Year 4 newsletter

Last week,  it really was the 'Greatest Show' full of 'A Million Dreams' when Year 4 performed their production alongside Year 3.  Full of perseverance and resilience, the children (or should we say Shackleton, Pythoagoras, Archimedes, Romeo, Juliet...) acted like true professionals when they performed five shows in a row including the dress rehearsal!   Thank you so much to all the parents for helping with props and providing costumes.  A massive thank you too for Miss Freeman for her awesome choreography and for arranging the songs. 

With all the rehearsing and performing, it was amazing that there was any time left for learning but we managed to squeeze in a few lessons in between.  The most memorable part was learning about properties of air.  We could have watched the raisins rising and falling in lemonade for hours!

Exploring our world

This afternoon, children in Reception used Google Earth to explore different parts of our world. We spoke about the different colours on the Earth's surface and what each one represented, discovering that the coldest and hottest places were likely to be less green. After some excited discussion about what the Earth looked like, the children were keen to find out where different places were. From Windhill21, to Cape Verde, Barbados to the Arctic, children were amazed at what they saw!

During their own choosing time, a number of children decided to carry on exploring with an adult on Google Earth, and some children chose to label the different countries on our class globes. Sam studied the globe carefully, asking questions about areas that sparked interest. Logan spent his entire afternoon labelling parts of the globe, like "North Pole" and "America" and enjoyed looking at the different colours of each area of land. 

If you would like to explore our world at home, 

take a look at Google Earth and see where it takes you!

Year 3 Newletter

Year 3 have been continuing their English learning journey by developing their understanding of explanation texts ready to write their own. The children will be writing about the life cycle of a creature that they have created. We look forward to reading their imaginative ideas!

In maths the children have been continuing to learn about fractions including comparing and ordering fractions. Next week we will be exploring equivalence further!

On top of this the children have done a total of 5 performance including their dress rehearsal to the school of 'A million dreams'. We are so proud of their patience and enthusiasm towards the show. We think their dancing and singing has been outstanding! We hope you were able to come and see a show and enjoyed it as much as we did!

Year 6 Investigating Refraction

Year 6 continued their Science unit of ‘Light’ this week with a collection of investigations exploring refraction. The children found out how objects appeared to move and look distorted in different liquids.  Our super scientists  concluded that the density of the liquid had an effect on the speed at which light travelled through it and thus affecting the ways we see things.

Additionally this week we have been overwhelmed by the talent showcased at the Global Goals evening. We were super proud of our year 6 speech writers, Max E and Ella M who represented the year group fabulously. They spoke articulately showing intelligence and passion in their persuasive speeches about the Parthenon Marbles. Equally, our global goal keepers opened the evening highlighting some impressive changes already made to some thought provoking issues. Finally, a huge shout out to our Performance Poetry group who blew our socks off with their entertaining recitals of ‘Matilda’ and ‘Gran, Can you Rap?’ Congratulations to all - we could not have been prouder.

Reception High frequency words

The children in Reception have been learning how to read and spell a number of high frequency and 'red' ('tricky') words. By request, we have put a list of the words that are considered high frequency:

the

a

all

come

to

we

so

said

are

he

no

of

my

was

you

me

they

she

is

I

be

Have a go at spotting these tricky words in your reading books! 

Can you use any of them in a written sentence?

Year 2 Newsletter

Year 2 have had a very ‘chocolatey’ few weeks. The children have been busily preparing for their chocolate showcase on Thursday 4th April. They have been working in groups and we are so impressed by the skills they have drawn upon to work well in teams. A real highlight has been that each team has made their very own chocolate bar (using fair trade chocolate, of course). Next week we will be making the wrappers and the  chocolate bars will be complete!

What did you think of the smoothie?

After making the smoothies, Year one reflected on their choice of flavours.

Some said theirs was too lumpy, some said it was too thick and some said it was just right!

World Speech Day

Miro loved performing their speeches about elephant poaching for World Speech Day. Every single child stood up in front of the class and delivered their speech with passion and confidence; the teachers were so proud!

Making Smoothies!

Today we made our African fruit smoothies! First we tasted a range of different smoothies to investigate which fruits taste good together.

Next we tasted the different fruits that we could include in our own smoothie. We tried banana, strawberry, mango, pear and pineapple. We then decided on the three ingredients we would use for our own recipe.

After lunch it was time to prepare the fruit! We worked with our partner to carefully chop the fruit ready for blending.

It was time to taste our smoothies! They were absolutely delicious!

We even created our own packaging design and wrote about our tasty smoothies. What an exciting day!

Moore Class from Maths to Art

Today in Moore Class we have been inspired by artist and scientist Jill Pelto who portrays the effects of global warming on the environment. We begun by creating a line graph to show the declining area of sea ice in the Arctic. We then investigated which animals were effect by the sea ice decreasing. Followed by a watercolour lesson in creating the sea. We then wrote about the effects of global warming on our chosen animal.  Here are our results:

Gormley Strings Concert

Gormley class delivered an incredible strings concert last week.
Their hard work and perseverance paid off as they produced some beautiful and impressive music.
Their behaviour and overall effort has not gone in noticed.
Myself, Mrs Freud and Mrs White are extremely proud of each and every one of the Gormley student students :)

Maths in Year 6

Today, some of the children in Year 6 have been revising their 2D shape knowledge. Using 

geoboards and elastic bands, the pupils built various shapes and discussed their properties. They then challenged themselves by reflecting and translating trickier shapes. 

Gold for Windhil21 - County Champions

RAPID FIRE CRICKET

Congratulations to our newly crowned County Champions in Year 3 & 4. They attended the Rapid Fire Cricket finals at Wodson Park on the 19th March 2019. The children turned up with excitement, confidence and a touch of nerves!

The competition from other schools was high. However this did not deter our  children. They showed real determination, team work and executed their skills perfectly. In the group stages our children had 5 highly competitive games, where they won four out of their five games claiming top spot in their group and qualifying for the semi finals as group winners.

In the Semi Finals our children had a tough game and nerves played a huge part for both teams, with a very low scoring game. Thanks to the children's slick running skills between the wickets they managed to secure a 3 run win and proceed to the finals!

The finals saw Windhill drawn against last years County Finalists and runners up. Going into the game we knew this was going to be a tough game. With the children re-focused and playing on their favoured pitch the children were ready to commence their final game!
We won the toss and chose to field first, this allowed the children to know what run total they had to chase.  With a 62 run total to chase the children composed themselves ready to bat. After two batting pairs Windhill21 and St Ipps were neck and neck on the score front, (it was nail biting stuff.) The finals batsmen needed to secure the perfect score (no pressure!) With true Windhill21 style the final batsman focused and took their time with each shot. The rest of the team were supporting them shot by shot shouting words of encouragement. A perfect 6 balls were hit through their targets and a slick set of runs were executed meaning the team won by 12 runs!

What a fantastic achievement for the children who attended. They have shown great commitment to extra clubs to ensure they were ready for the competition. Thanks goes out to Dan Reynolds from Hertfordshire County Cricket who gave up his own time to support the children with extra coaching sessions to prepare them for the competition.