From Mrs Ross 

The excitement for fireworks tonight was palpable, but the boys remained polite and helpful whilst we added up the Pre-Prep (Year 1 and Year 2) set point totals, submitted the data and then created our bar, line and pie charts this week. We all agreed that it was very difficult to tell the difference between the pieces of pie/pizza! (only five points lie between top and bottom Set)

The boys have really enjoyed using our new playground equipment at break times this week. They have helped us to take care of our brand-new property and have enjoyed trying new skills or balance challenges!  A particular favourite has been our giant 'noughts and crosses' set.

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Pilgrims' Shell Awards

• Year 2 – to Samuel B for his increased independence towards his work. Well done, Samuel!
• Year 1 - to William M for joining in with class discussions so beautifully.
• Reception - to James T for caring about others and working hard at phonics 

 

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Diary dates

 

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Notices

Menus - Please find a link to next week's menus here, on My School Portal. 

 

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From the PPA

Year 2

As a final hurrah with our topic of the Great Fire of London, the boys were introduced to a poem this week where the author used the imagery of ‘firebirds’ to describe the way the flames travelled across London during the fire.  

How happy were the flames, the gleeful little pests,  
They sang and crowed and whistled in full throat, 
Flashing now their wings and now their bright red breasts, 
Like robins who had never sung a note. 
(extract from the poem, The Great Fire of London by George Szirtes) 

This has, in turn, inspired us to listen to the Dance of the Firebird from Stravinsky’s ballet and read some descriptions of “this bird that sparkled like 1000 sparklers on Festival Night” from the Russian folk tale, The Firebird. The boys used these different areas of inspiration to create a word bank of powerful words that they could use in their own writing. We also had a delve into our class thesauruses; inferno was one of the brilliant words we discovered. Working with the structure of a cinquain poem, the boys have written magical and truly spell-binding poetry. Below are a handful of these engaging poems. Please do come into the classroom next week to read your son's work. They are all outstanding.  

Craft Club 

The boys in Craft Club have been getting busy with wool to make their own winter hat decoration. Lengths of wool have been looped around a section of cardboard roll which is rather fiddly work. Once the cardboard roll is completely covered, the boys can bring all the wool together to make the pompom top and create a loop from which to hang the decoration. As you can see, Frankie and Isaac were extremely proud to finish theirs this week.  
Mrs Ford

 

Year 1

The boys have been very creative this week and used their imaginations remarkably well.  

The boys have been learning about the Artist Wassily Kandinsky and how he created paintings using only lines, shapes and colours. They have used his painting called 'Several Circles' to paint pictures using only circles of varying colours, thinking that their pictures were space pictures that 'Beegu' may see from his spaceship. They were truly inspired, and the concentration on each boy's face was magical to watch as they mixed their own colours, painted circles of different sizes and exclaimed in excitement when they discovered a new colour, tint or shade for themselves. Wonderful pieces of artwork were created in the style of Kandinsky and the boys are very proud of their achievements.  

We watched the animation linked to Remembrance Day and chatted about the significance of war and peace and how the bunnies may be feeling about what has happened. We made our own poppy picture and paper poppy to wear with pride.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p02qvbd9

 

 

 

We joined the whole school on Friday to show our respect by remaining silent and thinking about soldiers, war and peace. A super week boys, well done.  
Mrs Huntley

Reception 

The boys have an abundance of energy and enthusiasm, although they surprised me with their hesitance to just splatter the paint. However, once they had started, there was no stopping them and I know each boy was very proud of their fireworks!

They have also taken part in a Scarf workshop, in a very special 'Blow-up classroom' entitlted All About Me. This began with a discussion about how we can feel warm and cosy on the inside as well as the outside, such as when we put on our scarf.

They talked about parts of their body, both inside and out. The boys impressed Lucy immensely with their knowledge of our blood, and how it is pumped around our bodies by our heart. The boys met Harold the Giraffe who was going on a sleep-over at his grandparents' house, which led to a discussion about all the different feelings we can have, and how we share our feelings with others who can help us when we feel sad.

 

Today we have been making poppies.

 

 

 

Mrs Kent
 

Forest School 

It was an exciting session this week for Year R, as it was their first visit to the beautiful arboretum behind the Old Bishop’s Palace. On our route there, we carried out an autumn scavenger hunt, looking for things like berries, bare trees and squirrels. The boys learned how to set up the arboretum for Forest School, and then we had some fun getting to know the area.

We had a science focus for our Year 1 session this week. Having identified the different materials used in our school grounds a couple of weeks ago, the boys spent time investigating the properties of several of these materials. New vocabulary was introduced such as absorbent, opaque and transparent, we finished on a huge game of ‘Rock, Paper, Scissors’ which reinforced some of the language we had learned.

With our fire circle firmly established the Year 2 boys excitedly took part in our first fire pit session. The boys helped collect fire wood and were shown how to build a fire, as well as learning how to stop, drop, cover and roll. We had a lovely time watching the fire burn, drinking hot chocolate and eating the popcorn we had cooked. We even managed a sing-song around the fire! The boys were also shown how to extinguish a fire safely.
Mrs Walker