Autumn 2 Week 6

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The highlight of our week was our Christmas Nativity! ‘The Sleepy Shepherd’ We were very proud of how the children sang, performed and spoke clearly. We were amazed by the confidence of the children performing on both days for the school and the parents. The joy on the children’s faces showed their enjoyment and how proud they were of themselves made it special. Thank you to the parents for your support.

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This week we learnt about the second week of Advent. We lit the second purple candle on the Advent wreath. The second candle represents peace. We talked about times when we are peaceful and what we like to do to find peace. We also thought about how we want peace in the world and what we can do to help this. We read the story Peace at Last and the children acted out the story, drew pictures and wrote captions about the places daddy bear tried to find some peace. The children sorted activities that they do at night and day and painted pictures of the night.

In Maths, we have been learning about shapes and their properties. The children have learnt about circles, triangles, squares and rectangles. They have been describing the shapes by counting their corners and their sides. We have been making patterns and pictures with shapes, printing with shapes, using natural materials to make shapes and cutting shapes out.

In our Ten Ten lesson, the children were learning about different body parts and how we should look after them.

Next week the children will be auditioning for Pope Paul Got Talent. Two acts will be chosen for the final on Tuesday 19th December. If your child has a talent they would like to show – singing, dancing or anything else, they can show the class next Friday. Children will get time to practise group acts during the week.

Have a wonderful weekend.

Mrs Carey and The Early Years Team

Friday, 8th December 2023

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This week the children in year 4 consolidated their understanding of the effect of multiplying and dividing by 10, 100 and 1000 in Maths. They used place value sliders to investigate what happens to the value of each digit and how they move, compared to the decimal point that stays the same.

In English, the class focused on grammar and punctuation when they uplevelled their ‘Advent’ sentences by adding noun phrases, fronted adverbials and subordinating conjunctions/ clauses to them.

In RE, we prayed the Jesse Tree every day and opened a new envelope on our special class Advent calendar that contains beautiful prayers written by the children.

We also researched unusual Christmas traditions around the world, with a special focus on Iceland. Ask your children about the Yule Lads and the ‘horrid’ Christmas Cat! They will tell you all you need to know about these! 🙂

The highlight of the week, however, was our KS2 Advent Service, where the children performed beautifully. All readers, actors and singers- You deserve a huge well done! Your reverence created a wonderful atmosphere.

We also spent some time to further decorate our classroom:

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 encourage your child to participate.

Have a lovely weekend,

Ms Varga

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

 

Year 6 Week Beginning 27.11.23

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It has been a very busy week in Year 6, with preparations for the upcoming Advent service well underway. The children have done really well to learn the lines to both the songs and their readings, and are now really looking forward to performing in their last ever Advent service on Wednesday evening.

In Maths this week, the children have been simplifying and ordering fractions. They have also been reasoning about fractions and changing fractions to find common denominators.

In Science, the children have continued learning about light. This week, they learnt about how light is reflected. They set up experiments to explore incident and reflected rays, and had fun changing the direction of light, with the use of torch light, sunlight and mirrors!

In English, Year 6 finally finished the final copies of their Windrush Child diary entries; they are looking forward to starting their new film inspired narrative topic, next week.

Well done to Samarth, Hannah, Amber, Lena, Christina and Panayiotis, who led the school so well in a special Advent assembly earlier today; this included the whole school presenting their Advent promises and the children carefully displaying them on their behalf.

Home learning is as follows:

  • Continue to practise your lines for the Advent service
  • Fractions- Mathletics
  • General grammar consolidation/ revision- SPaG.com
  • Spelling Shed
  • Daily reading

Have a wonderful weekend,

Ms Pemberton

 

Autumn- Week 5

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Year One are having a busy week preparing for Advent and practising for our KS1 performance. The children are doing a great job of learning all the songs for the play and it is a joy to hear the class singing together!

In Re the children have been learning the Hail Mary prayer and praying it together. We also asked the question, Why is Mary a special lady? The children produced some fantastic answers such as caring, loving, kind and went on to label a picture of Mary. They also discussed how Mary is a special lady because she was the mother of Jesus.

In English this week we have been learning about Verbs.- action words! We have talked about all the jobs that Framer Duck had to do and put these into sentences. Furthermore, we looked at sentence structure and rewrote incorrect sentences into their correct form. The children are working hard to remember to use a capital letter at the beginning of their sentence, finger spaces and a capital letter at the end. During continuous provision we have enjoyed making collage masks of characters from the story and we will use some of these for a class display.

 

As a class we have taken part in Circle Time and discussed what makes a good listener. The children took it in turns to listen to each other during Circle time and Show and Tell, waiting patiently and following our circle time rules.

In Geography this week the children have been learning about physical and human geography. They sorted photos into two groups and learnt that human geography is mainly largely built environments, whilst physical geography is mostly natural or semi-natural environments.

To end the week Year 2 treated us to their Shark Tales. Year 2 children wrote a book about sharks and partnered up with Year 1 to read and share their story. It was a lovely afternoon enjoyed by all.

Home Learning

Mathletics – due Friday

Lines for the Nativity – please could you practice your child’s lines with them. We are going to have a practice run next week without prompt cards. If you haven’t sent in your child’s costumes could you please send it in on Monday, thank you.

Have a lovely weekend.

Mrs Poyiadzis and Mrs Barnes

Friday 1st December, 2023

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Another busy week for Year 3!  The highlight for this week was our trip to Westminster Cathedral.  Year 3 took the the overground and the underground to Westminster Cathedral on Thursday 30th November for a special Advent Service in aid of the Catholic Children’s Society.

During the service, we listened to the Angel Gabriel who narrated the Christmas story. We heard about the annunciation, the nativity and the epiphany. Each part of the story was accompanied by a carol. Everyone enjoyed joining in with ‘O Little Town of Bethlehem’, ‘Little Donkey’, ‘Silent Night’, ‘We Three Kings of Orient Are’ and ‘Hark the Herald Angels Sing’. The choir was especially beautiful and really helped us to remember the special events before and after Jesus’ birth.

       

 

During the service, gifts were collected for the Catholic Children’s Society which is an important charity.  Well done to Hanna and Joseph S who handed in our contribution.  We heard about how the money collected through the service helped a family living in Westminster and prayed together with Bishop John to ask God to continue to help those most vulnerable and in need. It was a wonderful experience and we really enjoyed being in such a beautiful Cathedral…

Outside the cathedral, we met Clover the donkey!

After the class had eaten their lunch, they went along to see the Archbishops House but unfortunately were not able to see Cardinal Vincent Nichols!

It was a wonderful trip and thank you to Hanna’s, Matilda’s and Joseph’s mum who helped us on the trip! We are very grateful to you.

Have a wonderful weekend.

Mrs McNamara and Mrs Lines

Home Learning:

  • Learn the words to the Advent songs for the Key Stage Two Advent Service on Wednesday 6th December at 7pm. Click on the link below to see the music link and words to our class song.

Candle of Hope – Philippines

  • Our Class Egyptian Day is on Monday 11th December when the children are invited to dress up for the day.

Autumn 2 Week 5

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On Monday, the children wore something purple to begin our learning about Advent.

They learnt that Advent was preparing for the birth of Jesus. The children mixed paints to make different shades of purple to remind them that purple is the colour of Advent. The first candle that is lit is a sign of Hope. The children thought about their hopes and wishes and added them to the hope jar. They made candles with purple playdough and they made Advent wreaths using paint and cotton wool.  In preparation for Fridays assembly, the children wrote their Advent promises on doves. Lots of children have promised to tidy up at home so enjoy parents! We made an Advent Calendar with our promises in to open up each day in December.

In Literacy, we read the story The Jolly Postman and the children were delighted to recognise the different characters they knew from other stories. They drew maps of the postman’s journey and added pictures and writing to their maps. Then they drew maps of the things in our playground. We thought about when we use maps and the different types of maps we use including paper maps and maps on our phones. Outside, the children have been developing their speaking and listening skills in the Post Office. They have been cutting labels and labelling envelopes. Then they were delivering letters using our post vans and filling and emptying the post box. If you need help wrapping your presents this year, the children have been showing amazing skills wrapping and labelling parcels.

On Thursday, there was lots of ice on our playground. This lead to the discussion about why the ice was there and what will happen to the ice. Children went on a hunt around the playground.

In phonics, we have continue to revise the Phase 2 sounds.

This week, we have continued to practise our songs and acting for the Nativity. We are looking forward to perform to you  on Wednesday 6th December at 9.30am for our performance.

Have a lovely weekend.
Mrs Carey and The Early Years Team

 

Friday, 1st December 2023

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The children in Year 4 have finished their Ice Palace stories in English and after some pair editing, they wrote them up in the neatest. It has been a real pleasure reading their brilliant narratives explaining Starjik’s dark origin. Very well done!

In Maths, the class moved onto scaling and correspondence problems applying their understanding of factors and products. We used bar modelling as a technique to help us visualise the calculations needed. The children also played a competitive factor-mining game, recalling all known multiplication facts.

In D&T, the class started their unit of work on mechanisms, learning about levers and linkages. The children built their first prototypes, creating a simple mechanism with 1 input and 1 output lever.

In Computing, we used Chrome Music Lab to create content online. The children enjoyed recording their sounds and using the website to alter it, represent it with drawings or to dissect the recordings into frequency waves.

Please remember, our Key Stage 2 Advent Service is on Wednesday, 6th December!

Have a lovely weekend,

Ms Varga

Home Learning Due back on Tuesday, 5th December 2023
Spelling Challenge words

https://www.edshed.com/en-gb
Reading Please log onto Read Theory and complete 2 activities.
Multiplication https://ttrockstars.com/

https://mathsframe.co.uk/en/resources/resource/477/Multiplication-Tables-Check

https://www.timestables.co.uk/multiplication-tables-check/
Study Ladder Please practice your songs for the Advent Service

 

Year 5 – 01/12/23

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Well done on your mad hair today, Year 5! I was very impressed with your creativity!

In Maths this week, we have been busy drawing factor bugs in order to find factor pairs and common factors. The children have really got the hang of it!

In English, we have been enjoying our current text, The Christmas Miracle of Jonathan Toomey, for which we have been describing characters, inferring their feelings and discussing different viewpoints. For Monday’s lessons, the children have been asked to bring in something from home which means a lot to them. Alternatively, you could send in a photograph of this item. Thanks in advance.

In Guided Reading, we started on the text The Highwayman, which we’re all really enjoying and curious to find out what happens next to Bess the landlord’s daughter!

In RE, the children have prepared their own Lectio Divina prayers, which we will pray as a class weekly in the new year.

In PE, we were practising how to dodge in netball, for which we got to take advantage of the beautifully sunny winter weather!

Half the class were out on Wednesday afternoon singing for the elderly at the Baptist Church on Barnet Road; the rest of the children joined forces with Year 6 and played team building and problem solving games.

We have also been at the church practising for next week’s Advent Service. It’s sounding beautiful, so this week’s home learning is to learn your words (which can be found here) and the song lyrics off by heart (which can be found here).

On Monday, we have our school trip to the British Library. We will be walking to Potters Bar station and then from KGX to the British Library, so please make sure you’re wrapped up warm and have waterproofs in case of rain. It’s set to be an exciting day with really engaging and interactive workshops.

Have a lovely weekend; see you on Monday.

Miss D ❄️