Junior School Newsletter – Michaelmas Week 10

This week’s newsletter for Rossall Junior School and Nursery.

YEAR 6

It has been another busy and productive week in Year 6. The children have been completing a variety of activities involving biomes. This has included some models being built at home, some fabulously informative posters and the development of some David Attenbrough style scripts. Through our literacy the children have been learning about endangered animals and the ways in which humans have been responsible for the  demise of so many species. From this they have begun to create their own persuasive leaflet for the kakapo.

YEAR 5

Year 5 enjoyed another trip to the Rossall Kitchen as part of their Rossall Rotation this week. After the success of the cupcakes the children were keen to cook again! Pizza was on the menu! The children thoroughly enjoyed themselves, I hope you enjoyed the results!

We have worked hard this week during our English lessons. Similes, fronted adverbials and descriptive writing have kept us extremely busy. The children wrote a paragraph to ‘set the scene’ for our book, ‘ The Lost Happy Endings’, the results were fabulous! 

In our Topic, The Anglo Saxons, we have looked at the different jobs that they would have had and compared them to today’s. The children also designed their own Anglo Saxon villages. 

Finally ( and possibly most importantly) we have named our guinea pig! We were very democratic and it took several rounds of tense voting, but we can confirm that the Year 5 guinea pig is called……..Pablo!!

YEAR 4

Who needs the new iPhone 12 when you can communicate using a string telephone! This is what Year 4 discovered this week as part of their science work all about sound and how it travels! The young investigators in Year 4 were soon coming up with their own ideas to investigate and found that they could even communicate with someone upstairs and even have a 4-way conversation! We have also been busy investigating what people in the past did for entertainment and Year 4 have each chosen a time period in British history to investigate – we are all looking forward to sharing what we have found out!

YEAR 3

This week in Year 3, we have been really extending our writing skills through use of conjunctions, adverbs and similes. We are really enjoying the visual book of the Winter’s Child to inspire us! We have also been learning about arctic explorers and polar habitats in our topic Pole to Pole. In Science, we have investigated which materials are magnetic and how strong different magnets are. Busy and fun!

YEAR 2

This week in Year 2 we have been learning all about habitats. In Science, we learned what a habitat is and how a good habitat provides basic needs for the animals that live in it. We looked at the different habitats that owls live in and how different species of owls live in very different habitats. Did you know that Owls live on every continent on the globe except Antarctica? In our Topic lesson we went on a walk around the school grounds to see if we could find anywhere at Rossall that might be a suitable place for an Owl to live. We decided that the trees behind the pavilion would be a great habitat for owls!

YEAR 1

‘Reading gives us someplace to go when we have to stay where we are’ 

– Mason Cooley

This quote is ever so true at this time in our lives, particularly during lockdown 2.0 where we have to stay where we are. During our Topic work we have thought about why people tell stories and the class responses should remind us how important stories can be.

‘To make people happy’ – Matilda

‘To entertain us’ – Emma

‘To help us learn’ – Stanley

On reflection maybe we need to remind ourselves to take time to read: to escape, to be entertained, to make us happy.

What is your favourite story? This was another question we discussed and shared during this week. Some of the children even brought their favourite books to share with the class. We also found out about some of our parents and grandparent’s favourite stories. Stories by the authors Enid Blyton and Julia Donaldson were firm favourites. My favourite childhood story ‘The magic faraway tree’ was also by Enid Blyton.

RECEPTION

What better way to brighten dark, winter days, than with an exploration of the Hindu festival of lights – Diwali?

The children have talked about what families do in celebration, including the special roles the children may have, such as making rangoli patterns or helping to make sweets to offer to visitors and to give as gifts. We have made rangoli patterns using wooden shapes and drawn around our hands and decorated them with mehndi patterns.

The children have listened well and commented on how they and their families may celebrate festivals and special times, in similar ways. We have talked together about how people who celebrate different festivals can do so in similar ways, to say ‘thank you’ to their god, to remind people how to be kind to one another, and to make other people and themselves happy.

One of the most famous legends associated with Diwali tells the story of how Prince Rama returned from exile with his wife, Sita, to his kingdom, after overcoming the 10-headed demon Ravana with the help of Hanuman, the monkey god, and his army of monkeys. People were so delighted that they lit the couple’s return with rows of lights. The children have enjoyed watching the story of Rama and Sita, performed with puppets, which has encouraged some of the children to create their own puppet shows.

NURSERY

What a busy week nursery has had again this week. Christmas nativity rehearsals are going very well and the children are looking forward to dressing up in all their costumes. Things will be different this year with the nativity being filmed without parents watching but the joy the children have from preforming will still be the same.

This week is National Nursery Rhyme Week so we have been learning some new traditional rhymes the children may not be aware of but that are old-time favourites. We went on an interactive walk-around school to sing the songs. We sang’ Row row row your boat’ in the boat in the playground, ‘Peter Rabbit’ whist in the hall looking at our new additions to the farm, ‘Jack and Jill’ whilst climbing up the sand dunes, ‘A sailor went to sea, sea sea’ whilst looking at the waves crashing onto the wall and ‘Humpty Dumpty’ whilst we all sat on the wall. What a great way to learn new songs, in the fresh air, exploring the grounds and having fun with our friends. We have also used our creative skills to make props to support the songs such as spiders and stars. Counting skills came in very useful when making sure the spiders had the correct amount of legs.

The Rossall weather has been kind again this week, (even if it has been windy!) allowing the children to spend a lot of time in the garden. The imagination is amazing to see. They have been building rockets to go to the moon, making potions to turn people into goats and making fabulous soup from mud and leaves. The soup-making theme continues in our letter and sound sessions where the children have been making Soup. The children had to put some rather strange ingredients in the pot all beginning with the same letter sound to create a ‘silly soup’.

The babies have had a great sensory week this week, playing with water and bubbles, large scale painting, playdough and walking across oozing mud. It has been two months now since we opened and you can start to see some friendships forming with each other so the staff have been encouraging peer interactions such as playing peekaboo together, joining hands to row your boat and turn-taking games.

AWARD WINNERS

Reception – Junior for independently practising his counting and number formation in areas of the continuous provision. Harry for trying really hard with his handwriting both at home and in school.

Year 1 – Larry Walker-Reid for being keen to work and working really hard all week. Ryan Chen for excellent work in Maths and for joining in. Aadhritt Dalvi received a Headmaster’s award for excellent writing.

Year 2- Jude and Archie for an improved effort in all their learning.

Year 3 – Annabel for Maths and Archie for English.

Year 4 – Roman B for amazing cursive handwriting writing and Esme for a positive attitude to learning.

Year 5 – Jasmine for super effort in English and Ava for working incredibly hard in Mathematics.

Year 6 – Sophie for Helpfulness, Adhil for Mathematics, Jasmeet for Outstanding Art and Creative Work and Ethan for Effort and Enthusiasm in All Activities.

NOTICES

• Please complete the Jotform for individual school photos by Friday 27th November.
• Christmas Baubles are available to buy for £1 from Monday 23rd November to decorate the Junior School Christmas Tree in aid of Brian House.

Please note, the Carol Service and Christmas Nativities (Nursery & Infants) will be recorded for parents to watch at their leisure.

PHOTOS