Friday 15th December 2023

Our penultimate week of the half term has been jam-packed with much excitement and fun.

We started on Monday with our Egyptian day.

The children looked fantastic in their costumes and they had a wonderful day making cartouches, Egyptian bread, necklaces and learning about mummification and a new Egyptian dance which was led by Bobbie. Thank you to Mrs Wanless for giving up her time to do such a special activity which all children participated eagerly in.

Click here for more photos from our Egyptian day

  

On Monday afternoon, the Year 3 and 4 musicians performed for us in a wonderful concert.  The children sang and played their instruments with such confidence.

Well done to: Joseph C, Christian, Amilia, Noemi, Ruth, Erin, Iustin, Anna, Dafne, Sive, Sofia, Leonie and Joseph S.

Wednesday was our Christmas lunch day.  Year 3 sat down to a wonderful meal and enjoyed sharing the jokes on the table.

 

We have been very impressed by the home learning handed in this week and the children have done a wonderful job of presenting their learning to the class. For those who have not yet presented, they will present next week.

To assist us with our RE learning we even had a visit from Ruth’s mum to share how Christmas is celebrated in Trinidad and Tobago.  Thank you Mrs Ennis for taking time to come in and share with the children. They really enjoyed it.

Have a wonderful weekend.

Mrs Lines and Mrs McNamara

REMINDER: Monday is the Christmas Party Day where the children wear their own clothes.  

 

 

 

Year 5 – 15/12/23 | Christmas Lunch

On Wednesday, everyone enjoyed a tasty Christmas lunch!

 

On Monday we will have our Christmas party day, so come prepared for games, dancing, meeting Santa and more festive fun!

Enjoy your weekend.

Miss Donatantonio 🎄

Autumn 2 Week 7

Another busy week in Reception Class. This week we have been reading and retelling the Christmas Story. The children acted out the story, made angels and stables, used the small world objects to retell the story and made books by sequencing pictures and adding words. On  Friday afternoon, we had a shepherds dinner in candle light. We ate dates, grapes and bread.

We decorated the classroom with angels, snowflakes and lots more in preparation for our Christmas Lunch and our party on Monday. Then we made hats to wear to our Christmas Lunch, we had a lovely lunch together in the class.

In Maths, we have been learning to use and follow prepositional language to describe where something is. We went on a shape hunt, we named the shape and described where we found it.

Outside, we have had Santa’s workshop and the children have been wrapping and labelling presents. They have been busy elves, helping Santa to get ready for Christmas.

 

The children made Christmas cards for their Year 6 reading partners and did wonderful writing inside their cards.

The children audioned for Pope Paul’s Got Talent. It was very difficult to choose only two acts! Well done to all that took part.

Please could you send in boxes of tissues as we are running out.

Remember to wear party clothes on Monday.

Have a wonderful weekend.

Mrs Carey and The Early Years Team

Friday, 15th December 2023

Our final full week of the half term has been very busy in Year 4.

The children had an opportunity to watch the KS1 Nativity dress rehearsal before attending their own Christmas music concerts on Monday afternoon. Huge well done to all children participating; your performances were brilliant!

On Monday the Year 3 and 4 children performed for us in a wonderful music concert.  Well done to all the singers and pianists!

On Wednesday, the class enjoyed a lovely Christmas lunch together:

We also spent time on our  D&T project creating prototypes for 2 further mechanisms, before applying these in our final Christmas cards.

Our class talent show on Friday has also been a huge success. Well done to all children who spent time practicing and gathered their courage to showcase their various talents from magic tricks to playing an instrument, dancing and singing! It has been an absolute pleasure watching you using your talents and doing your best!

I have been equally impressed by the home learning handed in this week. The children have done a wonderful job of presenting their learning to the class about special Christmas traditions from their chosen/home countries.

Have a wonderful weekend,

Ms Varga

 

Autumn 2 Week 7

We have had a very festive week enjoying a wonderful Christmas meal together and retelling the Nativity story in English.

It was wonderful to see so many of you at the KS 1 Christmas Nativity ‘Christmas Around The World.’ I was very proud of how the children sang and performed. They danced and delivered their lines with such confidence and joy. Well done Year 2.

I have been very impressed by the home learning handed in this week. The children really enjoyed sharing their Christmas learning with the class.

Reading books have been sent home this afternoon, they do not need to bring their reading folders in next week.

Please remember that school finishes on Wednesday 20th December at 1pm.

Have a lovely weekend

Miss Pringle.

 

 

 

Year 6 Week Beginning 4.12.23

It has been a very busy week, as Year 6 made their final preparations for the Advent service that took place on Wednesday evening.

Thank you so much for helping your child to practise lines and songs, and by supporting this special event for their final time.

The whole of KS2 made both their parents and teachers very proud with their beautiful singing and acting. We hope you enjoyed it!

 

In Maths, the children continued their learning on fractions and have been adding and subtracting fractions including mixed numbers. In English, the children began their new writing unit based on the short, spooky film, Alma.

Alma is a little girl who ventures into town in the snow.

She is drawn to a shop window by a familiar looking doll.

She enters the shop, but something terrifying happens to her when she is inside…

Please see the whole school home learning for this week.

Have a lovely weekend,

 

Ms Pemberton

 

Please see below for details about this weeks whole school home learning.

 

Autumn 2 Week 6

This week the children have been busy getting ready for their Nativity performances next week. Thank you for sending in their costumes and helping them learn their lines. They are very excited for next week.

In RE this week, our focus has been on the Hail Mary and silent prayer. We have also been enjoying listening to the stories of the Jesse Tree. Next week each class will be focusing on Christmas celebrations in different countries and we will be focusing on the Philippines.

In computing the children have been programming Bee-Bots to navigate maps using iPad and Bee-Bot robots.

Congratulations to all the children who performed in the Music concert, you were fantastic!

Home Learning

RE Whole-School home learning. Please see details in this week’s newsletter.

I have also put a copy the words for two of the Nativity songs, in their home learning folder, that they need to practise a little more for next week.

Reminders

Please wear PE kit on Tuesday and Thursday – NOT Wednesday.

Tuesday 12th – Dress rehearsal.

Wednesday 13th – wear your Christmas jumpers.

Thursday 14th – Christmas performance.

Have a lovely weekend.

Miss Pringle

 

Year 5 – 08/12/23

On Monday, Year 5 had a wonderful day out to the British Library. We took part in 2 workshops: Fantasy: Realms of Imagination and Malorie Blackman: The Power of Stories.

Julia writes:

When we went to the British Library, it was very fun. First, we went to the Fantasy section. We got to make up our own heroes and villains. We could see unusual creatures, heroes and lands in the exhibition. There was a mission we had to accomplish: the evil queen fairy made an agreement with the devil and took an enchanted book and we had to get it back. We also made our own mythical islands. We used a lot of our imagination making mythical creatures, islands and heroes.

In the afternoon, we went to the Malorie Blackman exhibition and saw lots of her different books like Pig Heart Boy, Hacker and A Dangerous Game. We learnt about her childhood, and that she wanted to become an author because she didn’t see black people represented in the fiction she read as a child, and wanted to change that. It was inspiring to learn that Malorie Blackman was rejected by publishers over 82 times, but never gave up on her dream of becoming an author.

The children were so engaged, participant and enthused, and the facilitators at the British Library commented on how impressed they were with the class’s input and ideas. You were also fantastic on the journey to and from the library. It was such a pleasure Year 5 and I was so proud of you. Thank you very much to Gene’s mum and Charlie’s dad who helped us on the trip.

Wednesday’s Advent Service was another highlight of the week. Your reading, acting, singing, drumming and dancing brought such joy to the service – well done!

Here is your home learning for this week:

Next week (probably Thursday), we will be having auditions in class for the talent show, so if you want to enter, make sure you prepare you act for then.

Enjoy your weekend!

Miss Donatantonio

Autumn 2 week 6 w.b 4.12.2023

It’s been practice, practice, practice in Year 1 this week! The children have had a full on week of getting ready to show you their performance next Thursday. They are doing a great job and are very excited to see you all there.

Our RE focus this week and next is to look at how Christmas is celebrated in Poland. One important Polish tradition is to share the oplatek. This is a thin wafer with the picture of Mary, Joseph and Jesus on it. People pass it round and take a bit. It is a sign of forgiveness. Amelia brought one in for the children to see and did a great job of explaining it to the class. Next week the children will be making Polish Christmas cards so please look out for these!

It was time to say goodbye to our Class Italian restaurant this week.  The children took part in a Class poll to decide what we would like our home corner to change into! After a lot of discussion  we took a Class vote and it was decided that the most popular choice was Santa’s Grotto! We have made a start to getting the Grotto ready and will be adding resources over the next week. We would be very grateful for any donations of spare Christmas items you may have at home such as Santa or Elf  hats, tinsel, wrapping paper, labels  etc…

In Geography the children enjoyed exploring Google Maps and trying to find the School. They located Pope Paul School and also took a closer look at the surrounding areas using the street view. They went all the way down to the train station and wouldn’t let me stop until they could see McDonalds! The children very much enjoyed this and were all eager to say what they could see and give directions to where they live. Unfortunately, we only had time to explore the school address so please feel free to locate your own address if the children ask you to!

Home Learning

Nativity – Please practice lines for one last time!

RE Whole-School home learning. Please see below and newsletter for more details.

Reminders

Wednesday 13th – wear your Christmas jumpers.

Thursday 14th – Christmas performance 9.30am.

Wednesday 20th – end of term, school finishes at 1pm.

There will be no show and tell now for the rest of the term so please do not send anything in with your child. We will review this again in the new year.

Have a lovely weekend.

Mrs Poyiadzis & Mrs Barnes

 

Friday 8th December, 2023

The highlight for this week was Year 3’s part in the Advent Service.  Well done to them for singing, acting and speaking so beautifully during the service.  The children’s reverence and participation was clearly evident and this made the evening special for all.

Candle and Rainbow ornament: Grace and Matilda

Readers: Louis, Federico, Anna, Mikey, Lucas, Fabio, Ruth, Joseph S, Sofia.

Singers:  Sive, Leonie, Amilia, Iustin, Archie (Chorus)  Hugo, Grace, Matilda, Noemi

Nativity: Ayrabella, Erin, Christian, Ariela, Chloe, Jessica, Daphne, Hanna, Joseph C, Tara, Solomon.

 

This week in our RE lessons we have continued to think about the importance of prayer. Lectio Divina means “divine reading” in Latin. It’s a meditative way of reading the Bible in which we let go of our own agendas and open ourselves to what God is trying to say to us. Using the Gospel of Mark 1:1-14 as the stimulus, the children listened to the story of John the Baptist through the 5 steps: reading/meditating/prayer/contemplation and action. Today, the children researched Christmas customs in Trinidad and Tobago as part of our RE Focus Question on  Christmas Customs around the world.  The children also created an advent calendar writing prayers to be read and shared with the rest of the class throughout the advent season.

In Maths the children have continued to build upon their understanding of addition using the vertical  method (using 1/2 regroups) and investigated many ways to embed this.  In our fluency sessions, the children have revisited many of the skills learnt across this autumn term.  Please keep encouraging your child to log onto Mathletics and TTRs and complete the tasks set for them.

In our English learning, we have practised our editing skills and written up our final pieces. Next week we will be writing instructions about how to make the sandwiches we designed as a part of our Design and Technology learning.

During the last week of term, Pope Paul’s Got Talent is returning!  This is an occasion where each child is encouraged to share their talents either on their own or with a partner(s).  Each class will decide upon two entries from their own class that will go forward towards the whole school’s got talent competition.   Please chat with your child to encourage them to participate.

Monday 11th December:   Year 3’s Egyptian Day.

Year 3 will be taking part in a special Egyptian day on Monday 11th December when the children will find out what it was really like to be an Ancient Egyptian. This will reinforce the learning and hard work which has already taken place in the classroom.  The children can be Egyptologists or Ancient Egyptians.

EGYPTOLOGISTS: jeans or shorts, wacky jumper or t-shirt and hat .

ANCIENT EGYPTIANS: ready-made Egyptian outfits are readily available on the Internet e.g. Cleopatra, Pharaohs, mummies, slaves etc.

Alternatively, costumes can be made out of a length of white material. Old bed sheets are perfect!

The children are still to bring a packed lunch or order their hot dinner as normal and wear a jacket or a coat, hat etc.. for playtime.

Home Learning:  RE      Christmas Around the World

Please read the information on the poster attached.  The instructions have also been added to this week’s newsletter

Spelling have been put on spelling shed as usual.