CoMPasS Registered Charity No: 1141329 What a brilliant week we have had at St Peter’s 2-8. As ever, there has been so much going on for the children. On Wednesday and Thursday, we were delighted to be joined by Catherine Jacob, writer, award ‐winning television correspondent and filmmaker. Catherine writes books for adults and children and particularly enjoys writing rhyming picture books. She was also Environment
Newsletter No: 27 Friday, 13th May 2022
You can follow us Good Schools Guide Representative explaining what they enjoy doing in school. I am sure like all our visitors they were impressed with the children’s learning and the work of our brilliant staff. Over the last few weeks, the whole of St Peter’s has been raising money and provisions to support the humanitarian efforts in Ukraine. Please follow the link with an update and a message from the School Chaplain, Reverend Daniel Jones. https:// www.stpetersyork.org.uk/ news/2022-05-12/our-thanksgo-to-the-ukraine-minibusdrivers
DIARY FOR WEEK COMMENCING 16th May 2022
School Council Reception Yoga (Group 1) Year 1 Story Club (Group 1) Year 2 Engineers (Group 1) Year 2 Multisports Year 2 Cricket* Year 3 Film Year 3 Football*
TUESDAY
Reception Film Club Year 1 Football* Year 2 Multisports Year 2 STEM (Group 1) Year 3 Language Year 3 Swimming Year 3 Tennis*
WEDS
With best wishes,
Reception Story Time (Group 1) Year 1 Creative (Group 2) Year 1 Cricket* Years 2 & 3 Choir Year 1 Coding (Group 1) Year 1 Multisports Year 2 Tennis* Year 2 Art (Group 1) Year 3 Netball Year 3 STEM
FRIDAY
Tomorrow we are organising and hosting the Northern Learning Conference and we look forward to welcoming teachers and teaching assistants from both the independent and state sector to our school. The conference will open with a keynote from Judy Murray, OBE, before participants will rotate around workshops run by Dave Godfrey, Numberfun, Kym Scott, The Place to Learn, Claire Gadsby, Author and Trainer and Billy Hickling, The Trashbang Man. It promises to be an exciting day for all, and we are hoping the sun will be shining so we can show off our amazing campus at its seasonal best. I hope you have a wonderful weekend.
THURSDAY
settled in comfortably and are being diligently cared for, fed and watered by both the children and Reception team. It has been such a magical experience for the children and staff to witness these adorable little ducklings gradually break free and enter the world for the first time. The hatching experience also teaches children respect for nature and may even grow a long-term love of nature and the natural world within them. I’m sure the children will be looking forward to learning how to care for the ducklings next week. Very exciting. Children in Year 2 have been participating in a ‘Whale Week’. As part of this I was asked to take part in a science experiment, creatively entitled the ‘Blubber Experiment’. The children asked me to place one hand into a sandwich bag full of lard and then put both hands into an ice-cold basin of water. It was amazing that the hand in the bag of lard felt warm in the water whilst my other hand was absolutely Correspondent for Sky News, freezing in the water. The travelling to far flung places experiment demonstrated that like the Amazon and the Arctic whales have blubber (similar to Circle to report on this pressing lard) which insulates them issue. In her beautiful new from the freezing water of the picture book about saving the oceans. Thank you, Year 2, I bees, Betsy Buglove showed think I’ve just about managed our children that you can make to remove all of the lard from a difference, no matter how under my nails after much small. The book has a strong scrubbing! environmental message, On Tuesday our friends from encouraging children to Yarm Preparatory School appreciate the great outdoors visited the Year 3 children to while also educating them with take part in a cricket fascinating facts about bees workshop. The children all and bugs. I know all of the participated in a circuit of children really enjoyed the cricket skills and played a book and class workshops with small, sided game. They Catherine. Huge thanks to thoroughly enjoyed the Catherine for coming into experience of playing with school and to Mrs Salisbury for another school and as always, organising such a wonderful our children were brilliant experience for the children. hosts. It was just heartening to In Reception this week we had see so many children five new additions to the year participating in physical group. On Wednesday evening activity, having so much fun five ducklings hatched, much and making friends. It is to the excitement of all essential for children to children and staff in school. participate in physical activity The eggs had already been for their physical and mental partly incubated while at the health. The following article farm, so in no time at all, tiny was shared with me this week ‘cheeping’ noises could be from an American publication heard from the eggs as they that explores this point in began pecking away at the further detail, Should School eggshells, from the inside. Sports Prioritise Participation Once hatched, the ducklings Over Competition? were gently moved into a This week the Good ‘brooding’ unit, a lovely warm Schools Guide visited the area where they could dry out, school and I know the gather their strength and rest children thoroughly for a couple of days. They enjoyed speaking to the
Year 1 Film Year 1 Street Dance* Year 2 Football* Year 2 History (Group 1) Year 3 Creative Year 3 Cricket*
house points trophy
Notice Board PE award
MICKLEGATE
• Charlie (2P) • Joseph (3S) • India (1E)
Music award • Eva (RM) • Irwin (1A)
value champions • Aria (RC)
• Charlotte (2H)
• Robert (RJ)
• Hugo McA (2H)
• Yusuf (RM)
• Seth (2J)
• Tilly (1A)
• Dylan (2P)
• Emilia (1C)
• Annlee (3C)
• Zachariah (1E)
• Barnaby (3M) • Olivia (3S)
learning superheroes • Ted (RC)
• Nate (1E)
• Rosie (RJ)
• Novem (2H)
• Everybody! (RM) • William (2J) • Adam (1A)
• Sasha (2P)
• Georgia (1A)
• Georgia (3C)
• Hugh (1A)
• James (3M)
• Ellie (1C)
• Ben (3S)
Notice Board
MUSICAL NOTES Many thanks for signing your child up for the music concerts in the final week of this half term, the choir are sounding amazing and I’m sure there is lots of practice going on at home for our budding soloists! In case you have missed it, please find the information below.
Year 1 Music Concert Tuesday 24th May, 2pm If your child is learning recorder with Ms Leeman-Brown there will be an opportunity for them to perform for the first time in the Rayson Room to an audience of parents! The concert will be made up of individual performance and small group pieces and the whole year group will also be singing a few songs they have been learning in their music lessons this term. The concert will start at 2pm, it is informal and a lovely first opportunity for our children to share their music journey. Year 2 Music Concert, Monday 23rd May, 1.30pm Rayson Room There will be an informal concert for all our Year 2 children who are learning an instrument in school. If your child would like to play a piece in the concert, please email a.hayden@stpetersyork.org.uk so I can add them to the programme. The Year 2 and 3 choir will also be singing at the Year 2 concert. For some of our children it will be their first concert as a soloist which is very exciting! We’re very much looking forward to welcoming our Year 2 parents to this concert. Year 3 Music Concert, Wednesday 25th May, 1.30pm, Rayson Room
There will be an informal concert for all our Year 3 children who are learning an instrument in school. If your child would like to play a piece in the concert, please email a.hayden@stpetersyork.org.uk so I can add them to the programme. The Year 2 and 3 choir will also be singing at the Year 3 concert. For some of our children it will be their first concert as a soloist which is very exciting! We’re very much looking forward to welcoming our Year 3 parents to this concert.
UKRAINE APPEAL Huge thanks for your generous donations to our Ukraine Appeal last term. All the items you donated were taken by minibus, along with donations from 8-13 and 13-18 and the whole school community, for distribution to those displaced by the crisis. Please see this article for an update on the journey. https://www.stpetersyork.org.uk/news/202205-12/our-thanks-go-to-the-ukraine-minibusdrivers
LOST PROPERTY Reuben in Year 3 has lost his named PE half zip top– please could you check PE bags and keep an eye out for it? Thank you.
PE Year 3 have had a super busy week in PE in this week! On Tuesday, Year 3 hosted a Cricket Workshop with Yarm Prep School. It was lovely to see all the children talking to one another to make new friends and enjoying their busy afternoon. All the children participated in four different activities on a rotation. These activities focused on batting, bowling, fielding and match play.
After a busy hour, the children were rewarded with a chocolate chip cookie and juice, which they very much deserved! Also Year 3 put their newly learnt skill called the scissor kick to the test in the high jump this week. It was fantastic to see all the children digging in deep for their Rita Resilience when they found the skill tricky, as the foam bar increased in height. Take a look at our fine athletes in action.
Catherine Jacob Author Visit
ACORNS
We’ve had so much fun this It has been Whale Week in Year 2 and what fun we have had! As the Secret Explorers continue on their mission to save a pod of humpback whales, Year 2 have chosen their own species of whale to research. It has been fascinating to learn more about these majestic creatures, for example, did you know that a 4 week old blue whale can be as long as 8 metres? Or that a killer whale's teeth can be up to 10 centimetres long? The children have really impressed us with their enthusiasm, collaborative skills and retrieval skills when using the iPads to learn more. We have also learnt about an incredible animal adaptation called blubber. This is a thick layer of fat under a whale's skin and helps to keep them warm in the icy oceans. We carried out our own experiment, which you can try at home! All you need is a pack of lard, some plastic food bags and a bowl of icy water. The results of our experiment showed us just how blubber works as an insulator to trap the heat
from our hand inside the bag, it wasn't half as cold as putting our bare hands in! We have also been learning about how whales communicate underwater. Humpback whales are known for their singing, with their songs lasting up to 30 minutes! Year 2 have been learning how sound works through vibrations, we made string telephones to experience these vibrations for ourselves. In art, we have been using the unique medium of Brusho combined with salt to create some beautiful effects. The children used these mediums to create stunning whale paintings. We must also say a huge thank you to Ms Veasey for another fantastic under the sea drama workshop and also Catherine Jacob for a wonderful workshop around her book Betsy Buglove Saves the Bees! week, it has flown by! The sunshine has finally come out and so have our tadpoles front legs!!! Our caterpillars have also been very hungry, eating well and growing fast…..will we see the next stage in their life cycle soon?
ACORNS
We’ve had so much fun this week, it has flown by!
The sunshine has finally come out and so have our tadpoles front legs!!! Our caterpillars have also been very hungry, eating well and growing fast…..will we see the next stage in their life cycle soon?
CONKERS
This week we had a very eggsciting delivery to Reception, five eggs arrived on Tuesday morning and by Tuesday afternoon our first duckling had hatched, which we have all gone quackers about! By Thursday all five of our eggs had hatched and we have loved spending time learning how to handle our ducklings and stroke them carefully. We even managed to watch one of them hatch out of its egg with our special 'duck cam' which was amazing. Of course, now we are finding out lots of duckling related facts like- ducks don't get wet because their feathers are waterproof and when they fly together, they fly in a v shape formation with a leader at the front. In other Reception news we have been following up our learning from our trip last week with planting and plant experiments as well as looking at art by the artist Guiseppe Arcimboldo after seeing the giant
RECEPTION fruit and vegetable sculptures of the four seasons at Harlow Carr. We also had a special treat mid-week when the author Catherine Jacobs came to talk to us and read her book Betsy Buglove saved the Bees. She was very impressed with our knowledge about animals and we also learnt that bees collect pollen on their knees! An eggscellent week of nature and learning in Reception.
PS. If you would like to give our ducklings a permanent home after they spend their two weeks in Reception please speak to either Mrs Johnson or Mrs Coyle.
RECEPTION
YEAR 1 Wow! What a fabulous and busy week we have had in Year 1…. Buzzzzzz! Just like busy bees! We were lucky enough to be paid a visit by the incredible, real-life author Catherine Jacob who inspired us to continue to look after our environment. I wonder if your children can tell you ways to care for the bees and environment at home? We have also been busy at work on our deep-sea
creature projects, where we have been carefully painting on detail on the creatures to bring them to life, as well as getting into the mindset of our creatures; thinking how they move, how they eat and how they use their senses using great descriptive language to do this. We can’t wait for you to meet them but the question is… are you brave enough to meet them???
YEAR 1
YEAR 2 It has been Whale Week in Year 2 and what fun we have had! As the Secret Explorers continue on their mission to save a pod of humpback whales, Year 2 have chosen their own species of whale to research. It has been fascinating to learn more about these majestic creatures, for example, did you know that a 4 week old blue whale can be as long as 8 metres? Or that a killer whale's teeth can be up to 10 centimetres long? The children have really impressed us with their enthusiasm, collaborative skills and retrieval skills when using the iPads to learn more. We have also learnt about an incredible animal adaptation called blubber. This is a thick layer of fat under a whale's skin and helps to keep them warm in the icy oceans. We carried out our own experiment, which you can try at home! All you need is a pack of lard, some plastic food bags and a bowl of icy water. The
results of our experiment showed us just how blubber works as an insulator to trap the heat from our hand inside the bag, it wasn't half as cold as putting our bare hands in! We have also been learning about how whales communicate underwater. Humpback whales are known for their singing, with their songs lasting up to 30 minutes! Year 2 have been learning how sound works through vibrations, we made string telephones to experience these vibrations for ourselves. In art, we have been using the unique medium of Brusho combined with salt to create some beautiful effects. The children used these mediums to create stunning whale paintings. We must also say a huge thank you to Ms Veasey for another fantastic under the sea drama workshop and also Catherine Jacob for a wonderful workshop around her book Betsy Buglove Saves the Bees!
This week in Year Three we have journeyed through Egypt to Bombay, India. We have enjoyed tracking the movements of Phileas Fogg and his trusty servant Jean Passepartout through the countries and used maps to follow and make notes of their journey so far. We have spent a lot of time discussing whether or not we think Fogg is the robber and have our suspicions about who else it could be. Even though Passepartout is doing a sterling job of helping Fogg, we thought we would be even better! We created lists of our best personal attributes, skills and previous experience, then wrote a persuasive letter to Fogg asking to be considered as his new servant. We went on to use the Word
app on the iPad and typed out our final drafts, which was very exciting!
YEAR 3
Alongside our classroom learning, we had an afternoon of sporting fun on Tuesday with Yarm school. We did a rotation of cricket skills and drills in the sunshine and reconvened with the friends that we met last time. Later in the week we were treated to a visit from the children’s author, Catherine Jacob, who helped to spark our creative imaginations and got our brains flowing with ideas for characters. Next week we will be exploring India and learning about different cultures, as well as hopefully getting closer to finding who the robber is!
Bag2School Wednesday 18th to Friday 20th May Our previous Bag2School event was such a huge success that we thought we would run it again in the Summer Term. It is a great fundraiser for the school charity (100% of money raised through this initiative goes to The Children's Heart Surgery Fund) and is a fantastic and easy way to get rid of any unwanted clothes, bed linen, soft toys, handbags etc. Donations will be collected in the usual place - by the shed behind Nursery. Please see the poster later in the Newsletter for info on what items are/are not accepted. Thanks Clif-Fest - Sunday 26th June Preparations for Clif-Fest are now in full swing and we are so excited to finally get to have our school fete again! As mentioned last week, there are a few items which we would like to ask parents and carers to donate for a few of the stalls. We will be doing this over several weeks so as not to bombard you with requests. Our first request is below:Bottle Tombola Collection – Monday 23rd to Friday 27th May The Bottle Tombola is a school fete staple but we couldn't hold it without the generous donations from our parents. If you are able to donate an unopened bottle containing a non-perishable substance (pineapple juice to Prosecco, Lemonade to Lemoncello, Shampoo to Salad Dressing - we will take it all!) we would be so grateful. Please leave it in the Atrium in the boxes provided from Monday 23rd May for 1 week. Alcohol is accepted but please pass to Mrs Hallgate so it is not left out when the children are present. Please do not donate prior to 23rd May. Thank you so much in advance, and we look forward to receiving your bottles, labelling them up and then watching you win them back at Clif-Fest!! Y2/Y3 Swim Gala Refreshments The Friends of 2-8 will be hosting an Al-Fresco Pop-Up Cafe prior to both Gala's on 26th May. Tea, Coffee, cakes, biscuits and snacks will all be available from the Gazebos at the top of Pikes Path (the path down to the swimming pool). We will be open from 8.15am-9.30am (the start of the Year 2 Gala) and then again from 12.30-1.30pm prior to the Year 3 Gala. Please do drop by for a cup of tea and a chat before battle commences!
COLLECTION DAYS Wednesday 18th, Thursday 19th, Friday 20th May 2022 Bring in your bags of unwanted items and raise money for charity! YES to all of these:• Clothes
• Paired shoes (tied)
• Jewellery
• Handbags
• Socks and tights
• Hats
• Belts
• Scarves and Ties
• Lingerie
• Curtains
• Household Linen
• Towels
• Bed Linen (But NOT Duvets, blankets, pillows or cushions) NO to all of these:• Duvets, blankets, pillows and cushions
• Textile off-cuts
• Carpets, rugs and mats
• Soiled, painted, ripped or wet clothing
• SCHOOL UNIFORMS
• Corporate clothing
• Toys & Books
If you would like to know more about Bag2School and where your items go once they have been collected, please visit https://bag2school.com/blog/where-do-the-textiles-go
Clif-Fest Sunday, June 26th
Open to all friends and fa mily of t
ies: Activit Barbeque
Food/ Ice Cream Drinks Stalls & Games Live reptiles Face Painting Festival Glitter Tombola Nerf Arena Book stall Birds of prey Inflatables … and much more!
he
St P
e t e r'
s c o m m u nit y!
In School Grounds 12pm - 3pm
FROM
£30 p/p P/P
FOOTBALL
HALF TERM CAMP
For more Info and bookings : CLICK HERE
30 MAY - 1 JUNE
AT ST PETER'S SCHOOL, YORK
For children in Y2 to Y6