This week, the children have started thinking about Resilience as their latest Learning Disposition. You can read more about how you can support your child with this on the website here. https://www.pegasusacademytrust.org/atwood-primary-school/information/dispositions-for-learning
The school also marked Remembrance Day with a two-minute silence on Wednesday and enjoyed a great class assembly from Indigo Class learning about the Romans and the Iceni.
Nursery had such a busy week this week! The children kicked off their week by recapping their first phonics sound, ‘s’, and exploring their brand-new phonics area filled with ‘s’ objects. Nursery also started their shape unit and learned all about circles. The children spotted circles all around Nursery, played What’s in the Bag? and practised how to draw them while working on their pencil grip using “nip it, flip it, and grip it” to help us. For Remembrance Day, the learned why the day is so important and painted beautiful poppies. In story time, the children read I Can Only Draw Worms and learned that accidently cutting a worm in half does not actually make two worms! Nursery also loved their new class story, Brown Bear, Brown Bear and loved joining in with the story. To top off a brilliant week, the children had a special visit from real owls! They listened to their sounds, asked great questions, and watched them fly right over their heads, making the teachers so proud of how quietly and respectfully they sat to avoid scaring the owls.
In Reception the children have been reading ‘The Naughty Bus’ and comparing quantities and amounts.
https://www.pegasusacademytrust.org/news/atw-reception-buses-and-the-comparison-of-quantities
This week, Year One have been writing about what they would take with them to the moon, inspired by the story of ‘Whatever Next?’. They wrote two sentences and then joined them together with the conjunction ‘and’. In maths, they have started learning about subtraction, using part part whole models to find the answer to subtraction problems. The children have begun to look at the five senses. This week, they went on a listening walk around the school and recorded the different sounds they heard. Finally, in history, they examined photos of the local area, looking for clues that would tell them if the photo was of Sanderstead 100 years ago, or the present day.
In Year Two this week the children have enjoyed planning and making a recipe for Mr Twit’s spaghetti. They have been using imperative verbs and expanded noun phrases to write commands that explain the method for their recipe. In maths, the children have continued their learning about subtraction, thinking about using the inverse to find related facts that link to number bonds within 10. The children have identified the stages of the human life cycle in science and in thematic they have discovered some of the changes Henry VIII made whilst he was king, such as establishing the Church of England. They are looking forward to visiting Hampton Court Palace next week to bring their thematic learning alive!
This week, Year Three kick-started their new English topic on Victoria sponge recipe writing by exploring the history of a Victorian High Tea, learning about the Duchess of Bedford, one of Queen Victoria’s ladies-in-waiting, and how she accidentally invented this afternoon tradition. After discussing what would have been served at these grand events, such as exotic fruits and fancy chinaware, the children enjoyed tasting home-baked Victoria sponge, cucumber sandwiches, and milky tea! Building on this inspiration, the classes spent the rest of their English lessons using imperative verbs and adverbs to craft powerful instructional sentences for baking a Victoria sponge. Elsewhere, in spelling they continued exploring prefixes with a focus on ‘dis-‘. In Whole Class Reading, the children finished the emotional book Where the Poppies Now Grow, analysing its rhyming patterns and reflecting on the story of two young soldiers. Over in Maths, the classes wrapped up their work on adding 3-digit values by exchanging across both the tens and hundreds columns, focusing closely on problem-solving structures and ‘proving’ their mathematical understanding through written explanations and the expanded column method. Finally, in their thematic lessons, the children investigated the local geography of Crystal Palace Station, comparing how the area has changed from the Industrial Revolution to the present day and examining how the evolving needs of local people have shaped land use over time, while in RE they continued to explore how monotheistic faiths, specifically Judaism and Islam, recognise and understand God.
This week in Year Four, the children have been studying the book ‘Race to the Frozen North and using it as inspiration for wiring sentences with subordinate clauses. In maths, the children have been subtracting 3 and 4 digit numbers with more than one exchange. In science the children have been intrigued by their ongoing experiment (eggsperiment) seeing the effect of different liquids on eggshells. The egg in vinegar has started to lose its shell while the egg in milk is starting to go mouldy and smell. Delightful! In their thematic learning the children have continued learning about the Romans and Indigo class shared a lovely assembly all about Boudicca and her Iceni warriors fighting the Romans.
This week, Year Five have been learning about relative clauses using the relative pronouns who and which. They generated their own sentences using relative clauses and embedded clauses based on their English text Beowulf. The children have moved on in maths this week, starting a multiplication unit, looking at identifying factors and common factors. In Science, the children learnt how Isaac Newton discovered the force of gravity and the three laws of motion. In PSHE the children have been learning to understand what a positive body image is and how having a negative image isn’t good for overall well-being. In music, Year 5 have been learning their Christmas song which they are looking forward to sharing with you all soon! In RE the children learnt about how humanists care for the environment and were given scenarios and discussed how a humanist might respond to that scenario. In whole class reading this week the children have been learning about the poem ‘In Flander’s Fields’ which helped to develop their understanding of Remembrance. In thematic the children looked at the physical and human features of Scandinavia and Britain to further develop their understanding of why the Vikings chose to move to Britain.
In English, Year six have continued developing their instructional writing skills in preparation for writing their own detailed mummification instructions. This week, the children have been focusing on using parenthesis, particularly brackets and dashes, to add extra information and detail to their writing. They have also been exploring fronted adverbials to help sequence their instructions clearly, alongside technical vocabulary to ensure their writing is precise, informative and engaging.
In Whole Class Reading, Year six have begun reading ‘Once’ by Morris Gleitzman, a powerful story about a young Jewish boy named Felix growing up during the Second World War. The children have been exploring Felix’s character and the beginning of his journey at an orphanage in Poland. They have been developing their inference skills, using evidence from the text to support their ideas about Felix’s personality, thoughts and feelings.
In Maths, the children have continued their decimals unit, focusing on multiplying and dividing decimals by integers. The children have been exploring different calculation methods to develop their accuracy and confidence, before applying their knowledge to a range of reasoning and word problems.
Finally, in Thematic, Year six have had tremendous fun bringing their learning about Ancient Egyptian mummification to life! The children have been mummifying tomatoes, using them to represent human bodies and carefully following the stages of the ancient process. They made incisions, removed the seeds to represent organs, used bicarbonate of soda and salt to help dry out the tomatoes and wrapped them in layers to replicate the mummification process. It was a wonderfully hands-on experience and they are now eagerly waiting to discover how successfully the tomatoes have been preserved!
Sports News
This week our Girls’ football team had their first match against Forestdale. The team put on an excellent show and ran out 6-0 winners with a hattrick from Olivia and another hattrick from Lara. Well done girls!
On Thursday, the boys were also away having a football match against Selsdon. In a hard-fought match, the boys eventually triumphed 2-1 with goals from Zach and Asher. Well done boys!
Mufti Monday
On Monday, the children are invited to come to school dressed in as much blue as they can muster or mufti if you can’t find any blue. This is in aid of supporting Diabetes UK which is one of the school’s chosen charities this year. The schools is asking for a suggested donation of £2. Did you know that this Saturday is World Diabetes Day where organisations are highlighting that early identification of diabetes helps to reduce complications as well as seeking to expand access to quality care and treatment?
FOAP Fireworks.
The final figures are in for the Fireworks event and FOAP are pleased to announce that the event managed to raise £9000. These funds along with all other funds raised by FOAP will go towards projects that directly support the children in our school. Many thanks if you attended the event or gave up your time to help deliver such a successful evening.
DATES FOR THE DIARY
Please check these dates as the list is regularly updated.
Friday 13th November: Indigo Class assembly
Monday 16th November: Diabetes UK Mufti Fundraiser
Friday 20th November: Cyan Class assembly
Friday 20th November: Year 4 Roman Workshop
Friday 20th November: Year 2 Hampton Court Palace trip
Wednesday 25th November: Year 3 Victoria & Albert Museum trip
Friday 27th November: Amber Class assembly
Wednesday 2nd December: Year 1 church visit.
Wednesday 2nd December: Rocksteady Concert
Friday 4th December: Panto performances.
Friday 4th December: FOAP Christmas Fayre
Tuesday 8th: Year 4 & 6 Christmas production (am and pm performances- details to follow)
Thursday 10th: Year 3 & 5 Christmas production (am and pm performances- details to follow)
Friday 11th December: Reception Christmas Production (am and pm performances- details to follow)
Tuesday 15th December: Key Stage One Nativity (am and pm performances- details to follow)
Thursday 17th December; Year 5 Viking workshop
Friday 18th December: End of Term
Monday 4th January: Back to school
