This term at Charles Dickens Primary School we will be delivering a series of Sex and Relationships Education (SRE) lessons across the school based on the Christopher Winter Project (approved by the PSHE Association). SRE will be delivered in accordance with the school ethos and the schools agreed equal opportunities framework, which is sensitive to the needs and beliefs of pupils, parents/carers and other members of the school community.
Sex and Relationships Education has a key part to play in the personal, social, moral and spiritual development of young people. SRE supports and guides children and young people in lifelong learning about relationships, emotions, the human biology of sex, sexuality and sexual health. It begins informally in the home with parents/carers long before any formal education takes place at school. However, along with parents/careers, we aim to help our young people to understand and manage their physical and emotional development and prepare them for the decisions to be made in adult life.
For more information please refer to our SRE scheme of work or you can attend an optional drop-in session for parents/carers after school on Monday 27th February from 4pm-5pm in Nickleby Class. Please feel free to come along and ask any questions you may have concerning the teaching of SRE.
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By now, your mood meter will be filling up with vocabulary to describe emotions. The number of parents who have taken one of our free mood meters has overwhelmed us and we are so happy that they are going to good use. There are lots in the office for you to take if you want one!
Don’t forget to revisit your charter as a family to ensure you are sticking to it.
The next step is to start thinking about regulating emotions. For example, if you find yourself in the red or blue and wish to shift your emotion so that you are feeling yellow or green, what strategies do you have?
Some maybe ineffective, such as;
- Avoidance
- Withdrawal
- Denial
- Ignoring the emotion or problem
- Wishful thinking
- Rumination and worry
- Suppression
- Blaming oneself
- Blaming others
- Procrastination
- Poor health habits
More positive strategies could be:
- Breathing
- Mindfulness/relaxation
- Positive self talk
- Physical activity
- Construction activity such as hobbies, reading, cooking, painting.
- Modifying the situation
- Focus on solving the problem
- Finding support from others
Discuss what strategies each of you use and which ones are helpful and which ones aren’t. Perhaps you could all learn a new strategy together, such as art!
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Artists in the Spotlight
By Mrs Jenkins
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We are proud and excited to announce the launch of a new whole school project – Artist in the Spotlight. Focusing on a different noteworthy artist (contemporary or past) each half term, we hope to provide children with more meaningful exposure to prominent and influential artists as a route to broaden their artistic knowledge and develop their critical analysis skills.
Children will be able to see and celebrate the work of the chosen artist all around the school as well as in their own classrooms. We invite and encourage you to expand on this at home with your children, and will help you do so by featuring a different work in this newsletter each week alongside some conversation starter questions.
Our first chosen artist is David Hockney, a multi-talented painter, printmaker, stage designer and photographer. He is regarded as one of the most significant and influential artists of the twentieth century, having been a key contributor to the pop art movement of the 1960s.
The Hockney major retrospective at Tate Britain 9th February – 29th May 2017 is one of the UK’s art exhibition highlights of the year. Please visit if you get the chance and are lucky enough to get tickets for this hugely in demand show!
One of the reasons for choosing Hockney as our launch artist is that he is incredibly prolific. Most his works are suitable and highly appealing to children due to their bold colourful nature, but a gentle warning that some of Hockney’s painting content may not be suitable for younger children (nudity) so please use parental discretion if researching this further with your children.
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Friday 24th Feb: A Bigger Splash (1967)
Questions
- What can you see in this picture?
- What do you think happened just before this moment was caught in time?
- Who do you think lives here?
- Who or what do you think is underneath the water?
- What do you think the artist was trying to explore or capture in this painting?
- Does it remind you of anything?
- How many ways do you think you could draw or paint water? Research more of Hockney’s swimming pool paintings to find out!
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Well done to this week’s stars of the week! This week’s selection of wonderful children were given their awards based on how brilliant they were in the final week before the half term break! I hope everyone has come back refreshed and ready to be stars this week!
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WORLD BOOK DAY AND READ-A-THON
As you may be aware, next Thursday (March 2nd) is World Book Day. The children will be participating in many book themed activities throughout the day, one of which is to be dressed up as a favourite book character.
There will be a costume parade and a prize awarded to the winning costumes in each year group. Please help your child dress up for World Book Day!
Also, our Read-a-thon draws to a close on Tuesday 28th of February - please ask your child to start collecting their sponsor money now and bringing it into their class teacher or the school office. Thank you!
AUTHOR VISIT AND BOOK SIGNING
Next Friday, the 3rd of March, we are very lucky to be having a visit from famous author and illustrator Jo Berger. His recently published book 'Lyttle Lies: The Pudding Problem' is flying off the shelves in bookshops across the land.
Jo will be spending time with all Key Stage 2 children on the afternoon of Friday 3rd of March - he will be illustrating live, talking about what inspires him and reading from his book. Then all the children will have the chance to meet Jo, and buy a signed copy of Lyttle Lies for only £5 (it costs £7 in the shops). Bargain!
We'd like your child to bring in £5 on the 3rd of March and give it to their teacher at the start of the day. Your child will them meet Jo and receive their signed copy after his presentation in the afternoon.
This is a great opportunity to meet a real life author and pick his brains.
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Hello Charles Dickens Family
This week's selection comes in two formats. First in its original form - a 7 minute piece of seminal Detroit techno; and secondly, an orchestral interpretation, performed by L'orchestre Lampureux.
Conceived as a symphony to a post-industrial Detroit in the late 80s, Derrick May's the Strings of Life is a seminal moment in electronic music. It uses drum machines and synthesisers as its instruments and in using digital time codes, has a rhythm so precise it’s mathematically perfect and always on the beat.
Here is the original:
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Click to listen!
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And here is the same piece performed by an orchestra. This time each synthesised sound is played on an orchestral instrument. Personally, I’m not sure it works as well however, there is a new tension created as the orchestra accompanies a digital drum machine. The rhythm isn’t as precise and at times it ebs and flows away from the beat.
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Click to listen!
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Either way, it’s a superb piece of music and I hope you all enjoy!
Mr Young
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Nature Explorers Children's Club
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Year Five and Six
By Mr Windle, Head of Year Five and Six
It's been a frantic first week back for the Year 5/6 phase. We've been the protesting proletariat of the 1905 Russian Revolution in English - we've written slogans, we've stormed the Winter Palace in St Petersburg and we've penned letters of complaint to the Tsar. In Peggotty Class, Lucas and Ayomide wrote particularly excellent letters to the Tsar, highlighting the injustices of the working person's life in the freezing Russian heartlands. While over in Summerson, Elias, Justin and Gavriel's palpable outrage at the Tsar's behaviour whipped the rest of the class up into a frenzy of chanting and placard waving. We are building a nation of rebels!
In maths, we've been tackling the areas and perimeters of compound shapes. In the process, we've helped the makers of Tetris avoid infiltration from spies and redecorated the Kremlin Palace. Lola in Micawber toiled away at her areas of compound shapes and made some real mathematical progress. What resilience and effort! Over in Barnaby, there were some excellent area calculations from Amina, Holly and Toni. If you're ever in need of someone to measure up your palace, these are your guys.
Also, it's been a trip heavy week. On Tuesday, Year 6 took the 21 bus down to the Old Kent Road Fire Station for a citizenship course. They had to interact with children form another school there and our school definitely came out on top in the behaviour stakes. Well done. They also enjoyed seeing Mr. Harris in uniform. On Wednesday, the Year 5s went to the Royal Academy of Art to see the Russian Revolution exhibition and on Friday Year 6 popped over to the Tate Modern for aspot of culture. It's Year 6s last day out before it's heads down in the run up to the SATs.
On top of all this, there's been tag rugby, bench ball and football in PE; the Rambert Dance Project for Summerson Class and much more.
Next week, it's all about reading and books with World Book Day on Thursday and the visit of author Joe Berger on Friday.
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Year Three and Four
By Mr Huxley, Assistant Headteacher
The first third of the news in years 3 and 4 concerns fractions. The wisdom that the children have shown when solving fraction problems, finding fractions of shapes and calculating the fraction has been inspiring even to this third of century old teacher. The pupils haven't gone into these problems half-heartedly and it has really showed that all of the children have given their whole effort. We are optimists in year 3/4 and never view a glass as half empty (in fact, we are that optimistic, that we would probably say a glass is five eighths or even three fifths full!)
In English, we have started to learn about the wonderful story of 'The Iron Man'. This all started when we discovered a severed metal arm in our classrooms! Where had it come from? Who did it belong to? The children answered these questions and a lot more! The children have used amazing descriptive language to describe the character using a powerful adjectives and extended noun phrases.
On Thursday, Pickwick and Oliver braved the wind to travel to the Unicorn theatre to watch production of The Iron Man. The children were on top form as ever and even asked some great questions in an Q&A at the end of the show.
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Year One and Two
Ms Alcock, Assistant Headteacher (Head of Key Stage 1)
This week, the children have loved meeting Paddington Bear! He came to visit the classes on different days (looking remarkably like Mr Vanson, Ms Alcock, Mr Oxenham and Amber from Copperfield class!) and the children had great fun asking him questions about his adventurous journey from Peru.
In Year Two, the children wrote similes and Ms Gemmell and Mr Vanson were stunned by the poetry of the children's replies - highlights included Nishat's "Paddington Bear is as adventurous as David Attenborough" and Oluwatosin's "as scared as a backstage dancer". We hope that some of these lovely phrases will appear in the children's stories next week! In Year One, the children focused on asking questions and drawing question marks - Rene in Havisham was especially welcoming, asking "Will you be our friend?"
We have also had great fun in Year One learning about multiplication. The children used potatoes to stamp out groups of objects and then counting up the final total. Aubrey and Nakai both excelled in this area and we are already impressed at how well the children are progressing with counting in twos - please keep practising at home!
Finally, the children have enjoyed finding out about our focus artist David Hockney - the children in Bumble class have been painting some lovely landscapes using bright colours and mixing paints to make new shades - Hazirah's work was especially fantastic!
Ms Alcock
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Early Years
By Ms. Henderson, Head of Early Years
Firstly a warm welcome back to everyone. We hope you all had a peaceful half term break.The Trotwood children have all settled back beautifully after half term and have been ready to learn about the River Thames, as part of their new topic. The children asked to find out about the different animals that live in the river and have shown a special interest in the fish. The children then made fish puppets using their own drawings and lolly sticks demonstrating great design skills and use of tools. Several children then used these puppets to put on their own shows with audience participation and wonderful introductions, "The puppet show is starting", "This is the story of the fish who lost his friend".
In Reception, after a very successful focus on fairytales last term, we have decided to continue this exploration this term. We will be continuing to learn our class stories and also be exploring fairytales from around the world. In other news, the children in Gargery took part in a fantastic PE lesson on Tuesday when they had the opportunity to explore the climbing equipment in the upstairs hall. We were particularly impressed with the children that initially were hesitant about climbing so high, but were very brave and then consequently very proud of their achievements. Well done Gargery! Little Dorrit will have the chance to explore the equipment next week.
Ms. Henderson
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Diary Dates
28 February 2017
6 March 2017
7 March 2017
- Open Morning for Prospective Parents - 9:30am - Please book via the school office
- Chuzzlewit class assembly
- Parent Evening
14 March 2017
15 March 2017
- Developing emotional intelligent children parent workshop 9.30am
16 March 2017
- Summerson Rambert performance at the Southbank Centre
- Copperfield class assembly
21 March 2017
22 March 2017
- Reception Trip to Discover Centre Stratford
30 March 2017
31 March 2017
- Last day at school before Easter holidays
18 April 2017
20 April 2017
26 April 2017
1 May 2017
- Bank holiday - school closed
4 May 2017
9 May 2017
11 May 2017
16 May 2017
- Open Morning for Prospective Parents - 9:30am - Book via the school office
- Barnaby class assembly
23 May 2017
26 May 2017
- Last day before half term
5 June 2017
- INSET day - school closed
6 June 2017
8 June 2017
15 June 2017
20 June 2017
- Little Dorrit class assembly
27 June 2017
- Open Morning for Prospective Parents - 9:30am - Book via school office
- Trotwood class assembly
29 June 2017
- KS1 and Reception Sports Day
30 June 2017
- KS2 Sports Day (No Swimming)
3 July 2017
- Parents Evening (except year 6)
4 July 2017
- Parents Evening (except year 6)
7 July 2017
11 July 2017
- Year 6 Music Leaver's Concert 2pm and 6pm
13 July 2017
- Year 6 Show - 2pm and 6pm
20 July 2017
- Year 6 leaver's assembly - 10am
21 July 2017
- Last day for Summer holidays
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