Little School

Little School Highlights

Home Learning and Class Dojo

By Miss Harris, Head of Little School

What a year it’s been, but we can’t let the year end go by without looking at all the positive elements that have been achieved both by teachers and students. Eighteen months ago if we had even talked about Zooming or delivering an online curriculum I think I, as many teachers, would have screamed. It has certainly been a learning curve for all involved. I think at times the children have taught us, as their skills with modern technology, far outweighs ours.

On a serious note, I would like to thank all of my staff for embracing the changes, getting stuck in and learning as we go along. I feel we can all feel a great deal of pride for the way we have conducted ourselves, and ensured our utmost that the children in Little School could still access the curriculum in a meaningful way. This has been largely due to the introduction of a fantastic teaching and communication tool called Class Dojo. I am sure all parents agree it has been a fabulous resource to us all throughout the periods of lockdown and as an easy day to day resource to contact the teacher rather than emailing.

We have been able to set and mark work, reply to messages almost instantly, and upload videos to assist with the teaching of subjects.

We will be continuing to utilise this fantastic tool in future years and also continue to develop the ways in which we use it, as I know the children and parents love to see the children’s news as and when it is happening and enjoy seeing their children’s photographs from celebration assembly on a Friday.

Thank you to everybody for the last 12 months, it has brought a whole new sense of meaning to the word ‘community’ for me. Here’s to a more ‘normal’ school year next year.

Year 2 Write to Chris Quirk

In the Lent Term, Year 2 learnt how to write letters. As part of this, the classes read a story called ‘Alexander and the Curly Wurly Caterpillar’ by Christopher Quirk.

Mrs Pye, Miss Harris and Mrs Pythian set the children the task of writing a letter to Mr Quirk asking questions about his book. The children then sent their letters via email to him. The children were delighted when he wrote back to them and it gave them a real purpose for writing.

Year 2 Go Back in Time

The Year 2s enjoyed a fabulous day in November learning about what school was like for Victorian children.

They all came to School dressed in traditional Victorian clothing and were met by their governesses for the day (Mrs Pye and Miss Harris) who were in full strict character! (Although they couldn’t maintain that for long!) The children experienced writing in slates, completed some arithmetic and copied lines in full cursive style. They also got to play with some Victorian toys and watch clips about what life was like in that era. It was a really fun and educational day for all involved.

Christmas Production –A Twinkly Tree Top Tale

This year’s Little School Production was ‘A Twinkly Tree Top Tale’, a Christmas show with a difference as for the first time we didn’t have a live audience. However, the children were just amazing and we were so proud of every single one of them.

Directed by Miss Harris with some musical support from Mr Shannon it saw the children in Reception, Year 1 and Year 2 performing separately in their year group bubbles. We then had the concert ‘stitched’ together into one production which families could enjoy together at home via a link on Vimeo.

The musical talents of Little School were, as always, fully on display and despite the fact they were performing to an empty room, their enthusiasm and energy was electrifying.

All the children acted, sang and danced beautifully and had real determination to do their very best and spread Christmas cheer to the school community. The children’s mission was successfully accomplished.

Year 2 Adventure to Knowsley Safari Park

The Year 2 pupils were lucky enough to visit Knowsley Safari Park in June. They had been studying ‘Safari’ as their Humanities topic in school, so this was a great support to their knowledge.

They started the day with a talk about herbivores, carnivores and omnivores, learning lots of new facts. They continued the day by attending the sea lion show which they all thoroughly enjoyed. After a break for lunch, the children took to the coach and excitedly travelled through the ‘car friendly’ route of the park. They were lucky enough to see the antelopes, rhinos, ostriches, monkeys (from a distance), deer, bison, lions and much more.

A fantastic time was had by all!

Little School Highlights continued

The Queen writes to Year 1

By Mr Smith, Year 1 Teacher

During Lent term, the children in Year 1 read "The Queen's Hat" by Steve Antony. In the story one of the Queen's hats gets blown away and flies all over London, flying past lots of London's most famous landmarks.

The story tied in perfectly with not only our Literacy work, but also our Geography topic about London. The children loved the story and did a whole half term of writing work based on it. Amongst other things the children created a missing poster to help try and find the Queen's hat — using lots of adjectives to describe it so people know what to look for — designed a new hat for the Queen, wrote letters offering the Queen their new hat to replace her lost one and also designed postcards showing different London landmarks. The children's work was packaged up and sent off to the Queen and the children were delighted to receive a letter from Her Majesty thanking them for their work.

Summer Production – A Theme of Hope

By Miss Harris, Head of Little School

‘Hope’ was a theme that I thought was very appropriate for our summer concert this year. Hope is a word that has kept us going throughout the last 18 months and I wanted the children to think careful about their hopes for the future.

Each year group contributed with a variety of songs, poems and paintings and we were treated to an afternoon of pure delight. Songs included: This is me, Ain’t No Mountain High Enough, Happy, Joy and Somewhere Over The Rainbow. Here’s to hopefully welcoming you all back for ‘live’ performances next year.

A wonderful year in Reception

By Ms Bentley-Jones, Reception Teacher

It has been a busy and productive year in Reception, every week has brought new learning experiences and lots of fun! From healthy eating workshops with the Very Hungry Caterpillar to visits to our Forest School we have made the most of our time in School. Even during our periods of Remote Learning, the children were fully engaged in phonics and maths activities, outdoor physical tasks and lots of finding out about the world around them.

Our contribution to the Christmas concert was a great success, dancing Santas and hand-jiving Christmas trees will live long in our memory! We were lucky enough to fit in a long-awaited visit to Chester Zoo in the summer term and our Sports Day was a true highlight in an extraordinary year.

We are so proud of the children who have shown great resilience under sometimes difficult circumstances and reminded us all to keep smiling, keep laughing and keep learning.

A trip to

By Mr Shannon, Year 1 Teacher

As a special end of year treat, the children of Reception and Year 1 (along with the staff) went on a wonderful day out to Chester Zoo.

The children had the amazing opportunity to explore the enormous Chester Zoo site, visiting many different animals in their habitats. They also took part in a ‘Curious Creatures’ workshop, which was housed in the Learning Centre. During this session, the children were involved in an in-depth discussion about different animals and creatures which have curious or unique features. This included learning about what rhinoceros horns are made from!

Each of the children was asked to try and identify different objects, from peacock feathers to giraffe hooves and dung. They then had to sort animals from different tables into one of five options; large, fast, underwater, colourful or nocturnal. Everyone thoroughly enjoyed these sessions, and undoubtedly learned something new!

Following on from these workshops, the children then had the opportunity to continue their tours of the zoo, seeing many different animals. A particular favourite on the day were the lions, who were busily lazing in the lovely weather.

The Reception and Year 1 children and staff would like to thank all those parents who were able to offer their support during the trip; it is greatly appreciated.