The Chronicle

This week in Junior 6, we have continued our exciting range of enrichment activities following the children's hard work and preparation in the lead up to their entrance examinations.  We have explored the forest area and had fun building dens and working outside in our teams during Forest School, baked our own bread in the shape of hedgehogs and challenged ourselves while developing our problem-solving skills in Mrs Vaughan's very own escape room.  We also enjoyed watching a movie and savoured our Costa delivery - the treats were delicious!

Junior 5 had plenty of opportunities to demonstrate their kindness as part of Anti-Bullying Week. The children were delighted to receive One Kind Word packs which were written by each member of the class to each other. It became very clear how powerful one kind word or one act of kindness can be and it costs nothing. Junior 5 say NO to bullying and YES to kindness! 

Junior 4 have been working hard again this week whilst excitedly practising for their December Advent Service held today in The Gables. They have been in the hall consolidating and polishing off their speaking, listening and singing skills in preparation for these two important services. In Science lessons, they have continued to eagerly research how animals are adapted to their habitats and their findings were presented very neatly and thoroughly indeed. Well done, J4!

This week Junior 3 have been busy mastering the 3 x table. We have found so many creative ways to represent equal groups of 3 and we have loved learning songs to help us remember all the multiples. We know how to check if a number is a multiple of 3, and have even begun to apply our understanding to dividing by 3 too. We are deep into the retelling of Lila And The Secret Of Rain and are looking forward to using all our ideas when writing our own stories with a climate message next week. In Science, we are finding out all about forces and we have been busy investigating which surfaces cars travel the furthest on. This was a popular investigation for the Lamborghini lovers!

We are especially proud of Leo in J3H this week who was picked for the Under 9s football tournament this week (even though he is only 8!). They played 11 games of 7 minutes and he had a wonderful time. What a great experience! Keep working hard everyone; we are having a smashing half-term.

This week in Year 2, it has been all about dragons’ eggs! The children received a letter from Professor Hanan al-Hroub from Warwick University. She is conducting a very important experiment. She believes that the character of a dragon is changed by the environment in which the egg lays and she is hoping that by having the eggs in our classrooms for two weeks, the baby dragons will be born with a kind and hard-working nature. The eggs will have to be returned to the university before they hatch, but we will receive news and possibly some pictures following the birth. The only problem was that the eggs disappeared! Thankfully, we found them and we are now keeping them safe, showing them how to love and care for each other so that when they hatch, they will grow to be as wonderful as we are. We have written some amazing dragon poems and created dragon world landscapes to help ignite our imaginations for our English lessons next week. 

Odd socks started our week to help us recognise national Anti-Bullying Week. We also took time to think of how to be kind to each other and took turns saying a kind thing about our friends. In Science we learnt about transparent, translucent and opaque materials. We had lots of different materials to sort like, baking paper, card, plastic, wood and Sellotape. Two dimensional shape was our topic in Maths and we have been exploring how many sides and vertices each shape had. Some of us were very surprised to find a circle had one side and no vertices! In English we developed our understanding of adjectives and after sorting some to match the characters in Cinderella, we then used them to extend sentences to make them more descriptive.

Nativity rehearsals are in full swing in Reception this week! We have been so pleased with how the children are remembering their lines and performing the songs with wonderful actions. We can’t wait for everyone to see it! In Maths we have been exploring the numbers 4 and 5. We have found so many different ways to make them!