St Winifred's School
    View from the Window
                                                                  Spring Term number 13
                                                                  31st March 2017

Dear Parents,

It was lovely to see so many of you at our Swimming Gala and at our Teatime Concert this week - thank you for your support which is much appreciated by the staff and of course, the children.  In both events the enthusiasm shown by the children was immense - it was good to see great performances in the pool and in the hall!  Congratulations to all who took part.  

The Bunny Drive was a great success last Friday evening and our thanks go to Winifriends for organising this fun filled event.  

The children who went to see 'The Twits' at the Nuffield Theatre had a great time and the Forms 4 and 5 Cross Country Runners did really well at The Gregg School on Wednesday.  Very well done Team St Winifred! 

The summer menu has been sent home with the EYFS and Key Stage 1 for choices to be returned by Tuesday please.  Key Stage 2 pupils will make their selections during Form Time next week.  

There is no school for children next Friday but you will be pleased to hear that the teachers will still be working! We have a training day delivered by a specialist on Singapore Maths which you may have read about in the newspapers.  We are all looking forward to learning about this innovative approach to teaching and have organised a parents' information evening on Monday 22nd May at 7 pm. I do hope that you can join us so we can all work together to inspire our children in numeracy skills.  

The March grades will be emailed home next week so keep an eye on your Inboxes.  

We will be having an Achievement Assembly on Thursday so please send any certificates, medals etc in by Wednesday.  We love to hear about anything the children are doing outside of school so please encourage them to take part.  

As per last week's newsletter, we had our first 'Lockdown' exercise this morning in preparation for a proper drill. The children were excellent and listened carefully to all the instructions given.  

Don't forget next week's Plantagenet charity day  which is a non uniform day on Thursday.  They will be raising money for Simon Says which supports bereaved children.  A representative from the charity will be coming to talk to the children in assembly on Thursday.  

Some of you have been asking about uniform and we have been working on changing suppliers.  There will be more news early next week as we fully confirm arrangements!  I think the changes will be much easier for our parents.  

Just a reminder that there will be no clubs next week and the new range of summer clubs will be published in the first week of the new term for signing up.  

This is our last newsletter before we finish on Thursday 6th April.  I wish you all a very Happy Easter break and look forward to seeing you again on Monday 24th April.  

Jan Caddy 
Form 6 this week
As we complete the Spring term, we will be embarking on a trip to Wagamama on Tuesday morning along with Form 5 (a belated post entrance exam treat!) as well as enjoying an Easter assembly on Wednesday and our Plantagenet fund raising day on Thursday! 
 
Looking ahead, booster club for SATs will be starting on Wednesday 26th April, 3.30 - 4.30pm and running for 3 weeks (note that this includes during SATs week itself, week beginning 8th May).  We will be focusing on reading, grammar and Maths skills in these sessions. 
 
In English next week, we will be concluding work on our newspaper articles all about our recent Swimming Gala and continuing to practise our reading, spelling and grammar skills (look out for some papers coming home for the Easter break!). 
 
In Maths, we will be revising using past SATs arithmetic and reasoning papers and addressing our progress against targets using recent work we have completed. 
 
In Science, we will be completing our 'Animals including humans' topic with an end of unit assessment. And in topic, we will be looking at how trade has changed in the UK since Tudor and Victorian times.  And in R.S., we will be reflecting on this week's Easter assembly and how it consolidates all our learning about communion this half term. 
Form 5 this week

So finally, the end of another term drifts into view and what a busy half-term it has been.
To finish off the term we are spending one final week on looking at converting between different units of measure.  We will also be looking at problem solving around measure.
 
In English we are having a grammar focus all week as well as concluding our work on report writing. We will finish off writing our reports about renewable energy sources.
 
In Science we will complete our topic on Animals Including Humans by finding out about life expectancy amongst different animals and comparing them with other animal groups.
 
In Geography we will spend more time working on four-figure and six-figure grid references as the children found them tricky last week.
 
Have a good Easter!
 
Coming up in Form 1
Maths: This week the children will be looking at identifying the difference between a range of numbers. They will use  different resources and strategies to help them work out t heir answers.

English: To conclude our topic of travelling around the world we will be looking at stories from other cultures. The children will be recalling any stories that they already know and also getting the opportunity to hear a range of other stories from other cultures. 

Geography: This week the children will be concluding their topic of different continents and oceans of the world by zooming in on Southampton and looking at some of the different human and physical features that our city has to offer.  

Coming up for Form 3
In Science this week, Form 3 will discover that plants disperse their seeds in different ways. What clues do seed sizes, shapes, weights and textures give us about how they are spread? 
 
In Maths this week, Form 3 will be spending time working on problem solving questions related to number, time and money. They will work their way through various activities to understand the worded problems and show their working out.
 
In English this week, we will continue looking at recounts and finishing off their direct speech conversations between the characters described in the two stories read. Using our checklist we will make sure we have added all the information to write a recount that includes conjunctions, prepositions and time connectives.
This Week:


Tuesday 4th April
Form 5 and 6 trip to Wagamama

Thursday 6th April
Plantagenet Charity Day
Non uniform day
End of Term 3.30pm
No After School Care

Friday 7th April
INSET DAY
School Closed to pupils
Advance Dates:

Monday 24th April
Start of Summer Term

Saturday 13th May
Grounds Day 

15th - 17th May
Form 5 and 6 residential trip

Wednesday 21st June
Sports Day
1.30pm at The Gregg School

Friday 7th July
Speech Day


 
In Form 2 this week
This week Easter arrives in Form 2. We will retell the Christian Easter story and find out about Easter traditions. We will make cards, baskets and bonnets for our Easter parade. We will use our knowledge of directional vocabulary to complete a treasure hunt and hopefully a fluffy visitor might have been there first. (This is top secret information - please don't spoil the surprise for the children!)

Advance notice
Next term our topic will be Victorians. We will be learning about the life of Victorian children and to bring this to life we will be having a Victorian school day where Mrs Baldwin would love the children to dress up in a Victorian child's costume. We will act out being Victorian school children and compare school life then and now. Mrs Baldwin is looking forward to being a Victorian school teacher - she is practising not smiling! The cost of an outfit is £10 approx.from Amazon. The date is to be confirmed but will be about the third week of term. 

  
Reception and Preschool in the coming week

As requested by one of our children, we will be talking about parties and celebrations, so we will be  reading 'Harry and the Dinosaurs have a Happy Birthday' by Ian Whybrow .  We will also be focusing on the Easter story and completing lots of Easter themed activities.  The children will be walking to our local Waitrose to buy hot cross bun for snack on Tuesday 4 April.  

In Reception the children will be concluding their topic on dinosaurs, sharing with others what they have learnt.  In Maths the children will begin to know months of the year, including important months, for example birthdays and celebrated festivals.  

In Preschool we will discuss a range of feelings from happy to sad.

In Maths we will be comparing weights and sizes of parcels.

Our letters and sounds focus is: Body percussion.
Our phonic of the week is: 't'

Don't forget your child's Easter bonnet for our parade on Wednesday.
 
Early Years Easter Holiday homework!!
In preparation for the new term theme, please can you provide a picture of your child as a baby for our 'Guess the baby' quiz. The children will have to guess which picture is what child.
We would also like your child to take a picture of themselves showing signs of Spring.  It would be great if this could be uploaded onto your child's Tapestry learning journal or brought in to show the first week back.
 
Form 4 this week
English: We start a new topic this week on Twisted Fairly Tales and we will continue this after the Easter break. We will read the story of the Pea and the Princess and begin to explore and write fairy tales with a twisted point of view. In this first week we will look verb tenses and pronouns .

Maths: We continue perfecting our division skills using chunking method to solve three digit numbers divided by 1 digit. We will be finding answers with remainders and applying our knowledge of division to real life problems.

Science: We will have fun this week creating musical instruments and creating soundproofing ear defenders which will be essential if the instruments are out of tune. Form 4 will explore a range of sound insulating materials, as well as materials that create a range of sounds and different pitches.
 


There are NO after school clubs this week

Have a good weekend. 

 

Mrs Caddy

Headteacher

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