Reception Newsletter

Reception had such a wonderful time last week at their Ugly Bug Ball. The children were joined by their Nursery friends and we held a garden party for all their families. Lots of cake was eaten, many cups of tea were consumed and prizes were won at the raffle. The children sang their hearts out in their Minibeast performances and they loved every minute. It was wonderful to see so many people there and we were lucky to raise lots of money for our Early Years.  A big thank you to everyone who came.   

In Maths, the children have been looking at shape, space and measure. We started by looking at the properties of 2d shapes and last week we moved on to weight. The children loved using the scales to see which items were heavier and lighter and had the challenge of trying to make the scales balance. We also introduced the language of shorter, longer, taller and thicker to describe playdough worms and towers made of cubes. 

    

In our RAW lessons, we have been looking at the Christian faith and focusing on churches. We looked at what churches traditionally have inside them and spent a lot of time looking at stained glass windows. The children then attempted to make their own stained glass windows out of tissue paper and laminate plastic. 

Year 5 Newsletter

 This week, Year 5 have been super busy, from preparing for the Year 5 and 6 show to finishing some fabulous writing - they have worked extremely hard and it has not gone unnoticed. We also loved welcoming you all to the Year 5 Celebration of Work, what a lovely afternoon!

Both classes have been working on their dance performances for the Year 5 and 6 production next week. The two dances are looking fantastic and we cannot wait to show everyone what we have been working on. 

In Writing, the children have just finished drafting a persuasive letter to a football team/ player of their choice, demanding them to use Fairtrade footballs only. The children were extremely shocked to find out that young children and adults were stitching footballs by hand for a small amount of money and this disgust was definitely portrayed in their writing. 

In Georgraphy, we have continued looking at Indonesia and have recently been joining the campaign to stop the production of palm oil ruining the beautiful archipelago of Indonesia. We are fighting to raise awareness of sustainable palm oil and convincing people to only buy products that are sustainable. 

Year 1 Newsletter

 What a busy couple of weeks we have had in Year 1!

Seacole class loved every minute of their visit to the library and were so well behaved.  We are very proud of them and their enthusiasm for reading!  

'That's the way to do it!'

In our history lessons, we have been discovering how the Victorians entertained themselves at the seaside! We made our own Punch and Judy stick puppets and performed our own puppet shows to the class. 

We also enjoyed ice cream the way the Victorians did...in the form of Hokey Pokeys.  We found it is not easy and extremely messy eating ice-cream from baking paper, however it is just as yummy!

 

Mini tennis is the name of the game for our PE lessons this term. The children have been practising their racquet skills, rolling balls to their partner on the ground.  Next steps, in the air! 

Year 5 Newsletter

The children in year 5 have learnt about the global crisis - child labour. In our Writing lessons, the children have explored how big companies exploit young, innocent children to work in their factories for low pay which denies them their education! We have chosen to write a persuasive letter to John Stones to help 'tackle' this issue! In reading, the children have loved learning abot the Highwayman Poem, by Alfred Noyes and I think their favourite lesson was when we acted out stanzas in small groups! The children spoke with great confidence and expression! We also want to say a huge CONGRATULATIONS to all of the Year 5 children who sang their hearts out at the Year 5 Music Festival - You were AMAZING and made us very proud! 

Year 1 newsletter

In year 1 we have been continuing with our seaside topic by learning all about Victorian bathing costumes in our history lesson. We really enjoyed looking at pictures of Victorian bathing costumes and comparing them to modern day swimming costumes. We had a real debate about which they would prefer to wear now- most siding with modern day, however Kalvin made a good point that in a Victorian bathing costume they were protected from jellyfish stings and sunburn! Here are a few of the children's comments:

“I think modern because you won’t wear a big dressing swimming costume, modern won’t make you sink as much.”

“Modern because different sizes or things like it might come in shorts or shirts or all in one.”

This week Nightingale went on a local trip to the Bishop's Stortford Library! We were really excited to find out how to sign up to the library, how to use the kiosk and how many books you can take out at once- 30! We had a look at the fiction and non-fiction books and ended our visit with story time before we left. Seacole are really excited to go this week!

Year 5 Newsletter

 In Year 5, the children loved learning about the Queen and her Jubilee. They were very interested to learn about etiquette when meeting the Queen and the many things you should not do - such as, selfies are a BIG NO! To set us up for Equality Week, we explored the poem, Still I rise, by Maya Angelou and the children learnt about her history of being a black woman growing up in a difficult time, but this did not stop her with her dreams. The children have also been working extremely hard learning the songs for the Year 5 music festival at South Mill Arts and we are excited to share this with you. 

Year 4 newsletter

 This week our teachers have been SO impressed our poetry writing.  We have been writing in the style of Maya Angelou ‘Still I Rise’. The vocabulary that we gathered linking to the topic was amazing and it has made our poems really emotional and hard hitting.  We chose this poem as Maya Angelou writes about equality between races and her message is important for everyone to listen to.  This is part of our equality week work. 

We have also focused on poetry in our reading lessons as well.  Last week, we focused on The Tyger by William Blake and we performed the poem in small groups. We put actions to our performances after watching a few different versions/performances by other people. This week, we will be focusing on poetry written by Benjamin Zephaniah - including Everybody is doing it. 

Year 1 Newsletter

 We love wearing our artist's hats in Year 1 and in order to make thoughtful colour choices for our own seascapes, we have learnt about colour mixing and created our own colour wheels.  We learnt that adding white creates tints and adding black creates shades. 

    

In our next art lesson we used our colour knowledge to create watery paper to print on for our seascapes.  We used a variety of art techniques to make them: oil pastels, smudging chalk pastels, paint washes, brusho and sponge printing. 

We also had an exciting visit from an author!  Dr Leema Jabbar came to read her new book called Hana and the Hairy Bod Rapper to us.  We loved the story about loving yourself for your differences and also learnt lots of incredible new facts about the hair on our bodies and it's amazing functions!

Year 6 Newsletter

 AMAZING! A word that sums up everything in year 6 this past fortnight.  Firstly, the pupils were amazing during SATs week.  They acted like professionals, set out to do their best and made us proud!  Well done Year 6!  You could not have given it more.  

This last week has been amazing too as we got stuck into our new geography topic, 'Amazing Places'.  We have zoomed into Iceland, land of ice and fire, learning about its unusual geography and geology resulting in it having both glaciers and active volcanoes.  Many of us were unsure about stepping into a natural hot pool but we thought that the idea of geothermal energy was a genius one!  We were also intrigued by the unusual geography of Iran, that not only borders the Caspian sea but also has a salt desert.  We were able to compare and contrast the landscapes, both of which are influenced by their proximity to tectonic plate boundaries. As for Canada, we were amazed by the inhospitable nature of the landscape and its vast size. 

When looking closely at all locations, we also had the opportunity to explore the people and cultures thereon, including languages and customs which sparked our excitement and curiosity.  

The week ended as it began, with a trip to Crucial Crew.  Children learnt some important lessons on how to keep themselves safe as they start secondary school and the freedoms that it affords. All pupils acted as ambassadors of Windhill21 as they walked to the Barnabas Centre and conducted themselves on site with impeccable manners and enthusiasm.  Year 6 - you have been AMAZING!

Year 5 Newsletter

 In year 5 this week, the children have become experts on Orangutans and have written some very detailed and factual non-chronological reports, we look forward to displaying some of their beautifully published pieces in the classroom! The children also created some pastel artwork of Orangutans which really shows off the cheeky, chappies they are. Our science lesson this week, focussed on the question, ‘Do all plants reproduce from bulbs?’ Within the lesson, the children explored different bulbs and we discussed the reproduction of plants from bulbs and bulblets. 

Reception Newsletter

In Reception we have been continuing having fun exploring and investigating minibeasts. We went into the forest to see what different species we could find, observing them closely which led to lots of discussion about similarities and differences- ‘I know this is a slug because it doesn’t have a shell’.

In Maths we have been learning to count beyond 10. We learnt to put the objects in rows or to move them so we don't get muddled up. We especially enjoyed counting at the playdough table where we had to choose a teen number and make that many playdough balls for our Ladybug spots. If the objects cannot be moved we can cross them off as we count. We had to make sure we didn’t count too fast or miss out any numbers!

As part of our creative development we have been making some fantastic playdough minibeasts and collages. In Literacy we read the story ‘Superworm’ by Julia Donaldson which is one of the teachers favourites. We also used describing words to write sentences about different minibeasts. In Understanding of the World we learnt about the Life cycle of a butterfly and the teachers were very impressed with the children's enthusiasm and knowledge in this area.

 

Year 1 Newsletter

 In Year 1 we have had our geographer's hats on and having been learning about coastal areas and the things you might find there.  In groups, the children labelled pictures with the different features they could see such as sand, cliffs, sea, pier, harbour, lighthouse, dunes and much more!   

                        

We had an awesome time on our whole school Science days!  We learnt all about STEM skills and thought about which of these skills we might need in jobs that we would like to do when we're grown ups. Siddhi's mum came to visit us and taught us about the skills she uses as a pharmacist.  She uses lots of different STEM skills. 

We had great fun with a waterlily investigation, making predictions and observing what happened when we put a paper waterlily with closed up petals into a tray of water.  The petals opened! 

 Then we did our own waterlily investigation in groups, changing one thing each.  Groups chose to change the material of the waterlily, the type of liquid, the depth of the liquid or the shape of the waterlilies to see if this affected the time it took for the waterlily to open. 

The children have been amazing scientists!

Continuing on our science day learning, we went outside for a minibeast hunt, looking for all sorts of beasties! We searched high and low, looking carefully on trees, under leaves and logs and in the long grass. 

With our artist's hats on, we discovered the seascapes that the wonderful Rachel Bennett creates!  In the immersion room, we shared what we liked about the paintings.  Back in class we continued our discussion and wrote our thoughts and feelings about the paintings around images on sugar paper. 

'I like this one because it makes me feel like I'm underwater.'

'I can see seaweed and waves crashing.'

'This is my favourite because it's like a beach.  There is the sky and clouds, then the sea and the sand at the bottom.'

'I like this one because of the shades of blue that she has used.'

Paintings by Rachel Bennett