Friars Weekly Newsletter friday 29th NOVEMBER 2024

Coming up in this edition of the newsletter...

• Christmas Lunch
• Parent Council Appeal
• PTA Christmas Fayre and Raffle next week - see the PTA posters at the end of the newsletter

It’s the last school day in November and hasn’t it come around very quickly! It is really hard to comprehend that we are entering the final weeks of 2024.

Monday marks our final swimming lessons. We really hope that all of the children have enjoyed their time in the pool and that they are keen to show off their improved skills and confidence when you take them swimming next. Judging by all of the smiling, it seemed that everyone liked their lessons. Thank you to Emma and Paul, our swimming teachers, who did a great job. Both commented on how lovely and well-mannered our children are. In yesterday’s assembly we spoke about water safety and how important swimming is but also that is is important to know how to keep safe around water. The children showed excellent knowledge.

Yesterday we had the Year 1 Winter Wonderland session and this afternoon it was Year 2’s turn. The Winter Wonderland afternoons are always lovely so thank you if you have already attended or will be attending over the next two weeks.

This week has been particularly festive as rehearsals are in full swing for the Reception, Year 1 and Year 2 Christmas performances. We will be welcoming people along to the Reception nativities next week. How exciting!

… and don’t forget that Wednesday sees the return of our Christmas Fayre. From 3:30pm, you will be able to join us in school for lots of fun.

Have a super weekend and see you all on Monday.

Mr. Chris McClay, Principal

Christmas Lunch

Christmas lunch is now live on ParentPay for booking. As it is a special lunch there is a slightly increased cost of £2.55.

Please can we ask that you help us with our lunch organisation by booking your child's Christmas lunch as soon as possible and ideally by Friday 6th December. Christmas lunch is always very popular and knowing numbers in advance supports our food ordering. Thank you.

Parent Council

We are looking to restart our Parent Council. The council would look to meet every half-term term to discuss school matters and it is a real way of helping to shape what we do as a school. Meetings will typically be about one-hour long with the agenda sent in advance.

Ideally, we would like to have representation from every year group. If you are interested, please complete this short survey and we will be in touch. Thank you.

Mr. McClay and Mrs. Halls

Form Link

Helping Others

We were blown away with everyone's generosity towards the food collection for Harvest this year. Thank you for everyone's kind donations... please see the certificate below that recognises our excellent efforts!

PTA Christmas Raffle

This year's Christmas Raffle will be as big and as exciting as ever. If you are able to buy or sell the tickets the children have brought home that would be brilliant.

Nursery

This week in Nursery the children have enjoyed making props to support their play. Some children made wands to put spells on their friends (we had a lot of frogs jumping around), others made capes to become superheroes. To do this they used creative and imaginative skills whilst selecting their own materials. We also had a visitor in from Talking Tots who delivered a lovely active session which aimed to promote speaking and listening. During this time, the children were involved in games and had to use their listening skills before actioning something. We all had a lot of fun during the session.

REMINDER: Please note that Stay and Play on Thursday 12th December will be replaced by Winter Wonderland on Wednesday 11th December.

Reception

We have been practising our Christmas show and songs throughout the week. The children are doing really well and we are looking forward to sharing the show with you next week.

We have encouraged the children to write about a spider this week. They were encouraged to segment words to spell before writing.

Our phonics sessions focused on a couple of digraphs this week; sh and th. Our new tricky words have been she, push and he

We have continued counting, recognising numbers and matching quantities in our maths lessons.

REMINDER: Christmas productions are taking place next week on Tuesday and Thursday. Both shows start at 9:15 am.

Monday 9th December is our Winter Wonderland at 1:45pm. We would love to see you all there to have fun and make crafts with your child. Sadly, younger children can not attend this session.

Year 1

This week we have started our new book “The Jolly Postman”. We predicted the characters that might appear in the book and some children were correct! We then created a story map thinking about which order the postman delivered his letters.

In maths, we have begun to use part-whole models to complete subtraction problems. The children have worked really hard on this new skill and are doing very well with this.

In science, Starlings have continued to look at classifying animals. They have discussed the similarities and differences between reptiles, amphibians and fish this week.

Wrens have had a wonderful time in outdoor learning, looking at wildlife in the garden and thinking about how these animals can be looked after.

We loved seeing so many of you at our Winter Wonderland. We know the children enjoyed making their lovely decorations with you and hope you had a good time too!

REMINDER: Please remember to label the children’s outdoor clothing including each glove. Thank you.

Some children have some lines to learn for our nativity. Please help your child to learn to say them in a loud clear voice. We are looking forward to performing for you on 10th December.

Year 2

In English this week, we continued to investigate non-chronological reports. We read reports on hedgehogs and then used our comprehension skills to answer questions relating to the text. We then organised all the information we knew about hedgehogs using subheadings. The children came up with some great facts about hedgehogs that we used in our class non-chronological report.

In maths this week, we have been answering addition and subtraction word problems. The children have been problem solving together in order to answer the reasoning questions. We have also been finding the missing number in a number sentence. The children have been working very hard to understand this concept and we have been very impressed with their perseverance.

This week, we have started to practise our nativity. The children have been learning and practising our songs and their lines. Well done to the children who have already learnt their lines at home!

We had a very successful Winter Wonderland this week, the children enjoyed making their Santa Claus faces! Thank you to all the parents who were able to attend, it was lovely to see so many of you!

REMINDER: If your child is a star or a narrator in the nativity, they were given a letter telling them what they need to wear. If your child has a different role, then costumes will be provided for them to wear.

Year 3

Year 3 have LOVED their swimming lessons this week. Thank you for sending in your children every day with their kits. They’ve returned to class after each session with big smiles and beaming with pride!

We have been continuing with testing this week, focusing on grammar and spelling. It has been great to see how much progress everyone has made since September.

This week we have started learning to play Jingle Bells on the recorder, learning 3 extra notes! In DT, we have made our 3D medicine boxes, drawing out our designs and using the nets to create them. We have started our learning on Queen Boudicca this week, using the iPads to carry out research. Science has been all about skeletons this week, working out whether animals have an endoskeleton, exoskeleton or hydrostatic skeleton.

REMINDER: Don’t forget that our Winter Wonderland session is on Monday, along with our final swimming session!

Year 4

We have had a very busy week in Year 4! In English, we have been writing diary entries based on our layered reading story of How To Train Your Dragon. We pretended to be the main character and wrote about the part of the story in which Hiccup struggled to train his dragon Toothless! We had to include lots of thoughts and feelings about how embarrassing it was!

On Wednesday, we took part in an online workshop to learn more about the Vikings! We had lots of fun and learnt an awful lot about Viking life and culture. Finally, in art we have tried some Batik painting! This involves pouring very hot wax onto cloth and painting on top of it. Although it was quite tricky to control the wax we had lots of fun trying out something new!

Finally, Miss Gibbons and Mr. Smith are very proud of the children for finishing all of their NFER tests – we know some children don’t always enjoy taking tests but they persevered and achieved some good results. Well done!

REMINDER: Don’t forget that our Winter Wonderland session is on Thursday afternoon. We hope to see you then.

Letters sent home this week

Year 4 - Multiplication Tables - 26.11.2024

Year 5

Another busy week in Year 5! Within our English lessons,children have used their notes on the Ancient Egyptian pyramids and wrote detailed information texts on this topic. They have used a range of grammatical skills ranging from parenthesis to including relative clauses. We have seen some perseverance within our maths lessons this week where children have been trying their best through assessments. We started the week with an arithmetic paper and moved on to two reasoning papers after. We look forward to sharing their progress. Through our RE, we have looked at another religious story where God has been revealed in some way. The children used this story to write poetry based on the word 'Revelation'. The children enjoyed writing fact files on Tutankhamun using information from an Ipad, information books and mindmap notes. We had some incredible sketches of him too.

Reminder: Outdoor learning for 5L is next week on Monday, Thursday and Friday.

Reminder: The Year 5 Winter Wonderland session is on Tuesday afternoon at 2:00pm. We hope to see you then.

Letters sent home this week

Year 5 - WHSG 2025 Programme - 25.11.2024

Year 6

This week we have been working on adding and subtracting fractions; finding common denominators to help us. In English, we have been looking at biographies and have been writing our own, from experiences given to us in a short film.

In science, we have been exploring how light can be reflected off multiple surfaces and the possible applications for this. We tried building our own periscopes.

In geography, we found out about trade links with El Salvador and some pf the problems faced by people there because of trade.

In DT we have been trying out different stitches which we can use to decorate and build a decorative cushion.

REMINDER: Don’t forget that our Winter Wonderland session is on Friday. We hope to see you then.

Online Safety

As one of the most popular messaging apps available, Snapchat sees an enormous amount of usage across the globe – with a significant number of those utilising the platform being under 18. For that reason, it’s important to understand the potential risks to younger users when spending time on this app.

Of course, it can be difficult to identify every hazard associated with the platform, let alone what can be done to mitigate these concerns. Our guide lays out the key online safety risks of Snapchat, as well as how to safeguard young people while they use the app.

PE & Sports

This week, we have seen our Year 5&6 and Year 2 dodgeball teams attend tournaments at Garons. Both teams performed amazingly and represented the school so well. There is a lovely photograph of our Year 5&6 team at the start of the newsletter.

On Thursday, the boys’ football team played their first league game against Sacred Heart.

All of our classes from Year 1 to Year 6 have now had the opportunity to use the swimming pool; it has been so encouraging to hear how well children have developed their confidence and abilities in the water. Don't be surprised if they come home pleading to go swimming...!

Music and Singing Assembly

This week in ukulele lessons, the Year 5 children have gone on to learn their second chord – A minor. This means that they are now able to begin to play simple accompaniments to songs. The song we learnt this week was a beautiful one from Lewis Capaldi called Someone you loved. The children showed how well they could multitask like all good musicians by singing and playing at the same time. Well done!

Next week, the choir will be performing at the school fete. We look forward to kicking off the festive season with some fun Christmas songs we have been working hard to learn.

PTA

Please continue to help us with Asda's 'Cashpot for Schools'.

Asda will donate money to our school for everyone who signs up and if you buy shopping in Asda, cashback will be given to Friars every time... Thank you in advance.