Another month completed! A full half term done! We have been so impressed with all pupils' learning behaviours and effort in school so far. Our staff have prepared some photographs below showing some of the fantastic learning opportunities on offer this half term...
It is great to see so many pupils in school, on time daily with full uniform on. We are pleased to see so many pupils exhibiting our core values daily...
An interim school behaviour policy is in place in school. Our in school behaviour system is due to be reviewed during this half term but for now, we are using the Class Dojo system for instant rewards and points rewarded in class for showing our core values (above).
Proud of Barnsley Awards - School of the Year Nomination
We are incredibly proud of being nominated as school of the year this year. We have are also proud to have been shortlisted down to the top 3! Staff from school will attend the awards on Friday 18th November to see if we win! We would like to extend an enormous thanks to all pupils, families, staff and the community for supporting us to continually improve.
Attendance figures:
Half term 1 overall: 93%
We know we can keep striving for that target of 97%+ which we achieved in week 1! Let's get to school on time every day...
EYFS
KS1
Class 1
What a fantastic half term we have had in Year 1!
In literacy, we used all of our new writing skills to write a full narrative retell of Hansel and Gretel to ensure that everyone knows the truth about the wicked Witch. We focused on our use of capital letters, finger spaces, full stops and even included some key features of story telling in our work. We were super impressed with your efforts!
In maths, we have learnt all about numbers to 50, including addition, subtraction and comparing these numbers. We put our new skills to the test to help Hansel and Gretel escape back home safely and even tricked the Witch with our amazing knowledge. We then learnt about 2D and 3D shapes, how to identify them and discuss the properties of each shape. We loved our shape hunt around school and the children loved to guess the shapes that were described.
As part of our learning in RE, we have looked at the different Holy Texts for each religion. We discussed stories from each text and discussed why some words are special to each religion. We enjoyed creating Diva Lamps for the Diwali festival and designing our own Rangoli patterns.
In art, the children worked super hard on their portraits and our Guess Who? Exhibition was a huge success! We hope you enjoyed looking through your children’s artbooks and guessing which portrait was theirs, as much as they enjoyed creating them! We learnt all about sketching and using a pencil in different ways to create different shade, tones and textures. We then explored paints and colour mixing to assist the creation of our final piece!
In science, we enjoyed learning all about the different classifications of animals and what characteristics each groups had. By then end of the half-term, we were able to identify which classification an animal belongs to and what type of diet they have. At the end of the half-term, we worked scientifically to investigate the durability of different biscuits to decide which biscuit would be the best material to build a candy house – we decided the strongest one was the chocolate digestive as it lasted 31 dunks longer than all of the others!
We now get to look forward to another half-term of fantastic learning!
In literacy, we are going to be learning all about poetry after our visit from ‘That Poetry Bloke’ last half-term. We will be performing our own poem and creating a shape poem based on fireworks. We will then move onto creating information texts all about dinosaurs!
In maths, we are learning about multiplication, division, fractions and measurements. You can help at home by practicing your 2, 5 and 10 times tables!
Our topic this half-term is History, and it’s a truly royal one at that! We will become historians and delve into the past to learn all about the history of our Monarchs. We are even going to hold a royal banquet to step into the shoes of the Kings and Queens that have ruled our country.
Class 1/2
What an amazing half term we have had!
We have saved Hansel and Gretel from the wicked witch by creating our own narratives in literacy. We used our high frequency words, capital letters, full stops and adjectives to support our writing. Our year twos even used conjunctions to extend their sentences!
In Maths we have used addition and subtraction to solve real life problems related to money and even created a wicked sweet shop for the witch. We have compared numbers within 50 or 100 and even explored 2D and 3D shapes – we particularly enjoyed our shape hunt in school.
Our art showcase was a real success and year 1/2 worked so hard to sketch and then paint their final pieces. We think they look amazing and hope you enjoyed visiting class to play our big game of guess who!
In science we have been looking at animals and their categories including mammals, amphibians, reptiles, and birds. We have looked at their different body parts and what they eat.
In RE we have explored different religions and looked at holy texts and stories they include. We particularly enjoyed making boats related to Noah’s Ark and creating DIwa lamps for Diwali. I
Autumn 2 is now here, and we have so much to look forward to!
We will be continuing our learning about animals in science and hope to carry out our planned trip to the Tropical world!
In maths we will begin to explore multiplication and division, you can help at home by chanting your 2, 5 and 10 times tables.
In literacy our story is about a special visitor from Antarctica- we hope to meet some in real life, but we won’t spoil the surprise!
Finally, our new topic will be based around history, learning about kings and queens. This will include a historical experience of a royal banquet!
Class 2
We have had another super month of learning in Class 2!
Our focus text was Biscuit Bear by Mini Grey. The children baked and decorated their very own biscuit friends, just like in the story. They then wrote some fantastic instructions on how to do this including lots of important key features.
In maths, we have been focussing on multiplication, division and shape. We have been working on our 2, 5 and 10 times tables, and applied our knowledge to problem solving. We have been looking at 2D and 3D shapes in our environment and recording the properties of these shapes.
In Art, we have applied all of the skills we have gathered to create our final paintings in the style of Jackson Pollock. It was lovely to showcase the children’s fantastic art skills at our parent open event.
In Science, we have continued our learning on including humans. The children have learnt about ways to keep active and affects exercise has on our bodies. We carried out a scientific investigation and found out that sprinting has the biggest impact on our bodies.
Now Autumn 2 is now here, we have so much more to look forward to!
Parents/carers, keep your eyes peeled for more fantastic learning from your children😊
Miss Corradini
LKS2
Class 3
The first half term was a real success for us in Year 3…
We wrote stories and persuasive letters in literacy which showed lots of potential.
We became confident using number and our place value has improved. We are starting to spot patterns and use our times table knowledge. We showed good understanding of written methods for addition and subtraction.
We made a great start with our times tables and our weekly soundcheck scores on Times Table Rock Stars are beginning to take off.
We learnt skills for Tag Rugby and were great at passing by the holidays.
We are now able to recognise signs and symptoms of some common viruses and how to treat burns and scalds.
We learnt all about Van Gogh and Hockney and produced some great landscapes for our final pieces which included lots of the skills we had learnt.
We showed amazing subject knowledge in science with skeleton types and bones. We thought about the diet and nutrition of animals and conduction an experiment to see if the tallest people jumped the furthest.
We learnt how to say hello and my name is in French and can also say how old we are.
We learnt about holy texts in RE and enjoyed the stories from different religions.
I don’t know about you Year 3 but I can’t wait to see how far we can go with our learning this half term.
Class 3/4
Autumn 2 Year 3 / 4
In literacy, we are going to be learning about ‘Newspaper reports. We enjoyed our hook lesson whereby we received a letter from The Barnsley Chronicle. This has given our writing a purpose.
In maths, children have been reading scales on a ruler and drawing accurate measurements. They thoroughly enjoyed comparing different lengths when they measured who could jump the furthest.
In History, children were excited when we revealed clues to the topic. This was in the form of a treasure hunt for clues. They thoroughly enjoyed crawling through mines in the classroom in order to discover more clues.
Class 4
The first half term was a real success for us in Year 4. We have really enjoyed our learning in all areas of our curriculum. Within Topic (Art), we created clay sculptures by applying all our learnt skills from Autumn 1. To accompany our end outcome, students were able to self-assess and peer assess. Here they gave constructive feedback that students could take on board for their next project.
In Literacy, we created a narrative about the Wild robot. Students were engaged from the very first lesson where a robot had become stranded within our classroom. This led to some amazing pieces as the students could stretch their imagination beyond the isolated island that the robot was on. Our second piece of writing came in the form of a non-chronological report about the discovery of Tutankhamun. Students conducted some of their own research which enabled them to broaden their understanding and apply it to their work.
Within maths, we became confident in using our place value as well as using the four operations. These were then applied to various contexts and students could begin to problem solve. Furthermore, we have worked hard on our times tables and in our weekly soundcheck on Times Table Rock Stars.
In RSHE, we have extended our knowledge and understanding in health and wellbeing. Students could articulate how to stay safe and what to do if they weren’t feeling well.
In PE, students learnt the various skills to play tag rugby. We began with the basics of passing and movement, before combining these. Then we looked at the rules of Tag rugby and what different techniques should be used when playing. This was a success and led to some very competitive games.
In science, we analysed animals including humans. We looked at different food chains before learning at how food is consumed. This went down fantastically, until the children could smell the food during our experiment. They loved this, although their faces showed otherwise.
In RE, students have learnt about different holy books and special words from a range of religions. Students have showed great respect when learning about other religions and have managed to articulate their thoughts extremely well.
It has been a super half term! Next term (Autumn 2) we have lots of fantastic learning coming up, some of which, we have already begun.
In literacy, we are going to be creating a diary based on the book of The Iron Man. We began our sequence of learning with some giant parts of the Iron Man. Children are really hooked into the book and we are covering this within our LIRA to strengthen our understanding.
In maths, we have been looking at measurements and focusing on perimeter and area of 2d shapes. The students have enjoyed problem solving to calculate the perimeter and areas of larger 2d shapes. Their reasoning skills have been put to the test, but they have come out on top!
In History, children were really hooked in through a quick hunt around the school grounds. Here we located many clues that helped them to understand what we shall be learning about during Autumn 2. The final clue led the students into the dark depths of a mine. Coal could be found scattered around along with some additional clues that students could create inferences from.
UKS2
Class 5
What a fantastic first half term! We read Journey to the River Sea in LIRA which we all thoroughly enjoyed. In literacy we wrote our own short stories and diary entries – taking inspiration from the book. We really enjoyed reading this story and learnt lots about the Amazon Rainforest and Brazil.
In maths we did lots of work on place value and the 4 operations and practised our arithmetic skills and times tables. We will continue to build on this throughout the year. In art we learnt about the famous artist Henri Rousseau and recreated some of his work – it was lovely to show these off to parents in our art gallery. In science we learnt about animals and humans.
This half term we will begin our new topic – The Vikings and Anglo-Saxons! We have two exciting books to read in LIRA and we will be writing a newspaper report in literacy. In maths we will be looking at measure and shape, as well as continuing to develop our knowledge of the 4 operations.
Class 5/6
Class 6
3rd November 2022
Athlete visit - On Thursday 3rd November, Leon Baptiste visited our school and conducted short training sessions with each class from Y1-Y6. We raised a fantastic amount of over £600 from sponsorship so thank you so much for this. We as a school keep a percentage and the rest goes towards funding athletes and future athletes. We hope Leon inspired our pupils to go into sports in their futures and get practising now!
A massive thank you to everyone who completed our online feedback forms, your feedback is welcomed and appreciated. It helps us to continue to move forward for all our families and pupils.
Here is a summary of the feedback and our responses...
Generic Feedback from September 2022
We endeavour to create strong lines of communication which is why we use Arbor - this is a free app to download and use in-app messaging. We also use Twitter for updates on curriculum and pupil learning. This is also a free app to download and you can follow school to receive regular updates. Every class has its own feed as does Miss Jones for community and supportive networks. If you would like to see regulary updates, see each class twitter page.
We only send letters when needed to ensure all parents see the information as not all are on twitter/arbor. We have introduced the weekly news blast to update parents regularly and this is sent on Twitter/via arbor.
School start and end times remain the same daily, 8.45am start and 3.15pm ends. Sometimes, assemblies may run over slightly and something crops up which stops staff being on the door at exactly 8.45am. These are minimal and we aim to be on time daily.
All pupils, unless agreed otherwise, should be bringing PE kits into school on Mondays and taking home Fridays for washing and returning the following week.
Parents meetings are being set up for half term 2. See arbor for sign up.
The suggestions made above either happen as part of class learning or are school trips. We have a wide range of after-school clubs available, most are free! Use arbor to sign up to these.
Parents' Meetings are termly. We have introduced a half-termly opportunity to attend open evenings where pupils' work will be showcased from the half term and you will have chance to speak with teachers. We also offer appointments whenever needed, all you are required to do is telephone school and arrange one at a mutually convenient time.
Feedback following the Art Gallery
Great feedback. We can continue to work on this and build on the positives. Any child who is not confident will have extended time to support the building of this in the next art topic. We are moving onto a history focus this half term and will have another open evening for you to share their work at the end of the half term. We look forward to seeing you all there.
Many thanks for your feedback...
Upcoming Events
- 7th Nov - Remembrance week in school
- 8th Nov - Multiplication Tables Check Parents' Meeting - Y4 parents only - 3.30pm - meet at KS2 doors after school
- 9th Nov - Stay and Read with me - 8.45-9.15am - EYFS/KS1
- 9th Nov - Stay and Read with me - 3.00-3.30pm - KS2
- 11th Nov - Y3 & 4 Tag Rugby competition
- 13th November - Remembrance service at St Luke's in Grimethorpe from 10am.
- Week commencing 14th Nov - Assessment week
- 14th - 18th Nov - Anti-Bullying & Friendship/Kindness Week
- 15th Nov - Y5 and 6 Girls' football competition
- 18th Nov - Children in Need - wear something spotty
- 18th Nov - TTRS Rockstars day - Be a spotty rockstar!
- 18th Nov - Art Exhibition @ Metrodome
- 24th Nov - Phonics Screening parents meeting - Year 1 only - 3.30pm
- 25th Nov - Y1 & 2 Tag Rugby competition
- 1st Dec - Christmas Fair - 2.30pm onwards
- 2nd Dec - Y1 & 2 Dodgeball competition
Credits:
Created with images by Photocreo Bednarek - "Fresh pumpkins in a pile. Halloween and Thanksgiving" • Maksim Shmeljov - "Autumn maple leaves on ancient texture. Falling leaves natural background. Seasonal background." • Pixel-Shot - "Little boy doing math task in classroom" • Agata Kadar - "walking in the park"