Friars Weekly Newsletter friday 26th september 2025

Coming up in this edition of the newsletter...

It's Friday!

This week we celebrated the appointment of children to key roles in the school. Our School Councillors, Vice School Councillors, Prefects and Librarians all stood up in assembly to a warm round of applause. Well done to all of the children selected for 2025-26. Remember that these positions are available every year. We have other leadership roles still to be decided, including Music Ambassadors and Digital Leaders…

Today our cross-country team has been doing their thing at Garon Park in the borough competition. I am sure we will have had lots of great results! A full report will be in the PE and Sport section of next week’s newsletter. Watch this space… Next Friday, there is a girl’s football tournament at Len Forge. Good luck to the girls who have been selected to represent the school.

Next week we have a parent and carer phonics workshop on Tuesday afternoon at 2:30pm. This is a welcome to how we teach phonics at Friars and is always a really useful meeting. Please do attend if you received an invite letter.

Have a lovely weekend everyone and see you all on Monday.

Mr. McClay, Principal

Havens Hospices and Waddle-on-Sea

In two weeks, our Waddle-on-Sea penguin will be returning to us… yay!

The penguin will join our hare from 2021 and our elephant from 2023 on display in the school. We would also like to display photographs of the children visiting the penguins (big or small) from across the summer. If you would like to send a photograph of your child with a penguin, please email the address below:

waddle@fps.porticoacademytrust.co.uk

We will look forward to seeing lots of lovely pictures. Thank you.

Achievements Outside of School

It is always lovely to hear about the children’s achievements outside of school. Often when we hear about lovely things, we share these stories in our Celebration Assemblies. Should your child ever do something away from school that you would like us to know about and celebrate, please do email the school office. For example, it could be that they have had success with their sports team, completed a challenge or raised money for charity.

This week we heard about brother and sister Joshua and Amie’s amazing fundraising for Havens Hospices. Joshua left us in July for secondary school and Amie is in Year 5. So far, they have raised an incredible £1300 and their efforts included the Glow event at the weekend. This was a 5km walk for Amie and a 10km walk for Joshua. Phew! Well done Joshua and Amy!

Reception 2026

In October and November, we will be hosting tours of the school for prospective parents who are thinking about sending their children to Friars in September 2026. If you have a child of that age, or have friends and family who do, we would be grateful if you could share the dates with them.

• Tour 1: Tuesday October 21 at 9:30am
• Tour 2: Tuesday October 21 at 1:30pm
• Tour 3: Thursday November 13 at 9:30am
• Tour 4: Thursday November 13 at 1:30pm

Tours will last approximately 45 minutes. Both parents and children are welcome to attend.

Nursery

Children have continued to learn the nursery rules and routines this week. New friendships are being made and all children are having lots of fun. During group time, the children have all been introduced to body counting which involves them tapping their heads, shoulders, hips, knees and toes as they chant the numbers up to 10. Encourage your child to show you how they do this at home. We have also been busy preparing our nursery display, this year we are doing ‘All about me’, the children have been encouraged to look at their own facial features in a mirror and then use collage materials to make a paper plate face. Keep a look out during our next stay and play session for the completed display in the school corridor outside nursery.

Reception

Throughout the week, we have been exploring the theme of seasonal changes. The children have had the opportunity to make detailed observational drawings of conkers and enjoyed creating textured leaf rubbings using a variety of autumn leaves. In maths, we have continued to focus on counting with accuracy, reinforcing one-to-one correspondence and practising saying number names in the correct order through fun, practical activities and songs. During our phonics sessions, we introduced the sounds i, n, m, and d. The children have also been using previously learned sounds to begin blending and reading simple 3 letter words. Thank you for continuing to complete the lunch registers at home - it really helps us get the children settled more quickly each morning.

Year 1

We have had a fantastic week in Year 1. We have started a new block of work based on the story "Monkey Puzzle" by Julia Donaldson. The children have enjoyed sequencing and retelling the story as well as writing about the different animals. In maths, we have been exploring the concept of adding one more. They have completed a variety of activities to consolidate this concept. In our dance lesson we have been working on building sequences based on the story of "The Jungle Book". The children have enjoyed performing in front of their friends in groups. Well done. Our DT lesson was a great success this week. We were exploring different techniques to join paper and card together. Some children chose to bring their work home. We will eventually use these skills to make stable structures. After the effort and enthusiasm today, we cannot wait to see what they will create in the future!

Year 2

This week in year 2 we have been learning about ‘greater than, less than and equal to’ in maths using the symbols < > and =. We have also practised counting in 2s, 5s and 10s in readiness to learn their times table facts.

In history, 2S explored how schools have changed over time. The children couldn’t believe that schools didn’t have computers in the early 1970s when Mrs Snow was in year 2!

We also had lots of fun exploring how materials stretch and recording our measurements in a table of results.

2W have had a wonderful time exploring our environmental garden during their outdoor week. They even found a frog which was very well camouflaged! They have used what they found to create their own collage artwork.

Reminder: 2S have outdoor learning each day next week except Monday (they will have their normal PE and computing lessons that afternoon).

2W will have PE as normal on Monday and Wednesday.

Year 3

This week in English, we've been learning how to use inverted commas to show direct speech. The children enjoyed turning simple sentences into dialogues and adding voices and punctuation to bring characters to life. Encourage your child to spot inverted commas in books at home they’re everywhere once you start looking!

In maths, we’ve been practising our addition and subtraction skills. We’ve looked at different strategies like number lines, partitioning, and using bar models to help us solve problems. The class especially enjoyed our mental maths challenges and working together in pairs to solve word problems!

In geography, we took a fascinating journey back in time as we learnt about Skara Brae, a Stone Age village in Scotland. The children were amazed to discover that this ancient settlement is over 5,000 years old and still has stone furniture inside the houses! We discussed what life might have been like for the people who lived there and why Skara Brae is such an important archaeological site.

Thank you for your continued support. We’re looking forward to another fun-filled week of learning!

Year 4

This week in Year 4 has been full of exciting discoveries and creativity!

In History, we began our new topic on the Vikings. The children were fascinated to learn how the Vikings travelled to Britain on longships and why they came here. We also had great fun designing and creating our very own Viking shields, thinking carefully about the patterns and colours that would have been used.

In English, we explored letter writing with a persuasive twist! The children began planning letters to Mr McClay, trying to convince him that our class should have a pet dragon. They have worked hard on their arguments and are looking forward to polishing their ideas further. During Maths, we focused on Roman numerals and rounding. The children enjoyed cracking the code of Roman numerals and practised rounding numbers to the nearest 10, 100 and 1,000 with increasing confidence.

Science this week took us to the first stage of the digestive system—teeth! We identified different types of teeth, explored their purposes, and thought carefully about why each type is important for breaking down food. We also filled our “kindness buckets” by thinking of ways we can be compassionate and supportive to others, both in school and at home. RE lead to thoughtful class discussions about Jewish worship and the different ways people express their faith. Music was lively and exciting as we explored pitch on a stave and even started learning a brand-new song together.

Well done to Year 4 for their enthusiasm and hard work throughout another busy week of learning!

Have a lovely weekend,

The Year 4 Team

Reminders:

• Please ensure children are wearing clothing in line with the school's uniform, including plain black shoes or trainers and school jumpers/cardigans.
• Reminder: PE is on Monday and Wednesday.
• Reminder: Please continue reading regularly at home.
• Reminder: Don’t forget to keep practicing times tables on TT Rockstars.

Year 5

This week the children have continued their hard work with place value comparing and discussing large numbers. We have begun looking at addition and subtraction where they are using the inverse to check calculations. We have explained the importance of mental calculations and how this supports their mathematical learning. Do keep up with times table practise at home. We have been practising the 6 x table this week and next week will be the 7 x table.

Within English the children have started a newspaper article this week where they will be continuing into next week. They are reporting about the find of Tutankhamun. They have demonstrated direct and indirect speech and are writing using journalistic language. We look forward to reading the articles.

The year group have worked hard with their music skills this week by looking at a new song and playing along on the glockenspiels. Many children remembered the pattern/ melody and could repeat back with fluency. Some children wrote the notes down to perform with. Next Thursday the year group are very lucky as they are having a music teacher teach them the Ukelele. This will happen over a few weeks.

REMINDERS:

• Next Monday (29th September) is our harvest festival. Please see the message from Mrs James about food. The children have been learning 'Harvest Samba' and 'Autumn Days'
• Homework is due in on Thursday. Each week we alternate the homework from English to Maths.
• Please continue to practise spellings. The dictation happens on a Friday. We practise at least twice a week in school.

Year 6

This week, we have been writing narratives in our English lessons. The children took inspiration from The Cave to write their own version. Some wonderfully descriptive language was used to descirbe the journey to a mountain and it was great to see their use of relative clauses and expanded noun phrases.

In maths, we have been learning about factors and multiples. The children have used their times tables knowledge to work through a variety of question types.

In history, we explored the British Empire. We learned about colonies and trade, the advantages of a sprawling empire but also elements that were not so good. The children also applied their geographical knowledge to this lesson.

Computing

Wow, I was absolutely overwhelmed with the number of applications we had for the role of digital leaders this year, just over 60 of them from Year 3-6. Children were then interviewed on Thursday and Friday and we will share the successful candidates at the beginning of next week.

On Monday, the Year 4 classes continued to work on photo editing using Paint.net. They were asked to explore various effects and adjustments including changing the colour tone to sepia, experimenting with the hue and saturation as well as the brightness and contrast. A great lesson with all. Work can be seen on Showbie.

On Tuesday, the Year 6 continued to work on their web page. They were introduced to Microsoft Sway (which they can access at home) and were asked to begin organising the information in sections and include relevant pictures, captions and headings. I am looking forward to seeing how these turn out.

On Wednesday, Year 5 worked on their vector drawings using PowerPoint and we had some creative animal creations including a panda, a cat, a dragon and a rabbit to name only a few. They also learned about layering and how to reposition the objects in different ways to create effects.

Sports & PE

This week began with the school cross country runners refining their techniques ready for competition and has ended up with the big event today. All runners taking part gave a really good account of themselves and represented the school with pride. Full report will follow. Next week we look forward to our Year 5 and 6 girls’ football tournament at Len Forge.

Online Safety

They might not be able to pinpoint a location on a map, and they might not fully grasp the historical and political drivers behind certain conflicts – but in this age where news, images and video can cross continents in seconds, many children are able to access distressing news at the touch of a button. This could, of course, cause youngsters extreme distress and worry.

Our #WakeUpWednesday guide contains some valuable pointers for supporting children to deal with upsetting content they’ve encountered online, whether it involves conflicts, ongoing worries over the environment, or something else entirely. Our tips will assist trusted adults in helping young people to process any negative emotions that they may be feeling.

PTA

On November 5th, we will be having a school non-uniform day. We will be asking all of the children to wear bright clothes on the day and to bring in a donation for the PTA Christmas Raffle. More information to follow...