This week’s newsletter for Rossall Junior School and Nursery.
YEAR 6
| As we approach half term the children have been working hard on equivalent fractions, decimals and percentages; although many realised it was not a pointless task, we decided we had to draw the line somewhere and move on to learning about algebra. We just hope the children don’t have too many questions about why we are doing it! Elsewhere the children have been learning about different forms of government, we just hope there isn’t a coup when they return to school in March. The highlight of my week was watching the key worker children to create their own ghost song for music, the amount of laughter would suggest it wasn’t a particularly spooky rendition! Next week we have some fun activities planned for the children to help them ease into what will be a well-deserved break, well done Year 6 we’re thoroughly impressed with your approach and positive attitude to remote learning! |
YEAR 5
| What an action-packed and fun-filled week Year 5 have had. The artist that we have been looking at this week is the incredible Leonardo da Vinci. The children have had the opportunity to look at both his stunning artwork and his amazing inventions. They were challenged to produce their own inventions which they did superbly well! The Music lesson provided us with great entertainment, who knew a ghost could ride a bike, there is a joke in there somewhere!! The children had great fun making their own version of the highly entertaining video. We have done some hard work too. Year 5 are fraction wizards, we can now simplify, compare and order fractions. We also talked about what a hero is this week during our English lessons. It was refreshing to hear the children use words like kindness, humility, resilience and vulnerability when talking about what the word ‘hero’ meant to them. Year 5 pupils understand that not all heroes wear capes. |
YEAR 4
| “Parati, equaliter ambula!” Or to most of us who are not legionnaires in the Roman army “Get ready, march forward!” After making some wonderful Roman shields last week Year 4 have been in training as Roman soldiers and have been practising some of the commands used by the Roman army! It would have been fantastic to do the “testudo” or “tortoise” had we all been in school together! We have also been thinking about Captain Tom this week and to commemorate his remarkable life we have been doing our own “Captain Tom 100 Challenge!“ As a class, we are challenging ourselves to do 100 of something each day that we might find a bit of a challenge! We are going to do this each day until we break up next Friday! At the time of writing, we’ve done 100 air-jacks and 100 press-ups! |
YEAR 3
| Another fabulous week in Year 3. We have had ‘money week’ in Maths, learning how to count and add pounds and pence, a very important life skill! In English we’ve been learning about different tenses (perfect and progressive) and practised using them through Stone Age role plays. We have also been reading The Iron Man by Ted Hughes, and in Art we drew portraits of the title character. In Science we have moved from rocks and fossils on to soil, and made our own sediment jars to observe the layers of soil ingredients. Our Topic learning extended to the Bronze Age and we built Stonehenge out of different materials. Well done Year 3 for a wonderful week! |
YEAR 2
| Another wonderful week of learning in Year 2! We started off the week creating our own Tudor house models or collages! In Language, we have continued to follow Red on her journey through the woods! We have written her directions to get home, inferred character’s thoughts and feeling and learned about the importance of trees. We have shown what super mathematicians we are again this week, focusing on division and making links with multiplication facts. Year 2 should be very proud of all that they have achieved this week! |
YEAR 1
| This week we have been budding authors, planning and writing our own stories. We have introduced a new character and a new setting, with lots of amazing descriptions. We have included story language and thought carefully about how to structure our stories. I can’t wait to read the completed stories next week. In Topic we followed Baby Bear to our capital city, London, and looked at all the famous landmarks he visited. We then made our own models of a famous London landmark. I was delighted to see all the models the children produced, well done! In Science, we have learnt about the plants we eat, and which parts of different plants we can eat. Did you know that we can eat some types of flowers? Now we have grown our cress, we are looking forward to eating it on a nice egg sandwich… well I am anyway! |
RECEPTION
| This week is Children’s Mental Health Week – 1st-7th February. I don’t think anyone needs me to tell them, with the current COVID pandemic, how important it is to talk about feelings with our children. Most of us have probably been on our own emotional roller coasters too. During Children’s Mental Health Week, let’s try to take time out and encourage children to think about themselves. We need to provide children with the opportunity to develop skills to stop and reflect on their emotions. How are they actually feeling? Can we encourage them to recognise those feelings? Do they feel their feelings are listened to? With all of this in mind, Reception has been encouraged to take part in five daily activities to encourage their child to stop, go outside and take time out of their day to reflect. We have thought about the weather, listened to the sounds we could hear outside, looked for signs of Spring, watched the clouds and generally had fun, playing games outside no matter what the weather was doing. Please let children know that it’s ok to not be ok. Let’s get talking! |
NURSERY
| “The Rainbow Fish shared his scales left and right.. and the more he gave away the more delighted he became..” This week has marked the introduction of our new ‘book of the month’ in our Sandpipers & Preschool room – Rainbow Fish! A wonderful story about sharing with others, building new friendships and celebrating what makes us special or different. At the start of the week, we enjoyed collaging our own Rainbow Fish scales, exploring different materials, textures and colours. As it has also been Children’s Mental Health Week, we decided to take a leaf (or should I say a scale) out of Rainbow Fish’s book by creating friendship bracelets that we would hand out to our friends. It was lovely to hear each child express ‘why’ they chose that person, reasons ranged from “she is my best friend,” to “he tickles me.” Junior bake-off has been a big interest for some of our preschoolers recently so we decided to roll up our sleeves and bake some healthy banana bars. We all worked together to combine our ingredients, fill the baking trays and then waited so patiently for the most anticipated part, tasting them! Unfortunately, after one taste we all looked as though we had bitten into rotten sprouts and even the teachers couldn’t muster a convincing “mmm” sound. As fun as the process was, it’s a unanimous decision that we will NOT be baking them again. Our Sanderlings have also enjoyed the introduction of their new ‘book of the month’ which is Dear Zoo. A lovely book about a collection of zoo animals, arriving by post in all sorts of boxes, it has everything our under 2s love, ‘lift the flap’ pages and lots of animals to see! The children have been busy exploring simple tools with paints to create, their interpretation of tigers and stripes. We have also added a variety of different sized boxes to the room, which has encouraged the children to hide and find the animal figures, whilst trying to match the correct boxes and lids. The Sanderlings had a lovely visit to the petting farm this week too, the children were mesmerised watching the rabbits and guinea pigs, it was so lovely to see how excited they were to stroke them. We are so lucky to have access to such wonderful grounds and opportunities, to help our children foster a real knowledge of the world around them and different animals. |
AWARD WINNERS
RECEPTION – This weeks certificate of achievement awards go to Harry and Beau.
Harry has worked so hard in all his activities and has been busy throughout lockdown doing extra activities such as, building crab houses, baking and gardening.
Beau fully participates in all our live Zoom lessons and I can see that he is trying so hard in all the activities set and making good progress as a result.
YEAR 1 – Well done to Wyatt and Stanley who have received this week’s certificates of achievement for fantastic work and effort in our Science and Topic lessons.
YEAR 2 – Jude for having an enthusiastic attitude during live lessons, and Aaron for his super contributions in live lessons and for using some great descriptive words in his writing.
YEAR 3 – Huxley for fantastic determined attitude towards all his learning and always trying his best. Mia for wonderful effort and perseverance in Maths this week.
YEAR 4 – Jessica for showing commitment in all that she does and always doing that little bit more that she needs to, and Emily for showing commitment in her work, especially her writing which is always an absolute pleasure to read.
YEAR 5 – Harry and Betsy have shown amazing commitment to their learning and work
YEAR 6 – Annabel (6S) for outstanding effort and quality of work. Theia (6S) for outstanding effort and determination in activities. Harry (6R) for outstanding effort in Mathematics. Emily (6R) for improved participation and attitude to school.
