Newsletter Week 8

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A warm welcome back after the half term holiday. It has been lovely to hear of the adventures the children have had both at home and abroad. Many children attended the holiday school last week, I know they all had such a wonderful time. My thanks to all the staff who worked on the camp and to Miss Flockhart who organised the week.

This week we welcomed Mrs Mccurrie who has made a wonderful start as our School Office Administrator. It will take time for her to get to know all the children and parents, but I know she has thoroughly enjoyed her week getting to know the school community.

On Monday Year 2 were joined by Georgina Nelthrope, two time wrestling medalist. To inspire our ancient Greek Olympic week (wrestling being one of the founding olympic sports). The children were captivated as Georgina explained all about the sport and how she recently won the bronze medal at the recent Commonwealth Games in a record-breaking time of just 23 seconds. Year 2 were also fortunate to listen to an inspiring talk from Nikki Brown, York City footballer who spoke about her journey to become a female football player and how the Lionesses recent win has put women’s football firmly in the spotlight. Our huge thanks to both Georgina and Nikki for giving up their time to join us.

Today in assembly we marked Remembrance by watching this short film to remember all those people who sacrificed their lives for the freedom of others. It was lovely to see so many children wearing their

poppies with such pride. We also joined the nation in observing a two minute silence on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, when on the 11th November 1918, some 104 years ago the 1st world war came to its conclusion. The Great War experienced by the animal inhabitants of a WW1 battlefield

Around school it has been wonderful seeing the nine silhouette sculptures that have been designed by senior school pupils and staff placed around school depicting all those servicemen and women who made huge sacrifices. Each silhouette bears the names of Old Peterites who made the ultimate sacrifice. I am sure you would agree that they look fabulous, particularly when they are lit up on an evening.

On Wednesday the Minster Choristers took part in a service at York Minster during which the new sculpture of Queen Elizabeth II, created on the outside of York Minster was revealed by King Charles III. The Choristers thoroughly enjoyed meeting King Charles III and the Queen’s Consort. What a wonderful experience for the children, many of whom had been pupils at St Peter’s 2-8. When the King departed from the Minster, he travelled along the A19, passing school. The pavement was lined with both staff and pupils all eagerly waving and excited to catch a glimpse of the King and Queen Consort as they passed by.

At school we strive to create space for children to take risks and develop skills that will help them manage risks in the future. Children all need to be able to appraise risk

Newsletter No: 8 Friday 11th November 2022

themselves so that they can navigate the world safely without the guidance of their parents or guardians. This article on the BBC website is an interesting account suggesting lessons in the rational appraisal of danger may be the secret to a happier healthier life and can be mastered through a few simple steps. BBC How to Teach Kids to Make Great Choices

It was wonderful to hear the

news of Miss Flockhart’s recent engagement to her partner Mike, huge congratulations to them both at this exciting time.

I hope you have a wonderful weekend.

The next five weeks at school are going to be extremely exciting and busy. Listed below are dates for your diaries of school events, many of which you are able to attend. Events that have the following symbol ☺ can be attended by parents and guardians.

Date Event Time Location

18.11.22 Anti-Bullying Week ‘Reach Out’, Odd Sock Day (children to wear odd socks to celebrate what makes us all unique)

01.12.22 Year 3 theatre trip to ‘Nativity the Musical’

05.12.22

Years 1-3 Christmas Performance

Refreshments in the Memorial Hall Foyer from 12.15pm.

No Co curricular clubs. After School Care as usual.

Approx finish time, 3.30pm. Children can be collected from classrooms, or they will be signed into After School Care.

06.12.22

Years 1-3 Christmas Performance☺

Refreshments in the Memorial Hall Foyer from 2.45pm.

No Co curricular clubs. After School Care as usual.

Approx finish time, 3.30pm. Children to be collected from classrooms at approximately 6pm when they return from the Memorial Hall.

07.12.22

07.12.22

All day St Peter’s 2 18

1.00 4.30pm Grand Opera House

1.00pm Memorial Hall

3.30pm Memorial Hall

08.12.22

Nursery Christmas Songs☺

Refreshments in the Dining Hall from 08.45am. 9.30am Rayson Room

Reception Christmas Performance☺ Refreshments available in the Dining Hall from 2.30pm. 1.45pm Rayson Room

Animated Objects Theatre Company Production

Children in EYFS will watch this performance. 9.15am Rayson Room 08.12.22 Reception Christmas Performance☺ Refreshments available in the Dining Hall from 2.30pm. 1.45pm Rayson Room

13.12.22 Year 2 theatre trip to Peter Pan 9.35am 1.15pm Theatre Royal

14.12.22

Christingle Service (Reception, Year 1, Year 2 and Year 3)☺

Children to be collected from York Minster following the service.

No After School Care or Co curricular Clubs.

3.30pm 4.15pm York Minster

15.12.22

Christmas Celebration Day (to include Christmas lunch)

Children can wear a Christmas jumper.

No Co curricular Clubs. After School Care as usual.

All day St Peter’s 2 8

16.12.22

End of term (no ASC or Co-curricular clubs)

All children to be collected from school at 12.00 noon.

No After School Care or Co curricular Clubs.

12.00 noon St Peter’s 2 8

ANTI-BULLYING WEEK

Next week is Anti-Bullying week and the theme for this year is Reach Out. We will be holding an assembly on Monday and PSHE lessons will cover this theme throughout the week where the children will learn about their part in reaching out to and supporting others through kindness and inclusion.

Zarach is a Leeds based charity that was started by deputy headteacher Bex Wilson in 2017. It was started after discovering that an 11 year old pupil class had no bed to sleep in and so was constantly tired, unhappy and unable to learn. They set about helping this family in crisis and was shocked to find that the three children were sleeping on bed bug infested old sofa cushions and had sores on their bodies. No charity in Leeds was offering beds so tackling bed poverty became her mission.

The charity's aim is 'Every Bed a Head' and to address bed poverty through supporting families and raising the profile of this issue. Bex has been featured on BBC Breakfast, This Morning Britain and Radio 1 and 2. As well as beds, bedding and pyjamas the charity runs holiday clubs and healthy meals in the holidays, emergency food aid and runs a Thrive pathway to help families out of poverty. Schools who see children every day can refer families to the charity

Next Friday 18th November the whole school will be wearing colourful odd socks for Odd Socks Day to remind us and celebrate that we are all our own unique and wonderful selves. Next Friday is also Children in Need day and we know that some children like to wear their Pudsey ears to school. The children are welcome to do this and we have decided to have a collection for our school charity Zarach. A bucket for donations will be in the atrium on Friday morning.

This term, across all years, we will be covering gymnastics in our core PE lessons and netball in our games lessons. Gymnastics is fundamental to a child’s development, focusing on the development of key muscle groups, mobility and balance. We will be focusing on travel, balances and flight throughout the 6 week half term. Within our Games lessons the children will be covering Netball. This will help children to develop their hand eye coordination, spatial awareness, reaction time and teamwork skills. Netball is the fastest growing female team sport in England, and we are committed to developing and improving this sport at St.Peter’s. This is an exciting term at 2 8, and sport will once again play a huge part.

Physical Education

ACORNS

A big welcome back after half term. The Acorns have had a blast of a week looking at fireworks and creating our own beautiful creations. We did some dazzling paintings using some fluorescent colours as well as swirling paint around using peacock feathers, paintbrushes and our hands! We munched some apples from the tree en route to Forest school and when we were there, made some beautiful bark rubbing pictures using crayons. We had the privilege of being able to wave the flags we had made as King Charles lll and the Queen Consort drove past St Peters on Wednesday. We saw the police bikes with their flashing blue lights pass us first and then the royals in a fancy car. What an experience! As well as playing with cars, play dough, aqua beads and babies, the Acorns have enjoyed the new outdoor play equipment very much. It has been a super week.

ACORNS

Alittle firework, can't wait to fly, Into the atmosphere, Lighting up the dark sky. Watch it and you will see Colours, red, yellow, and green. I’m sure that you will agree, That our very own firework pictures are the most spectacular that you've ever EVER seen!!

RECEPTION

We started the week with Diwali celebrations! We made diya lamps using playdough and jewels and explored Mendhi tattoos using watercolour paints on our own hands! We were so lucky to have Siri’ s mummy come in to talk to all the children about Diwali and how they celebrate the festival of light at Siri’s house. The children also received a generous diya lamp painting kit so they could continue the celebrations at home. A big thank you to Siri for her singing and to Siri’s mummy for the fantastic presentation! We continued our Diwali celebrations down at forest school, where we made Rangoli patterns using natural objects. On Wednesday, we watched the King and Queen Consort drive past our school as we waved and cheered hello. This week we have also learnt why we wear poppies and walked around school spotting the statues of the soldiers. The children have made poppy inspired artwork using a mixture of art media. They’ll be on display next week!

YEAR 1

Wow, what a busy week we have had in Year 1 to begin the new half term. We have continued to journey through the rainforest, with a focus this week on David Attenborough and his incredible role as a naturalist. The children have enjoyed retelling the class text "Journey to the River Sea" as part of our writing focus and cannot wait to share these with you!

Our animal focus this week has been the different types of birds, found in the rainforest. We have built homes and habitats, made fact files and sketched pictures of our feathered friends!

Super Sid, our maths champion has set us some super tricky challenges this week, featuring part part whole models and biscuits can you make your own Super Sid challenge at homei wonder?

The children and the teachers in Year 2 all returned after the long half term break refreshed and ready for this last exciting half term! We have started to look at our Christmas play- more about that to come! This week’s learning has been about THE OLYMPICS and we started the week brilliantly with visits from Georgina Nelthorpe (also known as Hugh C’s auntie!) a medal winning wrestler and Nikki Brown, a player for York City football team. We heard from both sportswomen the importance of commitment, training and working as a team, which is a great message for all the children. The Olympic theme continued with learning the history of the Ancient Greek Olympics and we were all outraged to hear that girls were not allowed to compete or even to watch! We made our own Olympic torches and medals (gold, of course) and watched video clips of outstanding Olympic performances, including the Paralympics. In maths we have taken part in the Measure Olympics, which was great fun. We took part in shot put, discus, long jump, javelin and football events, all adjusted for the classroom! We learnt through this the importance of estimating in maths as well as how to measure accurately. We have even made time to make Remembrance Day art and 2H have been to the St Peter’s Art department to make clay tealights- 2P and 2J will go over the next 2 weeks. All the children should be EXHAUSTED by the end of the week, so, have a rest this weekend ahead of another busy week in Year 2!

This week we have centred our learning around one of the main characters in our story, Mr Reeper. Or, Greeper the Creeper as he is better known! We used the text to create our own character profiles of him and have been focussing on broadening our vocabulary and developing our writing skills by writing in detailed, descriptive paragraphs. We then drew portrait pictures of him, focussing on using our pencil skills to accentuate his menacing features. In Maths we have excitedly moved on to using the formal method of addition; column addition. This has brought much enjoyment and fun for the teacher’ s and children alike! We have been carrying numbers, adding several digits and have begun to apply our knowledge to problem solving and reasoning questions. We will continue to develop this skill into next week and move on to column subtraction. Finally, we have begun our journey to this year’s Christmas performance; our play ‘Aladdin Trouble’ is well under way. The children have received their scripts and started rehearsing their parts in their drama sessions with Ms Veasey. We look forward to putting on an exciting show for our grown ups in a few weeks’ time!