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Dear Parents,
What a wonderful week we have had to round off this half term. Health and Safety week has given the children so many opportunities to learn valuable life skills and to meet all the different people who help them such as The Police, the Fire Brigade and Nurses. The activities were great fun as a visit to our Facebook page will show. A huge thank you to Ms Falvey who organised the whole week with precision and enthusiasm. You may not know that Ms Falvey is a fully qualified and very experienced teacher and she led many of the activities for our children.
I hope you enjoyed visiting your children's classrooms and sharing their work. It was lovely to see so many of you take this opportunity and we will make this a regular event each half term to complement parents' evenings and reports to keep you informed of your children's progress.
We are hoping to produce a St Winifred's calendar which would involve taking photographs of the children for their birthday month. It would cost £8 and be a great gift for Christmas and a wonderful keepsake. If you do not want your child to be in the photos, could you
let the office know by Monday 7th November. The funds raised will go to the PTA.
We are starting a 'Take it Apart' club in the new year and would appreciate any donations of small household appliances, clocks etc that could be 'take apart' so the children learn about machinery and how it works. The items would probably not be able to be put back together again (although we will try!!) so only old things please!
We are also purchasing some new lego and meccano so if you have any that you would like to donate to increase our supply, we would be very grateful.
Thank you as ever, for your support of our lovely school. I wish you all a very happy half term break and look forward to seeing you again on Monday 7th November, 2016.
Best wishes
Jan Caddy
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Form 6 this week
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In Maths, we will be continuing with work on comparing and ordering fractions, reducing fractions to their lowest common denominators, converting mixed numbers to improper fractions and vice-versa and converting fractions into decimals using division.
In English, we will be continuing with our poetry unit, writing our performance poetry based on different themes (as we prepare for our 'Poetry slam' competition). We will be looking at the place of dialogue in poems as well as a variety of poetic techniques to improve our work, including rhythm and vivid language including powerful verbs, adjectives and imagery.
In Science, we will be beginning a new topic on electric
ity. We will start by reminding ourselves how simple circuits work by looking at how bulbs light, how switches work and revising key vocabulary for the topic.
In topic, we will be doing a comparative geography study this term - more details to be revealed in due course! And in R.S., as we begin the build up to Christmas, we will be looking at the concept of 'prophecy', particularly in relation to the Magi.
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Form 5 this week
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In English Form 5 will be spending time looking at significant authors. We are starting with Philip Pullman who wrote the "Northern Lights" trilogy.
If the children want to get ahead then I suggest they read Northern Lights over the half-term.
In Maths we will be looking at statistics. We will be learning how to interpret different graphs and getting our heads around different tables.
In Science we will be starting our new Science topic - Properties of Materials by testing the hardness of materials; their transparency and whether or not they are magnetic.
In History we will be studying the reasons why America became involved in WW1.
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Coming up in Form 1
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Maths: This week the children will be learning about how to tell the time. They will be looking at identifying which is the minute hand and which is the hour hand. They will learn to tell the time using o'clock and half past.
English: The children will be starting to look at their new topic of 'The Great Fire of London'. This week they will be learning about writing poems relating to this topic and to bonfire night. They will be focusing on writing acrostic poems using all the exciting words they can think of to describe each of these events!
Science: This half term the children will be looking at different materials. This week they will be investigating what many everyday objects are made from and discussing the reasons why. They will also be looking at what words we use to describe the features and properties of the different materials we use.
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Coming up for Form 3
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In English Form 3 will start a new topic looking at fiction stories from other cultures. We will be using Seasons of Splendour by Madhur Jaffrey and The Tiger Child by Joanna Troughton in this topic. The children will learn about prepositions and how a preposition links a noun or a pronoun to another word in the sentence.
Science this is all around rocks. We will revisit vocabulary that describes properties of materials. Explore 'what we know' and 'what we would like to know' about rocks. Acting as detectives Form 3 will go hunting for clues to help identify how materials that come from rocks are used in and around school.
In Maths this week, the focus will be back on addition and subtraction. The children will be learning mental strategies of adding and subtracting using partitioning.
In History Form 3 will continue exploring Ancient Egyptians, learning about all the different gods and goddesses and the talents they had.
In Geography we will start a new topic on 'Land Use'. Looking at maps and sketching maps of our local area the children will learn how maps came about, identify landmarks and compare a sketch map and a published map.
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School Choir:
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Please click on the song title for a copy of the lyrics to the songs we are currently learning
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Advance Dates:
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Friday 25th November
Flu Immunisation
Forms 1 to 3
Friday 9th December
School Theatre trip Cinderella,
Winchester
Wednesday 14th December
Carol Service & Nativity 2pm
Highfield Church
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In Form 2 this week
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English - We will begin a unit of work on information texts. We will recap the features of non-fiction texts and create our own fact sheet about Guy Fawkes. We will read and compare different information texts about pets. We will research and create our own information booklet about an unusual pet.
Our Maths topic this week is number sequences and fractions. We will identify multiples of 2, 5 and 10 and learn to recognise odd and even numbers. We will find halves and quarters of shapes and numbers.
This week in Science we will learn about simple forces. We will investigate how different materials can be changed by bending, squashing, twisting and stretching. We will experiment with different materials and make a clay pot by using these forces.
Topic- We will begin our new topic of Guy Fawkes and the Gunpowder Plot. We will find out about Guy Fawkes and make comparisons between life in the 17th Century and modern times. We will make firework pictures and design and make a 3D model of a firework.
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Reception and Preschool in the coming week
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This half term the children will be focusing on their understanding of the world including celebrations and our environment. This week we will be using the book Room on the Broom for our themed activities. We will be talking about the festivals we celebrate at this time of year.
In Reception our maths focus we will be on capacity and problem solving. Making some magical explosive potions in some investigation activities. We will be talking and writing about our predictions and investigations.
This week we will be introducing word walls.
In Preschool our maths topic is shapes and their properties.
Phonics of the week are 'c' and 'k'.
Letters and sound focus is instrumental sounds.
Please can your child bring in any clean, empty plastic sealable containers of any size, for this week's fun in Early years.
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Form 4 this week
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English - We will explore syllabic poems further where we look at themes, rhythms and syllabic patterns of Haikus, Cinquains and a Tanka or two, with the intention of creating our very own poems.
Maths - Form 4 will be choosing appropriate strategies for solving subtraction problems where we will focus on written and mental subtraction of 3 - 4 digit numbers and possibly some decimal places.
Science - What's Matter? States of Matter is our new science subject this term where we will be investigating the differences between solids, liquids and gases.
Topic - We start a new topic of Roman Britain and we will finding out where the Romans came from and how far their empire stretched across Europe, Africa and Asia. We will also look at where Roman towns and roads still exist.
RS - Why do people make pilgrimages? We look at places where people make long journeys to places of worship or important places and think about any pilgrimages that we have made.
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Clubs for the week beginning 7th November are
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MONDAY
Dance Club
with Miss Cutler. No formal dance wear required, children are expected to wear sports kit and appropriate footwear.
Miss Hamilton will be assisting the children before and after each group.
Group 1 Preschool + Reception 3.30pm to 4pm
Group 2 Form 1 and Form 2 4pm to 4.30pm
Homework Club for Forms 3 to 6 3.30pm to 4.10pm - please note later finish time
TUESDAY
Spanish Class for Forms 1, 2 and 3 from 8.15-8.45
Board Games
for Form 1 and Form 2 with Miss Tunmore 3.30pm to 4.15pm
Art & Photography Club for Forms 3 to 6 with Mr Papps 3.30pm to 4.30pm
Textiles Club for Forms 3 to 6 with Mrs Jolley 3.30pm to
4.45pm - please note later finish time
WEDNESDAY
Spanish Class for Forms 4, 5 and 6 from 8.15-8.45
JUDO wil Judo Jill
Form 1 and Form 2 from 3.40pm to 4.20pm
Forms 3 to 6 from 4.30pm to 5.15pm
Build it Club for Reception and Form 1 with Mrs Presland 3.30pm to 4.15pm
Recorder Club for Forms 2 and 3 with Mrs Baldwin 3.30pm to 4.15pm
Running Club for Forms 4 to 6 with Mr Pascoe and Mr Milton 3.30pm to 4.30pm
Homework Club for Forms 3 to 6 3.30pm to 4.10pm please note later finish time
THURSDAY
CHOIR
with Mrs Caddy from 3.30pm to 4.15pm.
FRIDAY
Homework Club for Forms 3 to 6 3.30pm to 4.10pm please note later finish time
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Have a wonderful half term break.