Friars Weekly Newsletter friday 17th january 2025

Coming up in this edition of the newsletter...

• Big Waddle-on-Sea update... the top ten has been revealed!
• Reminders about our Book Look and Careers Week
• Year 6 Cake Sale... on Thursday. Please support if you can...
• PTA Annual General Meeting (AGM) Monday 27th January at 1:30pm. See the PTA section for more details

A bit warmer this week… thank goodness. Our second week back has flown by with lots happening in school.

On Monday, our School Council voted for the top ten in the Waddle-on-Sea penguin design competition. It was a difficult job but we narrowed about 100 entries down to a final 10. Next week, all of the children will have an opportunity to vote for their favourites so that we can crown a winner. Huge congratulations to the following children who make up the top ten:

Hunter 2S, Albie 3B, Molly 3B, Harvey 4G, Iqra 4G, Mya 4G, Daisy 4S, Sophia 4S, Marcie 5L, Bay 5SW

On Monday and Tuesday, we had conductive music workshops for Year 3 and 4. These were great fun and we were very grateful to Mrs. Astrella for organising them. The football match on Monday with Thorpedene was a nail biter. A close first half which finished 0-0, then saw a second half with eight goals! The final score might have been 5-3 to Thorpedene but the result could have easily gone the other way. Well done to everyone taking part. I certainly enjoyed watching!

On Wednesday, Year 5 had a virtual author visit which was interesting and today we had some children from Year 3 and 4 out at Len Forge for a football tournament. More to follow about that next week…

Have a lovely, restful weekend and see you on Monday.

Mr. Chris McClay, Principal

After School 'Book Look'

A reminder that 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.

Please enter the school through the Main Reception from 3:30pm.

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.

Year 6 Cake Sale - Thursday

On Thursday 23rd January 2025 there will be a Year 6 cake sale taking place across the school day. Every year, the Year 6 children fundraise to support end of year activities and their leavers hoodies and the cake sale is one of their initiatives.

Cakes will cost between 20p and 50p and it would be great if the children could bring change.

Donations of cakes, to be sold, will be gratefully received. If you would like to donate cakes, please bring them to the school office (or if your child is in Year 6 they can bring them straight to their classrooms). If you donate cakes in a container that you would like to have back, please clearly name the container. Please remember, we are a nut free school.

Nut-Free School

Please remember that we do have children with nut allergies and therefore we are a nut-free school. Please do not give children snacks or packed lunches containing nuts. Thank you.

Nursery

Nursery has felt very busy this week with our new children now starting their full-time hours. With the help of our returning children, they have settled very well and are quickly learning the rules and routines of nursery. Exploring the learning environment, both indoors and out, has been key this week, introducing all of our toys and how we use them. During group time we have introduced body counting, talked about what a phoneme is, played games that help us learn each other’s names and taken a trip to the school library. Like I said a very busy week in Nursery.

Reception

This week, we have continued to share the story of ‘Blue Penguin’ where the children have put events in order, retold the story and participated in shared writing sessions. Lots of children have made penguins in various media in our creative area as well as drawing chalk penguins outside. In maths, we have been finding one more and one less than a given number as well as ordering numbers up to 10.

Our phonics sessions have focused on ‘ai’ ‘ee’ ‘igh’ and ‘oa’. Please continue to read with your child at home and practise the word lists in their reading diaries. Once your child is able to read a set of words please let us know.

REMINDER: We use our outdoor area all year round and ensure that children wear coats when required. Whilst the weather remains wet and damp it is a good idea to pack some spare clothes – socks/tights, trousers/skirt - in your child’s bookbag, just in case they need them.

Year 1

We have had another fantastic week in Year 1. In English, we have been reading the story “Claude in the City” and have been able to describe Claude. We have also pretended to be Claude and written postcards from him to Mr. and Mrs. Shinyshoes. The children did a fantastic job!

In maths, we have been working with numbers within 20 and the idea of 1 more and 1 less. We moved on to working with number lines. We are building our independence with maths and completing more independent tasks. We are so proud of the children for how they have been getting on working in a new way, well done Year 1!

In art, we are looking at buildings. Thinking about the shapes and patterns that we find on buildings and have looked at some very interesting architects.

Year 2

Year 2 have begun an author study in English based upon the author Anthony Browne. Our first book is ‘The Tunnel’ and the children have been surprised when they have found features of some fairy stories within some of the pictures. We have used expanded noun phrases to describe the characters and predicted what they may be thinking during different parts of the story.

During maths we have counted faces, edges and vertices on 3D shapes and solved problems using what we discovered.

We have carried on learning about the history of trains and have used a timeline of pictures to show how they have changed over the last two centuries.

After colour mixing in art last week, we turned our attention to the work of Monet and explored some of his artwork. We then created our own versions using some of his colours and techniques.

REMINDER: Please hear your child read their phonics reading book or a book from Reading Express (Reading Eggs). This really makes a difference when they read their books regularly – both to their prosody and comprehension.

Year 3

Year 3 enjoyed a brilliant workshop on conductive music this week and were amazed at how they could make music by connecting wires and high fiving their friends! It was great fun and we all learned lots.

This week, we have been continuing our maths work on multiplication and division, consolidating our skills from last term and finding links between the two. We’ve also been continuing with our learning on 'Leon and the Place Between' in English this week, trying hard to use fronted adverbials and adjectives in our writing.

Our science investigation this week led to lots of excited voices around the room, as we discovered what happens to rocks when adding water or using sand paper, for example. We also used paints and oil pastels to explore creating texture in art – what a brilliant week!

REMINDER: Don’t forget to continue using Reading Eggs at home – our collective minutes has massively dropped since Christmas and there is some healthy competition between 3A and 3B. Who will win between the classes next week!?

Year 4

It was another busy week of learning in Year 4 this week! Following on from our WW2 hook day last week, we started to write a diary entry from the viewpoint of an evacuee. In the diary entry we had to think carefully about the thoughts and feelings that the children may have had in order to help us create emotive sentences – would they have felt excited? Scared? Did they have to leave their siblings? Or were they lucky enough to get to stay with them? Writing our diaries really helped us to empathise with how some children may have felt during WW2.

In maths, we continued to develop our skills around the times tables and learned how to multiply and divide by 10 and 100. We want children to continue using Times Tables Rockstars as much as possible at home to help continue building their confidence around their times tables.

In the afternoons, 4G have been busy looking at how World War II actually started in history and began to research the “make-do and mend” initiative during the Second World War ready to create their own toys in design & technology. In science the children learnt about animals and their habitats and how different animals have adapted to live in certain conditions successfully. The learning in PSHE involved looking at how big companies advertise their products to us and how they target specific audiences with their adverts.

4S thoroughly enjoyed their outdoor learning sessions with Mr Brady with a focus on forestry skills. The children explored the garden and learnt about different types of trees and leaves and how to identify them in the wild. They also had great fun using forestry tools (safely of course!).

As well as all this, we had a phenomenal ‘conductive’ music visitor who allowed us to experience a 2-hour, interactive music and technology workshop. It was great fun and the children gained insight into music-making and programming.

Year 5

This week, Year 5 continued their learning around multiplying a number by a 2-digit number. They persevered with the method and we have seen some improvement in accuracy over the course of a week. We then moved onto short division. This relies heavily on the children having a good knowledge of their times tables and we continue to encourage them to learn these at home.

In English, the children wrote their own biography. It was very interesting to read their most treasured memories. Some made us chuckle and others really moved us with their emotive language.

Geography saw the children learning about climate zones. We are really enjoying this new topic.

To end the week, we had a go at creating our own graffiti art work via the Tate website. The children focused their art work on a current issue such as environmental concerns.

Have a great weekend!

Year 6

This week, the children have continued to look at the subject of civil rights in English. They have produced newspaper reports based on Rosa Parks, the “First Lady of American Civil Rights”

She refused to give up her seat on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama in 1955 for a white gentleman. As a result, she was arrested and fined. This led to the Montgomery Bus Boycott which was a pivotal event in helping bring about changes to the laws of segregation up the years that followed.

In maths, the children have been finalising their work on converting between metric and imperial units of measurement. We have now moved onto the topic of ration and begun looking at the additive or multiplicative relationships between numbers.

All of the children enjoyed playing the glockenspiels to a new song this week called Disco Fever. They easily found the pulse of the music and were successful in playing in time to the beat.

In geography, we have researched the Ancient Mayan civilisation in order to produce fact-files.

We are beginning a topic this week in art connected to the use of masks during the times of the Ancient Maya. We have researched why they were worn, what and how they were made and what they represented. We will be using this information to help design our own.

Computing

Year 6 have been continuing on working on variables in games and are starting to design their own scoreboards in a game they have created – most chose a football game!

Year 4 have been developing their skills on text-based coding using FMS Logo by coding the turtle to draw the letters of their name. They used right angle turns and had to calculate how any steps forward (or backward) to take to make the letters the correct size.

Girls coding club had a sneak preview of the new Lego Spike Education kits that have now arrived. They helped to organise all the resources and are looking forward seeing how they can use their coding skills with the kits in their year groups. Thank you to the PTA for funding such a wonderful resource.

Online Safety

Among children – and especially teenagers – TikTok boasts approximately 220 million users, providing a near-endless reel of short clips intended to entertain, educate and more. However, along with its enormous userbase comes a significant number of possible risks: Ofcom have dubbed it the most likely app on which teen users would potentially suffer harm.

With the platform reaching astronomical levels of success among the younger generation, it’s vitally important for parents and educators to understand the risks it poses. This free guide lets you know about the most prominent potential dangers associated with TikTok and offers expert advice on how to safeguard youngsters who are navigating the site.

PE & Sports

Sportshall athletics was excellent last week. It is such a fun event and runs all across the country. It was touch and go at first as to whether or not it would happen as the team behind it live in the north of England and were snowed in at the beginning of the week.

On Thursday, it was the Y5/6 competition and on the Friday Y3/4. Mr. Leggett was there for both afternoons with Mrs. Kipling accompanying him on the Thursday and Mr. Brady the Friday. Both teams performed well and gave it their all. The practices paid off and you could see improved technique. Everyone who took part should feel proud of their efforts!

As Mr. McClay mentioned at the beginning of the newsletter... the Year 5/6 football match on Monday was a cracking spectacle. It's not often you see a goalless first half followed by goals galore in the second. Well done to everyone involved in what turned out to be a 5-3 loss. On to the next one...

Outdoor Learning

This half-term's outdoor learning timetable is as follows:

• Week Commencing - 20th January - 3A
• Week Commencing - 27th January - 3B
• Week Commencing - 3rd February - 6B
• Week Commencing - 10th February - 6L

Music and Singing Assembly

The focus at the moment in our singing assemblies is country music. So far the songs have been very well received and it has been lovely to have Year 1 join in. The choir continues to be in full voice and we are now looking towards the summer performances; with Southend Makes Music and the Junior Music Festival on the horizon.

Mrs. Bemister has been so impressed with our singing since joining us in September and we have really benefitted from Mrs. Bemister's musical expertise.

PTA