Newsletter Week 17

Over the last decade, The Princess of Wales has spent time looking into how experiences in early childhood are often the root cause of today’s hardest social challenges, such as addiction, family breakdown, poor mental health, suicide and homelessness.

As we are all aware, what we experience in our early years, from conception to the age of five, shapes the developing brain, which is why positive physical, emotional, and cognitive development during this period is so crucial. It is a time when the building blocks are established, laying foundations that help provide greater resilience to deal with future adversity. Her Royal Highness is committed to this crucial cause, but only by working together can we bring about positive, lasting change for generations to come.

This week saw the launch of ‘What Shapes Us’, you can watch this stunning animation about Layla by clicking on the following links What

Shapes UsLayla's Story and Early Childhood Explained - The Developing Brain

During early childhood, from pregnancy to the age of five, our brains develop at an amazing rate – faster than at any other time in our lives. Our experiences, relationships, and surroundings at that very young age, shape the rest of our lives. This is when we start to understand the world in which we live. How to manage our

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Newsletter No: 17

Friday 3rd February 2023

emotions, build relationships with the people around us, believe in ourselves, develop resilience against adversity and have trust in others. Providing strong support for children, parents and carers during these years is essential and can have a life-changing impact. Because, if we can build a supportive, nurturing world around children and those caring for them, we can make a huge difference to the physical and mental health and happiness of generations to come. This is such a brilliant campaign shining a spotlight on the importance of outstanding Early Years education for all children.

Next week from 6-12 February 2023, schools, families and communities across the UK will be taking part in Children’s Mental Health Week. This year’s theme is Let’s Connect. Let’s Connect is about

joyful thing they have noticed that day and finally the week will finish with Give, where wellbeing champions will hand children a card that will have a smiley face and positive message written on it to each pupil at the end of Friday’s assembly so that can take this positivity home with them. Every child in school will be given the opportunity to write a positive message on these cards in class at the beginning of the week. This afternoon I received a visit from Conkers who had made a short film about doughnuts to show me the different varieties, shape and more importantly make a request for the use of my credit card so that they can visit a local doughnut shop next week to make a purchase. Apparently, some of the children have never tasted a doughnut before so there is a lot of excitement about this shopping trip.

How could I possibly refuse such a request? I’m just hoping the staff explain the meaning of moderation to the children prior to making their purchases otherwise I‘ll have some explaining to do when Mrs Johnston, Director of Finance receives a copy of my credit card statement!

DIARY FOR WEEK COMMENCING 6th February 2023

School Council

Year 1 Lexia

Year 1 Ball Skills

Year 2 & 3 European Culture

Year 2 Cricket*

Year 2IT

Year 3 & 3 Football*

Year 3 Cookery

Year 1 Football*

Year 2 STEM (cancelled)

Year 2 Tag Rugby

Year 3 Swimming

Year 3 Tennis*

Year 2 & 3 Dance Club*

making meaningful connections for all, during Children’s Mental Health Week and beyond. People thrive in communities, and this connection is vital for our wellbeing. When we have healthy connections to family, friends and others this can support our mental health and our sense of wellbeing. When our need for rewarding social connections is not met, we can sometimes feel isolated and lonely which can have a negative impact on our mental health. Next week we will be doing The Five Ways to Wellbeing daily challenges in school. This starts with Connect in Monday’s assembly where the children will be encouraged to say hello and talk to someone in school they don’t know. Keep Learning, the children will learn about the name of their house and its history. Be Active, wellbeing champions will visit classrooms in the morning and encourage everyone to dance to a favourite song. Take Notice, children will be asked to talk about one

We have such a busy last week of this half of term next week. There is a huge amount of excitement in Year 2 and 3 as they will be heading off to Young Voices at Sheffield Arena on Thursday. I look forward to telling you more about our trip in next week’s newsletter.

Tonight I will be comparing the FoSP Curry and Quiz evening in the Dining Hall. I look forward to seeing many of you there for what I know will be a fabulous evening.

Wishing you all a lovely weekend.

Year 1 Construction

Year 1 Football*

Year 1 Cricket

Year 2 & 3 Choir

Year 1 Board Games

Year 1 Tag Rugby

Year 2 Tennis* (cancelled)

Year 2 Art (cancelled)

Year 3 Netball (cancelled)

Year 3 Environment (cancelled)

Year 1 Wellbeing

Year 1 Street Dance*

Year 2 & 3 Football*

Year 3 Board Games

Year 2 & 3 Film

Notice Board House Points Trophy

PE Award

• William (3C)

• Elizabeth (3S)

• Erin (1A)

WALMGATE

Music Award

• Freya (3S)

• Molly (3M)

VALUE CHAMPIONS

• Henry (RC)

• Angus (RP)

• India & Siri (RJ)

• Hector (1A)

• Arlo (1E)

• Luke (1C)

• Charlotte (2P)

• Joseph (2H)

• Emma (2J)

• Harriet (3S)

• Novem (3M)

• Caleb (3C)

LEARNING SUPERHEROS

• Henry, Rory, Taymour & Taran (RC)

• Charlie (RP)

• Lailah (RJ)

• Acer (1A)

• Heidi, Poppy & Kamila (1C)

• George (1E)

• Arthur (2J)

• Lydia (2H)

• Matilda (2P)

• Pierce (3C)

• Matilda N (3S)

• Izzy (3M)

Notice Board

The last week has a had a sole focus on our hockey skills across the school, from Year 1 to Year 3. It can be a challenging sport to grasp, and the students have responded fantastically. Particular attention was paid to the use of the reverse stick, which is a skill much beyond their years! As always, if there's an opportunity to take these skills and practice them at home then please encourage your child to do so.

In our PE lessons, we have used the themes from the children's lessons to inspire the dance routines for this weeks lessons. Use of water systems and animals from South America were a particular highlight! The emphasis in this area of PE is on teamwork and working together to develop a synchronous performance. It can be said, the children definitely enjoyed the performance aspect!

PE

MUSIC

This week we focus on Young Voices and Whole School Foundation Concert.

Young Voices - after a long wait our audience tickets have arrived! Hopefully they made it home in the bookbags last night, please check tonight if you haven't received yours! We're superexcited and the children are on top form singing the songs so it is going to be a fabulous concert!

Whole School Foundation Concert - The choir have been working really hard learning the songs for our Whole School Concert on Monday 27th February at 6pm in the Barbican. Tickets are free for the event but they do need to be booked in advance. Some of our Year 3 instrumentalists will also be performing in the concert. Please look out for an email from me as I will email parents of those children separately. We will look after the children from 3.20pm, feed them and take them to the Barbican ready for the concert so we will see parents there! Children will need picking up from the Barbican when the concert has finished. The concert will be a showcase for Music across the three sites with the chance for all the children to perform together. If your child is not in the choir you are still more than welcome to attend the concert, we would love to see lots of friendly faces supporting us!

StorytellingweekwasahugesuccessthisweekinAcorns.The childrenwereabletobringintheirfavouritestoriesfromhome andwehavereadthemtogetherduringtheweek.Wehavehad GeorgeandtheDragon,TheSmedsandtheSmoos,booksabout dinosaurs,TheThreelittlePigs,tonameafew. OnTuesdaywhen weventuredouttoForestschool,wehadtheperfectbackdropfor thetellingofTheGruffalo!Wehadarealwoodpileandwereable tohideallthecreaturesinthewood.Despitethewind,theAcorns hadawonderfultimeinnaturesoakingupthemagicalsightsand soundsoftheforestaswellashearingthestory.MissKelshread TheMonkeyPuzzletotheAcornsandaspecialtreatwashaving MrsSalisbury'sclasscomeandreadtotheAcorns.Ithinktheyear threesenjoyedtheirtimeasmuchastheAcorns!Wehavehadcoffeeflavouredplaydoughoutthisweekandthechildrenhaveenjoyedmakinggingerbreadmenusingraisinsfortheeyesandbuttons.WehavereadTheGingerbreadManafewtimesandsowe couldnotresistmakingsomerealgingerbreadmentoseeifthey toowouldrunoutoftheovenandoutofthehouse!Ithasbeena weekfullofimaginationandadventure.

C O N K E R S

Much like the weather, this week in Conkers has been like a whirlwind……

We have been making kites to fly in the wind, hammering ice to rescue hidden objects, baking flapjacks, mixing colours with the paints, and flexing our fine motor skills to practise plaiting!

C O N K E R S

RECEPTION

The weeks are flying by, and we can’t believe we are on week 4 already! This week has been another busy week in Reception with the children all demonstrating excellent woodwork skills making their animals using the hammer and screwdrivers. They have made hedgehogs, rabbits and piglets to name a few examples and they all look fantastic!

In Oak, our creative classroom, Reception have developed their painting skills by moving onto printing. Animal footprints and tree printing have inspired lots of discussions about various animals and their habitats including where they live and what they eat. Carrying on with our animal theme, the vets is still very popular in our role play corner with the children engaging with lots of real-life play as they care for all the poorly animals.

In Phonics, all the children have worked well learning the sounds oo, ar and or, using car parks and even Cheerios to aid their learning. We have also started to write captions to match pictures.

In Maths, we have been comparing numbers playing lots of the 80s TV classic ‘Play your cards right’ with excited shouting of ‘higher’ or ‘lower’ echoing in the classroom! We are now number experts ordering numbers 1-10.

Next week we are looking forward to our trip to the Railway Museum and lots of

RECEPTION

This week, Year One said a final goodbye to the incredible 1970's! We have loved spending the last few weeks in this decade and have continued to extend our amazing music knowledge! ABBA, Queen, David Bowie, and Elton John have all truly inspired our learning. As the weeks progress, the children have become very confident in asking questions about the different artists and bands to improve their knowledge. To build on this, the children have begun to apply this whilst writing our own character descriptions based upon some iconic rockstars and bands. The outcome was most impressive! Make sure you ask your children to share some of this knowledge!

As Queen had many iconic songs, the children have had great fun learning to clap and stamp the syllables and beats to their music. We are surprised the floor is still in the classrooms after stamping out 'We Will Rock You'.

And finally, throughout the week, we have stepped back in time and have learnt very important facts about the 1970's history starting with the first female prime minister, Margaret Thatcher. Just remember, The Music Sounds Better With You!

Bring on the 1980's!

We are thoroughly reading the next instalment of our key text, the Polar Bear Explorers’ Club. So far we have been introduced to iced gem eating unicorns, pygmy dinosaurs, wolves, fairies and many other fictional creatures. As we begin the next chapter, Stella reaches a place called Coldgate. We soon learnt that this is the farthest point of civilisation in the story before the start of the Icelands! The children used the descriptive narrative in this chapter to draw what they imagined Coldgate to look like. They then painted these beautifully using watercolours. We then used adjectives and similes to describe features of this frozen place and used this language to uplevel sentences to make them even more gripping. The children were then given the task of writing a diary entry from the point of view of Stella when she first arrived at Coldgate. They had to use first person, their superb uplevelled sentences and appropriate punctuation. In maths, we have been using our understanding of multiplication to explore division. After the excitement of skittle maths last week, it was going to be hard to top it this week but the teachers just about managed it by using... iced gems! The children used these treats to practise sharing into equal groups and were introduced to the division symbol. We used the Number Frames app on the iPads to show arrays and write the matching number sentences.

The children have loved having their weekly drama sessions with Ms Veasey; the children have been linking their knowledge of animals and their trip to the Yorkshire Wildlife Park to small group drama challenges. The children worked in groups to perform a scene of the chatter that might occur in the Yorkshire Wildlife Park’s staff room! We have also been using our recent work around Arctic animals to explore food chains. The children scanned QR codes around the classroom to find examples of Arctic food chains and used this information to create their own. We have a busy week in store next week as we look forward to the Young Voices concert and a special visitor... who could it be?

This week Year Three have become experts on all things Bolivia, and in particular llamas and alpacas! We have had much fun comparing similarities and differences between the two animals, both of which are native to where we are currently exploring. The children have been incredibly enthusiastic in their research and recording of their findings. We went on to learn more about Bolivia as a place and explored Laguna Verde, Salar de Uyuni and not to mention the glorious flamingos at the Laguna Colorada. We found out that the flamingos are the colour they are because of all the red algae! As expected, the geysers and hot springs Tom spoke about along his journey provided much questioning. As well as learning about geysers, we looked at how volcanoes are formed and how the movement of tectonic plates affect its eruptions. We then started our volcano project, looking at its features, before beginning to build our very own.

We hope to finish these next week and use different materials and some scientific knowledge to cause an eruption! Along the theme of heat, Tom taught us how to create a safe fire in the wild; an important skill when you are travelling the world alone! We took the opportunity to follow his method and build our own at Forest School. We gathered the wood from the forest for fuel, used flint and steel to provide a flame and learnt about fire safety. Of course, no outdoor fire would be complete without toasting some marshmallows! As part of National Storytelling week, Ms Veasey and some of the children from 13-18 very kindly ran a drama workshop for us. Thank you to everyone involved in the organisation of this event, it was great fun! We are looking forward to seeing where we will be venturing next week as we progress on our journey towards our final destination, Alaska.

If you are looking for something to brighten your winter diary, we might have just the thin for you. Gather a couple of friends or block out some 'me time' and come along to The OP Collection where we will be on hand to make sure everyone feels welcome. In the first event of its kind for St Peter's School, Sarah J Thomas is collaborating with the Alumni Team and Old Peterite Entrepreneurs to offer a fun afternoon of lifestyle, wellbeing and fashion. With so many brilliant businesses to celebrate within the OP Community, this event is the perfect way to showcase just a handful. You can expect stalls from the likes of Clockface Beauty, Hearts Fashion and DogBox Boutique. Fashion show and styling tips with Sarah Thomas in collaboration with Fenwicks, refreshments from MoodyMare Patisserie, a premium raffle, and information sessions from wellbeing and lifestyle professionals. Follow the link below to book your tickets. With spaces limited for this exclusive event and Sarah's events already successful across the city, we recommend booking early to avoid disappointment. Tickets include a goody bag and refreshments from MoodyMare Patisserie, with proceeds supporting bursaries at St Peter’s School.

Best wishes,

Rachel Alumni and Development Team

p.s. if you fancy having some fun modelling in the fashion show, please indicate this on your booking form.

Book tickets here: The OP Collection | Calendar | St Peter's School (stpetersyork.org.uk)