CoMPasS Although we cannot gather together as a whole school it is wonderful that we can still have a Celebration Assembly to celebrate the achievements of our amazing children. Each class award a learning superhero for the week, a child who has demonstrated values of our learning superheroes. The Learning Superheroes have evolved from a review of how we teach the learning process to the children. Teaching children about the process of learning is vitally important in order to support them in developing positive habits of learning and thus enabling the children to become confident, motivated learners. We believe that it is important that our children understand
There is a link to a short film describing this by Dr John Spencer https://www.youtube.com/watch? v=HZrUWvfU6VU At St Peter’s 2-8 we celebrate a Value Champion for the week. Throughout the school, rather than work to a set of rules imposed on the children, we cultivate our school values, which grow inside our children offering them a guide and expectations of behaviour. Our school values are carried through the St Peter’s adventure developing a strong framework for life. The values are displayed across the school in every learning space and you can see them below. Mrs Hayden awards music awards and Miss Flockhart awards Physical Education awards. It is always wonderful to hear each teacher describe the reasons for their choices reinforcing positive choices and behaviour from all of the children. Interestingly, the world economic forum in their future of jobs report state the top 10 key skills are below. The skills of problem solving, critical thinking, creativity, collaboration, that are at the heart of our school are more important than ever. This Alwin Toffler quote from the beginning of the 1970s seemed radical and futuristic at the time, but in the present seems to have renewed relevance. It has been another fabulous week at St Peter’s (2 -8). The children have had a busy time and are thoroughly enjoying their learning. It is great to
how to learn effectively and that they can select specific tools to help them with their learning. Each one of our learning superheroes exhibits a learning superpower. Ricki Resourceful, Rita Resilience, Collaborative Twins, Reflective Rory. We chose to use the Learning Superheroes to help the children to identify their learning superpowers and to motivate and engage them. This is based on Metacognition which in a nutshell is being able to think about your own thinking and purposefully plan and direct learning. Research and evidence shows when children develop metacognitive skills their academic achievement increases. If you would like to read more, please see the Education Endowment Report which has formed the basis of our professional learning over the past two years. The ethos of the school is guided by educational evidence and research. https://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/ public/files/Publications/Metacognition/ EEF_Metacognition_and_selfregulated_learning.pdf
observe children at Forest School, in the swimming pool, playing outside in the outdoor spaces, going on local walks, pop up classrooms, singing beautifully in the Rayson Room with Mrs Hayden, playing musical instruments and enjoying their learning spaces inside their inspirational classrooms. Enjoy the newsletter with the most amazing photographs – thank you to all the staff for their contributions and Georgina Hallgate for putting this together. Finally, I would like to leave you with a story about our most wonderful cleaning team at school written by Beth Harrison. They are working incredibly hard keeping our classrooms and learning environments clean throughout the day. A huge thank you to every single one of them. Have a wonderful weekend. , Best wishes,
We must keep on protecting each other.
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India W •Mimi •Oscar R •Hannah •Matilda T •Max P •Daisy
•George P •Hugo M •Olivia M •Daisy •Joy-Elise •Amelie •Hildy
•Oscar P-B •Tiaa •Matilda G •Isabel W •Matilda N •George S
•Thomas H •Lottie •Natalie •Bertie •Charlie H
•Bertie R •Charlie H
•Oliver T-P •Zachary W-Q
Dear Year 1 Parents, There are a few unnamed school jumpers that have been left in Year 1. Please let us know if your child is missing a jumper so that we can return it to you.
Micklegate
Thank you, Year 1 Team
Reception have been working extremely hard on their co-ordination skills this week. Either running or hopping into space whilst balancing their beanbag on different parts of their body. This week in games, Reception have looked very closely at catching their beanbag with two hands. I was very impressed with the progress they made, managing to throw and catch with their partners.
It has been another lovely week in the Acorns, and we are still doing so incredibly well with settling in! We have been really enjoying the last of the Summer sun and have loved spending lots of time outside, cooking in the mud kitchen, building, climbing and feeding the dinosaurs!
We also enjoyed our first PE lesson with Miss Flockhart this week and had so much fun with the parachute, listening so carefully to the instructions!
It’s been another fabulous week in the Conkers and just full of fun and excitement! Early on in the week we discovered an acorn lying on the ground in our garden which has led us to start thinking and Autumn time!
We decided to take a walk around St Peter’s to search for anything else that maybe lying on the ground. We found all sorts of things; brown, yellow, orange and red leaves, more acorns and the most exciting thing… apples and pears! We have already started to prepare for using them to cook with! Yum!
Wow, what a wonderful second week we have had in Reception this week! The children have ‘knocked our socks off’ with their resilience, collaborative skills, imagination and independence; they are making the absolute most out of our setting and particularly love learning through play outdoors each and every day. This week we have seen a flurry of sandcastle building and decorating, cricket matches with score cards written and den building in our outdoor area, with the Holly House providing a great space to cool off and share a story or a game of dominos. We had our first ‘pop up classroom’ adventure to the Museum Gardens and were so proud of the way the children helped create the safety rules that would keep up us safe on our journey there and their very sensible behaviour all the way there and back. Once we arrived at the Museum Gardens there were some fabulous conversations about why the ruins came to be ruins; A meteorite, massive thunderstorm
or a gigantic magical hammer were all posed as explanations! We then sat in the shade in small groups to share stories all around the theme of nature and growth - it was blissful! At Forest school this week we have collected, counted and sorted conkers into different sizes and then had a big conker rolling game on the hill, which was lots of fun (and a great way to compare length and distance!) In small groups this week we have continued to learn about how to play in the different provision areas of the setting from learning how to create water-ways and paint with water in the water area to building jungles, castles and magical lands in the construction area to being inspired to create Andy Goldsworthy - worthy transient art using the nature area! What a very busy week we have had, well done to all our wonderful little learners we are so proud of you !
This second week seems to have flown by. The children are really starting to settle in and find their feet in Year 1 and we have been so impressed by them all so far. The lovely sunshine we have had has meant that lots of the children have wanted to spend time in the outdoor area and they have been busy building garages, creating cafés and learning how to use our woodwork shed safely. We also had a lovely afternoon at Forest School where the children spent time
collecting conkers, climbing and whittling sticks. We have been focusing on how to use tools safely in both Forest School and our outdoor area. Within the classroom the children have been learning how to use the different areas of provision so that they can practice and hone their different skills. We have been doing lots of collaborative work and have focused on establishing new as well as renewing old friendships as the children get to know each other again and create our 'Tribal Classroom'..
Mrs Hall and Mrs Franey are so pleased that 2H are already Team 2H and we are all loving being back together! This week saw the summer weather return and, with it, a visit from the Firebird, who left a wonderful nest at Forest School for us on Monday! We thought that we might be able to tempt the Firebird out into the open by having a campfire so we built a fire, fed it with small twigs and cooked apple dipped in sugar over the flames. We didn’t see the Firebirdbut the apples were yummy! There was a letter with the nest that said that there may be another delivery, so we are waiting with excitement, to see what it might be! On Wednesday (Art Day!) we each made a feather to help create our own Firebird on a display. We used cutting skills to make the feather fronds, collage, paint, wax crayons and other bits and bobs to create dazzling feathers- great work! On top of all this we
have been using adjectives to write exciting descriptions of the Firebird and expanding our knowledge of place value in maths. Excellent work, Team 2H- have a lovely rest this weekend!
What a fantastic second week we have had in 2J! The children are continuing to blow us away with how well they are adapting to their new class and classroom environment. We kicked off the week with a lovely Forest School session in the glorious sunshine and the weather improvements meant we could finally make a successful fire - hooray! We cooked toffee apples over the fire, inspired by the golden apples in our key text for this term, The Firebird. We also discovered a huge nest upon arrival at the Forest, with another letter and feathers inside! We have also been using our key text to learn all about adjectives this week and we listed a range of adjectives to describe the Firebird. We applied these adjectives in sentences and reminded ourselves of the golden rules when recording sentences- full stops, capital letters and finger spaces. We even looked at how commas are used between two adjectives! In Maths we have been continuing with place value; focusing on how to make and read numbers using partitioning into hundreds, tens and ones. We have been using equipment, pictorial representations and written methods to consolidate our learning. We had a wonderful afternoon for arty Wednesday! We decided that we needed to find a way of showing the Firebird she is welcome at St Peter’s 2-8 after all of the
clues we have been left. Each of the children created their own beautiful Firebird feather using mixed media including painting, drawing, sticking etc. We are going to combine our feathers with 2H's and make a huge Firebird! An absolutely brilliant week 2J, you have all demonstrated qualities from our Learning Superheroes this week. I will be strolling into the weekend with a big smile on my face- thank you! Enjoy a well-deserved break.
There was a very special delivery in Year Three this week. Much to our surprise, our cheeky Raven, Corvus, delivered us an enormous box FULL of ancient Roman artefacts! We delved back in time to discover the uses and names of some of the special finds then recorded our information for others to read. We had our first session at Forest School this week which we spent exploring in the beautiful sunshine! The children enjoyed collaborating to hunt for wildlife, build dens, climb trees and spend time with their friends in other
classes! As part of our topic this week we have been learning more about Ancient Rome itself and in particular, looked at the Seven Hills of Rome and did some map work to locate it in relation to Italy and the rest of the world. In Maths we are continuing to work with numbers and have been tackling some tricky place value problems. It is a joy to see the children conquering their new challenges with ongoing determination and resilience and we are very proud of the grown up manner in which they are embracing their new year!