The weather may have turned frosty this week but the colder temperature hasn’t slowed our climate for learning in school, quite the opposite we kept ourselves busy. Reception took inspiration from learning about animals that thrive in colder countries, whilst years 1 and 2 are learning about contrasting warmer countries.

With the big bird watch coming up in a couple of weeks’ time, don’t forget to feed the birds as they find it difficult to find food when the ground is hard. The natural history museum and woodland trust have some great ideas for making a recycled bird feeder.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ComKxjdPfjw  

Reception school nurse visits - Monday 19th Feb & Thursday 22nd Feb - please ensure you complete and return the paper form if you wish to opt out - to be received by the school office first thing Monday 15th Jan.

Parent/Carer contact details and medical information for your child.

The start of term is a good time to consider if the information we hold for your child at the school office has changed.

Please update your details of the three named contacts that you have provided for your child should be need to contact you during the school day if you changed your telephone number during the Christmas period. Also, if you have new medical/allergy information for your child.

Admissions for Reception entry September 2024. If you have child who is due to start school in September applications need to be received online by Bristol City Council by 15^th January, 2024. Please contact the school office if you would like us to help with this process or follow the link below.

https://www.bristol.gov.uk/residents/schools-learning-and-early-years/school-admissions/primary-admissions/primary-apply 

Inset and Academy Days:

Monday 22nd July - INSET day, children not in school

Tuesday 23rd July - INSET day, children not in school 

Monday 2nd September - INSET day, children not in school 

Tuesday 3rd September - INSET day, children not in school 

We have had an action packed and fact filled week this week in reception. On Monday afternoon we found we had been visited by penguins who left a chick egg behind. We were asked the question “Could we have an emperor penguin as a school pet?” We started by reading The Emperor’s Egg by Martin Jenkins and used the book to help us learn about Emperor penguins. In PE we learnt to waddle like penguins and using balls, how to look after our eggs and huddle like the male penguins do to keep warm in Antarctica.

We have been learning our vowel digraphs in phonics. We really impressed Mr Lusted when he came to teach phonics in both classes with how well we listened and how well we knew our tricky words and the vowel digraphs we had learnt so far.

We have been working on specific skills this week. We have been making sure we are holding our pencils with a tripod grip. We demonstrated this skill by following instructions to draw penguins. We impressed our adults by then remembering how to use watercolours independently to paint our Emperor Penguin pictures.

We carried out a STEM challenge where we used warm blue water and salt to free the penguins that were frozen. We noticed that by using the salt the ice melted faster. It still took a long time to melt as it was so cold this week! We rescued three penguins from the ice.

We read the book Snowballs by Lois Ehlert and used this book to create our own snow family using loose parts and things we found. We really enjoyed this activity and creating our snow people.

We still had time for maths where we were learning to make 5. We have enjoyed using Numicon, loose parts and other number resources to find ways to make 5.

We ended our week using our cutting skills to order the life cycle of a penguin and to make penguins by rolling paper around a tube and using collage materials. We will share a picture next week of our penguins.

We have had a great week an cannot wait to continue learning about the Arctic next week.

This week Year 1 have continued exploring the savannahs of Africa. We discovered more about the wildlife that can be found there and have learned to categorise these animals into mammals, birds and reptiles. In Literacy lessons, Year 1 enjoyed using The Big Book of Beasts to find out more about the laziest of the big cats… lions. We learned that lions sleep for 16-20 hours a day and that they are the only big cats to live in groups, called prides.  We were very impressed with all the fascinating facts Year 1 included in their writing! 

In Music, Year 1 responded to classical music through movement and discussed how the music made us feel. We also explored using percussion instruments to represent a range of animals. In maths,  Year 1 have been learning to name and sort 2D and 3D shapes. We created repeated patterns with 2D shapes and built 3D shapes using both magnets and lolly sticks. Then we carried out an investigation to find out which shapes roll and which shapes stack and used what we learned to build magnificent 3D shape towers!

In Art, Year 2 began their weaving unit. This week we explored paper weaving adding extra shapes and lines to represent the colourfully patterned cloth woven in Ghana, Africa. 

In Literacy we drew story maps to learn the story of Lila and the Secret of Rain. We then re-wrote the story from memory, remembering to include all of the fantastic story language and interesting sentence openers. We also began learning our dances for the Year 2 dance festival this week. It was wonderful to welcome Debbie into school and the children have picked up the moves so quickly. We cannot wait for you to see the pictures from the dance festival in a few weeks' time. Watch this space!

This is a busy one! It has been non-stop in year 3 this week with Ukulele, English, History and lots more. The children were extremely excited to start ukulele lessons this week and were introduced to the instrument and the different strings. The lessons will continue throughout this term and I’m sure they will be serenading you at home in no time! We have continued with ‘Stone Age Boy’ in English this week and used thesauruses to up-level adjectives. The synonyms the children found were outstanding and we have heard them being used around the school. Hopefully you will also start hearing this widen vocabulary too. Finally, we went back to the Stone Age. The children have been so engaged with this topic and are soaking it up like sponges! We made petroglyphs this week with sand and plaster of paris. The children have used their knowledge of cave paintings to then carve into them ready to display in their rooms at home.

This week in art we learned about the work of abstract artist Paul Klee, we discussed a number of his paintings. Finally, as our art unit this term is collage we created our own collages using Klee’s ‘Castle and the Sun’ as our inspiration.

In Science we have been learning about States of Matter. We have been working scientifically to set up experiments which are fair and then evaluating our data and discussing what went well and what could have gone better. In one of our experiments, we were investigating whether or not gases weighed anything. To conduct the experiment we weighed the liquid of four fizzy drinks. To get rid of the bubbles, we stirred the liquid until it was flat. Then we reweighed the fizzy drinks. Turns out, carbon dioxide (the bubbles in fizzy drinks), does weigh something! All the fizzy drinks lost weight! 

Year 5&6 have started their new music unit on Film Soundtracks and spent time this week analysing and appraising the soundtrack to "Wallace and Gromit: A Close Shave".

They had 5 different sections of the soundtrack to discuss and thought carefully about the instrumentation, pitch, dynamics and tempo. For each section, they had to answer 3 key questions.

* What emotions does the music evoke?

* What instruments can you hear?

* How does the composer create tension/sadness/optimism?

Some great discussions were had and it was wonderful to hear the children talking about major/minor keys and discordant notes.

This week in Year 6, we have continued to be inspired by the story of Juliane Koepcke, who survived an aeroplane crash. Juliane was flying over the Peruvian rainforest with her mother when her plane was hit by lightning. She survived a two-mile fall - she was the only survivor of the crash and aged 17, found herself alone in the jungle. This week, not only have we written excellent story descriptions from the perspective of the jungle (see below), but we have also created superb safety leaflets about keeping safe during a jungle trek. We loved using QR codes for the websites and thought hard about what resources they would like in the jungle to help them survive a plane crash.

https://youtu.be/qv_tMvOaOUw

https://youtu.be/M6MCMG4pYDQ

'Rain thundered down. Streams rushed, frogs leaped, my forest was thriving, and all was well. But it was not just water falling from the sky. Up in the clouds was a figure – a human figure – rapidly losing height before hitting the ground with a dull thud. Then she just lay there, quiescent, metal cascading around her, oblivious to the world.

She came to a moon later, wincing as the many gashes in her face stretched, at least my defences had been partially effective. The limbs of my trees were strewn around her and, to my great displeasure, she used one to haul herself up. How dare she! This meant war. She started calling out for her mother: doubtless, she’d be dead, the girl I was watching was very lucky to have breath in her lungs and a beating heart. But I had to drive her out, for she was befouling nature itself. She was befouling me! 

She started limping about, calling out loudly, her face creased with concern. I unleashed my first defences, a tide of midges and maggots which gnawed tirelessly away at her peeling skin…..'

On a freezing January afternoon, our Y5/6 footballers took to the pitch in their first session of the 4 week league competition. As always our athletes represented us admirably, displaying a great team ethos. We had two victories and two defeats, and look forward to next week's matches. Thank you to Mr Curry for his early bird sessions. Thanks also to parents for supporting with lifts, and for braving the icy conditions.

Children’s disco: 23rd  February

More details and signup coming soon!

The children’s disco takes place after school on a Friday, with two slots: Reception/ KS1 3:30 – 4:30pm , and KS2 5:00 – 6:00pm

Please contact [email protected] if you would like to sign up to help!

Upcoming PTA events: 

Children’s Disco – 23rd February

Adults Quiz Night – date TBA

Campfest - 12-14th July

Out and About are running a free cinema session on Thursday 15^th Feb for families with SEND children – the whole family are welcome (max 6 tickets per family) to enjoy a film. Nicola Beaumont, Outreach Worker, will be on hand should any families need support and to answer any questions they may have about Out and About (see attached flyer giving details of the services they offer). 

The film will be announced on the 1^st Feb when the cinema releases the films, it will be a family film starting at 11am in the Showcase cinema in Avonmeads.  But families can apply for tickets now at https://form.jotform.com/240083497245358 

You must live in Bristol (Out and About are funded by Bristol City Council) and have a child with additional needs.