From the Headmaster:
Autumn has definitely arrived. As I type, the sun is warming my office and skin, sadly my damp feet testify to a distinctly monsoonal start to the day…
A true joy of my career is the constant (although many of the other joys of my career is inconsistency of a ‘normal’ day) ability of children to surprise you and impress you.
Plenty of both this week. A really enjoyable games lesson in the sunshine, artwork that is gallery worthy, the running club with seemingly infinite energy and then a young man in Year 6 truly embodying every line in the Kipling poem ‘If.’
I know I go on about resilience and perseverance and the promotion of exemplary character traits alongside the important ‘learning’ bit, but do read about Leo in our Year 6 class who conducted himself in a manner that shows a moral fibre and sheer decency that deserves your time.
Enjoy your weekend and do enjoy what is a particularly vibrant Deerstalker.
Alistair
A request for your help…
I am afraid that whilst we do attempt to develop and maintain good relationships with our neighbours I regret that we received a less than pleasant complaint from a neighbour regarding parking, noise and an forcefully expressed perception of our school and our community.
Whilst many of us enjoy the privilege of walking or cycling to school I would be very grateful, as I am sure would our neighbours, if you could avoid -
- Parking across driveways, no matter how temporary.
- Avoid parking on the private property of the surrounding apartment blocks.
- Do not park on the yellow zigzag directly in front of school from 8am through to 4pm (at the very least you will avoid an immediate parking fine if the warden is surveillant)
- Please do help us in addressing what is an alleged (mis) perception of the school and by extension of me as being less than friendly and approachable.
It seems that the noise from a jet wash contractor prior to the start of term has resulted in a fairly heated exchange of views on a certain social network. This, as well as the parent social last Saturday appears to have been a catalyst for the complaint.
Whilst I can personally address noise at the weekend, I would be grateful for your support with the parking and consideration for our neighbours. 🙏
Assembly
If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs…
The more I reflect on this poem, the more I think it is needed, particularly at this time in history.
The ability to walk with kings and keep your common touch, to trust yourself when doubted?
I am regularly reminded, I am pleased to say, of the spectacular ability of children to impress and surprise you. Even better still when they conduct themselves with honour and humility.
Whilst the assembly was concerned with leadership and accepting responsibility, the actions of a certain young man in our Year 6 class were certainly mature and honourable.
How many of us aged 10 would have had the maturity to stop, en route to school, having seen a teenage pupil of a neighbouring school involved in a serious traffic accident, check on him, help him and then stay with him having dialled 999?
To add, this young man in our Year 6 class then made his way to school and started the day without mentioning it to anyone.
Leo, you are a true role model not just to your peers but to the wider community. The award of school colours don’t do justice to his act of humanity.
As well as celebrating Leo, we also looked at teamwork and the short clip of a formula 1 wheel change conducted with such ease was discussed. Do watch the clip, it has a certain poetry to it.
Used Uniform
I am delighted to confirm that two of our very kind parents have volunteered to organise the used/second hand uniform sales. Lee (mum to Rosie, Beth, Jess) and Rhianwen (Kenzi) have generously suggested that with the support of the School Council that they will arrange for a half termly sale (the first one will be in the final week of this half term.
They have also suggested that football boots (of which as a family we have many that no longer fit) could also be brought in to ensure continued use despite ever growing feet.
Whilst supplies of the nursery uniform are plentiful we are keen to recycle or upcycle school uniform as potential leavers gifts.
Any donations will be provided to a worthy charity, again one that perhaps as a community and school council can work together to decide.
Many thanks to Lee and Rhianwen for kindly giving their time to this, much appreciated.
Year 6
What a week it has been for Year 6.
Our non-fiction texts and coming together, with topics from Frogs to Minecraft to Quokkas. So much information is being carefully edited and placed within their planned layouts, and it is all beginning to take shape. Next week, we create infographics to go with this - It promises to be a creative week.
Multiplication has been the order of the week and we have solved questions, made our own problems, challenged our peers, worked in teams, and much more in our quest for multiplication perfection.
Does the material a ball is made of effect the distance it travels when thrown? Can you balance the force of gravity using air? If you change the shape of an object, and keep the weight the same, does it move the same amount if you push it with the same force?
These are some of the questions posed by Year 6 that we intend to solve over the next few weeks; our plans are coming together and our equipment list is set.
The phalanx formation found its way in to our classroom as we discovered why the greeks were so successful against the Persian invasion in 500bc. As much as we tried, it was too challenging to outmanoeuvre our greeks (Leo and Barney) and we (the Persians) were just too lightly defended.
Year 5
In Maths the children have finished work revising the 4 main operators and extended this further with undertaking mastery questions and challenges. The return of the popular software Times Tables Rockstars bought a cheer to the class. English lessons have seen the children develop their techniques to answering inference, comprehension and predicting style questions. By making use of the wording involved in the question to make their point, this followed up with providing evidence and explanation of their answer, they have been able to give mature and thorough answers to questions based on Chapter 6 of Goodnight Mr Tom.
Design Technology lessons have been sparking the competitive nature of the class, continuing our concept of the work of Medicines Sans Frontiers and working on finding solutions to problems when confined to working with limited resources. Here the children were creating towers from 2 sheets of A4 paper and 20cm of sellotape. To add to his many accolades which he was awarded in assembly this week, Mario won the class engineering challenge with a structure of 96cm with Kyle and Darcey taking second and third place.
Year 4
Another wonderful week in Year 4; the children have been working their socks off. In English, the children have begun writing their own ‘Hero’ story and their introduction paragraphs are full of adjectives and lovely description. In Maths we have been investigating place value by solving riddles to guess the 4 and 5 digit numbers. In Science, we have been investigating the Sun this week and are writing our fact files… Did you know the Sun’s temperature at its core is over 5000 degrees Celsius? That’s toasty! The class have enjoyed their Ancient Egyptian art with Mrs Bond this week and we are loving having their sarcophagus art displayed in our classroom. Well done Year 4 - keep up your hard work.
Year 3
Year 3 have been continuing our Iron Man adventures this week with thinking about Hogarth’s feelings of guilt as he trapped the Iron Man in the hole. We wrote a letter to the Iron Man apologising and explaining the reasons for the capture. Using higher level vocabulary we recorded voice notes into Showbie to then use to help us write into our books. This led onto our art work about the Iron Man using chalk pastels and oil pastels to great effect. In Mathematics, we have been looking at extended formal method leading into carrying for those that have the conceptual understanding of crossing the tens. In RE we have been lucky to have two children keen to present their experiences of Christianity and Islam which was delivered with great knowledge and enthusiasm.
Year 2
A very busy week in Year 2 with the exploration of Meerkat Mail. Sunny wrote a postcard to us and we responded to it by inviting him to Park Hill! We asked him questions about his journey and if he could possibly come over to London and we could meet him. He wrote us back and answered all our questions but said it was way too rainy and cold in London, so he would prefer if we visited him in the Kalahari desert. In order to visit him, we explored the weather in Botswana where the Kalahari Desert is located to decide what we should pack with us on our trip. We discussed the different animals we would encounter on the trip and how to protect ourselves in the occasion we do see them.
In maths this week, we looked at counting money and discussed the value of money by playing various games and going shopping in our classroom to buy items we could afford. In groups we had to get enough money to buy the things we wanted. We had lots of fun learning about money! In Science we created an iMovie about meerkats where we found a video of them and created a voiceover about facts in the story. Linking in with the Meerkat Mail story In PSHCE we then also discussed the importance of family and created our own family trees too!
We ended of the week with a science experiment where we looked at the transfer of colour from one jar to another through tissues to create a rainbow. We made predictions of what will happen if we leave it over the weekend and check back in on Monday. We’re excited to see if our predictions are correct!!
Year 1
Year 1 have been investigating the work of Judith Kerr this week, delving deeply into The Tiger who came to tea. Although a familiar tale this book has much to reveal and teach us. First as part of our talk for writing process we imitate the text - mapping the story so that we are familiar with all the key moments and language and then able to tell another the story in detail.
Then we moved on to innovate - using alliteration to select a new character and time for the story to take place.
In maths we have been ordering groups of objects and numbers from greatest to smallest and vice versa. We then moved on to ordinal numbers and recording position.
In science we looked at the features of animals and selected an animal from one of the 6 animal groups. Then in Book Creator created an information page listing all the features we could observe and most impressively using scientific language.
At Woodland School we developed our knowledge of trees by investigating deciduous and evergreen tress. Could you tell the difference just by looking at the leaves? We can!
Reception
Reception this week have really got to grips with our story “Owl Babies” and they are now experts at recalling the story. We focused specifically on the use of speech bubbles to tell us who is talking and we were then able to try and act out the story with emphasis as we took on each of the roles. Some of the children then tried to apply their phonic knowledge to help them write phrases from the book.
In Maths we have been focusing on sorting objects into different groups according to what they were, their colour or their size. The children were experts at helping to sort the objects out and categorised them appropriately. We developed this skill in Woodland school when we had to find two natural things that looked the same and we identified their similarities.
I have been very impressed with how much progress the children are making with their individual reading books this week. They have been showing an increase in fluency throughout their storytelling and application of sounds. Reading quote of the week: “I love it because it has letters in”.
Second Steps
Second Steps is quickly turning into an underwater world. The children are really enjoying the Under the Sea topic and leading it in all different directions.
After a lot of yellow paint the submarine is finished and yes, the children know the chorus from the well known Beatles song. Spontaneously bursting into song.
The children have been mixing yellow, red, white paint to create star fish in lots of different colours to swim alongside the puffer fish.
We discovered EV Nautilus on YouTube that shows deep sea footage taken from mini submersibles. The children have loved it and have been pointing out all the different fish and under the sea creatures they know, from sharks, crabs, spider crabs, nemo and octopus and a whale skeleton.
Louis made his own submarine picture at home and brought it in to show the class, explaining how he made it and all the different part of the picture. The children all liked it and asked if they could make one too. So we did.
The children have been learning about Autumn and the different colours we can see around us in the garden. Most of the leaves we collected were still green, we also found the seeds from the sycamore tree. When you throw them up in the air they spin all the way back to the ground. The children were having a competition to see who’s seed spun the fastest. We then had fun colour mixing Autumn colours using our fingers and hands.
The children have been practising their skills using their Knick es and forks this week, working really hard on cutting their food up by themselves and asking for help if they need it.
Miss Finch,Miss Wood and Miss K.
First Steps
What a busy one we had have in First Steps this week.
As many of you know, we have a lovely apple tree in our garden and our children love this tree. This week, First Steps children picked apples from the tree and we talked about their shapes, colour, smell and taste. Then we cut the apples and mixed them with spice and sugar to fill our pie dough. The children, made stripes cutting the dough and placed them top of the apple pie. We finally took our pie to chef Leon and he kindly cooked it for us.
In our Science session, we focused on how foods change from hard to soft. We felt the foods while they were hard then poured hot water and observed the changes. We then discussed how foods get softer.
We also discussed what happens in autumn, like leaves changing colour and that they fall off from the trees, how we see more rain and wind. We also started to practised our autumn theme song “Autumn leaves are falling down”.
The children found different ways to jump over the obstacles in PE lesson. It really helped our children to improve their critical thinking. Well done First Steps!
Mrs Guniz
Mrs Mousi
Miss Bambi
Physical Education & Games
EYFS have been working hard to develop their fine gross skills particularly their catching using different objects such as scarves to balls.. They also had to problem solve how to travel through different obstacles by crawling and going over them. The year 5 & 6 in P.E have continued develop their football skills - particularly when to dribble and attack into spaces by changing direction and speed and using dribbles such as feints to trick their opponents. In Sport Science the pupils are starting to understand why and how to keep active. They also explored the positive effects this has on our hearts and lungs over a long period of time.
Mr McArthur
French
Reception
This week, children have practised repeating our 5 Petites Chenilles rhyme. Children played games where they had to guess where the Caterpillar was hiding and to name the fruits correctly along some other vocabulary related to our story. We also practised counting to 5 by counting our caterpillars and the fruits. To conclude our session, We sang our days of the week and children had to listen and act the word they hear ( chenille, cocon, papillon).
Year 3&4
This week, we have discovered our new theme “ Dans mon cartable il y a …”.
Children were introduced to the vocabulary by playing a guessing game. They had to read a word and decide which item in their school bag it was referring to, then we checked and corrected the answers as a whole class. After our vocabulary drilling session, they had to complete a matching activity.
We also sang and signed to our preposition song ( Sur, sous, Dans, devant, derrière , à côté de, entre) and we practised making sentences by telling where the objects were (e.g. La gomme est sur la chaise). We finished our lesson with a worksheet. Children had to practise reading short simple sentences using prepositions and vocabulary introduced over the past couple of weeks to consolidate their learning.
Maitresse Narjiss
Latin
Y5 and Y6 started Latin dynamically this academic year.
They moved on in the second book “Minimumus Secundus” published by Cambridge University.The children read and translated the text “Last days at Vindolanda”, they used their knowledge of Latin to explain English words and practiced up to the endings of present tense. Meanwhile, they learnt important information about the people who lived at Vindolanda (close to Hadrian’s wall); they saw pictures with the wonderful Roman horses, they read the Greek story of Pegasus and they copied a horse’s head in profile from a Roman mosaic.
Optime Y5,6!
Y4 focused on Minimus book chapter 4 “ A writing lesson”. They learnt some adjectives to describe nouns and they compared some Latin words, e.g. intrat, scribit, iratus with the English ones, enter, describe, irritated. In addition, they enjoyed singing the song “Dona nobis pacem” (Give us peace)
Y3 had an excellent start in Latin. They learnt that 65% of English words come from Latin.
They also were introduced to the Latin alphabet and the Roman numerals from I-XX ( 1-20), they learnt the greetings salve (hello to one person) and salvete (to more than one person) and vale/ valete (goodbye ) while they enjoyed singing “Felix dies Natalis tibi” (Happy birthday).
Euge Y3!
Magistra Latina Nektaria Mousi
Images from the week
Key Events
I am delighted to confirm that we are able to return to our St. Paul's Church assemblies every Thursday morning.
Tuesday 5th October – E-Safety Parent Workshop, 8.45am (also through zoom)
Thursday 7th October – Harvest Festival
Tuesday 12th and Thursday 14th October – Parent Consultation Meetings
Covid-19 Regulations
You will be aware that as a school we are no longer required to maintain ‘bubbles’ and are no longer involved in the track and trace of individuals. Should there be a positive case, NHS Track and Trace will determine who has been a close contact and inform those people directly. They will be advised to take a PCR test. As detailed in the latest DfE regulations - Staff who do not need to isolate, and children and young people aged under 18 years 6 months who usually attend school, and have been identified as a close contact, should continue to attend school as normal.
They do not need to wear a face covering within the school, but it is expected and recommended that these are worn when travelling on public or dedicated transport. Face coverings are no longer advised for pupils, staff and visitors either in classrooms or in communal areas.
The government has removed the requirement to wear face coverings in law but expects and recommends that they are worn in enclosed and crowded spaces where you may come into contact with people you don’t normally meet. This includes public transport and dedicated transport to school or college.
The measures we will continue to take as a school is as follows –
1. Ensure good hygiene for everyone
2. Maintain appropriate cleaning regimes
3. Keep occupied spaces well ventilated
4. Follow public health advice on testing, self-isolation and managing confirmed cases
In light of all of the above information we are delighted that we will once again be able to welcome you into school for the morning drop off as well as for the myriad of events such as workshops and social events. For the first week, as the children settle into their routine we feel it prudent that children in Year 3 – 6 are collected from the front of the school whilst children in nursery , Reception, Year 1 and Year 2 can be collected directly from their classrooms. In due course we will review this but given the numbers congregating, we would prefer to take a measured approach at this time.
Members of prep school staff will remain with their class should they have siblings in the nursery or pre-prep who can be collected first. We are delighted that we can have this invaluable contact with you again, the conversations at the classroom door are so important to ensure the very best relationships.
The school gate will be open from 8am-8.05am for early drop off and then open again from 8.15am – 8.30am where you are welcome to walk through with your children to their classrooms. Lessons will commence promptly at 8.30am. Clubs will finish at 5pm, with children being brought to the front of the school for collection and children attending after school club from 5pm to 6pm should be collected from the front door. We shall continue to be alert to any changes in guidance as we head to the winter months and inform you accordingly.
Credits:
Alistair Bond