St Peter's 2-8 Newsletter I 6

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CoMPasS Registered Charity No: 1141329

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I can’t quite believe that the half term has arrived! It doesn’t seem five minutes since the class of 2020/21 arrived in September ready for the year ahead. It has been a busy and unusual first half of term and I am proud of all the pupils and staff have achieved. School has been full of energy and excitement this week. It has been wonderful to experience and observe the children and staff enjoying the learning together. On Monday the Year 3 children participated in their first ever House Hockey Competition and on Tuesday it was the turn of the Year 2 children. The children thoroughly enjoyed participating and competing for their house and it was great to see the competitive spirit still alive and well at St Peter’s 2-8. In the final assembly it was announced by Miss Flockhart that the winning house was Walmgate! Thank you to Miss Flockhart and Miss Beaumont for organising these competitions and all the staff who supported the event. Physical activity plays an enormous part in developing both the children’s physical and mental health and this week UK Coaching, the lead agency for coaching

in the UK, has kindly donated a supply of ‘XLR8 Reactaballs®’, as well as accompanying training videos, to our school. The equipment, which is a coaching firm favourite, is a pyramid shaped, soft inflatable ball that bounces unpredictably forcing the user to react to the way it falls, improving hand and foot speed. Ideal training for sports like hockey, netball, basketball and rugby. School teachers and sports coaches have been working hard to keep our children happy and healthy through sport and physical activity during this coronavirus era, and I’d like to thank UK Coaching for thinking of us with this donation and hope the equipment will help our children to enjoy their PE provision even more. On Tuesday we had our first music concert of the year. The Year 2 children entertained us all performing to a wall of parents who were watching via Zoom. Today the Year 3 children also performed to parents and staff watching via Zoom. Children who have peripatetic lessons performed pieces they have learned over this half term and then the year group choirs sang beautifully. I must say all of the children were extremely confident and produced stunning recitals with smiles on their faces. Several children performed for the very first time. Thank you to the parents who were such a wonderful and appreciative audience for all of the children and huge thanks to Mrs Hayden for her organisation of such a memorable concert and to

Mrs Leeman-Brown for her support too. Finally, congratulations to all of our wonderful children who were simply outstanding and such a joy to watch perform. On Saturday we held our very first virtual Open Morning. Mrs Sarah Opie, our Director of Admissions, Marketing and Communications and our Marketing Manager Catherine Hodgson prepared the event and my huge thanks to all of the prospective parents who attended. The school looked stunning on the virtual tour; you can view the tour here. As mentioned in last week’s newsletter there are also short films (and here, and here) that were recently created providing a small glimpse into the life of St Peter’s 2-8 and also a report about our school in the Good Schools Guide here. The one area we can’t replicate on a virtual tour is the magical, vibrant atmosphere the school has as you walk around the stunning classrooms and learning spaces. To that end we are inviting families to visit in person in the evenings and at weekends and in line with Covid-19 guidelines to meet me and have a tour of the school. On Wednesday we had the Main Board Governors’ Meeting via Zoom. Huge thanks to all of the Governors who give up so much of their time so freely to support the development of our school. So much has happened over the term thus far (and it’s only half term!) Exciting learning adventures in and out of the classrooms and creative and imaginative teaching capturing the children’s inquisitive minds, developing depth of learning that they are thoroughly enjoying. Many thanks to all the staff at St Peter’s 2-8, for not only creating stunning environments for the children to learn in but the culture and ethos where each child can be confident, give things a go, be creative and not be fearful of making mistakes. On Thursday Mrs Fiona Franey organised a coffee morning for the worlds’ largest coffee morning in aid of Macmillan Cancer. Staff baked cakes and everyone contributed for this great cause. We will be still eating cake for the next few days – delicious. Thanks to all of the staff and Mrs Franey for organising this wonderful event. Two of our amazing staff Miss Carless and Miss Jeffrey are taking part in Battle Cancer UK City League this month. They are taking part in two CrossFit Battle Cancer workouts back to back and it would be wonderful if they could have our support in raising money to support this great charity. A charity close to the staff’s heart, they chose this charity to donate proceeds to in order for Battle Cancer UK to continue with their excellent work. As little as £5 can contribute towards fifteen test tubes for research into treatments, so any pennies you can spare really do help. Your donation can help in three major ways;

Newsletter No: 6 Friday, 16th October 2020

better diagnosis, better treatments and better prevention. If you can spare any pennies, please follow this link. We are looking forward to running our inaugural holiday club from 19th to 23rd October; please read further information here. If you have booked your child/children onto the activity week you will have received a letter from Miss Flockhart who is organising this exciting event. Half term gives an excellent opportunity to reflect on the past weeks and look ahead to the second half of term. Our processes and safety measures look to be robust and effective but we will keep them under review as circumstances change. We understand that there are a variety of reasons why someone may have a test for COVID. If a pupil takes a test for any reason, please inform the medical centre and remain away from school until the result is received. This will assist in reducing the number of pupils needing to isolate if the test returns positive after a few days and, during such time, pupils will be able to access remote learning. My huge thanks to the whole school community for all their efforts over the past six weeks. Our amazing team of kitchen staff, cleaners, facilities assistants, car park attendants, medical staff, administration staff, teaching assistants and teachers have been fabulous creating astounding environment for the children who we are all here for. Thanks to the parents for all of your continued support, it is very much appreciated by all staff at school. I do hope you all have a wonderful half term break and I look forward to seeing you all back at school in a couple of weeks.


learning superheroes •Zachariah C •Noah L

Notice Board value champions

•Beatrix H

•Jonathan P

•Jemima H

•Arabella W

•Sam H

•George D

•Hugh C

•Nina H

•William D

•Miles H

•Kiron N

•George L

•Olivia S

•Martha T-P

•Annabel H

•All of 3M

•Lucy H

•Liam G

•Dilarum S

•Aurora M

house points trophy

MUSIC Wow, what a fabulously musical week we have had! Year 2 welcomed their parents into the Rayson Room via Zoom on Tuesday afternoon for their very first Music concert. The children were so excited to see their grown-ups on our big screen and thoroughly enjoyed performing to them. The choir sang beautifully, even managing to sing in a round which was very tricky! There were lots of children playing solos for the first time, they all did so well. It was Year 3’s turn today and there was an equal measure of excitement in school this morning! There were lots of fantastic solos on a wide range of instruments, it was so lovely to hear such talent from children who are only 7 and 8 years old! The choir enjoyed sharing the songs they have been working on this term. They have worked incredibly hard in a short space of time and were able to sing two songs in harmony! The choir are such an enthusiastic group, in our final practice earlier in the week all the children happily volunteered to sing the tricky second part in our Spooky Song – amazing! It has been so lovely to have the school full of music once again!

PE award • All of Year 2 •All of Year 3

Music award

Monk

•All of the Year 2 and Year 3 musicians and choirs •


On Tuesday it was the turn of the Year

2s and sadly due to poor weather, we had to regroup in the Sports Hall. I am pleased to say that the rain did not dampen the children’s spirits and they thoroughly enjoyed their first taste of inter-house sport at St Peter’s. Their effort and application was excellent, which led to some very impressive moments. Although we are not able to participate in workshops with other schools at the moment, the children relished the opportunity for competitive matches. With a strong emphasis on participation and enjoyment, I was delighted with the way all the matches were played.

Inter-house Hockey Winners

PE

The highlight of this week has to have been the interhouse Hockey tournament! It was great to see the children apply their skills and tactics in a competitive environment. On Monday, the Year 3s got their first experience on the astroturf and thankfully the weather just about held off. I was extremely impressed with the teamwork and support that the children showed towards their peers, this created a lovely environment for the tournament.

Walmgate


PE cont.


Nursery

Both the Acorns and the Conkers have made me super proud this week! They have continued to be super busy, making, playing, smiling and having fun at home! Well done everyone, I can't wait to see you all back again!


Nursery cont.


this week and each creating their own unique sheet of marbled paper which looked beautiful (you will see how this paper was used a little later in the year!) In Forest Wow! What a creative time we have had in School the children were inspired by Andy Reception this week! We started our week Goldsworthy to create nature art, with with spooky songs and dances in repeating pattern designs, unicorns and anticipation of Halloween. We learnt how to snow bunnies all emerging from their natural make pumpkin decorations complete with finds! 2D shape features and tiny pumpkin pictures As a treat we finished our week with a using apple prints and fine paintbrush celebration afternoon to say a big well done details! We had great fun on Thursday to all the children in Reception for a super designing faces for our class pumpkins and first half term! We played some fabulous then carving them ready for a ‘spooky stories’ pirate and parachute games on the field and session in the dark of the classroom then settled down for a ‘movie’ of all our illuminated by the twinkling lights in the favourite photos and videos of the children’s pumpkins! The children also LOVED using play this half term – how busy, happy and the hammers to create fabulously funny golf imaginative you have all been! A big well peg hair for them – don’t they look super! done to you all, we are so proud of each and

RECEPTION

Our creative streak didn’t stop there with all every one of you! the children learning marbling techniques


RECEPTION cont.


Another busy week in Year 1. We have continued story telling this week and have loved writing our very own story maps, using descriptive language and drawing colourful illustrations too. It has been fun to explore this further and perform our very own stories on our outdoor stage- Ta da! We have enjoyed getting crafty this week with some early Christmas card preparation- keep your eyes peeled over the next few weeks.

YEAR 1

leaning tower of Pisa. We have also seen many wonderful creations in the woodwork shed and the children have shown so much resilience and resourcefulness when designing and building their cars, houses, trinket boxes and boats. We are so proud of our creative, resourceful, collaborative and happy little learners. Enjoy half term and we can't wait for another half term of adventures.

In maths we have been challenging our brains and solving many problems using practical resources. During provision time we have seen so many busy bee learners. The building in Year 1 this week has been fabulous and we have seen The Year One Team x towers, palaces, hot air balloons and even the


YEAR 1 cont.


This has been another busy but exciting week, full of learning and creativity! On Tuesday everyone took part in our first hockey tournament, for our school houses. Despite the rain, which we did put up with for a while before moving into the Sports Hall, all the children were full of excitement and demonstrated to us everything that they have been learning in PE this term with Miss Flockhart. It was great to see both classes showing sporting skill and sporting behaviour, cheering on the players- especially when there was a goal! Tuesday afternoon was another exciting time, this time for music, as Year 2 had their first concert. There was lots of great singing from choir and the whole year group and some brave soloists, performing for us and our audience on Zoom. Wednesday was Art day ALL day! In the morning we painted our Christmas cards, which this year are of the Firebird’s palace in the snow. It is so lovely to see how much pleasure the children get from using their skills and how much sustained focus they can have. In the afternoon we worked on collages inspired by the work done in Music on Stravinsky’s Firebird, using the sheet music and our own paintings. Maria and Andrey were able to translate the Russian writing for us, which was very exciting! In amongst all of this, we have been working on our individual projects, about our favourite Australian animal. On Thursday we had a live Zoom link up with Mrs McKie at St Peter’s science department. She told us more fascinating facts and we were able to ask questions of her, as she is an expert. Mrs Hall and Mrs Franey are both very proud of the progress that 2H have made since the start of term. We all have a love of learning- but we are all ready for a rest!

2H


What better way to end the first half term than with lots of arty activities! 2J have had a wonderful time this week making their Christmas cards of St Basil's Cathedral, ready for them to be printed for Christmas. Mrs Moss and I were so impressed with how carefully the children used their watercolours and the level of detail they applied. We hope you are as impressed with them as we are! With art on the brain, the children also created their own collages using the music piece of the Firebird by Stravinsky, their own sketches, watercolours and images of the musical instruments used in that piece. We have been incredibly busy finishing our Australian animal fact posters and I have been blown away at the children's enthusiasm. It has been wonderful to hear how they have been sharing their animal facts at home and carrying out further research. As if our minds weren't already blown, we had a virtual visitor on Thursday... Mrs Mckie from St Peter's Science Department! Mrs Mckie has a degree in biology and also achieved an MA in entomology - wow! We were bursting with questions to ask Mrs Mckie and she was able to share

even more fascinating facts with us about Australian animals. Did you know a bat can eat 1,200 insects in just ONE NIGHT? Or that turtles breathe out of their bottoms?! Finally, I would like to say an enormous well done to the choir for the concert this week and to all those children who played a musical instrument. It's not easy to stand up in front of others on your own, but YOU DID IT! Thank you to Mrs Hayden for organising a lovely afternoon. A big thank you to Miss Flockhart too for organising a fabulous hockey tournament on Monday; it was great to see lots of teamwork, encouragement and perseverance. What a fantastically fun week we have ended on and I truly could not be prouder of what the children have achieved in just one half term. They have demonstrated resilience, curiosity and enthusiasm throughout our first theme and as a result they have created some exceptional pieces of work. Well done 2J, I am such a proud teacher!

2J


As part of our Roman training, we embraced a survival challenge in the wild (aka Forest School). The children utilised their fabulous den building skills to make shelters and made tasty bird feeders, too. After a morning of hard work, we sat down to enjoy an oat and raisin snack, just like real Roman soldiers! This week we have

explored what life was like as a Roman solider and created our own shields using symmetry. We finished off the week with a great music concert for our families via Zoom, which we thoroughly enjoyed! Wishing everyone a healthy and relaxing half term. We are already excited to come back to school to see where our Roman adventure will take us next!

YEAR 3

We have had a busy week in Year 3 with our Resilient Roman solider training program! We worked collaboratively with our fellow soldiers to prove that we were great team players during our interhouse hockey tournaments. Everyone played brilliantly and we all had a great time (even if it did rain!)


Bag2School - Friday 20th November As in previous years, we will be running the Bag2School scheme again after half term. All the money we raise from the weight of your bags of unwanted clothes will go to this year's school charity. So if you feel like having a purge on your wardrobes this half term (and let's face it, there isn't going to be much else we can do now!) then please do keep everything to one side for our collection. Official Bag2School bags will go out after half term, and dates for bag drop offs will also be advertised once we return after the holidays. Please note, though, that WE CANNOT ACCEPT ANY BAGS OUTSIDE OF THE DATES ISSUED so please don't bring anything in until then. Details of what is good and what is not, are below: We accept the following ‘good quality’ items for RE-USE*: Men’s, Ladies’ and Children’s clothing

Socks

Paired shoes (tied together or elastic band around) Belts Handbags

Soft toys

Hats

Household linen

Bags

Household curtains

Scarves and ties

Household towels

Jewellery

Household bedding (bed sheets, pillow cases and duvet covers)

Lingerie

We DO NOT accept: Duvets and blankets

Soiled, painted, ripped or wet clothing

Pillows and cushions

School uniforms with and without logo

Carpets, rugs and mats (including bath, shower and Corporate clothing and workwear toilet mats) Textile off cuts, yarns or threaded material


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