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This week in Year 3

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

What a wonderful start to our Christmas celebrations! The Christingle service was a beautiful way to remind ourselves of the importance of thinking of others in this busy time. The Year 3 children performed with confidence and evident enjoyment. An enormous thank you to Mr Bullock for his excellent Chaplaincy duties and to Edna for making a surprise appearance. Thank you, too, to Mr Fox for coming to our rescue when Mrs Oatham’s large Christingle imploded on her. He quickly stepped in and created a very striking and modern looking 3D orange with red LED lights!

Thank you to Mrs Jarvis for preparing the children and giving them the confidence to sing so beautifully and to Mr Balfour and to Mrs Greenwood for their support with the service.

A final thank you to all the support you, as parents, have given the children. Please see the pictures below: 

Year 3 making Christingles

Year 3 Christmas Production

Tickets Now Available!

We are delighted to invite you to join the Christmas trees, cards, Santas, Christmas dinner eaters and Beth the star at this year’s Year 3 and 4 Christmas production – The Stars Come Out. The children will be performing on Thursday 8 December at 1500, and Friday 9 December at 0910. The performance is roughly 40minutes long.

We are initially offering two tickets per family as we have over 120 pupils in the cast. We may be able to release further tickets once all parents have received their allocation. Please click here to reserve your tickets.

Refreshments will be available in the Great Hall after the Thursday performanceand from 0840 on the Friday.

Doors open ten minutes before each performance.

We look forward to seeing you all, and sharing the children’s amazing work from their drama and music lessons!

Year 3 and 4 have been working really hard in their Dance and Drama and Music lessons to put together this festive production.  Please provide your son/daughter with a costume for their performances. All items should be brought into school, in a named bag on Monday 5 December. Please ensure everything is named. Details of costumes can be found here

Christmas Baubles Fundraiser

The tree is filling up with baubles, but there is lots of room for more to help us raise funds for the Christingle Charity, The Children’s Society, who provide specialist support that empowers young people to make positive changes and rediscover their hope. For more information on the work of the Children’s Society, please follow the link here. 

Please bring in your bauble on any day, then you may choose a special spot and hang it on the tree.Please ask your parents to donate £2 for your bauble, either by bringing the money into school, or by using a new Just Giving page here.

Year 3 Christmas Market

The Year 3 and 1 Christmas market will be held on Thursday. This has been a very enjoyable collaboration between the Junior and Middle Departments as we capture some of the festive spirit.  More information has been placed in the Google Classrooms. Thank you to those of you who have already sent some items in to School. 

Ancient Egyptians

Egyptian Day is also just around the corner! You still have time to finalise your costumes before Friday 2 December!  

Year 3 House Matches: Saturday 3 December 2022

We are very much looking forward to the House Matches next week.

All pupils are required to participate in the matches for it to run successfully for all. Please click here to complete the Google Form to register your child’s attendance if you haven’t already done so. If your child cannot attend the House Matches due to unavoidable circumstances, please provide your reasons in the Google form. Thank you and we look forward to seeing you there!

 

Warm and festive regards,

Una Oatham, Libby Mann, Sophie Porter and Pauline Pope

The Year 3 Team

 


This week in Year 4

History Presentations

This week in History, 4I have begun their research projects based on everyday aspects of Anglo-Saxon life.  After deciding on a topic the children, working in pairs, came up with keys questions they would like answered.  For example, ‘What were Anglo-Saxon Homes made from?‘ or ‘How did the Anglo-Saxons hunt and catch their food?’.  After using the internet and information books to find the answers, children have started to create presentations using Google Slides or PowerPoint.  Over the next few weeks, children will have the opportunity to present their findings to the class and practise their presentation skills.

Have a look at some of the slides created so far and see what you can learn.

Measuring Skills

In Science, 4P and 4L have been testing their measuring skills while collecting data for their investigation into arm lengths.  Children discussed the concept of fair testing and the importance of accurate measuring.  In particular, children worked hard to come up with an appropriate unit of measurement,  agreed approach to measuring arm length and made sure that it was repeatable across the sample population.  However, children were also taught to understand the limitations of the study and asked to consider how the method might be improved if repeated or what results might show if the data sample was larger.

 

Year 4 in Lego Club

Have you ever created a self-portrait? Have you ever created one out of Lego?  That was the challenge set to some of the Year 4 children who attended Lego Club this week.  As always, they took the challenge in their stride and came up with imaginative ideas in order to creates images of themselves.

Can you recognise each artist?

Year 4 Lego Club - self portraits

Notices

  • From Tuesday 29 November onwards, ALL pupils will need a pair of shoes in school they are happy to get muddy.  This can include football boots.
  • The Middle Department Christmas tree is now up and is starting to look wonderful! We would like to invite all of the Middle Department children to help raise funds for the Christingle Charity, The Children’s Society, who provide specialist support that empowers young people to make positive changes and rediscover their hope. For more information on the work of the Children’s Society, please follow the link here

Please bring in a bauble in on any day throughout the next few weeks and then ask your teacher permission to choose a special spot, then hang it on the tree.  You can donate £2 for your bauble, either by bringing the money into school, or by using a new Just Giving page details here


Year 4 House Matches: Saturday 3 December 2022

We are very much looking forward to the House Matches next week.

All pupils are required to participate in the matches for it to run successfully for all. Please click here to complete the Google Form to register your child’s attendance if you haven’t already done so. If your child cannot attend the House Matches due to unavoidable circumstances, please provide your reasons in the Google form. Thank you and we look forward to seeing you there!

Year 4 Christmas Production

Tickets Now Available!

We are delighted to invite you to join the Christmas trees, cards, Santas, Christmas dinner eaters and Beth the star at this year’s Year 3 and 4 Christmas production – The Stars Come Out. The children will be performing on Thursday 8 December at 1500, and Friday 9 December at 0910. The performance is roughly 40minutes long.

We are initially offering two tickets per family as we have over 120 pupils in the cast. We may be able to release further tickets once all parents have received their allocation. Please click here to reserve your tickets.

Refreshments will be available in the Great Hall after the Thursday performanceand from 0840 on the Friday.

Doors open ten minutes before each performance.

We look forward to seeing you all, and sharing the children’s amazing work from their drama and music lessons!

Year 3 and 4 have been working really hard in their Dance and Drama and Music lessons to put together this festive production.  Please provide your son/daughter with a costume for their performances. All items should be brought into school, in a named bag on Monday 5 December. Please ensure everything is named. Details of costumes can be found here


This week in Year 5

Battle of the Classes

This term in Music, Year 5 pupils have taken part in the much-anticipated Battle of the Classes and each class recorded a rock song. The pupils enjoyed dressing up as rock stars and showcasing their best rock moves in their performances! Much like Strictly, the audience votes were combined with the judges’ scores and, in Monday’s assembly, the result was revealed! (drum roll, please…..)

Congratulations to 5D, the winning class, for their spectacular performance of ‘Crazy Little Thing Called Love’ by Queen. You can enjoy their performance here.

5D also performed live in Friday’s assembly to a very appreciative audience – well done everyone!

Miss Bailey

Year 5 Drama

This is Y5 performing ‘Lucy / Louis meets Mr Tumnus’ from The Lion, the Witch, and The Wardrobe in still images. The children’s facial expressions are absolutely wonderful.

Here are some photos from the lesson.

Year 5 performing ‘Lucy / Louis meets Mr Tumnus’ from The Lion, the Witch, and The Wardrobe in still images

Year 5 Future Skills

This half term, Year 5 have been focusing on Communication Skills. They had a fantastic time learning about how motions are debated in Parliament. It was UK Parliament Week last week, and the pupils were very keen to understand more about how decisions that affect our country are made. Their knowledge of current affairs was highly impressive and their assessment of the relative skills of our three most recent Prime Ministers was incisive, if not scathing at times!

Here you can see some of the debate motions that the pupils came up with themselves. Even learning how to phrase a motion in order to be contentious was a learning curve!

The debates that followed were fascinating. We heard well-considered arguments from the proposers and opposers (who spoke with no notes at all), and lots of ker-ching questions from the floor…. Ask your child to explain!

Mrs Clarke

Future Skills

Year 5 House Matches: Saturday 3 December 2022

We are very much looking forward to the House Matches next week.

All pupils are required to participate in the matches for it to run successfully for all. Please click here to complete the Google Form to register your child’s attendance if you haven’t already done so. If your child cannot attend the House Matches due to unavoidable circumstances, please provide your reasons in the Google form. Thank you and we look forward to seeing you there!

Open Swim Session

Next Friday (2 December) we will be holding an open swim session between 1645 and 1735 for all pupils in Year 5 to Top Form. Anyone wishing to get timed and try and get into our IAPS swim team in Years 5-Top Form is welcome to attend!

Wishing you all a healthy and restful weekend.

Best wishes,

The Year 5 Pastoral Team

 


From the Middle Department Library

Operation Nativity by Jenny Pearson

When Oscar and Molly rush outside to investigate a crash in the night, they’re not expecting to find a dazed Angel Gabriel wandering around their grandparents’ back garden. And they’re certainly not expecting to find themselves in a race to save Christmas. But if they don’t track down a missing shepherd, wise man, donkey and the actual Mary and Joseph, who’ve all crash-landed in Chipping Bottom, not only will Christmas cease to exist, but they will too. Cue Operation Nativity.

With illustrations throughout and fun festive activities at the end, this is an engaging and enjoyable read for Christmas.


Head’s Commendations

Congratulations to this week’s recipients of Mr Balfour’s Commendations:

Nurture Engage Inspire
Year 3 Marcus F-H Adam E, Alexander F, Mya K, Sasha L, Tommy J Harry M
Year 4 - Shoma L, Bo H, Magnus G, Madeleine F, Alexander O, George M
Year 5 Katherine T, Ffion M-P Niky S, Aria D, William S Yasmin L-B, Ffion M-P, Eleanor I, Sofia G-S, Jamie M, Sam B, Charlotte D, Daisy P, Georgia L,