Junior Department Notices and Reminders

Parents’ Evenings

The Junior Department Parents’ Evening bookings will be live next week, so please look out for that.

Open Classrooms

After the success of the Middle Department Open Classroom event last week, Junior Department Open Classrooms will be on Thursday 16 March from 0815-0915.

World Book Day – Thursday 2 March

Thursday 2 March is World Book Day! We are celebrating this national event by transforming the Drawing Room and the Junior Hall into two huge bookshops provided by the Travelling Book Company. Pupils will have the chance to browse the books and make purchases.

As part of this national celebration of reading, each pupil will receive a £1 book token, redeemable against any book purchased on 2 March.

As in previous years, we invite all pupils and staff to dress up as their favourite character from a book, and we ask that £1 is donated to the World Book Day charity via this link

Please click here before Monday 20 February to complete the Google form confirming whether your child can participate in the book sale, their maximum spend amount and that you are happy for the cost of the book/books to be added to your account.

This Week in the Junior Department

We have had another fantastic week in the Junior Department including our very special Maths Day which was an incredible experience for all our children, including Woodlands. I hope your children came home buzzing with excitement about all that they had done. The photographs and write ups below will hopefully give you a flavour of all that the day included. I am so grateful to the Junior Department teachers and TAs and all the Woodlands staff for planning, preparing and delivering such a special, unique day for the children with lots of WOW moments!  

Next week is Children’s Mental Health Week. This is a subject that is close to my heart and one that, in various guises, is often the focus of my Monday Morning Assemblies.

This week, for example, we used a mindfulness chime to pause and meditate for a short time, learning about the importance of being in the moment. 

There are so many wonderful picture books out there that help children understand their feelings and allow them to develop a vocabulary to talk about them.

Here are just a few:

• Lucy’s blue day by Chris Duke – sadness 
• The very hungry worry monsters by Rosie Greening – worry 
• They by Chantal Reardon – friendship 
• Worries are like clouds by Shona Innes – strategies for different emotions 
• The colour monster by Anna Llenas – naming and recognising different emotions  
• Conker the Chameleon by Harriet Peckham – not bottling up feelings  
• Find your happy, Poppy by Chantal Reardon – self-confidence and happiness 
• The Invisible by Tom Percival  
• Ravi’s Roar by Tom Percival – anger 
• Meesha makes friends by Tom Percival – friendship 
• I am a peaceful goldfish by Shoshana Chaim – mindfulness/ settling overwhelming feelings  
• Joy by Corrine Averris – joy 
• My monster and me by Nadiya Hussain – anxiety 
• Sometimes – a book of feelings by Stephanie Stansbie  
• Gloomy Baboony by Lizzie Simpson – sadness

The theme of this year’s CMHW is ‘Let’s Connect’.  

‘Human beings thrive in communities, and this connection is vital for our wellbeing, and our survival. When we have healthy connections – to family, friends and others – this can support our mental health and our sense of wellbeing.’ 

We promote and encourage our Junior Department children to connect to their teachers and peers in healthy and meaningful ways. Friendships made at Beechwood often last a lifetime! We hope that all our children feel seen and known and that this in turns means that they are happy and resilient.  

We will be doing various activities next week about our mental health and wellbeing so hopefully the children will come home and talk to you about them.   

Have a lovely weekend,  

Mrs McIntosh

Head of Junior Department

This Week in Reception

On Thursday, Reception children arrived at School to find an enormous circle on Orchard Gate that they had to pass under, before following and stepping on circles to get to their classrooms which had been transformed by, guess what? Masses of circles!

Activities throughout our themed Maths Day involved making HUGE circles outside with Mr Le Bas swinging around on a chair to draw a chalk circle, learning mathematical vocabulary such as circumference, diameter and radius, finding the centre of a circle and drawing hundreds of circles between us!

We also used Kandinsky’s Concentric Circles to inspire some art work, and finished off the day with some fun circle games.

Maths, art, teamwork and problem solving were all part of our day and above all…we had lots of fun whilst learning!  Click here see more photos from our day!

This Week in Year 1

Money, Money, Money

Year 1 pupils were immersed in money during Maths Day. It began with a letter from a mysterious visitor, who was staying in the Beechwood forest. This led us on a hunt to find a treasure chest full of coins. Once we found the treasure, it was divided equally between the three classes. Each class then sorted their share into different values, from smallest to largest. The children were then able to make different amounts using a range of coins, where they put their place value and addition knowledge to good use.

This was excellent preparation for the afternoon, as Year 1 classrooms were transformed into a bakery, a pet shop and a book shop. The children were able to visit each shop using their money to buy various items, they carefully chose what they wanted to buy and what coins they needed to use to pay for it and then most importantly what change they back. All of these activities provided opportunities for the children to put their maths skills to the test with some excellent calculations.  Click here to see more photos from our day.

The Year 1 Team

This Week in Year 2

Armed with their rulers, Year 2 dived into a day of measuring on Thursday. We ordered, compared, estimated and of course measured different heights and lengths, with a smidge of problem solving thrown in for ‘good measure’. 

To start the day the children were met with challenges…How long a playdough snake can you role? How tall a tower of cm cubes can you build?  They perfected the skill of using a centimetre ruler creating and measuring a Numicon city and landscape of flowers.

The highlight had to be taking our learning outside the classroom with a scavenger hunt. How long do you estimate the width of Orchard Green to be? Ask any Year 2 child for the answer!  Click here to see more images from the day.

The Year 2 Team

From the Junior Library

Teddy’s Midnight Adventure by Yoko Mori

Teddy’s Midnight Adventure is Japanese author Yoko Mori’s first book to be published in English. Mori is an artist and author, specialising in pencil drawings which are evident throughout this exquisite book. The pencil shading is expertly combined with strategic scatterings of red to create page after page of stunning illustrations . 

Teddy’s Midnight Adventure starts when he manages to lose one of his eye buttons. In the magical  moonlight, Teddy and his owner Akiko head outside to the strange and mysterious garden. They talk to lots of the garden’s inhabitants in an attempt to find the missing eye.

The Library Team

Head’s Commendations

Congratulations to this week’s recipients of Mrs Cussans’ Commendations: