Christingle

This week, the children enjoyed making their own Christingle. We spoke about the meaning of it.

We walked to church on Thursday for the Christingle Service. Some of the children read The Christmas Giving by Iris W Bray and then we all held our Christingle as they were lit. We spoke about how we had to be very careful while doing this.

This week’s message (Friday 10 December 2021)

This week’s message has a couple of reminders, but we start with a ‘Plan B’ update on Covid precautions…

Since the early days of the pandemic, the Department for Education has been sending regular emails to schools. Yesterday’s came with an introductory sentence: ‘Today’s email includes an urgent update for all education and childcare settings on implementing Plan B of the COVID-19 Response: Autumn and Winter Plan’. Here are some extracts:

school attendance remains mandatory and all the usual rules continue to apply

settings are strongly encouraged to ask parents, guardians and other visitors to take a lateral flow device (LFD) test before entering the setting

all staff and students should test over the holidays in line with national guidance. This means that they should test if they will be in a high-risk situation that day and before visiting people who are at higher risk of severe illness if they get COVID-19

We were also asked to ‘revisit…existing outbreak plans to ensure [we] are well prepared for any future changes’ – let’s hope we don’t get to the same situation as we were in last January.

Next, a couple of reminders…

Next Tuesday, learning updates will be sent home. These are short reports that we send home at the end of the Autumn and Spring terms; they complement the parent-teacher meetings which take place earlier in the same terms. We started doing these a few years ago following your feedback in our annual surveys.

Also coming up next week is a non-uniform day on your child’s party day. Our Uniform Policy contains the following:

Pupils should dress appropriately and respectfully for school, even on non-uniform days. Clothes are inappropriate if they, for example, glorify violence, feature bad language, are very short (eg crop tops), or relate to age-inappropriate topics (eg computer games)… Make-up (other than face paints as part of a specific costume) is not allowed. Flip-flops or high-heeled shoes are not allowed, even on non-uniform days, because they’re dangerous when running.

Have a happy and healthy weekend.

Christmas production and Christingle

The Christmas production is live!
Make sure you scroll down our class news page to watch it.  Well done to all the Reception children. You really were the STARS of the show!
Christingle
On Tuesday, we made our Christingles. We talked about the different parts and what they mean.
The orange represents the world.
The candle represents Jesus being the light of the world.
The raisins represent God’s creations in the four seasons.
The red tape represents the blood of Jesus when he died on the cross.

The children were fantastic at following instructions when making their own Christingles.

Yesterday, we walked to St James’ Parish Church to join the rest of the school at the Christingle service. You wouldn’t;t have thought it was their first time because they were all so sensible – well done Reception! A big thank you to the four Reception parents that helped us get there and back in one piece.

Talk to your child about the Christingle service and see if they can remember the meaning.

Next week…
Wednesday 15 December
Christmas party day
Your child can wear non-uniform.
&
Christmas dinner day

Your child will be bringing home lots of lovely Christmas things on Wednesday. Please make sure your child brings a labelled carrier bag by Wednesday 15 December.

Home-Link Challenge

Have a lovely weekend! See you next week for a jam-packed fun Christmas week.

10 December 2021

Next week, we’ll continue  to focus on common homophones. Homophones are words that sound the same but are spelled differently and have different meanings – this is one of the reasons why English spelling is super tricky!

To help consolidate this learning, we’d like you to practise spelling these words at home. Because they’re homophones, it’s most useful to practise these in sentences. You could do this in the car, on a walk or around the table.

hear, here,         which, witch,     to, two, too, 

I can hear a tune. Come and sit here.

Which shoes shall I wear? I saw a witch with a broomstick.

I am going to the shop to buy two lollies. Do you want to come too?

We’ll test ourselves on Friday 17 December to see how we’ve got on.

For some tips and tricks on how best to practise your spellings at home, visit the Y3,4 spelling page on our website and click here.

10 December 2021

Write the word then trace it with your finger or pencil, saying the word. Cover it and write underneath, saying the word again.

Year 1:

of     once     one      our     pull

Year 2:

was     we     were     where    you     your     who     what      when     well

10 December 2021

This week we have been studying homophones. Learn the following words for a test on Thursday 17th December.

• isle
• aisle
• aloud
• allowed
• herd
• heard
• affect
• effect
• past
• passed

10 December 2021

Living and learning is the theme for this week’s Talk Time.

I can talk through a ‘recipe’ for how to be a good friend.

Being a good friend requires a number of key ingredients. When discussing how to be a good friend, think about the qualities that you have and that you value in your friends, too. How many adjectives can you come up with to describe a good friend?

This week’s Remember 2s provide some useful top tips for being a good friend:

• A good friend is someone that you can have fun with and makes you feel good about yourself.
• You don’t need to spend all of your time with one person to be a good friend.
• Your friend might not always agree with you but they will still respect your opinions.

One of the qualities in your good friend recipe is likely to link to honesty.

Discuss and come up with as many reasons why telling the truth is important.

For the second part of this Talk Time, come up with a list of reasons why telling the truth is important.

Think about a time when someone didn’t tell you the truth. How did that make you feel? Even if the truth might not be what you want to hear, is it better to hear the truth than it is to hear a lie?

Christmas Production 2021

Our Christmas Production 2021

Hump the camel

We are so proud of all the children for their FANTASTIC singing, acting and dancing. We hope you enjoy the Christmas production as much as we do!

Sculptures in art

Our Barbara Hepworth inspired sculptures are well underway! We’ve planned and sketched our ideas in groups and then used boxes to cut out holes to create negative spaces. We’ve started to cover our boxes in tissue paper and paint them white. Our next step will be to mix paints to create a colour which will give the sculptures the colour of Verdigris (a green pigment created when copper, brass or bronze is weathered).

We’re looking forward to putting the boxes together to create our final group sculptures- watch this (negative) space!

This week’s bible story

The persistent widow: Luke 18:1-8

Have you ever used pester power to get what you want? When you keep on asking and asking and asking until the person relents and gives in? Jesus once told a story about pester power, but it didn’t feature a parent and a child. The two people in Jesus’ story were a judge and a widow. Read the story to find out what happened.

Reflection:
Have you ever pestered God? reflect on your own experiences of prayer. Were their prayers denied because of any of the reasons like in the story?

Even though some prayers appear not to work, Christians believe that God is always at work in their lives, although this may be hard to see.

Prayer:
Dear God,
Thank you for being a God who listens to our prayers.
Help us to keep praying to you even when it seems that our prayers are not being answered.
May we never forget that, like a loving parent, you only want what is best for us.
Amen