porters grange weekly newsletter week ending 4th october 2024

Nursery

This week has been another busy week at nursery. We have welcomed some more new friends and are continuing to build friendships. We have enjoyed lots of new activities, water play, painting and playdough. We are all trying very hard to follow the rules and routines of the group and are becoming super at tiding up the classroom when we hear the bell.

REMINDER:Please remember to bring a coat for your child daily as the weather is getting colder.

RECEPTION

This week we have been learning the story of the three little pigs. We have used puppets to re-tell the story and listened to a fun rap too. We have been learning how to ‘act’ out stories in our story acting sessions. We had to use our imagination to represent objects and characters. In maths, we have been learning about the numbers 1-5. How to count, order and form the numbers as well as different ways to compose the numbers such as 1+3=4. We have been sorting items into groups using the resources in the maths area. Each day this week we have had lots of fun singing familiar and new nursery rhymes.

REMINDER: Next week we have our reading workshop on Wednesday 9th October Please come along to the session that suits you either 9am or 3.30pm. Your child will join you for this workshop!

Year 1

The children have continued to work very hard in their English lessons. We are now learning how to write sentences correctly using our writing rules. In their geography lessons year 1 have been learning about the 7 continents. We’ve introduced ‘Banjo’; A cat who travels around the world, looking for adventure. In maths we have started to look at number sentences and how addition is commutative (3 + 2 is the same as 2 + 3).

REMINDER: Well done to those who have used Seesaw. The work we are seeing is fabulous!

Reading books must be in school every day.

Year 2

This week in Year 2 we have been learning about the text ‘Whatever Next’. They have explored the text in depth and adapted the character, what the characters takes on their travels and how the character travels to the moon. In maths we are comparing amounts and numbers and in history we are making a comparison between what Southend- on-Sea looks like now to the Victorian era.

REMINDER: Please remember to make a note of how your child reads at home in their reading records.

Well done to Seahorse class for winning an attendance award this week. You have won some IPad time to celebrate this achievement!

Year 3

This week in Year 3 we have been writing mystery stories of our own in English and started learning about the skeleton in Science. In maths we are tackling addition and subtraction of ones, tens and hundreds and in history we have continued to study the Neolithic village of Skara Brae and the Stone Age monument of Stonehenge.

REMINDER: PE Tuesday and Friday – please ensure your child have appropriate kit including footwear.

Please send your child’s reading record and book in every day and have them continue to read and practise times tables.

Year 4

This week year 4 have swapped PE topics, with Porpoise class learning golf skills and Orca learning tag rugby. In English we have begun to write our own paragraphs based on The Romans or animals. We have tried to include fronted adverbials and a selection of pronouns.

REMINDER: Remember trainers or plimsols for PE kits. PE Monday and Wednesday. Reading records should be in every day.

Year 5

This week, Year 5 have been writing their own flashback stories. They have included fronted adverbials, direct speech and interesting vocabulary. It has been lovely to read their imaginative stories!

In Science, they took part in an online workshop about space. The children learnt how astronauts eat, sleep and live when they are travelling through space.

REMINDER: Remember to bring coats to school please.

Year 6

We had to wait for good weather for our geography field trip but it was worth it! We visited the empty plot of land by the Kursaal and the children thought of some excellent ideas including: a museum for visitors that would pay for a youth centre for local residents to enjoy; a swimming pool and indoor football pitch and a petting zoo for people that cannot afford a pet at home.

In PSHE, we have been learning about the value of turning off devices and having a quiet hour before going to sleep. Children were surprised to learn all the benefits to their physical and mental health of having 10-11 hours sleep a night.

In English, we have been writing parts of stories based on Sherlock Holmes stories. In maths, we are using our times tables knowledge to answer multiplication and division questions.

Thank you for sending in cardboard boxes. We have started creating our self-portrait sculptures inspired by Picasso.

REMINDER: Well done Stingray class for winning the TT Rockstars award this week. 10 minutes a day practising times tables facts will make maths so much easier.

This is the link for the calming activities we talked about in PSHE Calm zone | Childline

French

This week the whole school celebrated the European Day of Languages competition on the theme of Peace. Classes had to find out the meaning of a foreign word posted in their classrooms. The poster on the theme of peace is due in by Friday October 11th.

Music

Music Clubs

• Tuesday - Music Making - 3.30pm - 4.15pm
• Friday - KS2 Choir - 3.30pm - 4.15pm

Instrumental Tuition

• Tuesday Guitar - Mr Brown
• Wednesday Guitar – Mr Elliott
• Wednesday Keyboard – Mr Hockey

Healthy Schools

How to find a dentist

You can find a list of dental surgeries locally and see if any are taking on new NHS patients. Whether it's near your home or work, phone them to see if there are any NHS appointments available.

Dental surgeries will not always have the capacity to take on new NHS patients. You may have to join a waiting list, look for a different dentist who is taking on new NHS patients, or be seen privately.

Once you find a dental surgery, you may have to fill in a registration form at your first visit, which is just to add you to their patient database. But that does not mean you have guaranteed access to an NHS dental appointment in the future.

Did you know? Advice on how to find an NHS dentist from the NHS advises that dentist practices do not have a catchment area and patients do not need to “register” with a dentist in the same way as with a GP (though practices may have their own registers to store personal details and waiting lists).

Community

Cost of Living Advice

Click here to access cost of living advice from Southend City Council. It contains information on housing support, energy cost advice and benefits and support for those with children.