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- Message from Mrs Jones
- Contemplative space at Christ Church to reflect on Queen Elizabeth II
- Reception have started school
- Year 1 Self portraits
- Year 2 Number Foot Parade
- Year 3 Place Value
- Year 4 Celebrating our unique personalities
- Year 5 Funkey Maths
- Year 6 Lifeskills and French Skills
- News from the PTA
Dear God
Thank you for the life of the Queen
For her love and service
Help us to love and serve too
Amen
Welcome back and welcome to our new families joining our school. Our new Reception children have made a fabulous start to their learning journey at our school. We are enjoying getting to know you and making new friends.
There has been a calm and settled atmosphere throughout the school as the children make the transition into their new classes. Each class has discussed and agreed their expectations for the year ahead and how they will all treat and respect each other.
We are looking forward to a new school year of Learning Together.
Curriculum newsletters for term 1 will be emailed out for Years 1-6.
Parents/carers are invited to attend Year group welcome presentations by the class teachers, to introduce the routines and expectations for each year group. Please do not worry if you are unable to attend as there will be a summary presentation of the information shared following the meetings.
Reception - Thursday 22nd September 9 am
Year 1 - Tuesday 20th September 2.45pm
Year 2 - Thursday 15th September 2.45pm
Year 3 - Tuesday 20th September 2.45pm
Year 4 - Tuesday 20th September 2.45pm
Year 5 – Wednesday 21st September at 3.15pm
Year 6 – Wednesday 14th September 9am
We will be sharing our annual home school agreement next week, this sets out the value of a positive partnership between home and school and the routines that help our school to operate safely and cohesively.
During the school holidays we were fortunate to have a complete refurbishment of the Year 3 toilets, a fresh coat of paint throughout school and a window and carpet clean- we are sparkling! The pirate ship is undergoing some repairs and will be back in action mid-week. At the start of October work will begin in the playground to install a replacement Timber fort following fantastic fundraising by our PTA.
Start of year reminders
Attendance and punctuality - children are expected to attend school every day. If your child is unwell and unable to attend school please inform the school office via email, Szapp or telephone. If there is an unavoidable planned absence please complete a leave of absence form. Please ensure your child arrives on time to avoid disruption to the learning in class.
Contact details – if there are any changes to the three named emergency contacts that we hold on record for your child(ren) e.g. new telephone number, please ensure you update the school office.
Medical information – please ensure the school office is informed of any new medical needs identified for your child(ren).
We have had some reports of nits, please check your children and treat appropriately.
Drop off/pick up of children – please ensure that children especially our youngest children are dropped to their classroom door in the morning not left at the school gate.
If you are driving to school, please be mindful of other families and our neighbours and do not park on the zigzag / yellow lines around school or across local resident's driveways.
Car park- our school car park is clearly signed that it is for use of staff and visitors only. Please do not use the car park at any time unless authorised, this includes drop off/pick up at the Shine wrap around care sessions.
Individual photographs - Tulip photography will be in school on Thursday 15th September to take individual photographs of all children and will also take sibling groups. If your child’s class has P.E on that day the children should wear their school uniform and P.E shoes for the day.
Contemplative space at Christ Church to reflect on Queen Elizabeth II
Christ Church doors will be open 8am until 8pm until the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II if you would like a quiet contemplative space to relect. The Spire coffee shop will be open in a reflective manner on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday.
In the Church you can lay flowers, light a candle or write in the book of condolence, which will then be sent to the Palace.
There will be a service of rememberance this Sunday 11th September at 10am, all welcome. Children will have the opprtunity to make a paper wreath to lay at a memorial space in the church.
After visiting our classrooms on Monday and Tuesday, it was our turn to start school on Wednesday. We have had a lovely three days meeting new people, playing with our old and new friends. We have loved exploring our indoor and outdoor area. All our teachers are very proud of us and cannot wait to welcome us back next week.
What a first week in Year 1 we’ve had! We’ve been busy exploring our new classrooms, practising new routines and catching up with friends. We have even put our drawing skills to the test by using oil pastels to draw our self portraits. This week we’ve started our maths learning; sorting, counting and representing numbers to 10. We can’t wait to get busy with even more learning next week!
This week we have been building our resilience and celebrating our uniqueness with lots of art based activities. We’ve enjoyed reading and the classes have linked their learning with some lovely books, including: ‘Beautiful Oops’, ‘The Colour Monster’ and ‘The Dot’.
We talked about behaviour and came up with a class charter to make sure that we all agreed on how to create a happy and respectful classroom.
In their cross-curricular maths lesson the children had a ‘Foot Parade’ and thought about number sense. They counted animal feet to create additions which could be as long or as short as they wanted. Together, the children discussed how they added numbers and whether they could use number bonds to help. Both teachers talked about things they found hard when they were in Year 2 and the children learnt about the link between a growth mindset and knowledge acquisition. Both teachers have been very proud of how well the children have settled in and are very much looking forward to another fun-packed week of learning.
A huge warm welcome to all of our lovely year 3 children! After such a long, well earned break, I think everyone was a little apprehensive about starting school again. However, the year 3’s have settled in so quickly. They have thrown themselves into new learning, friendships and getting to know their new surroundings.
We have enjoyed many PSHE activities to find out more about each other and have started work on our first maths topic of ‘place value’. We have used manipulatives to show the value of digits and all the existing knowledge they have retained from year 2. We are looking forward to exploring our new book ‘into the forest’ and getting stuck into all of our foundation subjects. Well Done year 3, we are proud already!
Year 4 Celebrating our unique personalities
Year 4 have had an amazing week and have been setting high expectations from the start. We have enjoyed exploring place value with dienes and place value counters and we've had lots of fun playing games which have helped us to practise sentence writing and structure.
In Art, we explored colour, texture and mark marking with water colours and oil pastels, and created a final piece which celebrated our unique personalities, interests and backgrounds.
What a great way to start the new year - with a huge mathematical bang as Funkey Maths begins! Hmm... What is Funkey Maths? FunKey Maths is uniquely designed to help children learn times tables easily through specially designed cards that utilise the power of visual clues. Through colour, pattern, shape and position, children can better remember times table facts! And that's not even the coolest part about it...
The way FunKey Maths works is through an effective peer mentoring programme designed for Year 5 mentors and Year 2 mentees. This develops number sense in Key Stage 1 children and a range of hugely important soft skills in Key Stage 2 mentors. Very cool!
Here you can see our new Year 5 mentors in training. They will be paired up with their Year 2 mentees next week when the course gets underway.
Year 6 Lifeskills and French Skills
Year 6 had a fantastic time yesterday at the Lifeskills workshop in the Create Centre. They undertook a series of activities (which have to remain TOP SECRET for next year), which all concerned staying safe in the home and out and about. Their behaviour was exemplary and they were fine ambassadors for our school community. Well Done year 6.
Year 6 started their French unit this week, based on Sports and the Olympics. They were learning the names of sports and expressing preferences. Their main learning was linked to the two verbs: jouer and faire. They learnt that jouer is always followed by à and faire is followed by de. They then used this knowledge to write sentences about various sports. They did an amazing job! Here are some fantastic examples of their learning.
Welcome back everyone, and welcome to new families joining the school ! We hope you all had a good summer.
Save the Date - PTA Fun Run Saturday 24th September, New Fields, Clifton College
The event will be from 10am to 12pm at Clifton College New Fields.
This is open to all Christ Church pupils and siblings who register, via the link below. Fancy dress is optional. Running, walking, hopping...you decide!
All Children receive a medal after competing! Prizes for most sponsorship raised and best dressed!
All welcome to come and support the children!
Please use this form to sign up: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfw_pPR2OtcJqzunNXtsK12Ufy9xPyOUzUJvOgDxt5OM4vOnw/viewform
PTA Contact Information
With a new school year we are updating our contact information for our PTA communications. Please provide your information, even if you think we already have it, via the link below:
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScxfnV-u2IReotSySk2AmlmGKpuX0oWx0MMD08L1EM0ryeoVw/viewform
PTA Meeting - date TBA
In order to meet new parents and discuss organisation for upcoming events, we are finalising a date for the first PTA meeting of the year - to be communicated soon!