Dear Parents,
Christmas seems a long way away as the Infants are now well and truly settled into the school term. Our seventy or so new children are looking remarkably at home in Dover Court already and the other children have done a wonderful job of caring for them as they found their feet. We are very proud of the kind and friendly nature of our children and our first assembly of the year focussed on the importance of these values.
We have an action-packed term ahead!
Celebration of Literacy Week
The whole Infant Department had a wonderful experience at the theatre on Wednesday watching an exciting, professional production of The Gruffalo. It was lovely to see your children returning full of enthusiasm, chattering away to each other about their favourite parts (the Mexican snake was a real hit). The teachers will be following up in class with art and drama activities as we launch into Literacy Week starting on Monday.
Your class teacher will be sending a letter to you this week detailing the Literacy Week activities that your child will be involved in. Every day the whole school will stop for DEAR time from 11.00 – 11.20. When my own children first told me they’d “had dear time” I was utterly baffled so, for the uninitiated, this stands for Drop Everything And Read. Some classes are having reading picnics, others will be in their pyjamas for bedtime stories, there will be drama workshops and class books being produced. The week will culminate in a Literacy Assembly on 10.00am on Friday. All children should come to school dressed as their favourite book character (even the teachers will be taking part – I need to brush off my Cat in the Hat costume). We encourage children to bring in the book in which their character appears. We always see some wonderful costumes from creative parents on this day but perhaps even better are the costumes the children have made for themselves.
Looking Ahead
Week 6 (beginning February 9th) will see our children involved in a host of fund-raising activities for Charity Week.
The following week you are invited to our Chinese New Year Assembly (10.00am 17th January) one of the highlights of our calendar. The Lion Dance around the school is not to be missed!
During Week 12 (beginning March 23rd) the children will be showing off their skills in the Swimming Gala.
Term will finish with an Easter Assembly.
This is in addition to all the exciting learning opportunities your children are experiencing in class. Here is just a taste of what your children are learning at the moment:
In Nursery this term, we will be exploring Nature around us. Children have been busy preparing our mini garden so that we can start planting our seeds next week. All of us have been busy collecting seeds, leaves and flowers for art projects. Leaf printing is so much fun and we are very proud of our pictures; we have them all around our class.
Ms. Swan has started our snail habitat and at present we have four snails. Nursery mums help by sending in cucumber for their lunch. We can't wait to see the frogs, crickets and other Mini Beasts our teachers will bring in to class. We are learning how to look after the little creatures that live around us.
In Reception we have been learning about writing in sentences. The children have been enjoying writing about the farm, as their context, and have focused on using capital letters and full stops. In Maths we have been learning all about addition. We have created our own addition machines and understand the concept of adding two numbers together.
Year 1 have blossomed over the past few weeks. We have used plants and growing as a theme throughout our learning. The children loved changing the Jack and the Beanstalk story and they made up some fantastic new endings. They studied flowers and leaves to create wonderful sketches and paintings. We are now looking forward to planting seeds, observing how they grow and measuring how tall they become.
Year 2 have been learning about electricity. This week we made our own circuits. Our teachers gave us a bag of objects including bulbs, switches, batteries and motors and the instruction- make the light bulb shine and the motor turn. We worked together in our groups and had so much fun making circuits. Samuel McMurran said that “…if the circuit wasn't complete the electricity could not flow. No flow, no go!"
So, as you can see, everyone is very busy.
My door is open between 8.00 and 8.40 so please do drop in. I am always delighted to meet with you at other times by appointment.
Thank you for your continued support and for letting us lead your wonderful children in their learning adventures.
Clare Vincent
Interim Head of Infants
