Friars Weekly Newsletter friday 27th SEPTEMBER 2024

Coming up in this edition of the newsletter...

• Girl's football at Len Forge today - more will follow next week
• Christmas Events

Hasn’t the weather been delightful this week? Maybe not! The unpredictable showers yesterday then led to a pretty miserable Friday but the good news is… at least it is the weekend.

Our Year 5 and 6 footballers had to brave today’s weather over at Len Forge. Well done to all of the girls involved and to Miss Parrin-Celino, Mr. Brady and Mr. Leggett who accompanied them. I was there for a little bit around lunchtime and managed to watch a couple of matches. The girls were playing well and their spirits were high! Full news about how the girls got on will come out in next week’s newsletter.

On Monday, Year 4 headed over to the Baptist church where they were able to learn more about Christianity and ask the questions that they had thought of back in school. It was a very informative afternoon. This Monday coming, we have the church visiting us for a talk with Year 5.

Also, this week we had our phonics sessions for Reception parents and carers. A big thank you to everyone who attended. If you ever have any questions, please do ask. Miss Goodwin who is one of our Reading Leads is always happy to chat.

You will see a little further down in this newsletter, we have our Christmas events list. These are events where we would like you to come and join us. Please add dates to your diaries. If you were with us last year, you will know how these events work. Of course, if you are quite new to Friars don’t worry as more information will follow as we close in on December.

Have a lovely weekend everyone.

Mr. Chris McClay, Principal

Reading Eggs

As you know, this term we have introduced Reading Eggs in Years 3, 4 and 5. If your child is in one of those year groups, they can access Reading Eggspress at home and read lovely online texts.

Although it has only just been introduced, an amazing 5308 minutes was spent on Reading Eggspress last week. That's over 88 hours! We love reading!

See the picture below for more information.

Parent Council 2024-25

We are still looking for members of our Parent Council... can you help? The Parent Council is an important forum that comes together every term to meet and discuss whole school issues. We talk about everything from school events to lunches and the curriculum. Ideally, we would like to have representation for every year group from Nursery to Year 6.

Mr. McClay, Principal

Nursery

After a few weeks of being in Nursery now, the children are really starting to form new friendships and learning how to interact with each other. A key skill we teach is working with and respecting each other. At this early age this can sometimes be a little bit difficult, but they are all taking it onboard and learning a little more each day.

We have been busy painting lots of pictures for a new corridor display, so we have focused on taking paint aprons on and off and how to use the easel correctly. Hopefully the time spent on this now will prevent paint covered clothes in the future (I can only but hope).

We have also visited our school library for the first time. The children really loved this. It is a chance for them to enjoy a quality storytime in another area of the school. We will continue to do this weekly on a Wednesday afternoon.

Reminder: With the changing weather, can we please ask that all children now bring in a coat or jacket that can be worn outside.

Reception

Thank you to all the parents who were able to attend our phonics workshop this week. We have introduced the children to s, a, t and p this week. Your child will bring home a reading record book today with a wordless book. Please share this with your child encouraging them to talk about the pictures and maybe make a story up to go with it. Inside the reading record is a little note and the set of pink words. At this moment in time, your child might not be able to read all of the pink words and that is okay. Any practise that you can do at home will be helpful.

The children have been introduced to our OPAL – outdoor play and learning areas during lunch break. They have enjoyed exploring the different areas and are following the instructions really well.

Thank you to everyone who books their child’s lunch online that is really helpful. If you have any issues with this, please speak to our friendly office staff.

Reminder: Please ensure that your child’s coat and jumpers are named.

Year 1

We have had another busy week in Year 1. In English we have started our 3-week block on the story “Monkey Puzzle” by Julia Donaldson. We have sequenced the story and had a go at writing sentences about the characters.

In maths, our focus has been on adding 1 more. They have completed various tasks on this including making playdoh eyes for aliens and building towers.

Sound has been the subject of our science lessons this week. We have been on a sound walk around the school explore the sounds in our environment. Mr McClay was even heard singing this Wednesday afternoon. What a treat!

In art, we have begun learning about Picasso and had a first try at creating our own Picasso style portraits.

Please remember to send your child to school with a coat/ rain jacket as the weather is unpredictable. These must be labelled with their names. Thank you.

Year 2

Year 2 have had lots of fun this week creating alternative versions of the Three Little Pigs. They chose their own good and bad characters, including some rather interesting combinations!

During science, 2S explored how materials stretch by carrying out their own experiments. They investigated how far each piece of material could stretch and used a results table to record their findings.

In maths, the children have continued to develop their understanding of place value by developing the ability to estimate where two-digit numbers should be placed on a blank number line.

2W have enjoyed their first outdoor learning session of the year, which included learning all about fire safety and making a fire – topped off with toasted marshmallows to finish the week. The wet weather certainly didn’t stop their enjoyment – well done 2W!

Reminder: 2S have their outdoor learning sessions next week:

• Monday 30th September: 2S will have PE as usual
• Tuesday 1st to Friday 4th October: Children should wear joggers/old trainers and normal school t-shirt/jumper.
• Wellies can also be sent into school in a named bag.

Year 3

What a miserable week with the weather, but that has not stopped us in Year 3 completing lots of great learning!

In English we started to look at direct speech, speech bubbles, inverted commas, and synonyms for said. We used all this information to complete our very own direct speech as Hogarth and Iron Man from our layered reading book.

In maths, we have continued our place value topic, looking at numbers on a number line, numbers that are greater or less than and estimating numbers on a number line.

In science, we carried out an investigation using magnets to determine what objects were magnetic and which objects were not. We mostly got our predictions correct and we remember which metals are not magnetic!

In geography we started to look at the neolithic village Skara Brae and labelled a picture of one of the houses. We included ideas as to what the uses of the items were, such as a fire pit to cook the food and keep people warm.

We are loving learning French and so far, we have learnt to say hello, goodbye, 'what is your name' and 'my name is...'

Reminders: Well done to the children that are accessing Reading Eggs at home, we have had lots of children celebrating how much they have been doing on there!

Please continue to access Reading Eggs and TT Rockstars each week, alongside practising spellings – thank you for your continued support with this.

Year 4

A great week for Year 4 this week. We started the week with a visit to the Baptist church over the road to ask some questions about worship for our RE lesson. We learned lots. In science we focused on the mouth and learned about the different types of teeth we have, which we found very interesting! In DT, we had a practice of working with dough, ready to make our Viking bloody bread.

In English we focused on writing persuasive letters. Some of us made excellent vocabulary choices whilst also paying attention to the correct structure needed. In maths, we continued with place value, times tables and approached Roman Numerals too.

Reminder: Please remember to practise spellings and read using Reading Eggs. Please also remember to practise times tables using TT Rockstars Thank you.

Year 5

The weeks seem to be flying by! Our focus in English this week has been newspaper report writing. The students learnt about the discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb and applied this new knowledge to report writing. After recapping the features, the children created a detailed plan and then wrote the beginning of the report which they will complete next week.

In maths, we continued with our unit of addition and subtraction. The children worked with numbers with more than 4 digits.

In geography, the children learnt the journey of the River Nile through North Africa, looking at all the countries it passes through. They accurately annotated the river’s features on a map.

RE was a fun lesson whereby the children re-enacted a miracle play based on the life of Saint George.

French was a speaking and listening lesson. We rehearsed our knowledge of clothing vocabulary and challenged ourselves to describe items of clothing by their colour and more.

Reminder: Maths homework was set on Friday 27th and is due on Friday 4th October.

Year 6

This week, Year 6 have continued with narrative writing based upon an adventure into a cave. The writing was descriptive and the children were challenged with a list of grammatical features that they tried to put in: fronted adverbials, relative clauses and a rhetorical question as well as specific punctuation including brackets, dashes and commas for clarity.

In maths we have focused upon understanding factors and multiples and have completed addition and subtraction in a variety of different formats.

We used iPads to assist with science. The children had to create circuits that had a problem in it, meaning it wouldn't work and then rectify the circuit. The children thoroughly enjoyed this activity and collaborated well with one another.

We learnt about the importance and growth of the British empire and how as a nation we benefitted from its expansion.

Computing

This week, the digital leaders for computing were selected in Years 2-6 after completing their application forms over the last 2 weeks. We had so many apply it was quite difficult to choose! So congratulations to Jacob, Ronnie, Jacob and Daisy (Year 6); Charlie, Isabel, Jersey and Thalia (Year 5); Orla, Oliver, Ralph and Iqra (Year 4); Gracie, Zac, Sonny and Sienna (Year 3); Katherine, Aubrey-Rose, Eva and Shad (Year 2). Their duties will include supporting others in class, being a computing ambassador around the school and being a role model for computing lessons.

Reception came to visit the computer suite as part of their introduction to computing technology. They discovered how an iPad works and had a go at recognising and continuing patterns in shapes using an online program.

Year 1 are learning about technology around us and are already very good at naming parts of a computer. They have begun to learn mouse control and are developing their click and drag skills using a paint program.

Year 2 have explored technology around the world and discovered the numerous places technology could be found, such as shops and cafes. We debated whether technology could be found at the beach – some said no but others said people will have mobile phones.

Year 3 made comparisons between digital devices versus non-digital tools. We debated whether it was better to paint in the traditional way with paints/paper, or do we prefer to use an online painting tool. The split was about 50-50.

Year 4 are continuing the learn about the World Wide Web and have discovered that computers can talk to each other via wires, networks and routers. We also discussed whether wired connections are better or wireless (wi-fi) in the home. The children then went on to explore different websites, comparing the webpages and the information contained on them.

Year 5 started to look at search engines and how to refine internet searches by using precision, for examples, does a search of “boot” reveal boots to wear, the shop Boots or the place called Boot. They then tried out different search engines such as Bing, Google, DuckDuckGo, Ecosia and Swisscows. The children liked different search engines for different reasons, but Google came out as the favourite.

Year 6 looked at how they can work collaboratively on an online project. In groups of four, they worked on a project of a country of their choice using OneDrive. Although they could see the benefits of different children adding to different sections of the project, they could also see the dangers of someone potentially wrecking the project too.

Online Safety

Instagram is one of the most well-known social media platforms around, frequented by users of all ages all over the world, and allowing them to share photos and videos with friends, family and the wider public if they wish. The site has many younger users, allowing people as young as 13 to create an account and engage with its community.

As a popular choice of platform for teenagers, it's vital that parents and educators understand the risks associated with the site and what can be done to mitigate them and how it might influence and appeal to children younger than 13. This free guide lets you know about the most prominent safety concerns on Instagram, offering expert advice on how to make young people’s experiences on the app as secure as possible.

PE & Sports

On Tuesday we had our first practice for the cross-country competition which takes place in two weeks' time. We have two further practices before the big day.

Today was the girl's football tournament at Len Forge. Mr. McClay mentions this in his comments at the start of the newsletter. More will follow in this section next week.

Outdoor Learning

A great time for 2W this week - see the Year 2 section for more on this. Next week it is the turn of 2S. Mrs. Snow can't wait!

Singing Assembly

Lots of lovely singing this week with some new songs being learnt. Please do ask the children about the songs we sing... We will start sharing them here very soon.

Mr. McClay surprised Year 6 this week by sneaking into the back of the hall and sitting with them on the benches during the singing assembly. The first some of the children realised was when they heard his dulcet tones - sorry Mr. McClay! ;-)

PTA

Please help us with Asda's 'Cashpot for Schools'. As of today, over £500 has been raised!

Asda will donate money to our school for everyone who signs up and if you buy shopping in Asda, cashback will be given to Friars every time... Thank you in advance.