It is the RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch this weekend and hopefully a sunny weekend will be peck-ticularly good for being a twitcher – an enthusiastic birdwatcher whose main aim is to collect sightings of birds.

Mr Curry and Mr Campbell led assemblies this week to encourage the children to take part in the survey. We are sure the birds will be glad of a calm weekend after the windy days and nights this week, so fingers crossed for some good sightings.

https://www.rspb.org.uk/whats-happening/big-garden-birdwatch/submission

Next week is National Storytelling week and we will be taking part by learning some stories to tell orally. Each year group is choosing a story from around the world and we hope to record the children’s performances to share with you.

Term 4 Parent/carer meetings

Wednesday, 28^th and Thursday, 29^th February. Please follow the link to book an appointment with your child’s class teacher. This is an opportunity to find out how your child is progressing in school - please go on the SZapp Tile 'Parent/Carer meetings Feb 2024' or click on this link - https://christchurchps.schoolzineplus.co.uk/view-session/8  

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 

Dear Parents/ Carers

We would like to start a regular item in the weekly newsletter on the work that the Christ Church School Governing Body is doing.  Please see below Bios on ourselves as your Co Chairs of Governors.

We welcome you to contact us on:  [email protected] if you have any questions on what the governors do.

This week you will hopefully have seen the letter from ourselves, Clare Jones and Greg Campbell about their positions for next year - please see atatched - Letter_to_parents_carers_22nd_Jan_2024.pdf

This week we have been learning all about birds. We have been standing still and quiet to see what we can see up in the trees, in the hedges and around our school grounds. We learnt about migration and why birds migrate and learnt the names of birds we may see out and about beyond the school grounds. We have enjoyed lots of books this week, but two of the books we have learnt lots from are Robin’s Winter Song by Suzanne Barton and Time to Move South for Winter by Clare Helen Welsh.  We discussed the vocabulary that was new to us and shared what we already knew about migrating.  We did some lovely crafts linked to birds and continued the skill we have been working on this term of following instructions to draw animals. We drew robins and then used collage materials to create robins and starlings. We also used collage materials to create. Look at the picture of the fantastic bird nest that even has a bird sat inside. The creativity with the resources was very entertaining in RRP when we were using the feathers to create new hair styles in the imaginary hairdressers.

We have been working hard at our phonics, continuing to learn our vowel digraphs and three new tricky words. We have been using our phonic knowledge to write captions or simple sentences to go with a picture.

In maths we have been busy exploring the numbers 6, 7 and 8. We enjoyed exploring loose parts and using tens frames to find and represent numbers. We have also been using the part, part, whole model to find different ways of making 6, 7 and 8.

What a busy week! Well done Reception! We are looking forward to lots of lovely learning all about woodland animals next week! We are also going to continue learning about our values of respect and kindness as we continue to develop our understanding of listening in the classroom and why we need to follow adult instructions in school.

This week in Year 1 we have started our a new book linked to our topic called Anansi and the Golden Pot written by Taiye Selasi. It follows the story of a young boy, nicknamed Anansi, who is visiting his grandmother in Ghana. On his adventure, Anansi encounters a trickster spider who introduces him to a magical golden pot that fills to the brim with whatever food he desires most! To explore the story, Year 1 wrote about what they would fill their golden pots with; some of our Year 1’s wished for mounds of pasta whilst others wished for heaps of smarties! We also role played as characters from the book and wrote speech bubbles for Anansi’s character to help us understand his thoughts and feelings throughout the story.

In PSHE we learned about what it means to have a growth mindset and how challenging ourselves helps us to learn. We discussed the value of affirmations and how they can help us to believe in ourselves, even when we find things difficult. To explore this concept we used a story called The Dot written by Peter H Reynolds. It follows a young girl called Vashti who doesn’t believe in her own artistic capabilities but soon learns the importance of just having a go. We put this into practice by completing our own drawings, each starting with a simple dot, just like from the story. It was incredible to see Year 1 demonstrate the endless possibilities of a dot.

In geography we learned about the five oceans. We came up with our own mnemonics (PAISA) to learn each of the oceans in size order and made a world map by cutting out the continents and labelling the oceans.

Well done for another busy week Year 1!

This week has brought lots of excitement in year 2. On Monday we had our final yoga lesson of the year with Carolyn. We were able of show off all of the breathing techniques and yoga poses we have learnt over the past 8 weeks and as always, we had lots of fun playing yoga related games. A big thank you goes out to Carolyn from us all. 

On Tuesday we were astounded to meet a famous illustrator! Lauren Tobia, who draws the pictures for the Anna Hibiscus stories we have been reading in class, popped by to give us a drawing masterclass! She explained the creative process from the initial idea stage to the final bound book and she brought so many beautiful examples of her work to show us. It was truly inspirational for all of the budding artists in year 2 and we are so grateful that Lauren took the time to come and share her knowledge with us. 

Year 2 have also been learning to programme code this week using Scratch Junior. We have picked up the programme so quickly and have already begun to make some wonderful animations. Some of us have even downloaded the programme on our home devices as it's so much fun to use!

Another scientific week in year 3. We have started our ‘rocks, fossils and soil’ topic and the children have so much existing knowledge! They have been fascinated by how rocks are formed and the different types (particularly crystals!). We have been studying a variety of rock samples as well as soil samples. This did mean getting slightly mucky but as you can imagine, the children jumped at the chance. We are ending the week on fossils which the children are very excited for and hopefully will be making our own replica fossils to take home! Happy weekend everyone!

Over the next couple of weeks, Year 4 have been challenged to make a real difference to our planet. After learning all about the deforestation taking place in the Amazon rainforest, they decided that enough was enough. Emboldened with the facts, the children have been debating, researching and planning a letter to the current president of Brazil: Luiz Da Silca (Lula): with the aim of persuading him to ‘cut down’ the amount of deforestation taking place in the Amazon.

This week year 5 and 6 have continued our coding using the software programme ‘Logo’. The children were tasked with creating dashed lines on their screens before creating a square within an octagon. They have worked really hard to get to grips with the new computing programme.

On Tuesday, Dr Lugthart came to talk to us about blood. It was a fascinating afternoon learning about different blood cells, where they are made and how blood is investigated in labs. It fitted brilliantly into our ‘Amazing anatomies’ learning and has inspired us to add some extra details into our ongoing project homework.

Under the bright floodlit pitches of South Bristol, the final whistle blew on our Y5/6 football league. The final session was a magical occasion. The boys, despite being depleted with illness and injury, played four matches in total; their teamwork, effort and skill was rewarded with FOUR victories - a truly spectacular 100% win record. Their success will be celebrated next week in assembly. Thanks, as always, to our family and friends for supporting with transport, and thank you to Mr Curry for his early bird training sessions.

On Wednesday morning, ten lucky year 6’s accompanied Mr Eades to the Redgrave theatre to learn all about Online Safety. The magnificent ten had a great time learning all about our use of the internet and how fun it can be! But a representative from the Avon & Somerset police reminded us to be vigilant to its dangers. Throughout the conference, the children were reminded about our digital footprints and how we should be much more conscious of what we do and post online. We also saw a wonderful performance by the team at Unique voice that brought to life some real examples of cyberbullying and how to combat it. Overall, it was a great experience and the children can’t wait to share some of what they learnt during Safer Internet Day on the 6^th of February.

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