Art competition

We are very pleased to share with you the winners of the art competition for the new welcome sign behind Mrs Coelho's desk. There were some really high quality entrants and some great designs, but in the end we couldn't choose between Bibi and Raffi's entries, pictures of which are included below. 

Governing Board

Finally, please take some time to read the message below from the Governing Board. We are very grateful to our board for all the time and energy they put in to supporting our school. 

Have a great weekend and God bless you all,

Matt White

Headteacher 

Weekly Curriculum updates
 

Year 1

Our topic for this half term in Year 1 is space. We have started this week by learning some facts about the moon, looking at video clips of moon landings and reading On the Moon by Anna Milbourne and Benji Davies.  We have started really thinking about presenting our writing neatly, using the lines, starting on the left hand side of the page, remembering finger spaces and correct letter formation.  In maths we have been comparing numbers up to 20 and using language such as greater than, less than, more, fewer.  We have been observing changes in science and experimenting with chromatography.  In RE we have been learning about Judaism and Hanukkah and in art we used our sketch books to practise observational drawings of astronauts.

Year 2

Happy to year to you all! I hope you had a lovely Christmas. In English this week, we have been learning about the features of a recount and how to use noun phrases and conjunctions to write descriptions. In maths, we finished our unit on multiplication. The children have done really well! Please continue to practise counting in 2s, 5s and 10s so we can get quicker at finding the answer. Next week, we will be moving on to division and will learn the two techniques of division: division by sharing and division by grouping. We have also been learning about the Jewish New Year festival of Rosh Hashanah and discussed what we would like to achieve over the coming year. In computing, we have learned how to highlight text and change the font type, size and colour. 

Year 3

It was lovely to have all of the children back in Quito Class and hear all about the activities they got up to over the holiday. This week we reflected on 2022,  discussed our new year's resolutions and what we are looking forward to in 2023. Mrs Das-Mahon has been popping in and out of class, getting to know us throughout the week and has enjoyed teaching the class all about soil formation in Science. Miss Firmin and Mrs Das-Mahon are looking forward to teaching our new topic 'Extreme Earth' this half term. Please remember that Quito class will be starting their exciting swimming lessons from Monday. 

Year 4

This week Year 4 have started reading Charlie and the Chocolate Factory in English; we have investigated how Charlie is presented and written paragraphs to describe Charlie's feelings and senses as he waits outside the factory. In PE, we used the apparatus, beam and vaults to practise climbing, balancing and jumping. In maths, we have been building on our multiplication and division work from last term by solving mixed problems. We all made lots of progress with our times tables last year with over half the class on the practise multiplication check or the ultimate times tables challenge! We looked at the work of Claes Oldenburg in art, making rough sketches of the sculptures and discussing how they made us feel. In history, we started learning about the Maya Civilisation, sharing what we already knew and what we would like to find out. Also, we began to learn about Hinduism in RE.

Year 5

It has been a lovely start to the New Year for year 5. The children have settled straight back into school and were full of stories about their holidays. We started a number of new topics this week under the umbrella of our science subject, Earth and Space. In English, the class started reading some poems from ‘Cosmic Space’ by Grace Nichols, focusing on her use of personification to bring the planets to life. In maths, we looked at different methods of multiplying numbers up to 4 digits, applying this to area. We looked at different job prospects in PSHE and how they are valued in society. Our new RE topic, what do miracles tell us about Jesus, lead to some very interesting discussions about divinity and humanity. In French, we looked at answering the question “how are you feeling today?“ and in art we tried our hand at printing with string. We are also looking forward to our trip to High Ashurst at the end of term: please keep an eye out for an email regarding a Zoom meeting, which we will hold in the final week in January, to give more information about the trip.

Year 6 

This week, Year 6 have started their new topic on The Victorians! We found out when the Victorian era was and where this fits in with our current historical knowledge timeline. We learnt about Queen Victoria and created a family tree for her, as well as devising our own quizzes to test the class on what we had learnt. In English, we wrote a description of a Victorian workhouse after learning about these and watching the opening scene of 'Oliver'. In PSHE, we learnt how to set ourselves challenging but realistic goals and the steps we need to take in order to reach these. In RE, we began learning about Buddhism; we learnt about the significance of the Buddhist symbols and linked these to our own importance of values. Finally, in gymnastics, we revised how to perform a range of jumps and learnt how to perform two new ones: a stag leap and a cat leap.

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