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A note from Principal, Richard Settle...

It’s been such a strange end to the term.  In a piece I wrote for the school newspaper (due out tomorrow) I used the footballing analogy of  ‘a game of two halves’,  for those of you new to the phrase, it can be explained quite simply - a match that has a drastically different feel and result in the first and second halves, due to a change in formation or a key event impacting on the way the game is remembered.  Often with all the good one team does in the first half being obscured by the events of the second and therefore totally forgotten about. I am acutely aware that ‘a game of two halves’ could easily be the epithet assigned to the Lent term of 2020.

However, even the recent tumult hasn’t dampened our team spirit.  We have come together magnificently over these past few weeks and it really has made me proud.  Many thanks for the massive part you have played in this; at a time of great stress you have all been really understanding and supportive.  There’s more to follow on the adjustments we need to make with regards to our remote schooling and I have had some very sensible feedback from parents to help here.  I will communicate these before the start of the new term. 

Finally, you’ll all receive a separate letter from our chairman, Aatif Hassan, and myself, outlining how we can support each other further over the next few months and beyond in terms of school fees for the summer term and the academic year 2020-2021.  I am convinced that united, we will get through this and hope that we will be able to celebrate together during the summer term.

Keep safe and keep healthy,

Richard

A note from Nic Henson and Kylie Hodges...

Dear families,

Well done on surviving a very unusual and unique week.  No doubt this will be written forever more in the history books!  We thank you for all your support with remote learning, for getting behind us and sharing/posting the children's new classrooms, and for all of the lovely work they have been completing.

We really appreciate the wonderful emails we have received with support and encouragement - again acknowledging the difficulty of finding the fine balance between working from home yourselves as parents but having the activities and work accessible for the children. If you find yourself in a situation where the work being set by the teachers is too much, then please prioritise Maths and English in Y1 and Y2, and maths, English and science in Y3 - Y6. We continue to be here to help, as we said last week - the success is about the journey not just the end result and we want to support our children on this journey as we would if they were in our classrooms.

On Monday, Mrs Duncan delivered the Sancton Wood Prep School Food Bank donation to St Paul's church. Reverend Beckett was very pleased to receive it. The donation will be very much appreciated so thank you to all of our pupils and families who remembered to bring something to support those less fortunate in our community.

We encourage you to stay safe at home, enjoy some exercise and we send our well wishes to you and your loved ones.

Have a good Easter.

Nic Henson (Head of Nursery and Prep) and Kylie Hodges (Head of Prep)

Special Achievements


Pre-Prep entries into the Golden Book of Greatness for this week include:

Rec: Freddie for an amazing effort working from home both this week and last; Rayne for her beautiful presentation of the butterfly life cycle; Sebastian for making up a story about a superhero cat!

Y1: Anya for creating brilliant descriptive speech bubbles with 8 adjectives! Theo for his brilliant can-do attitude with home learning and for working well independently; Massimo for his Bob character description and fantastic alien designs, his drawings are so inspiring for us all.

Y2: Theo for all his hard work this week - he has consistently produced some great work; Mae Grace for excellent reading of a text and carefully answering questions in a comprehension task; Selin for super maths work on fractions.

Stars/Students of the Week:

Y3: Felix - for handing in so much excellent work this week.

Y4: Hector -  for his persistently mature attitude to his learning

Y5 AT: Tilly - for a mature attitude with online learning and not giving up to find an answer!

Y5 AT: Lottie - for excellent work and progress in Maths

Y5 NM: Alex - for trying hard and doing the right thing in virtual class. 

Y6 SD: Will for producing some amazing writing independently at virtual school

Y6 KH: Cara for designing such a fabulous post WW2 town.

Y6: Joshua for being such a superstar and helping your peers with the Mandarin task this week.

Times tables rock stars: This week, the most improved over the last 7 days.

Y3 1. Leia 2.Ivy 3. Ralph

Y4 1 Nora 2. Lola 3. Hector

Y5 1. Lottie F 2 Claudia 3. Darcey

Y6 1.Louis

Sports

Follow us on Instagram @: Sws_sport or Google Classroom for a Daily ‘BEAT THE TEACHER’ Challenge.

Upload onto Google Classroom or Instagram to show your challenges!

Remember, it doesn’t matter whether you win or lose; what matters is taking part (or if you beat the teacher)!

Reception

It has been wonderful to see so many photos and videos of the children on Tapestry this week, thank you so much for all the work that you are putting in and for sharing it with me. I know it’s a big change for all of us and at times challenging, and I am so grateful for all the comments and feedback that I have received so far. Please do keep in touch and let me know if there is anything that I can help with. We are still a community, both as part of Sancton Wood and as Peter Rabbit Class.

I have absolutely loved seeing the children take part in the story challenges this week, their creativity and imagination never fails to amaze me. It was lovely to see how well they remembered our learning about the butterfly life cycle and their beautiful presentations. There are so many talented writers and artists in Reception! It was also a joy to see their jungle animal dances inspired by Giraffes Can’t Dance, and there were some truly fantastic recipes for our Gruffalo challenge. These daily challenges will continue after the Easter break and I am very excited to see what the children do next!

Please remember that the Extreme Reading Challenge: Home Edition! will be ongoing over the Easter holiday. There have been some fabulous entries so far and I have no idea how I will choose a winner! 10 house points are on offer for everyone who enters.

The EYFS team has gathered together some ideas and resources for you to take a look at over the Easter break, you can find the post on Tapestry. We hope that they can offer you some inspiration for home-based activities while we all adjust to these new circumstances.

I hope you get a chance to relax over the next few weeks. Stay safe and take care of each other. All of you are in my thoughts, and the children are very much missed.

Year 1

With so many people talking about the ‘unprecedented’ times we find ourselves in, I would like to take this moment to say THANK YOU to all of our families; mums, dads, carers, uncles, aunts and everyone who is doing all they can to keep our children healthy and safe. You are truly fabulous. Your best will be the very best because we are all in this together. I am so proud to be the teacher of an entire class of Year 1 sparkling gems. Thank you for keeping going and for supporting your children, and us, as much as you have.

Moving on to the learning and the fun that has been had this week. We understand the constraints of home learning and the inevitable technical issues and teething problems so thank you all for your feedback this week. The children have been doing some wonderful descriptive writing based on the book ‘Bob the man on the moon’. It is a brilliantly illustrated book and has engaged our imaginations and the possibility of aliens. The story maps that the children created were great. They showed me that the children have a great knowledge and understanding of the different parts of a story. The character descriptions of Bob were humourous and detailed, the children showed me that they knew who he was as a person and they could articulate that in their writing. We have finished our Bob work now, but I’m sure he will be around for a story now and then.

In Math we have been moving forward with our early multiplication work. These tasks have been new to the children, but they have dealt with the changes in Math delivery brilliantly. The work and discussions I have had show me that the scaffolding they have from the Reception year and from the last terms work has enabled them to use their prior knowledge and apply it to the multiplication tasks. This is a skill in itself and I am very proud of them all. Please remember to help them to be independent in their Math work. I am differentiating (making sure the children have the work that suits them best) work daily so please ensure they are provided with the sheet I have stated. Otherwise the children’s learning motivation could be affected.

I loved the pictures that came in showing me your wonderful homemade caves. The split a (a_e) was so much fun! Well done.

We look forward to awarding more house points for the reading challenge. Please let me know if your child has completed one or more of the challenges by email or in a message on the Google classroom so that I can add their house points to the chart.

As always, please please let me know if there is anything we can help with. If printing is a problem, or you come across any barriers at all, please let us know. We want to help as much as possible in this tricky time. Please try, wherever possible, to help your child follow the instructions. We are trying to make things easier by asking for work to be completed in one or other of the books we sent home or using a specific worksheet that was sent home. If the instructions are not followed it could make it trickier going forward as we may have plans for certain sheets or tasks going forward. Such a learning curve for us all.

Have a quiet, relaxed and restful Easter break and we look forward to seeing you soon; whether it be physically or virtually.

Mrs Jones & Mrs Jackson

Year 2

We did it! Well done and lots of House points to us all in Y2, parents especially, for fully embracing Home Learning! There have understandably been teething problems and thank you for your patience and support with it all.

In spite of the strange and difficult times we are in, lots of fantastic learning went on this week. We visited the Great Wall of China, learnt about the incredible Terracotta warriors, worked on our comprehension skills and wrote a book review. Phew! In the pack the children  brought home there was a diary for them to complete and I look forward to hearing about what they get up to over the break, in spite of the restrictions of being at home! They can bring them to school to share with me on our return.

Everyone has worked very well on fractions, developing their understanding of halves,quarters and thirds and using their skills to problem solve and reason. Good work everyone. Please keep up the TT Times table rockstars which has been an enormous success and has undoubtedly had a big effect on the children’s skills and hoping that the recently shared NUMBOTS will provide lots of opportunities to consolidate and hone number skills.

Over the Easter break do keep up the reading. Please encourage the children to be adventurous in the books they choose, remembering non - fiction books for interest and comics and fun!  It would be great for them to continue to look for contractions in their reading and add them to their list in their exercise books. I wonder who will find the most?

Don’t  forget to do the book challenge we set.

Wishing you all a Happy Easter and very much hoping we will all be back together again soon.

Year 3

Thank you all so much for helping support remote learning, I was overwhelmed by the work I was sent on the first day by the children. Online chats, photos and general loveliness was a real tonic at a very difficult time.

Please let me know if the work has been manageable. It is a fine line between setting too much and not giving enough.

There are bound to be a few teething problems to start with, but I am sure when the summer term begins, any problems will have been ironed out.

I have managed to keep track of work sent and have tried to reply to everything, keeping the green cards flowing. The children are replying to my replies, which has been great.

The good people at Education City have extended a trial I took out a week before we finished. This will be available for about another month, I think. It is a terrific site, full of age and year group appropriate games and activities for many subjects and topics, especially the core subjects.

The user name is:

Freddiewilson4

Password:

Willow

TT rockstars is still running and there will still be virtual assemblies to celebrate achievements.

I hope everyone has a safe break and I thoroughly look forward to seeing my class again in the flesh. I am really missing them.

Year 4

It was lovely to greet the children on Monday morning via hangouts and in the classroom. This is a strange and new situation for us all, thank you so much for your support in helping your child begin to get to grips with the new systems.  It will get easier for all of us.

We are posting a ‘good morning’ announcement each morning which gives the lessons for the day. This is so that the children know what to look for in terms of work and when their subject teachers are available.

This week the children have found their way around our virtual classrooms, learned to ‘hand in’  work, and have begun the habit of sending the teacher a private message within the lesson to say how it went for them. We will use this to give feedback on individual lessons.

One highlight of the week was a virtual Easter bonnet parade. Some incredible hat creations! Ask your child to show you the presentation. They can still add theirs if they didn’t get to it in time.

Please encourage your children to open a document or slide presentation within their Google classroom on which to submit their work. It can be difficult to keep track of work submitted via other means. (Of course, it is better to submit it in any form than not.)

Please also let teachers know if the work set is too hard, too onerous, or too much in quantity. We’re trying to set enough to keep your children learning well but if they, or you, are feeling overloaded, then please let us know. We are learning too.

An issue for some this week has been the distraction of social messages and attempted video calls in google hangouts. Our class google hangout chat is for class work only.

Please could you draw your child’s attention to the code of conduct for remote learning at the top of the stream for all their classrooms. This part is particularly relevant: ‘Do not conduct any pupil-to-pupil chat on Google Classroom, unless the teacher directs you to do so. Forms of less formal communication such as memes, emojis, gifs, stickers, text talk, etc. should not be used.’ 

Please impress upon them that this is a distraction for their fellow pupils and for their teachers, who all receive every message and hear the call signal every time, and also for Mrs Cottam who sees all the chats and calls for the whole school. They know it is unacceptable to talk non-stop in our real classroom...

Of course, we understand that we are all sailing in uncharted waters. The children plainly miss their friends. This is clear in their messages and attempts to contact one another. They are used to seeing each other every day and catching up. They need the reassurance that their friendships continue. Please help your child to find ways of making contact with their friends using another platform, and at scheduled times.

TT rockstars are still running and there will be virtual assemblies to celebrate achievements, so please do encourage your child to keep playing. We will be posting some links to useful games to practice other key skills, such as telling the time. Typing is a skill we are now relying on more and more. Getting on BBC Dance Mat is a place to start with that.

Next term we can look forward to learning about Living things and their Habitats in Science. We will be garden explorers! Please let Mrs Greig know if your child does not have any access to outdoor space so that she can plan accordingly for them.

In Art, we will be drawing and experimenting with watercolours. It would be very helpful if your child had drawing pencils of varying hardnesses, a small watercolour block palette, and a sketchbook with thick paper.

In History, we start our Anglo Saxon topic. Our first creative writing topic will be based around the picture text Flotsam by David Wiesner- as the children are not able to use the class copy this could be something you get for them if you are able. But don’t show it to them until after the first lesson!

Each day this week, Mrs Greig has been uploading to Y4 Classroom an audio file of a chapter of our class story, The Explorer. She will continue to do this daily until the book is finished. Don’t worry if you miss a day. The files will remain there waiting.  You may also be interested to know that audible has made lots of audiobooks for young people freely available while schools are closed. Visit stories.audible.com/start-listen. We will also be reading Varjak Paw with Mrs Woodcock, which your child has a copy of.

We wish you all good health and a harmonious household, and look forward to ‘seeing’ your children again soon.

Year 5

Thank you for your work in supporting your children in this strange new situation in which we find ourselves. Here are a few thoughts:

Homeschooling is hard work! (Especially when you’re working from home yourselves.) Do be kind to yourselves and don’t expect perfection. As Miss Hodges says, it’s also about the journey.

Please let teachers know if the work set is too hard, too onerous, or too much in quantity. We’re trying to set enough to keep your children learning well but if we’re overloading them, we need to know so we can rein back.

Please encourage your children to open a document or slide presentation within their Google classroom on which to submit their work. It can be difficult to keep track of work submitted via other means. (Of course, better to submit it in any form than not.)

It’s lovely to see the children each day, or to have a chat with them via hangouts. We really want to keep a sense of community going, and to check that everyone is keeping happy. Please do remind your child to be polite and friendly on hangouts, and (very importantly) not to post links.

I’ve enjoyed the chocolate box designs and descriptions. Cheering words to read at a time like this! I’m with Professor Lupin on the potential of chocolate.

The children have been powering on with Power Maths - good work there everyone.

Last week's highlights included adopting orangutans, we managed to adopt one for each class last week and we thank you for supporting us in this. We also saw some lovely art work produced in ICT based on the work of Bridget Riley.

New topics await next term… Shakespeare, the Tudors, Life Cycles. Lots to look forward to.

We’re missing everyone! But seeing some smiling faces reading books in unusual places cheered us up!  Remember that this won’t go on forever - we’re looking forward to the time when we can open the school gate once more. In the meantime, keep well and have a happy Easter.

Year 6

What an interesting week it has been!  Firstly, we would like to say a huge thank you and well done!  It has been so lovely to see so many of you trying your best to support your children whilst also working from home. Remember this is a journey we are all on together.  We are here to support and encourage each other.  Thank you to the parents that have sent us positive emails of encouragement.

Please let teachers know if the work set is too hard, too onerous, or too much in quantity. We’re trying to set enough to keep your children learning well but if we’re overloading them, we need to know so we can rein back. There is a fine line between setting too much and not giving enough. Mrs Duncan will ensure there is a core differentiated task but in addition she will set an ‘Extension’ task in Science and English so that those children who would like to do more can. The extension will not be obligatory so they can choose to do it if they want to.

Please encourage your children to open the document or slide presentation within their Google classroom on which to submit their work. It can be difficult to keep track of work submitted via other means. (Of course, better to submit it in any form than not.)

TT rockstars are still running and there will still be virtual assemblies to celebrate achievements, so please do encourage the children to keep playing.

This week has seen our units of work come to an end.  After Easter in maths we will be focusing on drawing and measuring angles and in Humanities we will start our new topic on Natural Resources and how we use them.

A big Sancton Wood farewell to Leo Y and his family.  We wish you a very safe journey back to Japan and will miss you greatly. Leo we are all going to miss your piano playing.

We look forward to seeing you back online on Wednesday 15th April.

Have a safe Easter break.

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