Bonfire Night Safety

We hope you have a lovely time if you are going out tonight to celebrate Bonfire Night and watch some fireworks.

Please remember the top tips we talked about in class today to help keep you safe:

Living and Learning: Me and My Community Themed Week – St James

Yesterday, as part of our Me and My Community themed week we learnt about St James. We learnt that he grew up as a fisherman with his brother. Jesus went to meet James and he became one of the three disciples who were very close to Jesus, along with Peter and John.

James became the first travelling apostle (an important early Christian Teacher) and the Apostle’s symbol is a scallop shell (the badge of pilgrims everywhere) which is like our school logo. We thought about why there are three shells on our school logo and why they are in 3 different colours and 3 sizes.

We also thought about our school vision ‘We are a happy and  healthy place to achieve and believe’ and what the words happy, healthy, achieve and believe mean to us.

Help at home: Can your child tell you something they have learnt about St James? Can they tell you why we have shells as our school logo? Do they remember what our school vision is?

Me and My Community – Our School Vision

As part of our themed week, Me and My Community, we spent some time discussing our school vision.

Our school vision is to be…

…a happy and healthy place to achieve and believe.

We picked out 4 key words from our vision:

• happy

• healthy

• achieve

• believe

We discussed each word, thinking about what ‘happy and healthy’ looks and feels like, and all the ways in which we ‘achieve and believe’

“We can be happy by playing together.”

“We stay healthy by washing our hands.”

“We can achieve by working together.”

“We can believe by cheering each other on.”

Help at home by discussing our school vision with your child. How is our school vision reflected in life outside of school?

Christian Distinctiveness – Me and My Community Themed Week

At St James, this week is ‘me and my community’ themed week! With this in mind, our first day focussed on Christian distinctiveness here at St James’ CE Primary. Year 3 have worked really hard today and we covered four learning objectives – these are below and are supported by some fantastic learning.

LO: I know our school vision. 

St James is a happy and healthy place to achieve and believe.

In class, we discussed what it does and should look, sound and feel like to be happy and healthy. We also discussed our current achievements and what it feels like to believe in something. Year 3 were then tasked to create a poster to promote our school vision.

LO: I know what our school logo looks like.

As a class, we gathered ideas on what our school logo represents. This discussion sparked some brilliant ideas, and the children really thought deeply about their responses. We came up with a fantastic class poster for our classroom!

LO: I know who St James was.

The children took part in a reading activity, based on St James himself. St James, son of Zebedee, was a fisherman, along with his brother, John. When Jesus came to visit, both James and John were excited to become followers of Jesus and to become ‘fishers of men’. When James heard the stories that Jesus told, Jesus became the centre of everything he believed in. He dedicated his life following Jesus and became one of his three closest followers (along with John and Peter).

LO: I know the Christian Values at St James’ CE Primary. 

Here at St James, we have six Christian Values:

• compassion
• forgiveness
• perseverance
• honesty
• peace
• courage

Year 3 read three bible stories. We had to decide and debate which Christian Value was shown the most in each story. Here are some quotes from the children:

‘Noah showed perseverance in The Flood Begins because it must have taken ages for him to build the boat.’ – Max

‘In The Good Samaritan, compassion was the main Christian value because the Samaritan showed care towards the dying man when the others before him didn’t.’ – Orianne

‘Zacchaeus showed forgiveness because he had to forgive himself for treating people badly and Jesus helped him do it’. – Isabella

‘Zacchaeus showed peace and honesty by admitting to his mistakes and Jesus helped people become peaceful in Jericho.’ – Bea

Junior Leadership Team Election

Democracy – from Ancient Greece to St James’

Democracy is one of the British Values we learn about in school.  We found it really interesting to learn how Democracy began in Athens in Ancient Greece as part of our Topic lessons and we were really excited to see it in action as part of our JLT elections.

Our British Values are:

• Democracy
• Rule of Law
• Individual Liberty
• Respect and Tolerance

It would be great to discuss these with your child.  What does the value mean to them?  What would Britain be like if we didn’t have this value?

History – Stone Age to Iron Age and Ancient Egypt

As our history topic comes to an end, the children have been demonstrating their knowledge and all that they have learnt by producing a two-page spread. They have ensured they record all they remember from the Stone Age, Bronze Age, Iron Age and compared this with what they have learnt about Ancient Egypt.

Help at home – Ask your child about what they remember. Is there any comparisons they can make between the Iron Age and Ancient Egypt? Who was Howard Carter and what do they think of him? Why was the River Nile so important to ancient Egyptians? Can they remember the dates of each key period? If time, can they find out any more interesting information to share after half term?

Some of our Year 5 and 6 children chose to stand for Junior Leadership Team this morning. We are extremely proud of all the children who spoke confidently and clearly and with expression.

As a democracy, children made their choice and took to the Polling Station to submit their vote.

Well done to all the courageous children who stood for election! We await the results…

Room on the Broom!

Over the last two weeks the children have enjoyed reading Room on the Broom by Julia Donaldson

In forest school, we made our own cauldron to help the Witch make a new broomstick. Here are a few things the children could recall from the story.

We made a pot for the Witch, from Room on the Broom -Oria

A cauldron, some sticks and some leaves- J

We put some feathers in, they make the broomstick- T

We need to make a potion and cast a spell- Blossom

Iggy, ziggity, zaggity, zoom- Elliott

Some big sticks to hold up the cauldron- Avery

Dragon, he flew after the Witch -Noyan

Help at Home: Let’s get crafty!

The children have enjoyed lots of creative activities this week.

Could you make something at home relating to our story? a few ideas could be, your own wand, creating a Witches face using different shapes, exploring pumpkins, making potions.

Don’t forget the outdoors is a wonderful place to get messy!

Notice:

We’ve had a wonderful first half term and the children have all made some fantastic progress, we’re extremely proud!

We would also like to thank Miss Harvey! Miss Harvey is sadly leaving St.James to pursue her career in teaching and we wish her all the best with her future endeavours.

You may have noticed that Miss Feldman has been in Nursery recently. Miss Feldman will now be in Nursery as our full time Teaching Assistant. The children have already welcomed her with open arms and we’re looking forward to our next half term.

Have a happy and healthy break and we will see you all on Monday 04 November.

The Nursery Team

JLT elections

We are extremely proud of all the children who are running for JLT this year.  The candidates spoke to the rest of the class this morning to explain why they deserved their vote.

Voters are spoilt for choice with such strong candidates to choose from.  Well done to all the children for being brave and for speaking clearly at an appropriate volume (two of our oracy targets this half-term.)