Forest School
Year 5 and 6 have had exceptional punctuality and attendance so far this year. As a result, they earned themselves some forest school time out of class. We explored, built, played and worked together. It was a lovely morning out in the sunshine and the children have continued to ‘wow’ us with their positive teamwork and communication.
Reading
Thank you for coming along to our Phonics and Early Reading meeting this evening. We hope you found the session useful. We hope everyone has received their new username and login details and have been able to access the e-books online.
Here is the login page for the new e-book platform.
Please select ‘Login’, ‘I am a primary pupil’ and input your child’s username and password.
If you’re still having trouble accessing the e-books, please speak with us and we’ll be happy to assist.
Homework
Last week, your child will have come home with a purple homework book. This is for you to use at home to practise spellings or for any other homework. These do not need to come back to school.
Each week, we will add a reading and maths focus which is linked to the learning your child is doing in school that week. As well as this, there is a talk-time homework which is an opportunity to chat with your child about their learning.
Finally, we add some spellings to the homework sheet. The spellings stay the same for 2 weeks and at the end of the 2 weeks your child will have a spelling quiz.
If you have any other homework questions please send us an email or catch us on the door at drop off/pick up.
Mastering Number for Key Stage 2 – Multiplication sessions
Year 4 have been working hard this week to represent maths stories using gestures, pictures and expressions.
Help at home: Challenge your child to teach you how to use the gestures and pictures we use in our Mastering Number sessions.
Year 4’s Book Club
This week’s book club in Year 4 has been a busy one! There was much excitement exploring Mrs Poole’s recommended reads and the “Mystery books” were snapped up within minutes. We are looking forward to some new titles entering our shelves with some of our budding authors creating their own books for other children to borrow.
Help at home: Sharing a book with your child is the best way to develop reading fluency and a love of reading. Do let us know what you have reading using the Reading Records and if you need help finding a book to get lost in do come and see me at drop off / pick up for a recommendation.
Reading and Writing: Little Red
In English, we have been having lots of fun exploring the story Little Red by Bethan Woollvin! The children have enjoyed comparing this modern version to the original Little Red Riding Hood fairy tale. We’ve had lots of great discussions about the differences in characters and storylines.
We have also started learning about nouns. A noun is a word that names a person, place, or thing. For example, in Little Red, the girl is a person, the woods are a place, and the basket is a thing. The children have been looking at different pictures and practicing identifying nouns in them. They are really getting the hang of it!
Soon, we will be using these nouns to create sentences!
Welcome back everyone!
It’s been lovely to welcome back our returning nursery children and also to introduce our new starters!
We’ve had a wonderful settling in week, exploring our provision and becoming familair with our nursery routine.
Here’s a sneak peak of some of the activities we’ve been enjoying
During snack time this week the children have enjoyed listening to the nursery rhyme ‘Wheels on the bus’.
Help at home: Can you child recall some of the actions from the ‘Wheels on the bus’ nursery rhyme?
Next week, we will be starting our first focus story ‘ The Gruffalo’ By Julia Donaldson.
- In the coming weeks, we will be talking about our families. Please could parents/carers email some photos of their families to- stjamesnursery@spherefederation.org
Have a happy and healthy weekend!
Miss Ward and Miss Harvey
Our learning journey this week
Year 3 have set off on lots of different learning paths this week. Here’s an overview of our learning:
Writing
We have started to recap our knowledge of nouns, proper nouns and verbs. This week, the children have done some sentence-based learning, making sure we can identify nouns and verbs correctly. We’ve been really careful to remember that proper nouns need capital letters! Here’s some learning below (and their creators!).
Our new language has been revealed…
Latin!
This year, our class will follow the story of Minimus the mouse, his family and their lives in Vindolanda. We’re learning Latin to understand the roots of our British language, to help us improve in our grammar skills, and to support other lessons, too (such as our current Ancient Greece history unit).
So far, we’ve learnt how to say hello and goodbye in Latin! Practice these with your child at home – the children were all super excited to learn!
hello (to one person) = salve (sal-way)
hello (to more than one person) = salvete (sal-way-tay)
goodbye (to one person) = vale (wa-lay)
goodbye (to more than one person) = valete (wa-lay-tay)
Reading
We have continued our Greek myth theme this week and done lots of learning around Pandora’s Box. The children had to use their inference skills to draw what they thought flew out the box when Pandora mischievously opened it! Here are some fantastic creations along with their illustrators.
Help at home:
Thanks so much for helping your child read at home and complete their reading records – we had such a good return this first week. Keep practising our three key areas as much as possible: spelling, reading and times tables.
Starting School
We have welcomed all the children into class this week and we are so proud of how everyone is settling in, getting to know their new classroom and making new friends.
PE Day
PE will start on Monday 16th September. Please send your child to school in their PE kit every Monday. ( plain white t-shirt, navy blue shorts, school jumper and trainers they can fasten themselves.)
Bags, Wellies and Spare Clothes
Don’t forget to bring in your school wellies and a draw string or small bag of spare cloths/underwear to keep in school. Thank you to the parents and carers who have already provided these.
Family Photo
We will soon be talking and learning about different families. Next week we will introduce out first focus book The Big Book of Families by Mary Hoffman and Ros Asquith. To support our learning, please send in a photo of your child with their family. You can in a copy of your photo or email it to:
stjameseyfs@spherefederation.org
Dates for your diary
This year we will be offering various opportunities for you to find out more about Early Years at school.
There will be after school meetings with your child’s teacher.
There’ll be stay and learn sessions where you can come into school and be part of a lesson and then find out how you can help at home.
Then, opportunities to pop into school to share your child’s learning journey book with them.
We hope that you can join us for as many of these sessions as possible.
Welcome to Reception
An invitation to this event was emailed to you back in July but here is a reminder.
Come into school to find out some basic “need to knows” about life in Reception.
18.09.24 – 6pm – 6.30pm
Stay and learn sessions
This is an opportunity for you to come into school to find out about the Early Years Curriculum and watch your child learning in school.
Phonics Phase 2 and coffee morning – 09.10.24 9am-10am
Number 1 – 13.11.24 2.20-3pm
Phonics Phase 3 – 14.01.25 2.20-3pm
Fine Motor and coffee morning – 03.02.25 9am-10am
World Book Day- 06.03.24 9am-10am
Number 2 – 18.03.25 2.20-3pm
Learning Journey Drop In’s
An opportunity to “drop into” school and share your child’s learning journal with them.
Learning Journey Drop in 1 – 03.12.24 and 05.12.24 Times – 8.45 am-9.15am and 3.15pm-3.45pm
Learning Journey drop in 2 – 28.03.25 and 01.04.25 Times – 8.45 am-9.15am and 3.15pm-3.45pm
Learning Journey drop in 3– 08.07.25 and 10.07.25 Times – 8.45 am-9.15am and 3.15pm-3.45pm
Please note that a paper copy of these dates will also be sent home this week.
Have a happy and healthy weekend.
Mrs. Kendrew, Mrs. Rippon, Miss. Feldman and Mr. Smith
We Are Scientists!
Welcome back! We’ve had an exciting start to the school year in Science.
This week, the children were introduced to the topic of Science itself, discussing what it means to be a scientist and why understanding the world around us is important. We explored how science helps us ask questions, make observations, and carry out experiments to discover new things.
Our first unit of the term is all about the human body. The children began by identifying different parts of the body. To put their new knowledge into practice, we conducted a fun experiment where the children compared their height, foot size, and age. The goal was to see if there’s a relationship between these measurements.
The class had a great time measuring each other’s feet and heights and noting down their findings. It sparked interesting discussions about growth, and the children enjoyed thinking like scientists!