A message from Mr. Dawson
First of all, I would like to take this opportunity to wish you all Happy New Year. The children have returned to school with positive attitudes to their learning and it has been an excellent first week back in 2022.
All year groups are beginning their new topics for the Spring term and have been very eager to engage in these. The main theme is geography and having visited classes throughout the week, the children are extremely enthusiastic about this subject, as well as getting ‘hands on’ with all of the other subjects across the curriculum.
May I remind you that in light of the recent government announcements on Covid and restrictions, we are continuing with our celebration assemblies, stay and play sessions in reception classes and secret readers but can I remind adults that if you are coming into school, to please wear a face covering and I encourage you to take a lateral flow device (LFD) test before entering the school. I would also like to remind you that if a member of your household has tested positive for coronavirus, and your child does not have symptoms, they are able to continue to attend school. The guidance within our risk assessment and from the government is that if a child is a contact, they should do daily lateral flow device (LFD) tests for seven days. Please note that children under five are exempt.
Attendance
It has been fantastic to see everybody's smiley faces again after the Christmas holidays - they definitely brighten up the cold and frosty January mornings! In first place this week, with 97.6% attendance, is Year 1JC! Just behind them, in second place is Reception LE with 96.6% followed by Year 6JC who have achieved 96.4% attendance this week. As always, well done to everybody who has attended school every day this week.
Let's see what our classes have been up to this week:
Reception:
The children returned to school this week with a problem to solve...they had to become police detectives to investigate clues and evidence around the school to discover who had broken into school during the Christmas holidays (all pretend, no need to worry)! The children made police hats, badges and recorded their evidence as they went on their investigation around the school. When they returned to class, they discovered that the police had found the criminal - it was Burglar Bill! Throughout the rest of the week, the children enjoyed reading the story Burglar Bill, eagerly anticipating and predicting what might happen next in the story each day.
The staff in EYFS have been blown away this week by the children's reading and writing. We would like to say a huge thank you to parents and carers as the children have clearly practised lots over the Christmas holidays!
KS1:
Can you believe Year 1 took a trip down to London this week? Well, they certainly did! To introduce our Geography theme, “Where in the world do we live?”, our classrooms turned into tour buses and we took a virtual tour around London. We paid for our ticket and landmark leaflet, then jumped on our bus for our tickets to be hole-punched. We saw so many landmarks, such as Buckingham Palace and Big Ben. We then turned our classrooms into London by creating the buildings and landmarks we had seen. We had such a fantastic trip and learnt so much about our capital city!
Year 2 have had a fantastic first week back. We have started our new theme, ‘What would I see on an African Adventure?’ We have located Africa on a world map in Geography and learnt all about African symbols in our Art lessons. In science, we have experimented with changing materials’ shapes and have used scientific words related to change in shape. In Talk for Writing, we have learnt a new poem about a safari. We can’t wait to write our own poems next week.
LKS2:
We have had a great first week back in Year 3! Miss Tomlinson and Miss Dougall are so proud of the children, and returning to school with such enthusiasm for their learning! We have started reading our new class text 'Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone' and quite simply- we're hooked! We have learnt all about the author, J.K Rowling, and we were amazed to discover that she likes playing Minecraft in her spare time with her son. Our topic for this half term is 'Why does Italy shake and roar?' During this topic, we will be learning all about volcanoes and more specifically, the volcanoes in Italy. We can't wait to share all the fantastic learning we do over the next few weeks.
Happy New Year everyone! Year 4 have had a fantastic start to the Spring term. We started off our week with our favourite thing to do... a visit to our school library. It was great to see how excited the children are when discovering new books - a great way to begin the term. In science, we have begun our States of Matter topic. This week, we explored the properties of different materials to help us classify them as solids or liquids. In English, the children have been practising their persuading skills, learning different strategies to persuade the reader, e.g. exaggeration or rhetorical questions. We can't wait to read their persuasive writing over the next few weeks. Thank you Year 4 for an exciting start to the new term!
UKS2:
It's been a fantastic week in Year 5! We have come back rested and certainly very switched on. This week, we have started our new persuasive writing unit. We have learnt how to use emotive language and modal verbs to persuade. In geography, we are learning about where different Biomes (different types of environments) are in the world. To make our learning more purposeful, we are going to write persuasive letters asking people to stop cutting down rainforests. Once we have finished these, we are going to post them to certain politicians and embassies, and hopefully, we will get some responses. In maths, we have made a positive start on understanding place value in decimals. Next week, we will progress onto ordering, rounding and multiplying, and dividing decimals by 10, 100, and 1,000.
Mrs Martin and Miss Carroll have been singing the praises of the Year 6s all week! We have been super impressed with their attitude and maturity they have come back with - 2022 certainly looks very bright! The children have hit the ground running with the new theme, 'What makes the Galapagos Islands so special?' where we looked at key information about a significant figure: Charles Darwin. Linking this to our English, we have begun our journey of persuasive writing, ready to select key information and features for a letter to the WWF next week. As scientists, we looked at the characteristics of animals and had an excellent discussion alongside this. Well done Year 6, what a way to bring in the new year!
Stars of the Week:
From all at Whitkirk, we wish you a very Happy New Year!
Credits:
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