Junior School Newsletter – Michaelmas Week 11

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

YEAR 6

As much as the Year 6 love being with their form teachers every day, they certainly enjoy developing their creative talents with some of the Senior School teachers each week. This week they’ve been staging festive plays with Mr Veitch in Drama, and perfecting their vocal performances for the Christmas lights switch-on with Mr Edney. All we need now is Dance in PE and it will be like Fame Academy! With another trip to the Cookery Department this afternoon, our Year 6 will be so adept in the kitchen they’ll be ready to cook the Christmas dinner, as long as it’s pizza and muffins!

YEAR 5

Year 5 have had another busy week! We have thoroughly enjoyed ‘Digging up the Past’ this week in our fascinating topic about the Anglo Saxons. The children have looked at artefacts from the Anglo Saxon period and have investigated what they are, what they are made from, and what they might have been used for. This has given the children a real insight into this amazing period in our history.

We had a fantastic time making delicious  ‘s’mores’ ( a gooey mixture of marshmallows and chocolate digestives!) and learning how to light a fire with Mr Turner. The children have been looking forward to this activity in Rossall Rotation and it certainly did not disappoint!

Some fabulous Christmas baubles have been made and put on our Christmas tree and the lights have been switched on! It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas here at Junior School!

YEAR 4

The Year 4 Scientists have been in action this week discovering more about volume and pitch in our science Topic ‘Listen Up’! Luckily we also have lots of budding musicians in our class who were able to demonstrate on a range of musical instrument how they could make their instrument louder or quieter or make higher and lower pitch notes! There was Jack on the electric guitar, Roman on the ukulele, Zizi and Lulu playing the recorder and Jessica on the harmonica! We are also putting plans into place for our Year 4 circus which is going to take place in the final week – it looks set to be a real spectacle and a lovely way to kick off our Christmas week!

YEAR 3

This week has been full of fun and learning in Year 3. In maths, we have started our unit on multiplication and division, looking at equal groups and focusing on the 3 times table. We also had a fascinating trip to the Astronomy Centre where Dr Lister told us all about the stars and we made connections to our Pole to Pole topic. We also learned about how animals and people have adapted to live in polar regions, with a focus on the Inuit people.

YEAR 2

In Year 2 this week, we have been continuing to learn about the dark. This week in our book, Plop learned about stars and constellations. We visited the Astronomy centre to learn more about this and learned about the planets in our solar system and looked at constellations in the sky. We spotted Orion’s belt, the North Star and the Dog Star! In Science, we have been continuing to learn about owl habitats. We have designed and made our own habitat for a species of owl. We have habitats for a snowy owl, an elf owl and a flammulated owl on our classroom windowsills!

YEAR 1

In Year 1 this week we have been learning all about Materials. We have been material detectives and searched the school grounds for different materials during our material hunt. We have searched the classroom too. We have even searched at home! We found lots of different materials and talked about the properties of them and why things are made from what they are. We were surprised to find out that paper actually comes from wood. We have labelled and grouped materials and are beginning to think about what materials we could use to make a cage for Nibbles the book monster.

In Maths this week, as well as completing assessments, we have been investigating 3D shapes. We have been learning their names and describing the shapes. We have been looking at 3D objects and matching them to the shape.

We will be entering the Post Office Christmas Card competition. Look out for the instructions, terms and conditions on Google classroom. A chance for you to get creative at home.

RECEPTION

A good vocabulary is really important for all children. It is an important building block for helping children to talk in sentences (and beyond!) but it’s also really useful for learning to read. In fact, research tells us that it affects a child’s school performance – a child’s vocabulary when they are five years old can tell us how well they do at school at 11. So, helping children to develop a good vocabulary is vital.

That’s why when you are having discussions with any child, it is okay to use big, tricky words!

The children are becoming very confident when using words such as ‘digraph’, ‘phoneme’ or ‘grapheme’ in our phonic lessons. In Spanish, they are learning new vocabulary every week and the odd word is even being repeated during play situations. In continuous provision, the children love to create patterns and colour pictures, which this week has introduced the word ‘symmetrical’. We have been looking for minibeast in the playground and secret garden, and they are sometimes very hard to find, as they are ‘camouflaged’, another new word!

This week we have looked at different ‘habitats’, in particular polar habitats and comparing the animals that live in hot and cold climates. A habitat is the natural home of an animal, plant, or community. Learning about habitats around the world is an important part of children’s education. It’s a great way to get them interested in the world around them and its wildlife – especially with there now being so many threats to habitats around the world!

NURSERY

The weather has been kind to us again this week enabling us more opportunities to venture out and about the school grounds and beyond.

The babies have loved exploring the beach this week, feeling the sand between their fingers, making marks with their hands, feeling the texture of different stones and enjoying the benefits of good old fashioned sea air.

They have also used the large field to run down the hills, found puddles to jump in and watched the tractors go by. There are not many nurseries that have, what we have on our doorstep the children are so lucky.

The babies were fascinated with the provocation of ice play that was set up this week. Watching their faces as they tried to hold on to the ice cubes that slipped out of their hands, and their reactions to the cold sensation was so lovely to see. They also continued their love of empty and filling, by putting the ice cubes into an old fashioned tea set, pots and pans. 

Cars are always a favourite in the baby room as children love to watch them move away from them and then enjoy going to retrieve them. This week we added planks of wood so they could watch them move across the room faster and also learn the skill of balancing the car at the top of the wood. We used lots of singular words to encourage language such as ‘go’ ‘gone’ ‘car’.

Our Sanderlings are also starting to show an interest in books which is a great opportunity to share some snuggle time with their key person, they particularly like Dear Zoo and get very excited in lifting the flaps to find what is hiding underneath.

The Sandpipers & Preschool children have loved a week of outdoor adventures too! At the start of the week, we took our ‘Move it Monday’ HIIT session to the beach, and Preschool held their letters and sounds session at the beach too. The children have been exploring different terrains and joined in with running races on the field, sand dunes and grass hills. Some of the children were lucky enough to visit the rabbits and guinea pigs this week. It was lovely to see how gently the children handled the animals and how they took care not to scare them by making too much noise, or moving quickly. Theatrical Thursday was most definitely a dramatic affair, with the children creating a stage from items in our environment, fashioning costumes from materials they chose and putting on a performance of their choosing. What a week we’ve had!

AWARD WINNERS

Reception – Kaxshaan and Beau have both received Certificates of Achievement for trying really hard with their handwriting.

Year 1 – Roman and Anthony for excellent effort, determination and patience in our Creative lesson.

Year 2- Eryn Sharples for persevering and always trying her best. Spencer Stewart for super effort in Phonics this week.

Year 3 – Jasper won the Headmasters Award for his amazing progress in his writing.

Year 4 – Lex – having a positive attitude to school life and always having a big smile on his face! Lulu – fantastic effort and progress with 4-digit subtraction 

Year 5 – Betsy for being and excellent communicator and Lockie for resilience. 

Year 6 – Lucas for the improved effort and quality of his prep.

SPORT

North West Independent Schools Cross Country

As hosts of the AJIS Cross Country for the last twenty years, we didn’t want our star runners to miss out on the opportunity to represent Rossall at this prestigious event. Therefore, we decided to organise the first Inter-School Virtual Cross Country with schools running the one mile course at their own venue. We were delighted that so many schools supported the event and even more thrilled with the enthusiasm of the Rossall children to run the challenging distance. Well done Rossall!

HOUSE SPORT

Spirits were high for the start of the House Matches this week. It was wonderful to see the children from Years 3 to 6 representing Assheton, Clifton and Hesketh and cheering on their teams in football and hockey. After week one it’s all very close in both competitions-Good luck next week!

What a fabulous afternoon of house hockey matches on Wednesday. The talent in Year 5 and 6 was evident in the closely contested matches. Clifton was the Y5 winning team, and Hesketh won the Y6 competition. Well done to all of the players that took part!

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

PHOTOS