14th October Newsletter

CoMPasS

Registered Charity No: 1141329

Following the IAPS Heads conference in Edinburgh last week, I used a story from the famous city in my

gates of the kirkyard and his grave is marked by a small pink granite stone. Bobby's collar and bowl are displayed in the Museum of Edinburgh. In 1873 a drinking fountain was erected in Edinburgh in memory of Greyfriars Bobby. The bronze statue of Bobby on top of the fountain was made by William Brodie. The statue of Bobby sits on top of a column of granite, and it is thought to bring luck when you rub the nose of Bobby as you walk past. At the

thanks for all your support following our school charity over the past year and a massive thank you to the Friends of St Peter’s 2 8 who organised so many events in support of the charity. It was a wonderful achievement on behalf of all at St Peter’s 2 8 to make such a generous contribution to support the work of this incredible charity.

DIARY FOR WEEK COMMENCING 17th October 2022

MONDAY

School Council

Year 3 House Tag Rugby (9am)

Year 2 Informal Music Concert (1.30pm)

Year 1 Creative (First Half of Term)

Year 1 Netball

Year 2 & 3 European Cultures

Year 2 & 3 Football*

assembly on Monday to demonstrate the school value of Friendship. The story of Greyfriars Bobby has inspired books and films because of its heartening story. John Gray, known as Jock, lived in Edinburgh around 1850. John was a watchman with the Edinburgh City Police and had a little Skye Terrier, Bobby, who kept him company during his rounds at night. Together, the two became a familiar sight around the old, cobbled streets of Edinburgh throughout the seasons. However, John became unwell with tuberculosis and sadly died on the 15th February 1858. He was buried in Greyfriars Kirkyard, near the Grassmarket, in Edinburgh. People living near the kirkyard saw that Bobby, his faithful Skye Terrier, refused to leave his master's grave, even in the worst weather conditions. The people of Edinburgh took good care of Bobby by giving him food and shelter, but still, he remained loyal to his master. For fourteen years, this faithful dog kept watch and guard over his master’s grave and became known as Greyfriars Bobby. Sadly, in 1872, Bobby passed away also. He was buried just inside the

end of assembly, the children discussed many of our other school values in addition to friendship that Bobby demonstrated, those of Compassion, Empathy and Hope, one child said ‘Hope because we can Hope that everyone chooses to be a loyal friend to others just as Bobby was’.

In assembly we also presented the winning entry for the sunflower competition created by the School Council last year to raise funds for the sunflowers in York Charity supporting Ukrainian families displaced by the troubles in that part of the world. Sunflowers in York This week we sent a cheque for just under £7000 to the Children’s Heart Surgery Fund in Leeds Children's Heart Surgery Fund. Huge

In this morning’s assembly we celebrated a special birthday for Mrs Brunton’s with the help of Ted and Kate who also celebrate their birthdays today. I know the staff were particularly appreciative of all the cakes and sweet treats Mrs Brunton left in the staffroom, they certainly put a smile on everyone’s face this morning.

We are looking forward to welcoming over 100 families tomorrow for our 2-11 Open Morning. It is lovely to be able to share our school with visitors and a testament to St Peter’s strong reputation locally that we have so many families wishing to enquire about places in school. Please do be aware that the carpark will be very busy.

Next week we are looking forward to The St Peter’s Bake Off, informal music concerts and House Tag rugby competitions for Year 2 and 3. Year 3 will also be heading off to Newcastle to visit the Life Centre. Further details of these events can be found later in the newsletter.

Wishing you all a lovely weekend

TUESDAY

Year 2 Cricket*

Year 2 IT (First Half of Term)

Year 3 Cookery (First Half Term)

Year 2 House Tag Rugby (9am)

Year 3 Informal Music Concert (1.30pm)

Year 1 Football*

Year 2 Tag Rugby

Year 2 STEM (First Half of Term)

Year 2 & 3 Dance

Year 3 Swimming

Year 3 Tennis*

WEDNESDAY

THURSDAY

Year 1 Animal (First Half of Term)

Year 1 Cricket*

Year 1 Football*

Years 2 & 3 Choir

Year 3 Trip Life Centre

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

HOUSE TAG RUGBY MATCHES

Monday 17th October

Tuesday 18th October

School Rugby Pitch)

School Rugby Pitch)

INFORMAL MUSIC CONCERTS

Monday 17th October (1.30pm in Rayson Room) Year 2 and Choir

Tuesday 18th October (1.30pm in Rayson Room) Year 3 and Choir

HEADLICE

Please be aware that we have headlice in Reception. Please check your child(ren)’s head(s) and treat if necessary.

Please could we request that all long hair is tied back in school to prevent the spread. Please visit the NHS website for advice on treatment.

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 – Friday 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 – Friday 2nd December and Saturday 3rd December

Tickets are now on sale for this creative festive evening. Please see the following poster for details on how to book.

Autumn Social

Thank you to everyone who joined us last Friday. it was a really enjoyable evening and a lovely to opportunity to meet other parents. Huge thank you to the Old Grey Mare for sponsoring the event and letting us use such a great venue.

Nearly New Sale

Many thanks to FOSP volunteers for organising the Autumn nearly new sale, which was much appreciated by parents. More sales will happen throughout the year.

PE

Despite the immediate disappointment that unfortunately the Yarm Sport Workshop was cancelled on Tuesday, the Year 3 children did not allow the news to dampen their moods. Instead, they took part in a St Peter's Sport Workshop at home. This involved 6 tag rugby matches, performed in their houses and a few hockey matches. All children participated with huge smiles on their faces and presented fantastic resilience as a team. This also allowed a great stepping stone for the children to prepare for next week’s inter house competitions.

Autumn Leaves are falling down falling down, falling down.Autumn leaves are falling down, falling all around. The colours have been breathtaking and the Acorns have been able to make the most of the glorious sunshine and explore the sights and sounds of Autumn.We set up our very own experiment seeing which foods make a CRUNCH as you bite them or squeeze them.The ice cream cones were a hit and we have been crunching them all week! We ventured off to Forest School and made the most delightful little Autumn creatures using our fine motor skills.The children sat among the leaves and threaded all sorts of coloured leaves onto their ‘Conker-Headed’ creature. We gave each creature some eyes. Our star bakers made apple crumble with the apples we picked on our walk and have made snails out of play dough using a Conker for its shell. The stories we have read this week were about squirrels and hedgehogs. It has been a truly wonderful week.

ACORNS

Autumn has most definitely arrived in Conkers this week! From hammering pumpkins to making our very own pumpkin soup; we have been exploring the pumpkins, scooping the insides out and roasting the seeds. We even chopped our own onions and garlic to make our soup taste extra yummy! We can’t wait to see what our little chefs create for the Friends of St Peter’s Bake Off next Monday!

Also, this week our favourite canine friend, Doug, came for a walk to forest school with us and helped us find some crunchy, colourful autumn leaves. We have loved exploring and rolling conkers in paint, creating some wonderful autumn artwork! Halloween has been creeping into the home corner, we’ve been dancing to some monster tunes with our trick or treat costumes. Let's see what spooktacular fun we have in store for next week!

CONKERS

CONKERS

Theweeksareflyingby,andthisweekhasbeenyetanother amazingweekfulloflearningandplay!Receptionhavebeen busybuildingtractorsandobstaclecourseswiththelarge constructionoutside.Therewaslotsofteamworkand collaborativeplay.Theyhavecreatedwonderfulcreationsand sculpturesusingloosepartsfromapictureoftheEarthtofairies andwoodlandanimals.JunkmodellingisabighitinReception andthisweekisnoexception,wehaveseencreationsofrobots andguitarsandfairyhouses.

InPhonics,wehavecontinuedtoworkhardlearningmore soundsandplayedgamestohelpwithblendingcvcwords.We arealsotryinghardwithourletterformation.

Usingnumiconandcounterswehavepracticedourrepeating patternsandstartedtoexplorenumbers1,2and3.

InForestSchoolReceptionhavemadeleafkebabsusingthe colourfulAutumnleavesfromHomesteadParkandtheforest.

RECEPTION

RECEPTION

This week in Year One, the children have been using our trip to Tropical World last week to inspire our learning! We have been writing speech bubbles and sentences that contain adjectives to describe some of our favourite animals that we saw on the day! The descriptive language used has been most impressive and truly helps to show how amazing the animals were! I wonder if you can use any adjectives to describe any of the other animals that we saw at home?

In the classrooms, the children have been exploring the use of observational drawings that contain and focus on the skills of sketching and shading. To do this, we have been looking specifically at different eyes from a range of different rainforest animals. It has been wonderful to see the attention to detail

YEAR 1

YEAR 2

What a magical, mythical week it has been in Year 2!

This week we have been exploring all the amazing mythical creatures the ancient Greeks created and wow, there were certainly some ferocious beasts!

We have continued our focus on descriptive sentences and have been adding adjectives to simple sentences to make them even better. The children then loved designing their own mythical creatures made up of different animal body parts and magical powers! They wrote some fantastic, terrifying descriptions! In topic, the children have carried out a science investigation into hygiene, they rubbed their hands on pieces of bread to see what would happen if left to go mouldy. We all made a prediction as to what might happen and eagerly await the results over the next few weeks! Today we welcomed in Miss Grindley from STP’s classics department who came to teach a Greek lesson! Miss Grindley was so impressed with all the children’s knowledge of Ancient Greece!

Have a lovely weekend.

We’ve had great fun in Year 3 this week celebrating World Space Week. The theme for this year’s World Space Week is ‘Space and Sustainability’ which led us to explore the problems of space debris and ‘space junk’. Did you know there are approximately 23,000 pieces of debris larger than a tennis ball orbiting the Earth? This led us to think about the problems of litter in our local environment, and how we could help. The children decided to go litter picking at Forest School and were very pleased when they managed to collect a full bag of litter between them.

Space Week starts each year on 4th October which marks the anniversary of the launch of the first human made Earth satellite, Sputnik 1. We then went onto learn about Sputnik 2 were introduced to the story Laika, the Space Dog. We held a class debate as to whether Laika should have been sent on a one way journey to space, and the children had lots of ideas and opinions to share during our discussions.

The wonderful picture book Laika the Astronaut by Owen Davey inspired us to plan and write our own story about Laika. We used drama activities to help develop our ideas, and we look forward to finishing these stories next week.

Tuesday saw the children developing their tag rugby and hockey skills in our Year 3 sport’s workshops, and we are looking forward to visiting Yarm School next half term for another workshop.

YEAR 3