Welcome to our Easter newsletter for Early Years and Lower School. It has been a busy term full of exciting events and activities such as our Child Genius Competition, Wellbeing Week, World Book Day, British Science Week, Gala Day and Easter Muffin Workshops. It has also been wonderful to see the children develop and extend their knowledge and skills through creative teaching and topic work.
We hope you all have a wonderful Easter break. We look forward to welcoming you back for our summer term, which promises to be equally eventful and enjoyable.
Mrs Gibson and Mrs Wright
Pre-School
We have had a lovely, albeit short, term during which the children enthusiastically took on new learning challenges. Our exciting term began with the addition of three brilliant new friends, whom the children welcomed with open arms and showed continued care and support.
In Phonics, the children have enjoyed linking letter names to their sounds through songs and actions and revelled in awe of our magic sound bag each week! In maths, the children have shown dedication to their number representation and recognition skills and have impressed our student teacher, Mrs Harris.
Recently, we had an inspiring week, with a dress-up day celebrating Careers Week and visits from professionals from our community. Later in the week, the children dressed up for World Book Day, sharing their favourite stories and characters and provoking some fantastic discussions in the classroom.
Overall, the children’s achievements this term have been vast, and we have had lots of fun and laughter along the way. I hope you have a fantastic Easter break with your families. I am already looking forward to our final term of the academic year before most move to their Reception adventure!
Miss Nugent and Mrs Phelan
Reception
Reception has had a wonderful term of learning and growing.
Throughout the term, the children have mastered learning new sounds and tricky words in Phonics, demonstrating remarkable progress in reading and writing skills. During our maths sessions, the children impressed us with their understanding of numbers up to 10. They explored various methods of recognition and composition while enjoying engaging manipulatives. In our topic sessions, the children immersed themselves in learning about spring, focusing on plants and animals and demonstrating excellent care for our cress plant.
We recently had an exciting week filled with special events. During Careers Week, inspiring professionals from our community visited for a dress-up day. Later in the week, the children celebrated World Book Day by dressing up as their favourite characters and sharing stories.
The introduction of Forest School offered hands-on outdoor learning, fostering essential life skills and class collaboration. Reception demonstrated growth, resilience, and a shared passion for learning, reflecting a term of exploration and development.
I wish you and your families a fantastic Easter break! I’m already excited about welcoming you back for the final term of our Reception journey!
Miss Hines and Mrs Phelan
Year 1
Year 1 has had an action-packed spring term. We have worked hard, learned a lot, and had fun! In maths, we have been focusing on mastering number skills. This has involved many practical lessons to support our understanding and visualisation of numbers. In English, we first learned about Little Red Riding Hood and rewrote this traditional tale with different characters for the wolf. We had a Big Bad Python, a Big Bad Polar Bear, and even a Big Bad Chicken!
This term, we explored our new topic, ‘Disney Through Time,’ where we learned about the seven continents from which the Disney characters originate. The pupils have been engrossed in learning and especially loved making tourist attractions out of Lego!
We have improved our art skills by practising drawing a variety of animals. Our focus has been on using shapes to depict these animals accurately. We also enjoyed many special events, such as World Book Day, the Easter Gala, and Careers Day!
I hope you have a lovely half-term. I look forward to welcoming you back for our final term of Year 1!
Miss Porter and Miss Connolly
Year 2
What a brief but busy and thoroughly enjoyable term that was!
We explored London through maps, images, and videos, identifying key features and landmarks. Then, we travelled back to explore London in 1666 during the Great Fire of London. We re-enacted what might have happened in the Pudding Lane Bakery. The children shaped some dough to make our bread buns, baguettes, and bagels to link with our materials topic; we learned about the effects of heat on specific materials and whether these changes are reversible or irreversible.
In DT, the children worked brilliantly in pairs to design and construct a Tudor-style house from cardboard boxes. We have also tried silk painting and sewing. Dr. Suloni visited us with a new book, and the children were inspired to write their own adventure stories after completing some investigative activities from the workshop.
This term has been full of exciting events and activities, including Careers Week, International Women’s Gala Day, and our Easter muffin workshop. Let’s not forget World Book Day, which was so much fun. It had terrific outfits and lovely opportunities to share stories.
We hope that you have a lovely Easter break and look forward to seeing you again for what promises to be an equally exciting Summer term.
Mrs Boyd, Mrs Gibson and Miss Connolly
Year 3
Year 3 has had an exciting term full of learning.
In History, children have learned all about the Egyptians. They have learnt what life was like in ancient Egypt and how it differs from today. The children have also learnt how to mummify an object and asked Tutankhamun questions about his life. The children looked at landmarks in Egypt and its culture in our geography lessons.
In Science, the children learnt about rocks and soil, focusing on grouping rocks through experiments. The children also learnt about soil and how soil is formed. The children have also been learning about forces and how they impact the world around us. They have been conducting experiments to show this.
The children have been learning about ancient Egyptian art in Art and Design. They made death masks to replicate Tutankhamun’s and their names in Hieroglyphics, and they designed and moulded scarab beetles and canopic jars using clay.
I hope you have a wonderful Easter break; I cannot wait to welcome you back for our final term in Year 3!
Miss Deane and Miss Byron
Year 4
We have had another fabulous term in Year 4. The children have impressed me with their creativity and produced outstanding work!
In Maths, the children have been challenging each other on Sumdog, playing board games to improve their multiplication skills and working out their bus stop divisions on the classroom tables! In English, they have written some super poems and character descriptions. In Careers Week, they talked about their future aspirations. They enjoyed a Robotics Workshop and a visit from a local author. Historyory, they have taken a great interest in The Battle of Hastings and their Motte and Bailey Castle Projects were very impressive! In Science, the children use practical equipment to create electrical circuits and have great fun while learning!
The classroom is filled with the delightful artwork of the children from our Geography project in China. They sketched Chinese dragons, created Chinese Kites and made tissue paper flowers and pop-up cards.
They celebrated World Book Day by dressing as a character from their favourite book and creating fabulous Easter Bonnets for our Easter Gala Day. A real highlight of the term was when Year 4 brought 107 Easter Eggs for the Charity Ambassadors to take to the children’s Whiston Hospital. What a remarkable achievement and such a kind gesture! We are so proud of you all!
They ended the term by baking delicious muffins in our Classroom kitchen session. They also enjoyed competing in Miss Midgley’s Genius competition, especially the Brain Teaser round. We had some fantastic answers!
What a busy and brilliant term! Well done, Year 4!
Mrs Miles and Mrs Thorold-Smith
Year 5
Year 5 have worked very hard this Spring Term and have continued to make good progress across the curriculum.
In English, the children fully immersed themselves in our book study of Matilda, learning all about the contrasting characters and plot. We celebrated our love for books by visiting our school library and dressing up for World Book Day!
In Maths, we have worked tremendously hard on our fraction, multiplication, and division skills. We also enjoyed some Sumdog sessions!
In Science, the children applied their knowledge of the seven life processes to produce an eye-catching poster for our classroom display. We also conducted a variety of experiments to test the properties of materials.
We worked as historians by interpreting different sources from 1948. Our geographical skills were enriched through OS map reading and debating different energy types. As part of our RE lessons, we explored how different religions worship. We made spinners to show what is worth to us in our lives.
We began our new, fun initiative, ‘Playground Friends. The children were eager for this new responsibility and were happy to receive a playground rota, hi-vis jacket, and training to support the teaching of playground games.
We enjoyed dressing up as our future professionals to celebrate Career Week. The children became detectives during Dr Saloni’s workshop and engineers in our robotics workshop. We concluded the term with a fun-filled Easter Gala Day, Child Genius class competition and exhibition to showcase our outstanding creative projects and competition work.
Well done, Year 5! I hope you have a lovely Easter break!
Miss Midgley and Miss Gannon
Year 6
This Spring term has been busy for the Year 6 pupils, who have made substantial progress exploring exciting topics.
The children have spent significant time developing their suspense writing skills in our English lessons and learning the tools to craft captivating stories. Additionally, we celebrated World Book Day, during which the children looked incredible and fully indulged themselves in their favourite books.
In Mathematics, we have been enhancing our fractions, decimals, percentages, and coordinates skills.
In Science, children study the various characteristics of the circulatory system and how blood circulates throughout our bodies. British Science Week also provided an excellent opportunity for children to engage in exciting experiments taught by science teachers from the Upper and Middle Schools.
As part of our history lessons, we studied the Victorians, the inventions made during that period, Queen Victoria, and what life was like for working children. The children excelled in comparing and contrasting the Victorian way of life with their own lives today.
Our geography lessons explored the comparison between flooding in the UK and Bangladesh. Additionally, we delved into the geography of South America, focusing on identifying the countries and understanding the diverse climates.
We concluded this term with our Easter Gala Day, filled with exciting activities, including bouncy castles that the children thoroughly enjoyed.
Have a lovely break. Well Done!
Mr Sweeney and Miss Gannon