JUNIOR DEPARTMENT NEWS

Ciao, Ola, Yassou, God Dag, Jambo

This week we celebrated the European Day of Languages together by learning to greet each other in a wide variety of languages. The children embraced this wholeheartedly and have been trying to impress me with their different greetings as we meet each other around the School. We used the opportunity to talk about differences and similarities and the multi-cultural society we live in.  

This theme continued in our Harvest Assembly on Wednesday where the children learnt about how amazing it is that most of our food comes from the earth and how the seasons each play an important role in the cycle. Celebrations linked to being grateful for the food we eat happen all over the world. These included: 

• Thanksgiving in the USA; 
• Fiesta de la Cosecha in Spain; 
• Pongal for the Tamil community; 
• Blessing of the sea in Greece; 
• Sukkot in Jewish communities around the world; 
• Oktoberfest in Germany,

and many, many more. We know how fortunate we are here at Beechwood, and so I was thrilled to see all the generous donations that have come in over the past couple of days for the Trussell Trust Food Bank in St. Albans. If you haven’t managed to send yours in yet then we are accepting donations on Monday as well. 

Finally, our inaugural monthly birthday party takes place today and I hope the children loved receiving their invitation by ‘snail mail’ and had fun at our celebration. We played some party games, had balloons and of course, cupcakes. Birthdays are so important when you are young (even when you are older I think!) and I wanted to recognise this and help them feel special.  

It was lovely to see so many of you with your younger children at our Drop In Session at Forest School this morning.  I hope that you enjoyed learning a little bit more about our Forest School provision at Beechwood, and seeing what your children get to enjoy on a weekly basis beyond the classroom.  For those of you not able to join us, visitors were able to see some signs of autumn, including our Fabulous Fungi, colourful leaves especially the yellow birch and red wild cherry, and a bountiful crop of chestnuts and conkers.  We hope to run similar events again later this year, so watch out for information about these.  Thank you to Mrs Le Bas for taking the time to do this.  Reception Blue then had their first Forest School session this afternoon – photos below!

Please note: The door to the Junior Department won’t open until 0815 so if you arrive earlier than that you will need to wait outside. As the weather gets colder don’t forget to wrap up warm as the wind whistles through the bus shelter area! 

Mrs McIntosh 

This Week in Reception

Have a look below at photos from Reception’s first swimming lessons  – as the saying goes, they took to it ‘like a duck to water’.

Reception have also enjoyed further exploring the School site this week, visiting the “hospital” (Surgery) and the Boarding House, amongst other areas!

Reception Blue thoroughly enjoyed their first taste of Forest School this afternoon, with Reception Red and Green following in the next couple of weeks. Mrs Le Bas explained some of the Forest School rules before the children explored the woods, playing in the mud kitchen, hunting for conkers and finding the “owls” dotted around.  A fabulous afternoon despite being a little chilly!  Have a look at some photos below:

This Week in Year 1

Year 1 had a brilliant time on their school trip to Wardown House yesterday!

We were lucky (or unlucky) enough to experience a day in the life of a Victorian servant. We tried a number of different chores and tasks, which included:

• lighting the fire and heating the stove
• making breakfast
• washing and drying clothes
• ironing
• sweeping

and after all that hard work bathing. We also loved looking around the museum and spotted lots of old-fashioned toys as well as some sneaky mice hiding around the house.

This Week in Year 2

This week in Year 2, the children have been using pastels to create a self-portrait. We have been thinking carefully about proportions and using careful observation to make our portraits as realistic as possible. The results have been fantastic and we are sure the children will be very proud of their artwork on display in the classroom.

In Year 2, our maths lessons always involve using manipulatives to build understanding and the children are becoming very adept at choosing resources to support work. Our group challenge this week was to use the manipulatives to represent numbers in different ways.  Always up for a challenge, the groups worked to stretch their learning by not just partitioning numbers into tens and ones but showing other combinations to make the chosen number. Mathstastic!

From the Junior Library

Birds of a Feather by Lauren Fairgrieve

Birds of a Feather spectacularly brings non-fiction to life. Focussing on 10 common British birds, Fairgrieve combines detailed informative explanations with amazing ‘push-out’ models to create and treasure. The colours and illustrations are enchanting and the accompanying text is enlightening.

The Bookshow is a charity that inspires school children with a love of reading through an annual programme of in-theatre and digital performances and in-school workshops with the very best authors and illustrators from around the world.  Booking is now open for their autumn programme. Click here to view all of their Autumn Performances