Your children have been amazing since they returned to school following our school closure. The buzz and excitement of being back in school has been lovely and our classrooms and corridors have once again been filled with the sounds of happy children and adults working together.
When will my child catch-up?
The children have been out of school for 8 weeks relying on busy parents and carers to keep up with the learning. It is understandable, then, that concerns have arisen around how far children have fallen behind and how they will ‘catch-up’… but, we need to approach the idea of ‘catch-up’ with caution. .
First of all, please know that your support for home learning has been invaluable. It is thanks to this that the children have returned to school so well. Keeping any kind of structured home learning going for 8 weeks was incredibly challenging – and we take our hats off to you!
Please also know that you are not alone in having concerns about how far your child has fallen behind. Getting back to complete ‘normal’ will take time. We are not expecting children to suddenly be at the ‘expected standard’ for their age group and there will, inevitably, be gaps in their learning. Our main priority, at this time is your child’s wellbeing and their learning behaviours – we want to make sure that they are in a ‘ready place to learn’.
At the same time our teachers and support staff are subtly assessing understanding and planning next steps. We have a clear path of where to take them and overtime, with school and home working together, your children will recover any lost learning. Be patient, have faith and try not to add undue pressure or expectation to your children, and we will get there!
This week have are catching up with our blogs following some technical issues. We also posted a blog yesterday, which you can find in the blog section of our website.
The science of sound (Year 5/6)
This week in our science learning about sound, we were investigating pitch and volume.
We looked at how the water volume, the thickness of string and the tightness of the elastic band can all impact the pitch. We found out that the pitch of a sound is affected by the thickness, the length and the tightness of that instrument.
Then we had a chance to make our own pitched instruments – it was great fun!
Journey Sticks (Year 3/4)
Year 3 / 4 have been enjoying spending time in our school grounds this half term creating ‘Nature Art’. This week we have made ‘Journey Sticks’ using natural materials. We found out that ‘Journey Sticks’ have been around for many years, originally they were made to share stories from people’s travels. The children hunted for an interesting stick in the woods and then wrapped thread around it and collected natural materials to remind them of their experience. Feathers reminded us of beautiful birdsong, leaves helped us remember evergreen trees and flowers helped us think about the signs of spring we spotted.
The Titanic....unsinkable?! (Year 1/2)
Year 1/2 have been finding out about the ill-fated Titantic! The children did some fabulous drawings of the ship and then we sketched some artefacts. We are finding out plenty of fascinating facts like …the swimming pool still has the original water in it! We painted impressionist style pictures of the giant vessel crashing into the iceberg and we made some posters advertising the Titanic’s maiden voyage…all aboard everyone – it’s unsinkable!
We have also been observing our painted lady class caterpillars and filling in our caterpillar diaries.
Spring is here! (Year R)
Spring has fully arrived in year R! This week our classes have really enjoyed our Spring hunt walk, where they noticed lots of things about Spring and new beginnings. They loved using the i-pads to take pictures of what they spotted! The tadpoles have been a massive hit, and the children love to watch these through various times throughout the day. They have been writing about them too!
Our classes are now in their phonics groups, and have really worked hard this week with their writing. They are eager to learn their new sounds, and show us what sentences they can write independently too. We have been applying our phonics outside too with chalk writing and squirting letters with water guns!
In Maths the children have enjoyed exploring different shapes in the environment. They’ve been posting the correct shapes to match the postboxes, making shape Gruffalo pictures and making shapes with lolly sticks
Our classes have been challenging themselves to build Gruffalo houses this week. We have seen models made out of lego, sand, bricks, junk modelling and paper! So much thought, imagination and creativity has gone into their mini projects!
The children have settled back into school very well. It has been lovely to see friendship groups blossom, and hear the laughs and joy of all the children back into our classrooms again.
Cress chicks and transforming tadpoles (Year R)
This week in Year R we have had great fun growing our own cress chicks and have been noting down the changes we can see. Our tadpole visitors are growing every day and we are eagerly waiting for them to turn into frogs!
We have been learning all about road safety using our new traffic lights. We know we have to stop on our bikes when they are red but can go when the light is green. The ramps have been a great hit this week. Year R have been making cars and measuring how far they travel, recording it with chalk.
We have been learning about a ‘Squash and a Squeeze’ and ‘Sharing a Shell’. Year R have been independently labelling pictures, writing sentences and retelling the story in the small world area. In Maths, we have been trying to find lots of different ways to make numbers to 10 using a part/part whole model. We have continued to go on Spring welly walks and have created bright displays using all the signs of Spring that we collected. We are looking forward to Easter and are starting to make baskets (our teachers are planning a surprise Easter egg hunt shhhh!)
