Simon Balle All-through School Larch Newsletter SPRING TERM
22.3.19
Notices from the Primary Phase
Thank you to the year 2 and 3 parents who attended the meeting of the soon to be launched (September 19) ‘KS2 Explorers Club’. We will be sharing the updates with you in due course and the slides from the presentation will be available on the website very soon. Miss Williams and Miss Pearce will be doing a year 1 phonics assessment talk at 2pm on the 4th April. This will give you vital information regarding the assessment that will take place in the summer term. The talk will be followed by the Year 1 assembly. Please note we are allocating 2 spaces per child to come and watch.
Inside this issue:
Reception News
2
Year 1 News
2
Year 2 News
3
Year 3 News
3
Attendance
4
Values Awards
4
Dates for the Diary 5 From the library
6
PSA News
7
Our ‘Green Fingers’ team, with our site manager Mr Tweed, will be starting some exciting projects in the Larch garden on the 30th March between 9-11am. All welcome, please come and join us!
We raised a fantastic £1950 for comic relief, so a big thank you for all your contributions I’m sure it will make a big difference.
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SIMON BALLE ALL-THROUGH SCHOOL
Reception News It was lovely to see you all at parent conversations this week, thank you for the super attendance! The children have had a busy few weeks since half term. We have seen lots of children showing our new value of Courage, especially in PE where we have been using the equipment to climb over, under and through. In literacy we have used the book ‘Oi Dog’ to learn about rhyme, ‘Dear Zoo’ to develop our imagination skills by thinking of our own animals and this week we have been singing the song ‘5 Little Speckled Frogs’ whilst learning about amphibians. In maths we have been learning how to collect information and show the answers in different ways, this included tally charts, pictograms and sorting hoops. We learnt about length and weight by measuring different animals using different methods e.g. cubes and balance scales. This week we have learnt about subtracting by having visual aids, using equipment such as cubes, number lines and 100 squares and writing number sentences. In phonics we have almost finished phase 3 and the children have been exposed to the following digraphs and trigraphs: ng, qu, th, sh, ch, ai, ee, igh, oa, oo (long and short), oi, ow, ear and air. Please keep practising using these when reading and writing at home. We have been focussing lots on handwriting recently and have finished the long ladder letters: l, i, t, u, j and y. We have now started the curly caterpillar letters: c and a. Next week will be o. Please get your child to show you how they form these letters in cursive.
Year 1 News We have kick started our new topic of sport by linking it with our English work, looking at non-fictions book. The children are working hard to create their own information books all about the Olympics. We have been identifying the features of non-fiction books to ensure that we have everything needed. We had a lot of fun on Tuesday working out the difference between what is a fact and what is in an opinion. As you can imagine, ‘ Year 1 is the best year group’ was a tricky fact or opinion to work out! In maths the children have been practising counting in 2’s, 5’s and 10’s. It has been lovely to see children becoming more confident as the week went by to count in 2’s, 5’s and 10’s from a given number. Please encourage your children to keep practising this at home. We then began learning about arrays. The children were practising placing counters into ordered columns and rows, to show how many groups of a number there were, e.g 25 was shown with 5 groups of 5. We then began to match the array with the addition number sentences, such as 5+5+5+5+5=25. In science we are continuing to look at seasonal changes, discussing the changes taking place as we begin to move towards Spring. Thank you for ensuring your child have brought in wellies as it has enabled us to continue our learning outside. The children, as you can imagine, have loved it.
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SIMON BALLE ALL-THROUGH SCHOOL
Year 2 News In maths we are exploring fractions of shape and number. We have been exploring this practically this week, looking at fractions of shapes. Next week we will be focusing on fractions of amounts, so please look for opportunities to revisit this at home. E. g. cutting an orange in half or quarters. In English, we are enjoying looking at different non-fiction texts. Our focus has been sharks and we will be creating our own class book about sharks, using all the features that we have learned about. We have begun our topic on The Great Fire of London, which the children are excited about, although they are not keen on life in the 17th century! We will be developing our knowledge of this topic and please ask your experts for regular updates. Our science topic is Animals and their Habitats. Please encourage your children to look for different habitats throughout the week and discuss with them the suitability of the habitat for the animals that live there. Thank you for providing wellies which we are already enjoying using as part of our outside learning. We look forward to seeing you on Tuesday 19th March for our Information session.
Year 3 News Our new topic is in full swing, having completed a chocolate tasting experience, learning about the history of chocolate, finding out about all of the countries that are involved in the history and have even discussed Fair Trade and the importance of buying these products. In English, we started the half term with character descriptions, looking closely at Charlie and The Chocolate Factory’s characters, brilliantly created by Roald Dahl. We then thought about the type of characters we could add into the story and described them using our Year 3 grammar! We then have progressed onto instructions, where the children first wrote instructions for making pancake (appropriately planned to coincide with Shrove Tuesday) and then this week, letting their imaginations run wild, just like Willy Wonka’s, creating and writing instructions for their own creation of sweet treats. In maths, we have looked at perimeter and fractions over the past 3 weeks. We have been working on finding the perimeter of regular and irregular shapes and then this week we have been recapping what fractions are and how fraction pairs can make a whole. Year 3 have also been working hard, adding and subtracting fractions. A tricky concept, but they have risen to the challenge! In our science lessons, we have been looking at animals (including humans). We started off by looking at the diet humans need and then compared this with other animals. We have also looked at the 3 types of skeletons, sorting animals into the correct skeleton types and looking at the pros and cons of having these types of skeletons. Ask your children what the 3 types are called.
SPRING TERM
SIMON BALLE ALL-THROUGH SCHOOL
Dance Club The first Wednesday back after half term, Miss Ridley’s Dance Club represented Simon Balle at the Hertford and Ware School Sports Partnership Dance Festival. They performed a dance to ‘A Cover is Not The Book’ from the new Mary Poppins soundtrack, linking to the theme of ‘Fairy Tales and Fables’. The boys and girls involved demonstrated fantastic performance skills, and most importantly, smiled from ear to ear the whole way through! You should all be very proud of yourselves. Well done! Thank you to everyone involved and thank you to all the adults who provided costumes and came to support us on the night!
Attendance Our attendance over the last 3 weeks: Hedgehogs:
93%
Foxes:
93%
Squirrels:
91%
Deer:
93%
Rabbits:
98%
Wrens:
99%
Badgers:
93%
Robins:
98%
Please ensure your child attends school and is punctual every day.
Values Awards Reception
Year Two
Hedgehogs
Foxes
Joe V, Phoebe & Daisy
Beau & Mason
Squirrels
Deer
Maiya & Mason
Mason & Isabella
Year One
Year Three
Rabbits
Wrens
Rachel, Cara & Henry
Harry B, Zachary & Ziva
Badgers
Robins
Preston & Zach
Jude & Olly
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Simon Balle All-through School
Dates for your diary
Saturday 23 March
Strings and sing evening
Friday 29 March
Reception & KS1 Disco
Saturday 30 March
Green Fingers tidy up of the Larch Garden 9-11am
Quiz Night 7pm Tuesday 2 April
Year 2 Strings project performance 5:30pm
Thursday 4 April
Y2 Windsor Castle Trip
Thursday 4 April
Y1 phonics meeting and parents assembly 2pm please note change of time
Friday 5 April
End of term (12pm finish)
Tuesday 23 April
Term starts
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Simon Balle All-through School
From the library‌ Winners of the World Book Day Photographic Competition 2019 Congratulations to all the winners listed below who were successful in the competition to have a photograph taken reading in the most original place. They were awarded 2 House Points, a book and a sticker each. Hedgehogs: Angus, Daisy, Gemma, Isabella, Lucas and Orson. Squirrels: Dominic, Dorothea, Joe, Stanley and Thomas Badgers: Annie, Elliot and Josh Rabbits: Aurelia, Henry, Jacob and Samuel Deer:
Eloise Foxes: Cian, James, Thomas and Willow Wrens: Dylan Robins: Jude, Max and Summer Thanks to all who entered – everyone gained a House Point and a sticker. In total we had 48 students taking part! Miss Emery and Mrs Syme _____________________________________________________________________________________ Dates for your diary Please return all Primary library loans on the following dates. This will allow us to make checks on the books and sort out the many overdues. Thank you for your support. Year 3: Monday 25 March
Year 2: Tuesday 26 March Year 1: Thursday 28 March Reception: Friday 29 March Mrs Syme
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Simon Balle All-through School
PSA News EYFS/KS1 Disco – 29/3/19, 3.30-5pm Tickets for the EYFS/KS1 Disco are now on sale via the PSA website. Ticket price includes drinks and snacks. Please visit: simonballepsa.org.uk The event starts straight after school and finishes at 5pm. The children will change into their party clothes in their classrooms before heading to the Larch hall so parents do not need to arrive until the 5pm pick up time. Please avoid sending in fancy dress costumes.
If your child would usually attend Play Aloud, please confirm arrangements with them for this day. If any of you parents / carers are able to help out during the event please make this clear when you purchase tickets. Unfortunately, younger siblings are not able to accompany helpers. Please note: Ticket sales WILL CLOSE on 26th March. Please purchase your ticket BEFORE this date to avoid disappointment. Tickets can not be purchased from the office as the online form requires completion in order for your child/ren to attend. GREENFINGERS @ THE LARCH CENTRE – 30/3/19, 27/4/19 We are sure you will all have noticed the new signs of life in the playground, following the planting of thousands of daffodils and tulip bulbs in October last year. Continuing the gardening project, there will be a maintenance morning on Saturday March 30 9-11am. Parents and children are welcome to help weed and tidy the beds in preparation for more planting in April. March-April is the perfect sunflower seed planting time. If you are planting sunflowers at home, please pop in an extra seed to be brought to school at the end of April... On Saturday 27 April 8:30-12, the big, annual Saturdads and Supermums event takes place. Green Fingers are in discussion with the school as to potential projects which will involve planting, painting and constructing. It is a wonderful community event which needs lots of volunteers please follow our Facebook page and watch this space for further information https://m.facebook.com/groups/365408957189652?tsid=0.987718436121942&source=result Green Fingers are always hopeful for both physical volunteers as well as monetary donations. If you are able to contribute financially, even in a small way, please do so on ParentPay, via the specific Green Fingers option. Thank you in advance! SLICE OF SUMMER - 6/7/19 1-4pm Planning for the 2019 summer fair has started. We would like to offer stalls to families of Simon Balle before releasing pitches to external stallholders. If you are interested in taking a pitch, please express your interest by 5/5/9 to penny@simonballepsa.org.uk with a brief description of what you would like to offer.
MANIC CERAMICS Our pre Mother’s Day Manic Ceramics event was enjoyed by a good number of children from all year groups. It was lovely to see how much thought and effort the children put into their creations, we are sure they will feel very proud when their gifts are received. Your orders will be available to pick up after school from the library on Tuesday 26th March. We would like to thank all those who gave up their time to support this lovely event.