A message from the Chair of Governors
What a short, but busy term it has been! Life at St Margaret’s continues in earnest, despite the physical absence of Miss Steele since half term. You will have noticed that Miss Steele still has her finger very much on the pulse through the wonders of modern technology and the telephone! Senior members of staff are doing a great job in her absence. We wish Miss Steele all the very best at this difficult time.
St Margaret’s currently has 9 governors. We have parent governors, staff governors and Foundation governors (people connected with the local churches). All the governors have different backgrounds and experience, but we work closely with senior leaders in school to fulfil our responsibilities. These include making sure that the school’s Christian ethos underpins all aspects of school life and ensuring high educational standards are set and achieved.
We currently have a vacancy for a Foundation Governor so if you know of anyone who might be interested, please let one of the governors know.
Governors are involved with the strategic management of school, not the day to day running of school. We spend time at the school asking questions, meeting teachers, talking to children and holding formal meetings with senior leaders. This term we have monitored children’s behaviour, in particular the ‘zones of regulation’ recently introduced across the school. We have also looked closely at writing standards in school. Several governors have been working with small groups of children during ‘Book Talk’ sessions. It has been a joy to spend time each week listening to children reading and hopefully enthusing a love of reading. I have certainly enjoyed ‘Running Wild’ by Michael Morpurgo with some year 6 children.
We work closely with staff to ensure that St Margaret’s provides the best possible place for your children to grow and flourish, achieving their very best.
Wishing you all a happy and relaxing Easter holiday.
Sheila Grice (Chair of Governors, on behalf of St Margaret’s Governing Body)
PTA News
What a brilliant spring term it has been for the PTA! We have treated all the children to hot chocolate at breaktime, we held two free discos, we had a brilliant super woman sale, a fantastic Easter bingo night, an 'eggciting' Easter egg hunt and we finish up by launching our sponsored event 'Raise £20.24 in 2024'. Our photographs speak for themselves.
We've had so many lovely comments this year about our events and how much the children have enjoyed everything. It's lovely that when we are in school the children are excited to see us and know something fun is likely to happen!
This term we have raised nearly £1000 and have committed to spend over £7000 on phase one of the playground makeover as well as funding new books, spending money for each class, prizes for world book day competitions and more.
As always thank you so much for your support, if you have any feedback, questions or suggestions please just email ptasmsg@ipat.uk
Reception
What a fabulous few weeks we have had in EYFS! Our topics have involved lots of Science investigations - finding out about the life cycles of different plants, how bees pollinate plants, where our fruit and vegetables come from and how to eat healthily. As we move into spring, we have revisited the cycle of the seasons and been out searching for the early signs of spring. The children have been very excited at the arrival of frogspawn in the classroom and we are loving observing the changes - we have lots of tadpoles! After the Easter holiday, we will be learning more about the life cycles of animals, including frogs, so we are hoping to see them really developing over the next few weeks. As well as all of our nature-based science, the children enjoyed consolidating their learning about transport and engineering during our visit to the British Motor Museum. We had a wonderful day finding out about different transports in the past and present, as well as testing out friction and building cars, singing on Bessie the 100-year old bus and even a ride in a very old police car. What a busy few weeks it has been!
Year 1
Year 1 have had a fabulous spring term and so much learning has taken place! In our art work we have been learning about print making and textiles, in our geography lessons we've been learning about what geography is and thinking about the physical and human geography of our local area. We've really enjoyed learning about explorers in our history and just last week in English, we have all been practicing performing poetry. We had to learn a poem to perform! We thought about the timing and the rhythm and came up with different ideas on how to make this consistent. We also created actions to go with our poem and we even got to perform it to the year 6's and it was a real treat when Miss Steel joined us online so we could perform it to her too! We had lots of fun learning our poem and really enjoyed performing it.
Year 2
Year 2 have been very busy this term learning lots of new things. In English the children have been planning and then writing poems with repeating patterns. They have learnt how to use similes and alliteration as well as expanded noun phrases for effect. What wonderful poets we have!
The maths lessons have been teaching the children all about money and they even had a shop in the classroom! Miss Roach, the PGCE student teacher, has been teaching the children music where they have learned about the British origins and style of stomp music before performing as part of an ensemble! It was very noisy but LOTS of fun! Who knew that you could make music with a wheelie bin and tubes? In science, the children have been investigating the uses of everyday materials where they have carried out different experiments. A favourite was testing different types of paper flowers in water to see what happens as they absorb the water...WOW!
We have seen some budding artists through the work that has been created in class too. Recently, the children have created an abstract collage pouch using sticky back plastic and combining different materials with colourful and textural effects. Amazing!
Year 3
How swiftly time flies! Year 3 has had an incredibly exciting spring term, and all of our class has made remarkable progress!
In our Science lessons, we've been using everyday items found in our classroom and a special tool called a force meter to explore various types of forces. It's been so much fun! We even got to make our own floating compasses while learning about magnetism, which we found really cool! And now, we're fully engaged in our study of plants, discovering so many interesting things like how they grow and what they need to thrive.
In English, we've been exploring poetry and storytelling, and the entire class has done exceptionally well this term. We've all been so creative, coming up with our own poems and stories that we're really proud of. And our drama lessons have been an absolute joy – a highlight of our week for sure! Getting to act out different scenes and characters has been such fun.
In Design and Technology, after learning about mechanisms and levers, we had a fantastic time crafting our own personalised levers. It was great to see what everyone came up with and how uniquely they each personalised their creations. We've really enjoyed putting our creativity to work and learning new things along the way!
Year 4
Year 4 have been busy being Anglo-Saxons this term, learning all about how they came over and settled in Britain and how life on this island changed. We have really enjoyed reading our class text 'Anglo-Saxon Boy' and having the opportunity to celebrate it on World Book Day by making shields, putting ourselves in the text and creating our own Alfred the Great dances. We keep fending off those pesky Vikings, but we fear they may be making an appearance next term as we move onto our new topic after Easter. A super term Year 4!
Year 5
This term in Year 5 we have been enjoying so much learning and 'doing!' Everyone thoroughly enjoyed DT, where we made flatbread with garlic butter. It was very enjoyable - especially the eating part - and lots of members of the class went home and made it all over again so that they could have it with their dinner or use it to mop up sauce - it has been a very popular dish!
More recently, we have been designing fluorescent, reflective belts for road safety, thinking about the slogan, 'Be Safe, Be Seen.' Our computing skills have reach new levels as we have combined these skills with our DT and have even managed to programme micro-bits in order to attach lights which switch on and off in the dark. Keep an eye out for us in the village!
Some of Year 5 took part in an international maths challenge which was very complicated! The team was up against a timer and had to answer some pretty advanced questions whilst being under pressure. There were teams from all over the world in the competition and we were very proud to have scored 154 points - above the 133 average score.
In History and English, everyone has been engrossed in learning about World War II and even some stories such as that of Anne Frank. We've learned so much about the steps to war, how some countries make agreements with others and even The Battle of Britain. We even tested our own Spitfires, although have decided that this is best left to the experts! Everyone in Year 5 is very much looking forward to our trip to Beaumanor Hall where we will be learning more about The Blitz and life during the war.
Everyone in the class got involved in the competition for the best decorated door for World Book Day! We used our classbook, 'Darwin's Dragon's' by Lindsay Galvin as our inspiration. Everyone painted rocks to created the lava cave, some groups painted parts of the dragon and we even had leaves for the floor. The whole class was very pleased to win! Many children are really enjoying the book and also want to read 'My Friend The Octopus' by the same author.
Year 6
Year 6 are really impressing us with their resilience and perseverance at this industrious time of the year in the year 6 calendar. They are full steam ahead with their revision for their SATs and are really committed to showcasing the fabulous progress in their learning that they have made. The children continue to look forward to their weekly book talk sessions and books being enjoyed this half term include The Last Bear, War Horse and The Final Year. The children have been enjoying their science work, studying the classification of living things and they have demonstrated an excellent knowledge of vertebrates and invertebrates. They were so curious to learn that a sponge is in fact part of the animal kingdom, and this week are looking forward to classifying living things in their local environment.
Sports News
Tag Rugby
A group of Year 5 children attended a Tag Rugby Tournament at Hinckley Rugby Club recently. The children played well despite being up against some older, more experienced players. They showed super St Margaret's behaviour and it was super to have them represent our school.
Cross Country
As a result of some excellent racing in our previous rounds, Rosie and Josh (Year 4) and Liam (Year 3) were all chosen to represent Hinckley and Bosworth and the Nationals recently. We couldn't be more proud of all three of these children and hope they continue to keep up their running! Well done!
Kurling
Six children from KS1 and KS2 represented St Margaret's at the Kurling competition at 'Sport in Desford.' All 6 children were brilliant and tried really hard in all their games. Kurling is quite new to all the children and they all enjoyed it. Well done to all the children involved!
Netball
Over 20 of our Year 5 and 6 girls recently attended a netball tournament at Redmoor. They have been attending our incredibly popular netball club which is run by Mrs Warwick. It is fabulous to see so many of the older girls so involved with this and the skill they showed at the competition was phenomenal! We are so proud of all of them! These are just some of the comments from some of the girls about the netball;
"It's great, I love netball. It's epic."
Mrs Warwick is really nice and teaches us so well!"
"It's really, really fun!"
Many primary schools struggle to get girls involved in sport ~ clearly this isn't a problem at St Margaret's!
Well done netballers and thank you Mrs Warwick!