Friars Weekly Newsletter friday 24th january 2025

Coming up in this edition of the newsletter...

• National Online Safety for Parents and Carers - please sign up
• Breakfast Club
• Lots of events and dates
• Chinese New Year
• In the Year 5 section - mention of 11+

It’s Friday! Another lovely week in school, made all the more lovely with our Ofsted report being published on Monday. Hopefully everyone has had the chance to read the report. If you haven’t yet, please click on the link below:

Ofsted Report

On Wednesday this week, it was great to see so many parents and carers attend our Book Look after school. The school was busy as we hoped it would be! Thank you for joining us if you were able to attend. Next half term we have our second round of Learning Conversations. Please make sure you have the dates in your diary. The booking system for these will go live at the beginning of March… we will of course let you know exactly when, closer to the time.

Yesterday saw both Year 4 classes visit Shoeburyness Library. I went along with 4G and we learnt lots! Did you know that children can have library cards from the day they are born? That you can take 14 books out at a time? You can keep books for 3 weeks?

After talking with the librarian, the children completed a hunt around the children's section to find answers to a challenge. Well done Year 4 for a great morning. Next week, Year 5 will be visiting the library on Wednesday.

At Friars, we like to plan ahead and to give you lots of notice about upcoming events. The summer term is always packed full of fun and below are some key dates for you to join us in school. You will see that this year, the PTA Summer Fayre will also incorporate inflatables so there will not be a separate inflatable event. All of these summer events and dates now feature in the Diary Dates section of our newsletter.

• Wednesday 21 May 1:30-3:00 - Nursery Sports Afternoon & Picnic
• Thursday 22 May at 1:30pm-3:00pm - Reception Sports Afternoon & Picnic
• Wednesday 21 to Friday 23 May - Y3 Assemblies
• Wednesday 18 June - KS1 and KS2 Sports Day with picnic in between
• Thursday 3 July - Open Evening
• Wednesday 16th July - PTA Summer Fayre and Inflatables
• Wednesday 23 July - Y6 Leavers Assembly

Have a really lovely weekend. See you all on Monday.

Mr. Chris McClay, Principal

National Online Safety for Parents and Carers

As a school we continue to have access to The National College’s National Online Safety for Parents and Carers – a multi-award-winning online training provider.

What does this mean for you?

The National College provides dedicated training and resources for parents and carers around online safety and keeping children safe online. The training and resources are excellent and easy to follow.

Online safety advice on any topic

Of course, staff continue to teach children about risks online. But with the internet so readily accessible, the most effective approach to online safety needs everyone involved, including parents and carers.

There is access to hundreds of courses, explainer videos and online safety guides to support your awareness of the online world. Topics range from understanding apps like TikTok and Instagram to recognising the signs of online harm and what you can do to help. We share these poster guides each week in our newsletters.

We ask all parents to please sign up; it only takes a few moments and it will enable us all to help keep your children safe. If you haven't signed up already, please do...

Signing up to the platform is simple. Just follow this link: National Online Safety and complete your details. Once you are set up, you will be able to choose ‘Parent/Carer’ as your user type and get instant access to all training and resources.

Breakfast Club

Interesting Fact… Did you know that every Tuesday, Mr. McClay stops on at Greggs on his way to Friars to collect bread for our Breakfast Club?

The school Breakfast Club is a free club that runs between 8:00am and 8:30am each day. Whilst most schools charge for breakfast club, we don’t. How can we do this? Partly because we receiving funding from Greggs to pay for the food we serve but also because we use some of our school budget to support the provision. The only way we could expand Breakfast Club is to start charging and, at least for now, we don’t want to do this.

Currently, we have a waiting list for Breakfast Club. If your child has a place at the club but your circumstances change and you no longer need a place, please let us know straight away. Thank you.

Chinese New Year

As a school we value equality and diversity. As we have done in previous years, we would like to take the opportunity to celebrate Chinese New Year again with the visiting team from Kudos, who will perform a phenomenal Chinese lion dance for the children. This will be a valuable and enriching experience.

The demonstration will be on Thursday 30th January. During this celebration, your child will feed the dragon a lucky red envelope. We ask that you send your child to school with a donation of silver coins that will be placed inside their envelope and given as a symbol of good luck and prosperity. The donations will be donated to the dancers’ chosen charity.

We know that this will be a fun and exciting performance for your child and we look forward to seeing their excitement on the day.

Thank you for your continuing support.

Yours sincerely,

Miss Gibbons

Careers Week 2025

A reminder that Careers Week will be Monday 3rd March to Friday 7th March. If you would like to come into school to talk to children about your career, or you know someone who would be happy to visit, please email the school office and let us know. Visitors from last year are welcome again. Mrs. Halls will be putting together the timetable for the week and would love to hear from you. Thank you in advance.

Nursery

This week, Nursery have read the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears. The children have used the technique of collage to make bear masks, practised hand to eye co-ordination whilst tracing across the path Goldilocks took through the woods and even cooked and tried their own porridge. They also enjoyed having the dried porridge oats in the builders tray the following day with different sized bowls and smalls. Of course, there has been some imaginary play, where the children have used the masks they made to act out the story of Goldilocks. In group time, we used the language of size to compare different bowls and spoons. The children were identifying which were bigger and smaller.

In addition to this, we had our first stay and play sessions, thank you to those who were able to attend.

REMINDER: Please ensure everything your child brings into nursery is clearly named.

Letters sent home this week

• Whole School - Ofsted Inspection Report - 20.01.2025

Reception

Cool Milk – We have noticed that many children are no longer on our Cool Milk list. If you would like your child to have milk in school, please ensure you have signed them up online at coolmilk.com. Once a child turns 5, sadly milk is no longer free – there is a small cost which can be paid online.

Our phonics sessions have focused on two pronunciations for ‘oo’ e.g. look and book as well as zoom and moon. In maths we have introduced the children to mass; comparing two items and balancing scales.

Throughout the week we have continued to talk about penguins and Antarctica as well as conducting an experiment to see where ice melts the quickest.

Letters sent home this week

• Whole School - Ofsted Inspection Report - 20.01.2025

Year 1

It was so lovely to be able to share the children’s work with you this week. We hope you enjoyed looking at their books.

We have continued our work on “Claude in the City” and have created Wanted posters for the naughty robber who tried to steal a sculpture. The children worked hard to focus on their punctuation and to use adjectives in their descriptions.

In maths, we have been comparing numbers within 20 using the symbols to show if a number is greater than, less than or equal to another number.

In art, we have been looking at textures in building and have tried to replicate them using a variety of materials.

Letters sent home this week

• Whole School - Ofsted Inspection Report - 20.01.2025

Year 2

Thank you to those parents who came to our ‘Book Look’ on Wednesday. The children enjoyed showing you all of their hard work.

We have been exploring exciting settings during our English lessons and have written about adventures through a tunnel. The children have described magical places using interesting expanded noun phrases.

In maths, we have learnt how to add different amounts of money using coins and notes. The children have discovered that they can use their knowledge of times tables when calculating amounts using multiple 10p, 2p and 5p coins.

During our history lessons, we have been researching the first aeroplane flight in 1903, which the children were surprised to hear lasted only 12 seconds.

We continue to explore the work of Monet and have produced our very own silhouette pictures of Southend using pastel sunsets.

REMINDER: Please encourage your children to read for enjoyment at home with their library book, as well as reading their phonics book or Reading Express books.

PE days are Monday and Tuesday. Please remember to remove earrings on those days.

Letters sent home this week

• Whole School - Ofsted Inspection Report - 20.01.2025

Year 3

It was great to see so many parents come into school to have a look at the children’s learning this week. It was also really nice to see the children explaining what they had been learning in Year 3 so far.

In English, this week we have been looking at non-chronological reports; first we looked at the features and we then identified features. Later in the week, we did some research on volcanoes so we could complete our own non-chronological report. Next week, we will use the research we completed to draft our non-chronological report.

In maths, we have finished off our topic on multiplication and division and will be moving onto our next topic of measurement next week. This week has been quite tricky in maths as we have been dividing 2-digits by 1-digit, that either needed to be flexibly partitioned or had remainders. We did however try really hard with this using various methods.

During the week in the afternoons, 3B have completed playing the glockenspiels in music, sketching a cross section of a volcano in preparation for a Margaret Godfrey style piece of art and described the similarities and differences between the Bible and the Torah.

The best part of the week was the cake sale of course! We loved going and buying some delicious cake from the Year 6 cake sale on Thursday. Thank you to those of you that donated cakes.

3A have had a brilliant (but cold!) time in outdoor learning this week – cooking marshmallows and singing songs around the campfire were definitely some of the highlights!

Letters sent home this week

• Whole School - Ofsted Inspection Report - 20.01.2025

Year 4

This week, Year 4 have worked incredibly hard on writing emotive diary entries from the perspective of WW2 evacuees. We focused hard on making sure we start our sentences in different ways to keep the reader interested and have improved our vocabulary within our writing. In maths, we learned the column method for multiplication and have spent lots of time consolidating our times tables facts to help with accuracy.

We had a great visit to Shoebury Library where we were shown around, took part in a scavenger hunt and also received a new class book which we can’t wait to read! Mr McClay mentions more about this at the start of the newsletter.

In our history and geography work, we looked at the axis and the ally countries from WW2 and coloured these with a key on a map. In DT we practised our sewing skills, ready to make our Make Do and Mend toys too!

Letters sent home this week

• Whole School - Ofsted Inspection Report - 20.01.2025

Year 5

This week in maths, Year 5 have persevered with short division that involves remainders. We have discussed different methods and the children’s accuracy has seen some improvement. Our geography lesson also linked to maths this week. We looked at bar and line graphs to analyse data on precipitation and temperature in London and Brazil.

In English, the students have been researching climate change so that they can accurately write an explanation text on the subject next week. We continued our new layered reading text, The Boy Who Met a Whale. The children are enjoying learning if their predictions are coming true.

In PE, we continued with gymnastics. The shoulder roll was introduced and correct technique was learnt. We also revisited previously learnt rolls.

Within music, the students used the pentatonic scale to improvise to a known song on the glockenspiel. Much enjoyment was had!

Letters sent home this week

• Whole School - Ofsted Inspection Report - 20.01.2025

11+

Message from Mr. McClay:

Parents and carers sometimes ask about external support around the 11+. My daughter sat the 11+ back in September and one thing she found useful was to attend mock test days put together by Learning Plus Southend. The company run five Saturdays across March, May, June, July and September held at Chalkwell Junior School. Whilst Learning Plus have absolutely no connection to Friars, our trust of schools, (or to me!) they do have a strong reputation. The tests the children do are specifically written for the test days and you then collect results the following weekend. The feedback I have heard is that test results are very close in comparison to those of the actual CSSE selection. They certainly were for my daughter.

If you are considering the 11+ for your child, you might think it useful to book your child in for at least one of the sessions as they not only give the children a real feel for what the actual test day will be like but it can also build confidence whilst giving you a strong insight into how they are performing. I would suggest that March is too early and that June would be most ideal.

The website is: https://www.learningplussouthend.com.

Year 6

This week in English, Year 6 have continued their work on equality and the acceptance of everyone regardless of their race or religion. Our person of interest has been Nelson Mandela and his fight against Apartheid in South Africa. The children were stunned by some of the conditions and hardships that he had to endure whilst being incarcerated for over 20 years in Robben Island prison. This provoked alot of discussion which led to some emotive diary writing.

We have applied our understanding of ratio to different scenarios using scale. We have upscaled and down scaled and calculated the relationship between given images.

In science, the children have continued to develop their understanding of living organisms using Carl Linneaus’ system of classification. They researched a variety of different animal species, identifying which: domain, kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus and finally the individual species that they were.

In music, the children composed music based upon the song, Disco Fever which has 4 beats in every bar. The idea was to accurately keep this rhythm going continuously throughout the singing of the song whilst using their hands as percussion instruments.

Letters sent home this week

• Whole School - Ofsted Inspection Report - 20.01.2025

Online Safety

Over time, more and more fitness apps have been finding their way into circulation. Usually free to download – at least initially – these apps claim to offer helpful advice and assistance in routine management to those looking to lead a healthier lifestyle.

While these platforms can be useful, they do present several safety concerns. These issues become more significant when we consider that children and young people can use these apps to stay active – whether out of concern for their own health or for reasons of body image. Our free guide breaks down the risks of health and fitness apps and offers expert advice on how to address these concerns to safeguard younger users.

PE & Sports

Last Friday a team of Year 3 and 4 children participated in a football tournament at Len Forge. The team performed incredibly well and finished a very creditable fifth. Congratulations to the team.

Our Year 5 and 6 girls football team had their first league match on Thursday against St. George’s Primary. It was amazing to see how well the girls worked together. With Daisy scoring a great goal for us in what was a 3-1 defeat. We will look forward to the next game!

PTA