The Chronicle

It has been lovely to welcome so many Junior 6 children back into school this week.  They have been so creative, especially in designing their socially distanced playground games including shadow tag and a range of relays and ‘splat’! 

Learning has continued in the classroom, both virtual and real, by researching the British Museum exhibit ‘A History of the World in 100 objects’.  This has been used to create ‘A History of Junior 6 in 48 objects’.  The classes have had fun producing transcripts and their very own podcasts.

Two classmates in Junior 5L had amazing tales to tell of their adventures camping in their back gardens.  Both the Reddish and Cowlishaw families spent time ‘getting down with nature’ during half term.  Judging by the photographs, they all had a fantastic time! 

Anabel and Rosa are our environmental queens at the moment. They spent time clearing up after the Bank Holiday Monday revellers in the Worcestershire countryside; something they most certainly should not have had to do, because the people should have taken their rubbish home with them.   As you can see from the photo, there was A LOT of rubbish scattered over the hills. Thank you, girls. We appreciate you. The twins also thought it was a good idea to do some orienteering and map reading – both skills are extremely useful! 

Our PSHECE this week was about our worries, and how we can lessen them. Henry thought really deeply about this and produced this wonderful picture about following the road to happiness.

In Junior 5R we welcomed Isabella to the class. She is a wonderful addition to Junior 5 and is proving to be a very polite, friendly and studious girl. She joins her sister Esme in Junior 3 and we warmly welcome her to our Crackley Family.  We've included a little video from Isabella and the link is below.

The class are now timing their writing pieces, ready for future exams, and they all worked hard and managed to produce a good amount of writing in a set time. Most of them are now including most, if not all, of the essential ingredients to produce great pieces of writing.

There are many talented writers in Junior 5 and Joseph has now earnt himself an English Da Vinci, as he has produced a range of consistently high quality pieces of creative writing over the year-well done!  

Caythan had a lovely half term holiday, celebrated his birthday by flying his new plane at Ryton pools.  We have many budding artists in Junior 5 too;  Mrs van Zyl has commented on the high standard of art work.  Well done everyone!

Isabella

Junior 4 have been busy this week. In English, children are really starting to use more ambitious vocabulary in their writing and this has been inspired by the book Cloud Tea Monkeys by Elspeth Graham and Mal Peet.

The Asian theme continues into the delicious topic of Indian food where the children have been learning about the importance of food in Indian culture. They have all been working hard to complete individual projects, choosing an area of India to focus on. 

Theo is the Mathlete of the Week

Junior 3V have got off to a super start to the new half term and are now much more accustomed to online learning; everyone has made a wonderful effort all week.  3V have continued to explore a wider range of Greek myths and even created their own mythical creatures.  There has been exploring of different angles in maths and searching for different angles in our environment. Well done Junior 3, you have all got the ‘right angle’ on making the best of this half term. Keep up the Aegean effort! 

Charlie’s birthday was celebrated and the arrival of his 51 new chicks. We enjoyed hearing from Jia about the Junior 6’s returning to school and Isabella’s plans for writing a novel called ‘Horrendous Hairdresser’. Mairen’s humorous poetry recital and Ralph and Mitchell’s astonishing Ancient Greek masks was very entertaining.

Junior 3S have created some hugely imaginative mythical beasts that have included some wonderful monologues from lots of children and an amazing character description from Theo. Amalia explored the Isle of Wight, learning about its rich history and Beatrice and Eve had a fun time at Blenheim Palace. 

Mathletes for Junior 3 are: Mitchell, Elena, Theo and Arisha

Theo's video

Esme's video

Mathlete of the week has been awarded to Patrick

Junior 2 have been exploring biographies this week with a focus on Roald Dahl. Children have been finding out about Weight in maths with lots of work on grams and kilograms. In RE we have been finding out about the Liturgical year and the colours that go with those different church seasons.

Science has seen a forage into the new materials world where children explored the work of Tarmac inventor, John McAdam.

In Geography, we have been finding out about the seven continents of our planet. There has been music and drama and Mrs Hardwick set a Native American art challenge to make a drum.

Altogether a very busy start to the last half term!

Ms Holmes and Mrs Malcolm.

Mathlete of the Week has been awarded to Joseph

Josh has been busy doing lots of planting and gardening during half term (here he is planting courgettes!), which was fun since the weather was so nice and he did some fun science experiments with Slime and tested out molecules and how they react in hot and cold water. Josh also sent a picture of the dinosaur puzzle that he had completed successfully.

Some of Junior 1 are back in the classroom! There were seven pupils back this week, all keen to get back to school and see their friends. As you can see they all have their own desk and keep in their own personal bubble.

Junior 1 also welcomed back Lena. Lena has been stuck in France for two months so it was wonderful to have her back in school and speaking English again. She’s been busy drawing weather symbols as you can see in the photo, and she has been smiling non-stop since Monday!

Reception have had an exciting week learning about farm animals, including finding facts out about pigs! Did you know that pigs don’t sweat? Or that they can weigh up to 300kg? We made Play Doh models, drew farm scenes and made bouncing eggs too!

In maths we have been exploring halving and sharing, using part whole and bar models to help our understanding, take a look at our fantastic work!

This week has been fantastic, it was lovely to see some of our children come back to nursery and great to chat to other friends at home as our live story time continued.  The nursery looks a little bit different, and the children weren’t able to move around quite so freely, or choose whatever toys and resources they wanted, but everyone settled quickly and made great use of the space and toys available.  We have been really proud of our Little Crackers, they have already learnt how to line up and leave a space, wash their hands following the correct procedure, and manage their own packed lunches.  They have made us smile.  Thank you for all the kind messages of support we have received as these crazy times keep changing.  Please continue to keep yourselves and your families safe as circumstances change, and have a great weekend.

Nursery Newsletter

It has been a very successful week for Junior 6 with Da Vinci Awards achieved by Neve for her wonderful art work, Bella for her Macbeth performance, Matilda for her excellent work in science and Roshan for his piano performance.  Many congratulations to you all.  Your certificate will be with you soon.

Da Vinci performance