St Peter's 2-8 | Newsletter 5

CoMPasS

Registered Charity No: 1141329

Today is World Smile Day. Every year, World Smile Day is celebrated on the first Friday in the month of October in order to encourage people to bring a few more smiles into the world and I think we can all agree on the benefit a smile can bring. In assembly on Monday, I asked the children how many ways they could say ‘hello’ in different languages. It was brilliant to hear so many ways the children are already familiar with. Whether it was a language they speak at home, Italian that is taught in school or saying hello in a language of a country that they had visited in holiday. I then showed them this short film. How to Say Hello in Different Languages I mentioned that there is another way one can say hello and that is through the universal language of a smile. When you smile at someone they will feel good and will smile back too. There is a fascinating history to World Smile Day, and it begins with Harvey Ball. In 1963, when Harvey was in his forties, an insurance company asked him to design a logo and he created the smiley face that we see on the slide. The insurance company intended to use the image to boost morale among employees and remind them to smile when speaking with customers. The company handed out smiley pin badges to its employees, and the badges became very popular. Harvey didn’t mind that his design became so popular, but he was worried that its original meaning had been forgotten, and that people were only focussing on making money from it. To remedy this, he created World Smile Day, which was first held in 1999. The aim of Harvey’s original design was to spread positive vibes and make people feel more upbeat, and he created World Smile Day for the same purpose. He hoped that it would remind us to spread some joy, and lift people’s spirits by smiling and doing things to encourage others to smile. Any money that is raised by World Smile Day is donated to charities that benefit children.

This week I have been at a Heads’ Conference in Edinburgh with Mr Walker and Mr Falconer. It has been an inspiring conference with keynotes from Bruce Adamson, Children and Young People’s

Commissioner for Scotland; Nicola Benedetti CBE, Rory Bremner, Baroness Tanni Grey Thompson, Professor Sir Geoff Palmer OBE, Marc Randolf, Co Founder Netflix, Professor Mona Siddiqui OBE. It’s hugely beneficial as a Head to be given the opportunity to attend such an insightful conference whilst also having the opportunity to meet up with colleagues across the sector. My thanks to Mrs Antonia Clarke for ensuring things have continued to run smoothly at school in my absence.

Yesterday Year 1 enjoyed a fabulous trip to Tropical World in Leeds. The children were so excited to head off on their first trip of the term and had a wonderful time exploring as they made their way through rainforests, mangroves and desert. My thanks to the Year 1 team, led by Miss Evans and our parent helpers for making this trip so successful for the children.

As you are all aware, Georgina Hallgate will be leaving her post at St Peter’s 2 8 to take up a position as a school counsellor working in the Mental Health Hub across St Peter’s 8 13 and 13 18. Georgina has worked in the school office for 4 years and I am sure you will all join me in thanking her for all her work and wish her well in her new role at school.

Following a recruitment process, I am delighted to announce Patricia McCurrie has been appointed as the new School Administrator for St Peter’s 2 8. Patricia will join us during the second week of the October half term holiday and I’m sure you will all make her very welcome when the children return to school after the half term break. I know Patricia is very excited to join us and is looking forward to getting to know you all over the coming weeks. For the remainder of this half of the term Miss Emily Clarke and Mrs Kate

DIARY FOR WEEK COMMENCING 10th October 2022

MONDAY

School Council

Year 1 Creative (First Half of Term) CANCELLED

Year 1 Netball CANCELLED

Year 2 & 3 European Cultures

CANCELLED

Year 2 & 3 Football*

Year 2 Cricket*

Year 2 IT (First Half of Term)

CANCELLED

Year 3 Cookery (First Half Term)

CANCELLED

TUESDAY

Year 1 Football*

Year 2 Tag Rugby

Year 2 STEM (First Half of Term)

Year 2 & 3 Dance

Year 3 Swimming CANCELLED

Year 3 Tennis* CANCELLED

WEDNESDAY

Year 1 Animal (First Half of Term)

Year 1 Cricket*

Year 1 Football*

Years 2 & 3 Choir

Last night Mrs Coyle and Mrs Johnson led a Reception parent workshop on phonics and mathematics. Huge thanks to the parents and guardians who attended and in particular to Mrs Coyle and Mrs Johnson for organising and leading the sessions.

Next Saturday we will be holding a 2 11 Open Morning at school. While these events are for anyone to attend and you are very welcome, they are specifically tailored for those who are not yet part of the school community. There will be opportunities to attend internal events for Year 3 children transitioning to Year 4 at St Peter’s 8 13 throughout the year, further information about these events will be communicated closer to the time.

Nicholson will be covering the school office. Both Emily and Kate are already familiar with the school and children as they have provided cover for us previously. They both work in the school office at 13 18 and Emily also works for the Estates department.

I am looking forward to seeing the Reception children in the morning at swimming and everyone else on Monday.

Have a wonderful weekend.

Best wishes,

THURSDAY

Year 1 Board Games (First Half of Term)

Year 1 Tag Rugby

Year 2 Tennis*

Year 2 Art (First Half of Term)

Year 3 Hockey (First Half of Term)

Year 3 Environment

Year 3 STEM

FRIDAY

Year 1 Story

Year 1 Street Dance*

Year 2 Film Club

Year 2 Football

Year 3 Board Games

Year 3 iPad

Year 3 Football*

Notice Board

SCHOOL COUNCIL

This week in school council we received a visit from Tom Swales who is Head of Maintenance for the whole of St Peter’s. We had invited him to come and see us as we were concerned with the heating levels in school and the waste of energy. On warm days the heating was still on and teachers had to open windows to let the heat out. Council felt this waste of heat was not good for the environment or the school bills!

Mr Swales explained that the school had just fitted a new computerised heating control system in the summer for the whole school and could now regulate the heating much more accurately and efficiently. He asked if Council members could report back to him on the temperature of the heating in school over the next few weeks so he can make

sure the settings are correct on the new system . He also asked us to request teachers to turn their Individual radiators down one number with the new radiator thermostats that have been fitted. This move would really help the environment.

Mr Swales told us some of the other initiatives school are taking to improve the impact we make on the environment. For example LED light bulbs everywhere in school, better insulation, ensuring all radiators have individual thermostats and also looking into the use of solar panels.

Thank you Mr Swales for visiting us! We will all work together to help protect our planet.

ST PETER’S SCHOOL: INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT

Further to the announcement made last year on St Peter’s scoping an international school, we are pleased to update that we have signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the Shengfeng Education Group. This MOU allows us to carry out a more detailed study into whether a St Peter’s International School would be viable in the Hainan region of China.

The school will be part of a major development in the Hainan Free Trade Port, a special economic zone with a beneficial business and regulatory environment.

This investigative and due diligence stage of the process will take some time, so we look forward to updating you on progress in due course.

PE

Year 2 looked at balancing this week, ensuring they engaged their bellies by tensing them to hold the balance nice and still. The children also remembered the key points about focusing on a still object in front of them and holding their arms out to the side to maintain their balance. The children took part in a tagging game called zookeeper tag; if caught they had to head to the animal enclosure to hold a balance until another wild animal freed them, by lifting the hula hoop up.

The second half of the lesson consisted of a game called musical balance. When the music stopped the children had to hold a balance next to a cone. As the game continued cones were taken away to result in some children grouping together to create a good balance. It was fantastic to see the children working collaboratively together and making up a group balance quickly.

Year 2 have started to implement all their tag rugby skills into game based activities. This week the children learnt the importance of being on side after a player has been tagged. This allows the game to carry on with pace and a chance for the defenders to create their defence line before the attackers slip through to score a try.

The progress the children are making has been tremendous and they can’t wait for inter-house tag rugby in two weeks' time!

ACORNS

It has been another fun filled week in Acorns. We have played outside on the stage area, made music together and sung ridiculously funny songs!

The Acorns have discovered just how much they love to jump. We have found all sorts of heights to jump from, including some lovely places

in the Museum Gardens. We saw squirrels and birds and found the most interesting seed pod. We are still trying to find out the name of the tree from which it fell.

Our star bakers have been very busy making some delicious crispy, crunchy cornflake cakes, which sounded like crunchy autumn leaves as we munched them.

We have painted leaves and used our fine motor skills to paint on bread using ear buds! We have read stories and played in our supermarket together. It has been a great week.

ACORNS

This week we have created storms and a huge mushroom with the parachute, climbed in and over different equipment, solved a monster mystery, made our own monster footprints and even given our hands and fingers a boogie at our Dough Disco!

CONKERS

CONKERS

Can it be Week 5 already? The weeks are flying by and we can see the children are settling into their morning routines really well now, our zen yoga and dough disco are providing a calm start to our day. This week we have been exploring patterns in maths and the children have been spotting patterns everywhere. We have made matching buttons for Pete the cat’s coat and a huge row of repeating buttons for his

RECEPTION

friend Charlie Caterpillar.

Down at Forest School we went bug hunting and took photos of the different mini-beasts we found. We even used the Chatterpix app that we have been learning about in class to make some funny minibeast videos. We have learnt about house points too this week and have been trying our very best to earn some for our houses.

RECEPTION

Wow! What a week we have had in Year 1!

We are really getting into the swing of things now and it has been wonderful to see all of the beautiful work being produced.

We have had such a busy week learning all about the different cities in Brazil and their notable landmarks. We wasted no time in building these in the construction areas and there was so much rich geographical language being used and carefully constructed skyscrapers. There was even a replica of Christ The Redeemer looking over Rio de Janeiro! Tropical World was definitely the highlight

YEAR 1

of our week and we were mesmerised by all the tropical plants and animals that we recognised from our learning about the Amazon Rainforest. We were able to ask lots of interesting questions and even shared our own facts about the Amazon. We were so inspired by the butterflies that we saw in Tropical World that we decided to make our own on Friday. We used a variety of watercolours and salt to create a mottled background, before carefully sketching a butterfly using black oil pastels and then using watercolours for the pretty wings. We can't wait for you to see them!

YEAR 2

This week it’s been Gods and Goddesses week in Year 2! We have learnt more information about why these mythical characters were created by the Ancient Greeks and we have become more familiar with the 12 gods of Olympus. We have explored their individual characteristics looking at their appearance, personalities and special powers. We have enjoyed reading books and watching clips of stories that surround these characters. The children have produced some fantastic writing this week through creating descriptions of their chosen god or goddess. We focused on changing verbs to make them more powerful and adding adjectives to describe the noun. The children have also been evaluating their own writing through planning and checking their own punctuation.

In maths this week, we have been revising

number bonds to 10, 20 and even 100. Year 2 have been exploring patterns across these bonds and using them to extend their learning further for example, 1+9=10, 1+19=20 and 10+90=100.

In art, we have begun designing our Christmas cards ready to be sent off for publishing. The children carefully used their watercolours to paint beautiful pictures of St Mary’s Abbey in York and added extra detail and shading using colouring pencils and black pen. We hope you like them when we receive the final finished products back which you can then choose to purchase.

Another fantastic week Year 2! We can’t wait for more Ancient Greece discovery next week when we look at… mythical creatures! What mythical Greek creatures can you find out more about ready for next week?

This week we have been continuing our thematic learning about space, focussing specifically on stars! On Monday we had a day of exciting rotational activities. We looked at our star sign constellations with Ms Collins then had a go at using a combination of cross stich and running stitch to sew them onto binca. Next, Mrs Salisbury introduced us to what a nebula is! We learnt that they are giant clouds of interstellar gas that play a key role in the life cycle of stars. We went on to recreate our own versions using Brusho, which helped to make our colours POP! Finally, we baked some delicious star shaped biscuits with Miss Murray. Working collaboratively, taking turns and doing as much as possible without grown-up help was the motto of the activity and we are pleased to report that it was a

success!

Alongside this, we have been writing creatively about stars and nebulas; focussing specifically of writing descriptive, well-formed and exciting sentences.

In Maths we have moved on to addition and subtraction and look forward to developing our awareness of different strategies as we progress through the coming weeks. In addition to this, we are continuing to practice getting to grips with our times tables and have been looking at how we can transfer our learnt knowledge to help with problem solving. Phew! Wishing everyone a well-deserved, restful weekend.

YEAR

Dates for your diary:

The Great St Peter's Bake Off - Monday 17th October

Calling all budding, young bakers and cake extraordinaires! The annual STP 2 8 Bake Off is fast approaching. The year group themes this year are as follows:

Nursery and Reception Kings and Queens

Y1 The rainforest

Y2 Ancient Greece

Y3 Space

Bakes should be dropped off at the ‘Bake Off tent’ between 8:00am and 8:40am Judging will take place during the day and there will be a bake sale at 3:20 4:30pm (for those who are happy for their bakes to be sold). Winners will be announced later that week!

Please see the following poster for details.

Bags2School 23rd 25th November

Help us raise funds by donating your unwanted clothing, soft toys, shoes, accessories and linens. Bags to fill will go home with the children in the week commencing 17th October. More details to follow before half term

Christmas Wreath-making Workshops

We will be hosting not one, but two, wreath making workshops in December, again run by Kathrine Armstrong Bisson of Fleur Adamo.

❖ 7:30pm on Friday 2nd December

❖ 9:30am on Saturday 3rd December

All materials, tuition and a festive drink and mince pie included. Tickets are £45pp, see the following poster for more details. Click HERE to book your place!

Macmillan Coffee Morning & Bake Sale

Wow! We raised a whopping £508.60 for Macmillan Cancer Support. Thanks once again for your generosity and support.

NO NUT POLICY

Christmas wreath-making