CoMPasS Registered Charity No: 1141329
Newsletter No: 17 Friday, February 4th 2022
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DIARY FOR WEEK COMMENCING 7th FEBRUARY 2022
MONDAY
Reception Drama (Group 1) Year 1 Story Club (Group 1) Year 2 Engineers (Group 1) Year 2 Multisports
Year 2 Cricket*
This Children’s Mental Health Week, we’re asking the children and staff to ‘Dress to Express’ on Friday 11th February. The idea is simple – use colour to express yourself during the week by wearing a colourful outfit and raise funds for our school charity. As you will be aware we are having problems with Lost Property in school. A plea from me and all staff in school, would parents please ensure that all of their child's/ children's belongings are clearly labelled with their name, that way if items are lost we are quickly able to reunite the item with its owner!
and developing like we want to. We might get upset because we are finding our schoolwork difficult or have fallen out with our friends. Children need to understand that these feelings are very ordinary and that even when we feel like things are Have a wonderful weekend, not going right in our lives, we can continue to develop and grow – just like the tree can grow even when the conditions aren’t quite right.
Year 3 Football* Reception Film Club Year 1 Football* Year 2 Multisports Year 2 STEM (Group 1) Year 3 Language Year 3 Swimming
Year 3 Tennis* Reception Story Time (Group 1) Year 1 Creative (Group 1) Year 1 Cricket* Years 2 & 3 Choir Year 1 Sign Language Year 1 Tennis* Year 2 Art (Group 1) Year 2 Multisports Year 3 Netball
Year 3 STEM
FRIDAY
Happy Lunar New Year to all those in our school community who celebrate- we have enjoyed joining the celebrations and learning more about their significance as a school, culminating in a delicious Chinese lunch- thank you to Chef Stuart and all the catering team.
Year 3 Film
THURSDAY
On Friday 18th March there will be a Curry and Quiz event for parents. This promises to be a social and fun evening and an opportunity to meet other parents in school. On Saturday 16th June, a Summer Ball has been planned, this I am sure will be a popular event for parents and further details will be circulated by the Friends of St Peter’s 2-8. The final date to share is ‘Clif-Fest’, the summer fair for St Peter’s 2-8, for the children, parents and friends of the school. All events will be raising money for our school charity https://www.chsf.org.uk/ all monies last year that was raised by the St Peter’s 2-8 Friends will go to this charity and this year a significant contribution that is raised will go to this charity. My thanks to the St Peter’s School Friends for their organisation and support of the school.
support to help them grow, we all need support to help us grow emotionally. As parents and teachers, we often need others to help us to believe in ourselves, to keep going, and to try doing things a bit differently. Sometimes we feel like we are growing and developing and doing well but at other times we might feel like we are not growing
Staff and the pupil mental health and wellbeing group led by Mrs Clarke have planned the week around The Five Ways to Wellbeing with different daily activities taking place in all three parts of the school. The Five Ways to wellbeing was developed by the New Economics Foundation in 2008. This project was an evidence review of the most beneficial ways to looking after and improving our mental health and wellbeing. There is a short video here that describes The Five Ways to Wellbeing from Mental Health Ireland.
WEDS
The St Peter’s 2-8 Friends have been organising many activities for the children and parents and it would be great for all the school community to support these events. There is a Valentine Disco planned for Tuesday 15th February for the children. There will be games, dancing and music – Further details will be circulated next week but I am sure it will be great fun for the children.
Next week is Children’s Mental Health Week. The theme for the week is 'Growing Together' to encourage pupils from 2-18 to learn about how they can grow emotionally by developing personal resilience, self -awareness and empathy, but also to understand the value and importance of supporting each other to grow. Just like trees and plants need
TUESDAY
It has been another busy week at St Peter’s 2-8 and this Newsletter provides a snapshot of the activity and learning that has been taking place. I took the photos on this page whilst watching our youngest children get to grips with practical maths. You can see how fully absorbed they are, and they were thrilled to show me their maths learning.
Year 1 Film Year 1 Street Dance* Year 2 Coding (Group 1) Year 2 Football* Year 2 Tennis* Year 3 Cricket* Year 3 Groovy Greeks
SAT
Reception Swimming
house points trophy
Notice Board Music award • Rafferty (1C) • India (1E)
PE award • Nate (1E) • Georgia (3C)
value champions
WALMGATE • Ollie (RC)
• Hannah (1A)
• Izzy (2P)
• All of RJ
• Ellie (1C)
• Harriet (3C)
• Luke (RM)
• Bertie (1E)
• Olivia (3M)
• Evelyn (RM)
• Albert (2H)
• Harry (3S)
• Joyce (2J)
learning superheroes • Andrea (RC)
• Ellen (RJ)
• Kate R (2H)
• Max (RJ)
• Oliver (RM)
• Eva (2J)
• Thomas (RJ)
• Iker (1A)
• Lucy (2P)
• Erin (RJ)
• Hugh (1A)
• Lily (3C)
• Rosie (RJ)
• River (1C)
• James (3M)
• Clarabelle (RJ)
• Zachariah (1E)
• William (3S)
Notice Board LOST PROPERTY Today we have spent considerable time checking all coats to ensure that children have their own on their pegs. Any named stray coats have been returned and unnamed coats and other unnamed lost property can be seen in the accompanying photograph and collected from the school entrance. Please could we ask you to help us to remind children to check the name of the coat they are putting on and to return it to their own peg. Please name all property clearly in an accessible place so that the children can easily find it and identify their own property.
We have reports of several lost named items, principally coats and PE tops, which we have not found in school. Please could you check your cars / school bags for anything that has been picked up by accident and return it to the office. We appreciate how frustrating it is when kit goes missing and we make every effort to ensure that all items are kept on pegs and / or in bags. We would be grateful if you could support this by ensuring all items are named as above, and children are reminded to keep track of their possessions, which we know is difficult for young children, and that they are working really hard on this.
Notice Board FRIENDS OF ST PETER’S 2-8 DATES AT A GLANCE Tuesday 15th February
Valentine’s Disco
Children only
Friday 18th March
Curry and Quiz Night
Adults only
Saturday 16th June
Summer Ball
Adults only
Sunday 26th June
Clif-fest
Everyone
MUSICAL NOTES It was lovely to have the choir back together again on Wednesday and we are really looking to performing in the Whole School Concert on Thursday 17th February. Unfortunately this concert will now be going ahead without an audience at the revised time of 5pm. A letter has been sent to all choir members detailing the arrangements for the concert and I will let everyone know when the recording of the concert is ready to view. It is disappointing that we will be performing without our biggest supporters there to cheer us on, but I am sure the children will still sing their hearts out! It’s such a fantastic opportunity for our pupils to get a sneak peak of all the fabulous music opportunities available at 8-13 and 13-18 and I am sure they will really enjoy hearing the older students perform. The children have all been enjoying their Wellbeing Wednesdays with our Year 3 Wellbeing Champions, so much so that this week our Year 1 children continued their mindfulness into our music lessons. Whilst they were listening to Hans Zimmer’s Earth piece, they drew their own ideas of what he was describing. There were some really thoughtful pictures of faraway lands, beautiful landscapes and journeys into space. The children listened so attentively, I can’t wait to hear their own composition ideas when they begin to compose their own music next week. Year 2 have been challenging themselves this week with some very tricky musical terms. We have been talking about rhythmic augmentation. The children were able to spot when this technique was used in the Mary Poppins medley too, amazing listening skills! Year 3 have been continuing their journey finding out about Beethoven. Hopefully they will be able to borrow some of his composing techniques when they begin their own composition task next week! Not wanting to be left out of composing, Reception have been listening to lots of different pieces which use high and low sounds ready for their first compositions next week. They are hoping to compose some music which sounds like animals jumping! *Congratulations to Lottie, who passed her Iniital Piano exam with Distinction!*
Children’s Mental Health Week 7th – 13th February The theme for the week is ‘Growing Together’ to enable children to learn about how they can grow emotionally by developing personal resilience, independence and empathy, but also supporting and helping each other to grow.
The children will take part in daily activities based on The Five Ways to Wellbeing helped by our Year 3 Wellbeing Champions.
Each year group will also have a set of stories which will be read and used in class to help explore a range of topics including self-esteem, kindness and worries. On Friday 11th February children can wear their own clothes for ‘Dress to Express Friday’ and a donation can be made to our school charity - The Children’s Heart Surgery Fund via our Just Giving page. The charity does brilliant work supporting the mental health and wellbeing of children with heart conditions including play therapy. https://www.chsf.org.uk/
Reception have been working extremely hard on their own and paired superhero routines in Dance the last couple of weeks. Last week the children in pairs, had to decide on one superhero to impersonate for the rest of the class to guess. Within their pair, the children had to create one movement each for their superhero. It has been fantastic watching the children’s imagination unfold and seeing the children working collaboratively! This week the children had a huge surprise, Miss Flockhart had brought along some superhero capes to wear. Half of the group got a chance to pick a superhero cape to wear when weaving in and out of other half of the class, who had to stay poker still in their superhero pose position. The children who were still then came alive as evil villains which had to run away from the superheroes.
PE
This week the children recapped looking at accuracy within their kicking skills in football. Placing a large coned goal between partners to kick the ball through. Ensuring they use the bottom of their foot or instep of foot to stop the ball. The second half of the lesson, the children were so excited to look at dribbling with a ball. The first challenge was to use their instep of their foot and walk around the sports hall to take their ball for a walk. The children were encouraged to change direction and to use the bottom of their foot to stop the ball, if they felt the ball was running away too fast. Take a look at the children racing around with their capes on, using their own imagination to create a number of different movements varying in high and low positions. Also, some of the snapshots of our little football stars on the move!
ACORNS
CONKERS
Happy New Year from the Conkers!
Happy Chinese New Year to you all! The Reception children have really enjoyed learning all about the celebrations of the new Lunar year and our 'try it area' in particular has been popular in the afternoons… lots of yummy snacks and full tummiess this week! We've had fortune cookies, prawn crackers, spring rolls and noodles! Our special Chinese New Year lunch on Monday was also very popular with lots of yummy Chinese food! Inside the children have been busy creating junk model dragon heads, lanterns and dragon puppets in our craft area, role playing restaurants and dressing up as emperors in traditional Chinese outfits in our home corner, making creatures out of playdough and clay and racing the Chinese Zodiac animals in the story corner, inspired by our story of the week - The Great Race. We've also had more huge scale building models being created and designed, yummy cakes being baked in our baking area and interests in prehistoric snakes, buffaloes and crystals emerging! A lot of us have been quite keen to write
RECEPTION and have had a go at writing our own books in our story corner or labelling some of our drawings. We have been so impressed with the children's writing this week! Outside there have been more singing performances, dragon dances and treasure hunts. This week in maths we have been looking at capacity and weight and the children have really enjoyed it! They have loved balancing different amounts of liquids in our water area, making their own balancing toys and making magical potions! At Forest School this week the children enjoyed having a Chinese feast in the woods and performing our own Dragon dance to scare away the dragon Nian. The children were very good at making a lot of noise to scare the dragon away! Next week is Children's Mental Health week so be prepared to receive some mindfulness and relaxation tips from your children!
RECEPTION
This week in Year One, the children's adventures up the Magic Faraway Tree have taken them to the Land of Dreams! This has made everyone think about their hopes and dreams for the future! We have been inspired by David Attenborough and Martin Luther King who shared their dreams with millions of people world-wide! We listened to these dreams and thought very hard about our own personal dreams for similar matters for example how we care in greater depth for the world that we live in. After sharing these, we wrote these down in our very own dream clouds and do hope they come true! Alongside this, we have been very creative in designing and creating our own dream catchers that will be in your homes very soon! Keeping along the same theme of dreams, the Year One children have been investigating and exploring how different herbs and ointments can make us feel either sleepy or relaxed. We discussed and looked into how medicines and other lotions and potions may have been made in the past by using similar ingredients. The children then decided on how many pinches of Lavender, Eucalyptus, Rosemary, Rose Petals and Camomile that they needed to create the most
perfect sleep potion!
YEAR 1
In maths this week we have kept to the theme of sleeping! The children have been investigating which pillow material makes the comfiest pillow to sleep on! The children have tried and tested different materials and recorded the outcome using tally and bar charts! Also this week the children in 1A have been very busy celebrating Chinese New Year! The children researched the zodiac animals and discovered which year they were born in. We also learnt about what the Year of the Tiger means and how this special celebration is marked around the world! The children made Chinese lanterns, tasted Chinese food and painting the most beautiful lantern watercolour artwork and used the technique of dotting to create a pop art look to the pictures! Happy New Lunar Year!
YEAR 1
YEAR 2 Delving further into the world of wonderland, this week we have met the next character in the story, the Caterpillar! The children have shown great interest when learning about the life cycle of a butterfly and made a fantastic life cycle on a string, showing each stage in a butterfly's life. They were amazed by the process of metamorphosis and how a caterpillar changes during its life! In art, we have been exploring fungi and creating botanical drawings inspired by the beautiful book 'Fugnarium'. The children enjoyed painting over a page from the text to create their mushroom artwork, and they look very effective! After Alice compares her experiences in Wonderland to that of a fairytale, we have been inspired to write our own
fairytales this week, using elements from well know stories to inspire our own unique versions! The children loved creating settings and characters for their stories and writing their own books! Talking of fairytales, next Friday we will be visiting Northwood Trail to explore the fairy sanctuary and hopefully spot some real fairies! The children will need to come to school wearing suitable outdoor clothing and bring in their wellington boots. They will also need to have their water bottle in school. In maths, the children have been learning how to tell the time to the nearest quarter of an hour and loved making their own pocket watch to practice at home!
YEAR 2
It has been a week of fun and exploration in Year Three. Our main character April has decided that she wants to go and explore Bear Island in the hope that she will stumble upon the polar bear she thinks she’s seen. To get us into exploration mode, we headed out for a walk into York via the river. Before setting off we made a note of a number of things we thought we would see and things we would like to see. This had us searching high and low en route and opened our eyes to what is right here on our doorstep! With our explorer caps on and using our imaginations, we then planned and wrote a creative piece of writing about what we thought April would see, what she could hear and how it made her feel. We worked on making our writing even better by using prepositions and other figurative language. Although she is having a pleasant time away with her dad so far, we read that April is missing her Granny Apples and more specifically, her baking! With that we whipped up some delicious apple cupcakes! Working collaboratively with our friends, we took turns to weigh, mix and pour and particularly enjoyed cracking the eggs into the bowl! We then wrote up what we had done and importantly, sampled the goods which we all agreed
YEAR 3
were 10/10! Our baking led to much discussion about what Arctic explorers would take with them to eat on their own expeditions. We sampled some dried fruit, jerky and dry biscuits to get an idea about the type of food they would eat. This then got us talking about perishable foods and food preservation. We set up a science experiment to test various liquids and methods on some sliced apple and look forward to checking how successful they have been in preserving on Monday! In art we have learnt about the famous artist Nerys Levy and used her iceberg painting as inspiration for our own.
Maths has been all about money, money, money! We used the Arctic explorer food price list to add, multiply and subtract totals to give change for menu items. The children have been putting into practice their understanding of written methods of working and enjoyed using our thematic work as a basis for their learning in Maths. Phew! What a week – well done Year Three!
SAVE THE DATES! We are very happy to announce these two very important dates in the Friends calendar are finally back! We have not had Clif-Fest since 2019 and we cannot wait to start planning our family fun day. And our Inaugural Summer Ball was cancelled in 2020 so it is full steam ahead to plan our summer parent social on an epic scale! So please keep these dates free and look out for further announcements:The Summer Ball - Saturday 18th June 2022 This will be a black tie evening event for parents/guardians of 2-8 pupils with all profits going to The Children’s Heart Surgery Fund. Clif-Fest - Sunday 26th June 2022 Our school fete finally returns for a bigger and even better family day out. Everyone welcome to come and have fun! Valentine’s Disco - Tuesday 15th February
The Friends of St Peter’s 2-8 will be hosting a Valentines disco for the children on the above date. It will take place between 3pm and 5pm in the Sports Hall. Exact timings for year groups are still to be confirmed (younger children will be earlier and older will be later) however please put this date in your children’s diaries. There is no dress code, it will just be school uniform. And there is no charge, this is a fun gift from the Friends committee. Curry & Quiz Night - Friday 18th March - Dining Room Curry and quiz night is back! Tickets will be on sale after half term but please put the date in your diaries, book that Babysitter, and start revising! (Tickets £10pp, food, welcome drink and quiz included. Teams of 6-8, adults only event, friends and family welcome). Nearly New Uniform Shop The nearly new uniform shop (for 2-8 uniform only) is relocating to our own campus! The Friends committee have been in discussions with the shop and it has been decided that the 2-8 stock will sell better if it is on our site permanently. So, it will be brought up in the coming weeks, sorted, audited, labelled and made ready for sale by members of the Friends committee. We will then advertise a sale date, hopefully the first week back after half term. So please watch this space if there is anything you need! Also, we are discussing the Nearly New Shop bringing some 8-13 stock up to the 2-8 campus at the start of the Summer Term so that parents in Year 3 can start to purchase anything they may need for their child(ren)’s transition to J1. Again, dates etc to be confirmed but we will endeavour to do this at least a couple of times in the Summer Term.
EASTER TERM 2022
Creative Workshops - ages 5-8 21—25 February 2022 After a successful launch last summer at St Peter’s with excellent feedback from both parents and kids, Creative Coliseum return for another exciting camp. CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFO
HALF TERM
* Please note this is organised by an external company
HALF TERM
HOLIDAY CAMPS at St Peter’s School 2-13
All Out Sports / Cricket Camps - ages 4-14 21—25 February 2022 All Out is an exciting sporting option for children. Fun & friendly multi-sports and specialist cricket camps are available for booking at St Peter’s School 8-13 sports hall, all abilities welcome. CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFO * Please note this is organised by an external company
Monday 4 - Friday 8 April 2022 An exciting mix of fun-packed activities including swimming, sports, crafts, baking, games and outdoor adventures all delivered by St Peter’s School staff. CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFO
EASTER
St Peter’s Holiday Club - Nursery - J5
EASTER
Creative Workshops - ages 5-8 Tuesday 19—Friday 22 April 2022 More exciting themed workshops run by Coliseum’s team of professional actors & teachers welcoming all imaginations from beginners to entertainers. CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFO * Please note this is organised by an external company
Tuesday 19— Friday 22 April 2022 The All Out sports coaches and teachers are bringing to St Peter’s more multi-sports and specialist cricket camps in the last week of Easter outside and inside at 8-13 School, all abilities welcome. CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFO * Please note this is organised by an external company
EASTER
All Out Sports or Cricket Camps - ages 4-14
We are excited to invite girls & boys from Year 3 to J3 (age 6– 11 years) to attend our first ever
Football Training Camp Tuesday 22 & Wednesday 23 February 2022
With Head Coach: Paul Burke Youth Coaching Awards level 1,2,3 and Talent ID level 1,2 Manchester United Academy Coach St Peter’s 2-8 After School Club Football Coach
TIMINGS : 10:00 to 15:00 COST : £30 per child per day Before camp and after camp care available from 08:30 to 16:30 CLICK HERE for more INFO & BOOKINGS