The Chronicle

It has been fantastic to welcome Junior 6 back into school this week after the Christmas break and we have very much enjoyed spending our time at school in our form groups.  We have got straight back to learning, thinking about decimals with three decimal places in maths, Christmas traditions around the world in RE and have begun to think about refugees and migration as we get ready to start our new core text Oranges in No Man’s Land by Elizabeth Laird.  We are looking forward to reading the first chapter next week!

Junior 5 have been thinking about their New Year’s resolutions this week. The children’s ideas were plentiful and included: 20 push-ups a day; caring for my younger sister more; helping my mum; emptying the dishwasher, and even eating more pistachios! We can’t wait to hear about their progress and will be asking for regular updates throughout the year. Go for it Junior 5, you can do it!

The Junior 4s have been looking at Newspapers this week in their English lessons and have been busy reading a variety of articles and identifying their key features. They will be planning and creating their very own interesting newspaper reports soon! The J4s also had an Epiphany themed Mass, led by Mrs Jackson-Mayne, and they all read and sang beautifully. 

Whilst this has been a shorter week, Junior 3 have begun their voyage into Ancient Egypt, which is a brilliant topic for keen and eager 7 and 8-year-olds. We started with the story Egyptian Cinderella in English, a fabulous tale of a slave girl who marries a Pharaoh and ended the week with an exploration of Egyptian hieroglyphics ready for our artwork on making a cartouche (a set of symbols for a King). The children were so excited to be back and have been a joy to teach this week, brimming with enthusiasm and new ideas. مشاهدة هذا الفضاء (watch this space!)

Junior 2 have returned to school and are already impressing us with how mature and responsible they are being. They came into school ready to learn and to have lots of fun this term. Our topic this half term is China and we have some beautiful books to use in English to support our studies. We have been delving into Julia Donaldson's book The Magic Paintbrush in English. The children created some brilliant story maps that demonstrated their understanding of the events in the book. In Maths, we are starting a four-week block on multiplication and division, and we have made a flying start. Junior 2, we are going to have an amazing Lent Term!

After spending some much-needed time at home with their families, Junior 1 have returned with renewed energy and enthusiasm. They were straight back to learning about 3D shapes in Maths, naming the shapes, recognising different examples of them and learning what faces, edges and vertices mean. They have begun to look at our new topic of the UK in Geography, recording some facts for our display in the classroom and looking on Google Earth to see where in the world our country is. By following some step-by-step instructions to draw a wintery scene, which coincided with it snowing outside, everyone learnt some new skills and became better at drawing in proportion. We are looking forward to continuing this skill, and adding in some colour-mixing with paint, next week.

Reception have come back to school this week with so much enthusisam and gusto! We have been talking about how we celebrate the New Year and the things we want to achieve or do better at in 2022. We can’t wait to see what the year holds for us! In Maths, we have been using five frames in pairs and we have been playing number snap with our friends!