and look at their books and other learning. The school will be open between 3:30pm and 5:00pm so please feel free to pop along later if you wish. The children will no doubt love telling you all about their work. More information will follow when we return in the New Year.
The spring Learning Conversation Evenings will be held on Wednesday 19 March and Thursday 20 March. More information will follow straight after the February half-term.
School Discos
A parent this week asked about school discos. We are pleased to share that we are planning school discos for later in the school year. The PTA are going to kindly help with the organisation of these. Please don't forget that the PTA are always looking for new members to help run events like these. If you would like to be involved, please let us know. Thank you.
Parent Council
Thank you to the parents who expressed an interest in being a member of a new Parent Council. Unfortunately, at this time we have had too few responses to enable us to reform. We will revisit the idea of Parent Council later this academic year.
Diary Dates
December
- Tuesday 17th - Christmas Reading and Carol Service
- Wednesday 18th - Singalong Assembly
- Thursday 19th - Last Day of Term
- Nursery Christmas Party (in the morning session)
- Friday 20th - INSET Day
- Monday 23rd - Friday 3rd January - Christmas Break
January 2025
- Monday 6th - Children Return to School
Nursery
What a very Christmassy week we have had in Nursery this week. Our Winter Wonderland was a great success, thank you to those who joined us. We are sure you will agree that the children sang beautifully and enjoyed every minute of making festive crafts to take home. We also enjoyed Christmas dinner and wearing our Christmas jumpers, which the children just loved talking to us about.
This half term the children have learnt 6 new phonemes, s,a,t,p,i,n, which we practice daily. Next term we will use these to orally segment and blend simple words, such as s-a-t, p-a-t, t-a-p. Please remember this is all taught through fun, interactive games for short periods of time within our group session, so children will pick this up at different paces.
Reception
Thank you to everyone who came to our Winter Wonderland afternoon; it was lovely to see so many parents and all the children enjoying the fun crafts.
Our maths sessions have focused on the properties of squares and rectangles, identifying them in our environment and folding paper to make each of the shapes.
We have also been thinking about day and night and sorting the things that we do at different times.
We have spoken about how to care for living things and generated a range of questions for the spider in "Aaaarrgghh, Spider!"
Our phonics sessions have revised 'ng', 'nk'and “sh”, along with the tricky words “of” and “push”.
The children looked fantastic in their Christmas jumpers on Wednesday for our delicious Christmas lunch.
Today Father Christmas came to visit us – which was very exciting!
Year 1
Another busy week in Year 1! We are so proud of the children for their wonderful nativity performances on Tuesday. We hope you enjoyed the performance, if you were able to attend. On Wednesday, the children enjoyed wearing their Christmas clothes and some of us tucked into a tasty Christmas lunch.
In English, we have continued with the story - The Jolly Postman. We have been writing and asking questions to the Jolly Postman and even received a letter from Goldilocks! The children then replied with their own letter, using the address and date at the top, before answering her questions and writing some of their own!
In maths, we have continued work on subtraction and addition. We have been using a number line to help us work out the answers.
Year 2
What an exciting and busy week we have had in Year 2! We enjoyed our Christmas dinner and wearing our Christmas jumpers on Wednesday. Year 2 definitely had the most festive Christmas jumpers! We had our Wiggly Nativity this week and hope that our audience enjoyed it just as much as the children enjoyed performing. We have some aspiring singers in Year 2.
In English, 2S and 2W had a very special visitor - an elf! The children were tasked with writing instructions for the elf so that he could learn how to make a hand puppet. The elf has now returned to the North Pole with his bag full of instructions. Mrs Snow received a phone call from the elf to let her know that he successfully made his own hand puppet and wanted to thank the children for writing such detailed instructions! As well as helping the elf, the children used their instructions to help them to make their hand puppets. We used our sewing skills to make and decorate the hand puppets, which we designed in our D&T lessons.
In maths this week, we have been learning all about shape. The children went on a shape hunt in the classroom and decided if shapes were 2-D or 3-D. We then counted the vertices and sides of a shape and learnt how to use this information to identify the name of a shape.
Year 3
To begin with....
We thoroughly enjoyed the Christmas lunch we had on Wednesday, and it was delicious as always. Of course, wearing the Christmas jumpers made it feel even more Christmassy with us all singing along to Christmas songs in the hall whilst we ate!
Then finished off by getting a visit from a very special person on Friday – we couldn't believe it when we saw Father Christmas in school....
In between all the festivities we got to watch the Year 1 nativity which was amazing.
In English, we have been writing persuasive letters to a pharmacy explaining why they should purchase and stock out medicine boxes.
In maths, we have finished our multiplication and division unit, so we are revisiting our learning from the Autumn term.
In science, we looked at animal skeletons and how they have been adapted to help them move around. We then matched the different animals to their skeleton.
Lastly, in music the children have learnt how to play the recorder to The Eye of The Tiger and have made great steps in playing the recorder to the trickier song of Jingle Bells. For those parents that would love to facilitate the learning of recorders or have children that would like to continue playing at home, they can be purchased from places like Amazon and there are a range of video clips on YouTube on how to play them.
Year 4
What a fantastic week in Year 4. We had such great fun with our Christmas celebrations this week. We had our annual Christmas lunch on Wednesday and went to visit Father Christmas on Friday! Who would have thought the big man himself had time to come and visit us in Shoebury? We were very grateful for our lovely gifts.
We also got to see the Year 1 nativity earlier in the week which was just wonderful – we enjoyed the catchy songs!
In English, we continued building skills leading up to our poetry. We looked at the unique form of Haikus. It was tricky to write lines with the strict form of 5 syllables, then 7 syllables and 5 syllables, but we managed. We used our story How To Train Your Dragon for stimulus for the topic of our poems.
In maths, we continued with revision after taking our NFER tests. We recapped place value, rounding and more.
In history, we had great fun using the Bayeux Tapestry as a source of information and we matched up statements to the events portrayed in the segments. We also looked at Jewish Pilgrimage to Jerusalem in RE. In art, we continued with our Batik, which we are LOVING.
Year 5
What a fantastic penultimate week we have had in Year 5! 5SW completed their sessions of outdoor learning with Mr Brady. The children thoroughly enjoyed their lessons as always.
We continued with our unit on poetry in English. This week, the students were inspired to write their own poems based on ‘Junk.’ Such wonderful imaginations they have! Their performance poetry was enjoyable to watch.
In maths, we reviewed certain areas of fractions. The children’s confidence has grown these last few days and a lot more independent work has taken place.
5L took part in the mummification process of an orange. After the practical element, the wrote a sequenced set of instructions. You may want to keep a close eye on your fruit bowls!
We enjoyed Christmas jumper/dinner day and we are very much looking forward to more festivities next week!
Year 6
This week in English we have looked at fairytale stories, a parody of Cinderella and The Elves and the Shoemaker.
In maths we have looked at multiplying and dividing fractions.
The children thoroughly enjoyed investigating shadows inside the classroom using torches. They learnt that an object’s shadow differed when its position was rotated.
Computing
We are nearing the end of our topic for this half-term and are looking forward to starting something new in the new year. This week has been just as busy as we are rounding off our learning and creating our final projects.
In Year 1, the children continued to develop their mouse skills using Paintz and were asked to create a sunflower in the style of the artist of Seurat who created abstract art using Pointillism (created by lots of coloured dots). In order for children to complete the task, they needed to control the mouse to paint the outline of their flower before choosing the best tools to use to create the overall effect. Well done Year 1.
Year 2 worked on editing their very own photos which have been taken earlier on in the term. They were challenged to practice with different tools including cropping, adjusting the brightness and the saturation, experiment with the filters as well as using the vignette tool. Furthermore, individuals were asked to share their favourite edit with a partner thinking about the choices they have made. It was great to see how children went from using ALL the tools on each photo to then selecting specific tools for a purpose and were then able to justify their reasons. A great lesson year 2 well done.
On Wednesday, the Year 5 students started working on their final project for the vector drawing unit. They were tasked with creating a new logo for either school, a club or a team and were very excited to begin experimenting with different shapes and colours. We discussed the importance for ensuring the logo was suitable and clear for its purpose and this enabled a few individuals to constantly revaluate their choices. They will have time next week to complete these and will then reflect on all of the skills they have developed over the last six weeks. Check back next week to see some of their creations.
The girls at Girls Computer Coding club are now starting to be more ambitious in their coding projects with the Micro:bits. Using the tutorials on the Make Code website, the girls are learning together to create the code to make flashing hearts, spell out their name and more. Encouraging more girls to embrace computing in Upper Key Stage 2 is so important, as only a fifth of entrants to GCSE are girls and by starting now, the gender imbalance in computing can begin to be addressed.
Year 4 have been finalising their podcasts this week by doing their final editing of the Voice Recordings they have imported to Audacity. With sound effects added, they then exported their project on Audacity to create an MP3 file. The children are very proud of their projects and many have uploaded to Showbie.
This week finished with Year 3 continuing to work on their nets of their medicine boxes, after adding all of the text last week this week the focus was on the design and colouring of the boxes, changing the font, style and sizes, adding and resizing images where needed and including colours to make it aesthetically pleasing. So many PowerPoint skills have been learned in such a short space of time to create these nets and I have been so impressed with how well the year group have worked on them.
Online Safety
The holiday season is a time for celebration, relaxation and spending well-earned time with loved ones. While this period will hopefully be calm, it’s important that parents and educators acknowledge there are still things we can do to make these weeks as safe as possible for the young people in our care.
Of course, it’s not immediately obvious what can or should be done to stay safe over the festive season. This guide offers expert advice on the steps you can take to enjoy a less fraught winter break, safeguarding any youngsters who might be present for the celebrations.
PE & Sports
As we approach the holiday, we are finishing our remaining autumn PE lessons - ready to start new topics in January.
A letter about spring clubs was emailed out today and the children who expressed an interest will be bringing home paper copies. Reply slips must be back by Tuesday morning registration. Late slips will not be accepted.
There are lots of sports events across the spring term including Sportshall Athletics and hockey.
Music and Singing Assembly
We were very pleased that the Ofsted inspector was able to see music in our school this week. The school choir, music lessons and the singing assembly were all observed.
In the assembly, there was some lovely Christmas singing. Mr. McClay joined for 'It was on a Starry Night' and was signing along too.
Dinner Menu
Week 1
Monday - Beef Bolognaise with Spaghetti - Vegan Bolognaise with Spaghetti - Baked Jacket Potato with Grated Cheese - Chicken Mayonnaise Baguette - Cheese Salad Wrap - Peas & Broccoli - Maryland Cookie
Tuesday - Ham & Cheese Pizza with Baked Wedges - Pasta & Tomato Sauce - Ham Sandwich - Cheese & Tomato Bloomer - Carrots & Sweetcorn - Apple Crumble with Custard
Wednesday - Roast Chicken with Roast Potatoes & Gravy - Squash & Lentil Lasagne - Baked Jacket Potato with Baked Beans - Tuna Sweetcorn Baguette - Cheese Sandwich - Seasonal Greens & Cauliflower - Cherry Cornflake Cake
Thursday - Mild Chicken & Vegetable Curry with Steamed Rice - Vegan Bean Chilli with Steamed Rice - Pasta & Tomato Sauce - Tuna Mayonnaise Sandwich - Cheese Salad Wrap - Broccoli & Carrots - Chocolate & Pear Sponge
PTA
Celebration Assembly
The links for our Celebration Assemblies can be found below.
Attendance
With no Celebration Assemblies next week, where would the attendance trophies spend Christmas?
In Key Stage 1 our winners were our Starlings. We listened to their assembly song ‘Stargazing’ by Myles Smith as we left the hall. In Key Stage 2, 3A won and in so doing earned a sticker for the Spin the Wheel chart… and then had a spin of the wheel! Their prize was an extra football session. 3A’s assembly song ‘We Will Rock You’ by Queen was a very fitting tribute to 3A’s success.
Well done Starlings and 3A!
With no Celebration Assemblies next week as we are not in school on Friday, we can announce our leaders going into 2025… Our leading team is Windsor! The gap to second remains small at only 9 points. There are just 49 points between all four teams so with one term gone, it really is all to play for. This week’s winners were Windsor in Key Stage 1 and Stormont in Key Stage 2. Good luck Windsor, Stormont, Sterling and Caernarfon for the spring and summer terms.
01702 294837 - office@fps.porticoacademytrust.co.uk