It was wonderful to welcome so many more children back to school on Tuesday morning. They have been so cheerful and happy in school and their presence is a great joy for us all. After three months of lockdown, hearing children chatting and laughing together, helps us all feel more positive about the future. School is beginning to feel more normal but we still need to think about social distancing, particularly among adults; and cleanliness. We are encouraging good hygeine among the children, washing hands for 20 seconds and please keep talking to your children about the importance of this.
Thank you for your support this week with the new "drop off" and "collection" arrangements. I will try to be outside the Y5/Y6 side entrance, so please let me know if you have any concerns or can help in any way.
I would like to express my gratitude to all my colleagues, in the office, helping with Zoom music lessons, and in the classrooms. Due to the constraints on class sizes we are using the whole school and everyone is working hard all day in different areas, without breaktimes, to provide the best service we can, to care for and teach your children. Without this "can do" attitude it would be impossible to welcome so many children back to school and I am extremely grateful for their support. We are all here to do the best we can for your children and that has been very evident at school this week.
Enjoy the weekend.
Mrs Korcz
Calendar & Events
Summer Term 2020
Term Starts:
Monday 20/4/20
May Day:
8/5/20
Half Term:
25/5/20 - 29/5/20
End of Term: Wednesday 15/7/20
SCHOOL YEAR
2020-2021
Autumn Term 2020
Term Starts:
Wednesday 2/9/20
Half Term:
19/10/20 - 30/10/20
End of Term: Friday 11/12/20
Spring Term 2021
Term Starts:
Tuesday 5/1/21
Half Term:
15/2/21 - 19/2/21
End of Term: Thursday 1/4/21
Summer Term 2021
Term Starts:
Monday 19/4/21
May Day:
3/5/21
Half Term:
31/5/21 - 4/6/21
End of Term: Wednesday 16/7/21
ISSUE: 414 19th June 2020
IMPORTANT PARENT INFORMATION
Cool Cats Uniform Supplier: TGPS website - Please access the Uniform & Equipment heading on the home page there is a direct link to the Cool Cats website.
WEEKLY EVENTS
W/C 22 June SCHOOL OPEN FOR ALL YEARS
DISTANCE LEARNING CONTINUES FOR ALL REMAINING CHILDREN
Last week Pre-school and Nursery learnt about Rainforests and the sort of creatures that live in such habitats. See our wonderful Parrot pictures! Aren't they colourful? This week we are concentrating on Oceans as habitats. We have looked at the 20 most beautiful fish in the world such as Angelfish, Pufferfish and Nemo! During the week we have watched snippets of the film 'Finding Nemo' and of course done lots of painting and colouring. We have talked about how we should look after our precious world and all the lovely creatures in it. As Elsey said, 'nature is my friend'. I hope it is our friend and we are friends to nature.
In Reception it has been another fun week of learning. We have continued with our daily 'move it' songs, which were ‘Spring Chicken’ and ‘Coordination Funk’ this week. The children and adults really enjoy these extremely lively sessions before we sit down to our RWI lessons in the morning. In Literacy the children have been writing about their weekend news and have also been reading a mixture of story and non-fiction books in RWI. We are reading the books from the e-books on the interactive whiteboard and it is lovely to see all the children so engaged with this visual way of learning. We have read ‘High on a Hill’ and ‘Baboons’ to name but a few. We have also learnt about making shadow puppets following on from their learning about light and shadows last week.
In Maths the children have had fun looking at estimating objects and seeing who in the class could get closest to the actual number. They were all so competitive!! The children have also been building 3D shapes with Lokko construction and making their own two digit numbers. Pretty impressive Reception! For the last week we have also been observing our class caterpillars as they grow much bigger and fatter. The children are so excited to see these changes take place. Well done everyone another fabulous week of learning!
Class one have been taking part in a virtual
"Show and Tell" of all their hobbies.
Harry loves the adventure of riding on his Quad bike.
Isabelle has greenfingers and loves helping out in the garden.
Leonie enjoys looking after her cat Co Co and loves the cuddles!
Dominic has been fundraising! He raised money for Inspire + and was awarded a trophy. Well done Dominic.
2D to Daddy!
After being back in school for three weeks, and getting fully back into the swing of things, Class One have been very busy. The children have been undertaking their end of year assessments and everyone has worked hard to successfully achieve super scores. Well done for keeping up the good work during the Lockdown! The children have also been getting creative during their Maths lessons by combining their knowledge of 2D shapes and their design skills to make some superb Father's Day cards to say "Thank You" for all the love and support given to them by their Daddy. I think you will agree that the cards are very bright and colourful and there is a future in graphic design for some of the class! Great work, Class One. Enjoy celebrating with your families.
Due to the fact that the Class Two Bee Visit was cancelled, we decided to have it on Zoom instead. There were so many activities that we could not get through it all! Fortunately, we can complete the Bee Quiz and a few other things on Monday. I was so impressed with everyone's efforts and engagement. I really enjoyed tasting the honey and then having a go at the Waggle and Circle Dance that bees use to calculate the distance of flowers from the hive. We even had a virtual bee hive tour, a live art session and much more!
Mr Mytton
Samba at Home!
In music I set Year 2 the task of watching the samba band that the Royal Scottish Orchestra had created in the kitchen at home. They then had to find instruments and create their own band! Here is Henry and George's video of their virtual band.
Mr Mytton
Inspirational Individuals - Serena Williams
Class Two continue their study of inspirational individuals in history (part of Black History Month) by studying the amazing athlete: Serena Williams! Class Two were incredibly inspired by her sporting prowess and the sheer amount of titles, cups etc. that she has won! They really enjoyed watching some videos of her sporting highlights and discovering she had set up a charity for under privileged children. She is an extremely inspirational woman who has helped bring equality in everything she does. We were impressed with how tough she looks in some of the pictures and videos.
This week saw most of the children in class 3 return to school and nobody could have been more happy than me. I had the biggest smile on my face as the children came into the classroom. They too were full of excitement to be back in familiar surroundings. After discussing the new normal it was straight down to work. All the children have produced some amazing work this week, putting in 100% effort. Of course we did have a bit of fun along the way.
Those children still working at home have also been working incredibly hard and have completed lots of neat and detailed work.
Here are just a few examples of what they have been doing.
This week the children have been writing about their pets in an unusual way. Their task was to write an imaginary letter from their pet to an agony aunt. They wrote to agony aunt Wendy with their animal problems and she replied with some positive suggestions. The idea came about after the children introduced their pets at the end of zoom lessons during the lockdown. I’m sure the pets really miss them now that they are back at school!
Art Year 4
Recently the children have looked at the work of the artist Van Gogh and I’m sure you will agree that they have created super paintings based on the ‘Sunflowers. ’Well done.
This week is the 205th year since the Battle of Waterloo took place in Belgium. The battle saw the Duke of Wellington stand fast and defeat the French Army led by Napoleon Bonaparte and send the latter into a second exile and effectively end the Napoleonic Wars and bring peace to Europe! Class 5, as part of their "Battles that shaped Britain" lessons, looked at this key battle and produced some excellent pieces of work.
As a teacher, I like to think I can do most things and teach most things, but to be honest, PE is a bit outside my comfort zone - and with no equipment.
However, as we all do, you come up with a plan! On our outdoor play area we have a series of game ideas painted on the tarmac; so we constructed a circuit using several of these as a basis of jumps, hops and keeping everyone moving for 5 minutes. The sun was shining and they seemed to really enjoy it.
We followed this up with a Daily Mile on the playground and quad. I even challenged myself to one lap without stopping. I was hoping to do two today, but rain definitely stopped play!!
It is great to see the children's enthusiasm for everything, in spite of the trying times and their positive approach to new ideas and their resilience.
Well done Year 6 - keep it up!
Mrs Dickinson
Evelyn's budding literary talent.
As most of us have, during the weeks in lockdown, we have tried to do something new; whether this be clearing out old things or being more active. Evelyn has amazed me over the weeks. She has been teaching herself to juggle and made a puppet and she brought in this week a novel that she has written. I'm hoping that I can read it soon; perhaps I ought to get an autographed first edition, just in case!
We were so excited to welcome some of our Senior students back to school on Monday morning. The students were screened as they come into school and then went through to their classroom where they spent some time with Mr van Vliet going through all the procedures. It's important for students to be informed as to how it all works now back at school to ensure we all keep safe. We are so happy to students back in the school building! It's been a long time and we have missed our students.
Helderberg International School SOUTH AFRICA
Last day of Virtual School
Last Wednesday our school celebrated our virtual last day of classes, each tutor prepared a fun activity, share some virtual snacks, and talked about the best and funniest memories of the whole school year. Most of them couldn’t even believe it was already over, time passed by so fast!
We want to thank again all of the people that were involved and helped our children continue and finish their school year education. Thank you to the students for their great effort and resilience.
We will meet you back at the virtual camp!
Colegio Internacional SEK Las Américas REPÚBLICA DOMINICANA
School Bus Collection Points & Times
Bookings for this week:
Please contact the school office to book a place for your child.
8.10am Normanton on Cliffe
8.20am Ancaster
8.25am Wilsford
On Fridays the bus will run 15 minutes earlier to ensure pupils arrive in time for the *Music Machine" School Band rehearsal.
Access to the School Building after 4.30pm
As you are all aware there is now a gate which has a key code access to the Creche in the evening. If you do not have the code, please call 01476 593293 and your call will be answered by Creche.
