It has been a lovely end to the spring term with lots going on around the school. Despite the disruption which Covid continues to perpetuate, pupils have continued to make good progress and we are thrilled that the school has moved from strength to strength. Term finished with an assembly on the MUGA, our first in two years, and it was lovely to see our school community together again. Thank you for your continued support his term and we hope that you enjoy the Easter Break.
Rugby Against Redhill
On Tuesday afternoon, we welcomed Redhill to school to play two games of rugby against our key stage two pupils. A huge thanks to Mr. Colville and Mr. Gardener for organising this. We hope to organise a series of netball, football and basketball games against Redhill during the summer term which will take place after school so that parents are able to attend.
To promote an interest in journalistic writing, we have created a blog section on our school website. Click on this button to read the match reports which pupils have written.
Reminder
Pupils return to school on Tuesday 26th April as Monday 25th April is a school inset day.
Jubilee Tea Party Celebrations!
We are excited to announce that pupils have begun planning a school Jubilee celebration! The tea party will be held at 13:00 on Friday 27th May. We are planning on limiting childcare as much as possible on this afternoon. All classes are going to be learning about the Queen and running a small business as part of our celebrations. Save the date as more information will be shared soon!
Nursery
This term Nursery children have been learning about The Farm. The children have enjoyed learning about baby animals in the springtime, what lives and grows on a farm and about farm machinery. We visited the meadow to see our very own sheep- we even had fun trying to count them. During the last few weeks, children have enjoyed egg hunts, egg decorating and making Easter bonnets. We have finished off the term with the children performing their Easter song. Da iawn everyone!
Reception Class
This term our topic has been "Ticket to Ride". We discovered if we held a pipe on our tap we could pump water to different places, so we decided to become a Mini Fire Crew! We pumped water into the tray and pushed it down to the gate on blue lights to put out the fire! Just like Enterprising Ella, we took risks, created things and ideas as well as trying our best and working as a team. Da iawn pawb!!
Year One - Dinosaurs
What an interesting and exciting topic!
Our topic began with a visit from a ferocious Tyrannosaurus Rex who was looking for his egg. This encouraged the children to develop their imaginative skills by writing about a dinosaur egg.
We enjoyed exploring dinosaur bones and creating our own skeletons using different material.
We became Palaeontologists and spent time in our ‘Dinosaur Dig’ and Exploration Area.
Finally, we learnt about a lady called Mary Anning who was an English palaeontologist who became known around the world for the discoveries she made. We pretended we were Mary Anning by writing a diary about the day she discovered the first Ichthyosaur fossil.
Year Two
Beware!!!
Class 2 has been a no-go area in Johnston school this term as a dragon was caught on camera by Mr Thomas landing in the class's outside play area!
Class 2 have been busy this term investigating dragons! They went on a dragon hunt in the school field where they found a mysterious dragon egg. They have learned the story of the Welsh dragon and written reports based on dragon facts, made dragon themed top trumps cards, written newspaper reports on dragon sightings and become expert dragonologists mapping and finding dragons using coordinates.
Year Three
In Year Three we have enjoyed learning about the world around us, with a focus on polar bears in The Arctic. We have learnt about global warming and how the sea ice in The Arctic is melting. We are becoming Ethically Informed Citizens as we start to think about ways in which we can help to stop this happening from our homes in Wales. We have found our presenting voices and have had a go at recording an Arctic weather report! We enjoyed experimenting with line and texture whilst studying the artist Eric Wilson, who specialises in drawing animals in their natural habitat and spent time observing polar bears in The Arctic for his work. We have continued to take our Maths learning outdoors and have worked on time, division and unit fractions all around the school grounds! Our sheep enjoyed our practical Maths tasks in our Maes Meithrin! We are starting to learn about light and have been shadow hunting around the school to help us to explain how shadows are made.
Year Four
In Class 4 our topic is Ocean and Pollution. As part of this topic, we have looked at the book ‘Flotsam’ by David Weiner. This fantastic picture book has been able to capture children’s imagination and allow us to create some amazing pieces of work. Children have been able to use this book to work on their inference skills, orally retell the story using Adobe Spark, write character descriptions and have had a go at their own debates forming a strong argument.
At the start of this topic children wanted to learn more about coral reefs. Children have researched information using the internet to create beautiful non-chronological reports about what coral is, where reefs can be found, threats to coral reefs and the animals that live there. Following this we focused on sea turtles where we used the WWF website to discover the amazing work this charity does. We used this information to write persuasive letters to parents to raise money and adopt our own sea turtle. As a class we have been successful raising money and we have adopted a sea turtle in Fiji!
On Wednesday 30th March Class 4 visited Freshwater West with Pembrokeshire Darwin Centre where we used our data skills to record wind speed, air temperature, wind direction and cloud cover. We did a litter pick on the beach, where we also discovered shotgun shells which have washed up from North America. After an hour litter picking and sweeping up microplastics we collected 9kg of plastic waste. Darwin also visited Class 4 in the afternoon, teaching us more about plastic and plankton. We used microscopes to look more closely and identify different species of plankton
Year Five
In year five, pupils have been learning about the Rainforest. Pupils enjoyed learning more about biodiversity and the threat which deforestation caused to our planet. Pupils used their maths skills to learn about complex issues, such as the removal of forest to grow palm oil. We discovered that palm oil is in lots of the day to day items that we use.
We finished the half term learning about the Lost Words poetry book and thinking about the plants and animals that are under threat in the United Kingdom. Pupils enjoyed crafting spectacular poems!
Year Six
Year 6 are thoroughly enjoying their Global Goals topic, learning all about Global Warming, Climate Change and how people on Earth are working together to achieve the Global Goals for Sustainable Development. So far, we have written persuasive letters, adopted a rhino, learned about poaching and wildlife conservation, watched a David Attenborough documentary, designed inventions to tackle climate change issues, compared countries by their CO2 emissions and studied various artists and stories and recreated their work. It has been great to see the children so engaged with the topic and developing into ethical and informed citizens. We can't wait to carry on the topic for a few weeks after half term!
LRC1
During this Spring Term LRC1 have enjoyed learning about Pembrokeshire produce and Welsh foods. We started by making Welsh cakes and pancakes alongside our Eisteddfod festivities which we all enjoyed with Welsh butter! We then spent a week exploring the different food and drink that can be made using milk. We tasted milkshakes from the local farm shop in Steynton; we used a big switch to help us switch our blender on and off to make our own milkshakes and we made handprint cows in our big floor book during bucket time. We also thought about fruit and vegetables that are grown in our local area; we tasted lots of different potato and fruit products and had to choose our favourites! But the best week of the term had to be chocolate week! We tasted all the different Cadbury heroes during bucket time and created a pictogram of our favourites. Check out our Twitter pictures to see the fun we had tasting all those chocolates! Most recently we have learnt about the Easter story, made lovely handprint cards and Easter chicks and have loved spending time in the meadow watching the sheep and planning what we are going to grow during the summer term!
Supporting Service Children in Education
Mobile 'Phones
As a school, we aim to support pupils in as many ways as possible. For this reason, we have decided to provide advice and support around pupils' use of mobile 'phones. In recent years, this area has become an increasingly hard landscape for parents to navigate.
Are 'phones good for my child?
There have been numerous incidents in local schools linked to mobile 'phone usage, Whatsapp and other social media platforms. Mobile 'phones intensify bullying, bombard children with adverts and encourage children to compare themselves to others. As well as this, a modern mobile 'phone is designed to distract and they often work to shorten our attention spans. At a time when we are aiming to support pupils to develop their learning skills, this is not supportive.
The legal age for social media is 13, therefore, no pupils should be using these platforms. The legal age for WhatsApp is 16.
Most adults would understand that we wouldn't give a child car keys and allow them to drive, as, whilst some might manage to move the car in the drive way, and, they might even get quite good at starting the engine, they are very likely to injure themselves or others. This is a useful analogy when we are thinking of a modern smart 'phone - the consequences of pupils accessing inappropriate material or making an inappropriate post online can have repercussions for pupils' life chances. Employers look at social media.
Furthermore, it is important to note that the internet on a modern smart 'phone allows pupils to access almost anything which they might search. We know that mobile 'phones are detrimental to child development and do not support children to develop into happy, confident individuals. As a school , we are promoting an understanding that children in primary school do not need mobile 'phones. As adults, it is our duty to protect children from danger and upsetting information. Therefore, we have taken the following steps as a school:
- If it is absolutely essential that pupils bring a mobile 'phone to school, the 'phone must be left in the bottom of the pupil's bag. We can not accept any responsibility for broken 'phones.
- Pupils must not access or use their 'phones whilst on the school site. This includes when walking through the car park. We have had several issues where pupils have been looking at 'phones and stepped out in front of a car.
If parents feel that it is absoloutely essential that pupils use a mobile telephone, we are promoting brick 'phones which are not internet enabled. These 'phones allow pupils to call parents for safety reasons, but they do not allow them to use the internet.
Here is an example:
New Lunch Menu
Dates Reminder:
The period between now and the Summer holidays is often very busy in school. So that we are able to provide as much notice as possible, we will publish a reminder of key dates each week. The newsletter is added to our school website each week so that parents are able to revisit information.
- Easter Holidays Begin - 11th April.
- School Inset Day - 25th April.
- Pupil return for the Summer Term - 26th April.
- Y6 Pwllcrochan trip - 26th May
- URDD Football Tournament - 26th April.
- School Open Day (Schools as far away as Cardiff visiting Johnston) - 10th May.
- Y6 Darwin trip - 28th April
- P.C. Thomas visiting classes as part of our curriculum work- 19th May
- Break up for half term - 27th May
- Pupils return to school - 6th June
- Year Five visit Llangrannog - 20th June - been cancelled
- Year Three go surfing - 28th June
- Year Four go surfing - 29th June
- Year Six visit Bala - July 4th
- Last day of school - 14th July
- Dates for Sports' Day and school performances will be added soon!
Competition Time!
Friday Afternoon - Booking Form
- No need to re-book if you have already booked in for the half term.
Attendance
The pandemic has had a significant impact on pupil attendance, but we feel that it is time for us to begin encouraging attendance as much as possible.
A massive "Well Done" to Class Three who were the highest attending this week . Da iawn pawb!
Remember, if any class achieves 100% attendance for an entire week, they win an extra special treat!