Friars Weekly Newsletter friday 12th september 2025

Our first full week with the children has flown by and we are certainly back in the full swing of things.

This week, it has been lovely to welcome back Nursery children to the school and to see lots of new starters. Our Reception children have had their first complete day with us today and it has been really fantastic. It is great when the children are all in and the school is full once again.

Next week, a number of after-school clubs are starting. We look forward to welcoming the children along to these and we hope they enjoy them! Thank you to the staff members giving up their time to facilitate these. There will be news about more clubs as we move through the term.

Also, next week we will be meeting our new School Council. Congratulations to the children who have been selected to be this year’s School Councillors and Vice-Councillors – it is always an honour to be selected for positions of responsibility by your peers.

Have a lovely weekend everyone and see you on Monday.

Mr. McClay, Principal

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

It has been lovely welcoming back returning nursery children this week. They have all come back confident, saying lots of stories about their holiday and ready for fun. We have also had two 'stay and plays' with our new children, who have been in and explored the learning environment; we are looking forward to them joining us full time next week and getting back into our nursery routine.

Reception

We are very impressed with how well the children have settled into Reception this year. They are quickly learning our rules and routines, which is wonderful to see.

Lunchtime has gone smoothly – thank you to all the parents who have completed the lunch register via Arbor; this is a great help.

This week, we have introduced the children to the outdoor area, as well as the writing area and our small world area. We’ve been encouraging them to keep resources within their designated spaces and to return equipment to its proper place after use.

Cool Milk – if you would like your child to have milk at school, please sign up via the Cool Milk website.

Letters sent home via Arbor

• Whole School - New School Year Letter - 01.09.2025

Year 1

We have had another fantastic week in Year 1. We are so impressed by how well the children are settling and how quickly they are learning our routines. In English, we have been looking at the story of The Little Red Hen. The children have been labelling farms and animals, practising their fine motor skills, completing reading comprehensions and writing lists of characters! In maths we have continued our work on numbers within 10 and completed a variety of tasks across the week. We started our science topic 'Animals including Humans' this week and the children had fun labelling different parts of the body and making skeleton puzzles. In DT, we have started our buildings topic and the children have used a variety of equipment to create different types of buildings. Great job Year 1!

This week your child has visited the library and chosen a book to take home. We will do this fortnightly, can your child bring their book back on Wednesday 24th September so that they can change their book. They will not be allowed a new book until the old one has been returned.

The reading books with their new reading records (and words to learn) have been sent home today. Please can they be sent back in every Thursday so that we can change their books and give them out on a Friday. Thank you.

Finally, please can you order your child’s lunch via Arbor even if they are having a packed lunch. Thank you.

Letters sent home via Arbor

• Whole School - New School Year Letter - 01.09.2025

Year 2

Year 2 have enjoyed revisiting the traditional tale of ‘The Three Little Pigs’ this week. The children have described the characters using sentences including nouns and interesting adjectives. They are looking forward to reading an alternative version of this story called ‘The Three Little Wolves and the Big Bad Pig’ next week.

During our maths activities, we have used practical equipment to represent two-digit numbers using ‘tens’ and ‘ones’.

Investigating homes from the past included looking at artefact such as TVs, old telephones (with spinning dials) and old washing machines. The children were really shocked that some teachers only had three television channels when they were six!

Reading: Please listen to your child read regularly at home and record your comments in the their Reading Record.

Login information for both ‘Reading Eggs’ and ‘Numbots’ are now stuck into the front of your child’s Reading Record. Both of these programs can be accessed at home to support your child’s English and maths skills.

Letters sent home via Arbor

• Whole School - New School Year Letter - 01.09.2025

Year 3

This week, our young authors have been continuing their learning of The Iron Man by Ted Hughes. We’ve been working hard on writing detailed character descriptions, using powerful adjectives and similes to bring the Iron Man to life. The children have impressed us with their creativity – from describing his "eyes like headlamps" to imagining the sound of his metal footsteps echoing through the night. Ask your child to tell you what they think the Iron Man might be thinking or feeling!

In maths, we've been consolidating our understanding of place value, focusing on recognising the value of each digit in 2- and 3-digit numbers. We’ve used base ten equipment, number lines, and even some clever games to help us compare and order numbers with confidence. This foundation is key to all our number work, and the children are doing a brilliant job.

Our science lessons have been full of hands-on fun as we explored the concept of friction. The children investigated how different surfaces affect how objects move, learning that friction is a force that slows things down. We tested how quickly an object travelled across different materials – it sparked lots of scientific thinking and great predictions!

Letters sent home via Arbor

• Whole School - New School Year Letter - 01.09.2025

Year 4

What a fantastic week we've had in Year 4! The children have been busy across a range of subjects.

4L explored nature through a photography project and had a great time showcasing their creativity outdoors. In maths, we’ve been deepening our understanding of place value, working with numbers up to 10,000 and practising partitioning using base-ten blocks and number lines. In English we wrote a narrative about a mysterious beach hut, focusing on building tension with powerful adjectives and verbs. We also started reading How to Train Your Dragon, which the children are really enjoying. 4A recreated the digestive system using a ‘borrowed’ lunch, exploring how food moves through the body.

The children have been learning about Anglo-Saxon settlements and how they lived. This linked with our exploration in PSHE of ways people work in communities and why they are important, reflecting on the values that make a community strong. In music, we worked on identifying note lengths and rhythms, experimenting with different beats and sounds.

REMINDER: PE is on Monday and Wednesday, please ensure your child is wearing their kit and earrings are removed.

4A will have outdoor learning next week.

Spellings will be coming home on a Friday and we will be focusing on different spelling strategies each week. A regular spelling test will happen Friday each week.

All children should have logins to use Times Tables Rock Stars to help learn their times tables at home. In addition, it is expected that children are reading regularly at home.

Letters sent home via Arbor

• Whole School - New School Year Letter - 01.09.2025

Year 5

What a great full week back at school! The children are continuing their use of place value to order, compare, read and write numbers to one million. They have been keen to prove what happens when you multiply and divide numbers by 10, 100 and 1000.

Through our English we are focusing on narrative. The children are exploring the Alchemist's letter and we will use this as a base for their own narrative. We have explored the five-part story structure and they have introduced characters in a controlled way.

Year 5 started the week in discussing what faith means to them and demonstrated this in wonderful calligrams with rich language around this theme. We have started netball in PE and the children have been practising the bounce pass. Some great listening and working within a team.

Letters sent home via Arbor

• Whole School - New School Year Letter - 01.09.2025

Year 6

We have had another good week in Year 6. The children enjoyed their first sessions of PE, art and computing.

On Wednesday, the children looked closely at the Victorian period and placed key events chronologically on a timeline. The children considered which of the events they thought were the most significant.

In English, we extended our knowledge of fronted adverbials and expanded noun phrases.

Maths continued our learning on place value. We have worked with numbers up to 10,000,000.

Letters sent home via Arbor

• Year 6 - Parent Flyer - 05.09.2025
• Whole School - New School Year Letter - 01.09.2025

Sports & PE

We have been lucky with the weather this week and seen all classes using the outdoor space for their PE. It has been great to see children dressed suitably on their PE days, so they are able to take part. Next week, we will see a selection of clubs starting.

REMINDER: Reminder that children are not allowed to wear earrings when doing PE and must be able to remove them for their lesson.

Online Safety

Most smartphones and tablets allow parents and carers to choose which apps and features appear on their child’s device and which ones don’t – also preventing young people from buying and downloading anything that’s unsuitable for their age. These guides to parental controls for managing apps on iPhones and Android devices will help you to reduce the chance of your child using a game or app that might not be appropriate for their age.

PTA

There will be lots of exciting PTA news coming soon with all of the favourite events returning for 2025-26. If you can ever help with the PTA, please let us know...