Welcome back to the new school year!
Dates for your diary:
- Mon 2nd October - Y6 Parent Information Evening 3:45pm
- Mon 9th - Thu 12th October - Y5 Bikeability
- Mon 9th October / Tue 24th October - Open event for prospective new starters (F2)
- Tue 10th October - World Mental Health Day
- Mon 16th October - Harvest Festival
- Wed 18th October - Parents' Evening
- Wed 25th October - Coffee morning (Phonics focus) 9:00am
- Wed 25th October - Hallowe'en Discos (more details for follow)
- Wed 25th October - Break up for half term
- Mon 6th November - School re-opens
Beehive and F1
Welcome to a new year in the Beehive and F1. We have welcomed quite a few new children into the setting as welcoming our 'oldies' back too. The new children have settled in well and are making some lovely friendships.
The children in F1 have been harvesting the vegetables that we planted before the summer. They found quite a few potatoes and lots of tiny carrots. Mrs Bottomley had great fun trying to find where Miss Angell had sprinkled them. I think Miss Angell needs to learn how to plant carrot seeds correctly. It didn’t help that the soil was quite hard, however, whatever the size we can say we have grown some carrots.
The children have started off the new year by painting their self-portraits, looking at the features on their faces and their coloring. The results have been amazing! Well done children.
In the Beehive, they too have welcomed in several new children who are doing well in their new surroundings. They have started the story of ‘Goldilocks and the Three Bears’ creating collages of bears and looking at size using bowls of porridge and chairs. Well done Bumblebees!
F2
Ms Dervey and Miss Childe are very proud of everybody for settling into their new classroom so well. The boys and girls are becoming more familiar with the new rules and routines. So far we have been busy completing our baseline assessments and making new friends, however we have also started our morning jobs which is to write our name. We have been checking ourselves onto the fives and tens frames to show that we are here. We have been brushing our teeth after dinner. We have been having our say by answering the question of the day. We've even been using our fast eyes to subatise in maths. Soon we will be introduced to our first Talk for Writing text 'The Little Red Hen.' We will learn this story by creating story maps and having actions for keys parts. I wonder if the boys and girls could retell the story to their grown up?
We have loved celebrating Spanish day. We have been learning how to say hello, good morning and good afternoon in Spanish, as well as taking part in some very exciting Spanish dancing.
We've also really enjoyed PE, Forest schools and exploring outside. We go outside in all weathers to please provide suncream/sunhat/wellie boots.
You may have noticed your child brought home a library book on Friday. We run our school library every Friday and this is always very popular with the children.
Thank you for your ongoing support. We are looking forward to the year ahead.
Forest School
Last year we introduced Forest School in F2 and the children had Forest School sessions every week. This year we are fortunate to be able to provide Forest School sessions for F2 again and Year 1 and Year 2. But if you have never heard of Forest School, you might be wondering what it is?
What is Forest School?
Forest School is an approach to learning that takes children into the great outdoors, whatever the weather, to explore the natural environment. Forest School is child centered, nature-based outdoor learning that focuses on holistic development and growth in children.
During regular sessions spread across each of the four seasons, children spend extended time outside instead of in the classroom, giving them the opportunity to develop a deeper understanding of the world around them. Time spent exploring the natural environment can enhance children's understanding across the curriculum with links to maths, literacy, science, DT, art and geography.
Being child-led, trained practitioners monitor the children but encourage exploration and discovery and support them to take risks. In a woodland environment, learning experiences are based on what hands-on activities a child wants to engage in at that time. By doing this on their own, children build problem-solving skills, confidence, independence, and resilience as they can test their limits in the natural world.
The hands-on learning approach allows children to develop skills that may be difficult to teach in the classroom. Central to Forest School is to keep active with plenty of activities that enable children to develop motor skills and coordination.
Additionally, children teach themselves to assess problems and make their own decisions about how to solve situations. In doing this, they learn to be self-sufficient through trial and error which is a valuable skill in all stages of life
All this activity in the woodland environment also helps children to understand the importance of taking care of the environment and nurtures empathy and a sense of connection to nature which has been shown to improve wellbeing.
Plea - if you have any wellies or waterproofs that your child has out-grown at home, please donate them to school so we can go outside in all weathers! Thank you
Year 1
The children have made a fantastic start in Year 1. They have been working hard settling into the new routines and impressing us with their behaviour.
In T4W, we have been learning the story of 'The Three Billy Goats Gruff'. Please ask your child to retell this for you. We have enjoyed mixing colours in art and are looking forward to using this technique in further paintings. While the weather has been kind, we have explored our school grounds as part of our fieldwork in geography and went on a lovely sound walk in music. Our work in RE has focused on belonging and the children have been introduced to four of the main world religions. We are looking forward to learning more about them this year.
The children were very excited to be able to learn and show their Spanish dancing and songs as part of our Spanish Day. We had a fantastic day learning all about Spain and the Spanish culture. We even learnt to speak some Spanish words!
Year 2
Year 2 have had a fantastic start to the Autumn term and are all looking very smart in their new uniforms.
In T4W we have been working on 'The Star's Journey'. We found a mysterious star in our classrooms and then made our own stained glass stars which are now decorating our classrooms. We have looked at different journey stories and thought about what happens in them. We are just starting to plan our own journey stories and are excited to see who the star meets.
In maths we have been reminding ourselves of place value and have been looking at number bonds to 20. Numbots will be really helpful to become fluent in number bonds as well as being great fun to play. We will be sending the Numbot logins home later on this week.
In art we have been studying the work of David Hockney who has painted many pictures of the local area. We will be painting our own scene in Hockney's style. In science we have been studying how seeds disperse and had great fun recreating seed explosions, sticky seeds and helicopter seeds.
In music we have been looking at body percussion and rhythm, learning new songs and creating our own pieces of music. In geography we have been looking at climate and exploring extreme weather situations.
We also had our amazing Spanish Day when we learned about how to say the colours in Spanish and how to sing a Spanish song about colours. We also learned how to greet each other in Spanish and made an instrument to accompany our colour song.
We have been very impressed with the children who have been bringing in their maths homework and reading at least three times a week. Please remember, we hand out maths homework on a Friday and the children have until the following Friday to complete it. Completing this homework is very important and the children earn an 'aspiration' dojo point for every piece brought in. We also request that the children read at least three times a week. We will be sending home bookmarks and these can be used to record their reading - again, this is very important and every week your child does this will earn them an 'aspiration' dojo. If you prefer, you could send a dojo message telling us when they have read - this can be done at the end of the week in one message.
Thank you for your support so far, we are really looking forward to working along side you to make this a fabulous year for the children.
#WeMadeThisHull
Whole School Art/DT Challenge
Much as our summer has been dismal in parts, we can guarantee that the autumn will bring us joy in so many ways, but especially through colour.
We would love you to capture ‘Autumn’ so that we can make a collaborative ‘patchwork quilt’ of all the shades of autumn colours with schools in Hull.
Our ‘patchwork quilt’ will be made from strips measuring either 30cm x 7cm ( 12in x 2 3/4in) or 15cm x 7cm (6in x 2 3/4in). The size is very important if we were to be able to fit them together like a patchwork quilt.
The strips and how you craft them is entirely up to you. It could be card, crochet, crayon, or collage. It could be paint or patchwork. It could be fabric or feathers or foil. It could be a photograph or a print. You could knit or cross stitch. You choose!
Important Dates: You have from when you finish reading this information until October 9th to make your strips and bring them to school with your name and class written on the back.
An Exhibition will be up October 23rd and stay up until the end of November. Venue to be confirmed but likely to be in the city centre.
Year 3
As we approach the midway point of the first Autumn Term, now is a good time to reflect on the progress we've already made as a year group. In Talk for Writing (T4W), we are preparing to write our innovated warning tales, which will include some amazing descriptive language, similes and of course some brilliant handwriting! The children enjoyed our look at 'The Only Way is Badger' in T4R, and practised skills like empathy through role playing the characters and trying to judge how they would have handled a similar scenario.
In maths we completed our place value unit, before beginning work on addition and subtraction. In geography we have looked at the country of Wales; the children enjoyed looking at a country which is very familiar yet also quite different, learned why national parks are important and recorded an advert encouraging people to make the most of Welsh tourism!
Finally, we would like to say that the response to our maths and reading homework has been amazing, so thank you to all the parents who have helped with their child's home learning, we really appreciate it and we can already see the benefits in class.
Year 4
Year 4 have enjoyed a great start to the new term. In particular we have loved our Spanish day, throwing ourselves into a range of Spanish activities from singing and dancing, through to a Spanish themed quiz.
In Talk for Writing we have been looking at the adventure tale of 'Sandy Cove'. We have enjoyed becoming the characters through drama activities as well as writing an exciting setting description of the cave! We are looking forward to writing our own version of this towards the end of the half term.
Talk for Reading and Book Talk has given us the opportunity to read the 'Firework Maker's Daughter', a really exciting book which we are thoroughly enjoying reading and learning about. We have really enjoyed learning the new vocabulary through activities such as 'quiz, quiz, trade'.
Our afternoons have been equally fun, learning about the Romans in history and The Alps in geography. We loved finding out how mountains are created as well as some important battles that took place hundreds of years ago. This, as well as some of the Roman emperors and what they used to do.
All in all it has been an exciting start to the year, with much more to look forward to.
In The Launch Pad we have welcomed the return to school and all the 'golden' opportunities this brings by having some shiny new activities to explore and support the children's social and emotional well-being!
TLP Door Garland - In the first week we worked together to create a lovely new door garland in the theme of our autumnal inspirational quote. This helped the children settle back into their learning and renew friendships. It looks welcoming and bright as they enter The Launch Pad and there has been lots of discussion about what the quote means to them as they embark on their academic journeys again.
Kintsugi Hearts - The main art display for this autumn is Kintsugi Hearts. Kintsugi means golden repair in Japanese and is the ancient philosophy that we still can be beautiful, even with our imperfections. It is another way to explore a positive growth mindset, something we always try to develop in The Launch Pad. The children have had great fun creating their hearts, tearing them to represent challenges and their experiences then putting them back together with seams of gold so they become something new, unique, and still beautiful.
We look forward to sharing lots of our art and activities with you over the next terms.
Year 5
The Year 5 children have had an excellent start to the term and have returned to school with a fabulous attitude to learning. In English, we have been studying a beautiful fictional piece entitled, 'Ice Forest'. Our pupils have carefully considered how the author of this piece has engaged the audience using figurative language including: simile, personification, ambitious vocabulary, and a range of sentence structures for effect. Each class has thought about how they could re-create such powerful imagery and have written a class poem about an ice-forest. In reading, we have been enjoying different versions of the famous Brothers Grimm fairytale, 'Hansel and Gretel', which has certainly captured the children’s imagination.
We have also enjoyed an array of subjects this term; the children have particularly enjoyed our science lessons where we have been learning about the circulatory system and the function of the heart. We asked groups of children to dramatise the role of the heart with each pupil playing the role of different parts of the circulatory system. This has been recorded in our classroom floor books. We also had a lot of fun on Spanish day learning Spanish songs, performing dances, and learning new Spanish vocabulary.
Finally, we have sent letters out to parents and carers about 'bikeability' which will take place from Monday 9th October until Thursday 12th October. Please can you ensure all letters are returned as soon as possible.
Year 6
We are delighted with the way our Y6 children have settled into their first term at the 'top of the school'! Pupils arrive looking smart with a positive attitude whilst demonstrating an excellent work ethic.
This term we have been reading the text 'Wonder' and applying lots of high level skills in lessons with a particular focus on inference and supporting our ideas with evidence from the text. In writing, we have been creating a non-chronological report on a mythical creature and have been learning how to include relative clauses, parentheses and formal language. We are so proud of how the children are including these skills in their writing and how they show a desire to continue to improve in every lesson.
Pupils are also embracing our foundation subjects. Children have thoroughly enjoyed revising their Spanish basics, whilst experiencing flamenco dancing! We hope you enjoyed the showcase last Friday! The children had lots of fun.
They are also becoming keen geographers. Their geography unit - all about Brazil - has linked extremely well with the Samba unit, in music. Our Year 6 children are becoming experts in clapping both off and on beat rhythms, creating musical layers - wow!
In R.E we have enjoyed considering that whilst many people in the world have religious beliefs, we must also appreciate that world views and the views of all people are valid and should be respected.
Finally, a huge well done to the children who are completing their homework every week including reading throughout the week at home. If this attitude continues, we are certain the children will have an excellent year.
Harvest Festival
Harvest festival will take place on Monday 16th October which is always a lovely celebration for our children to enjoy. To mark the festival this year, we will collect donations for East Yorkshire Foodbank. The foodbank is extremely grateful for all tinned and packaged food with a long shelf life, however they have made a plea for sponge puddings, coffee, UHT fruit juice, baked beans and jam. Children may start to bring their donations to school from Monday 9th October. If there are any parents, carers or grandparents who would like to bake bread for our festival, we would be delighted to display this for the children. Also, we would love to see any vegetables pupils have grown at home. Photographs can be sent in, or children can bring them to school to display on the day.