JUNIOR SCHOOL
NEWSLETTER
Friday 8th March 2019
Dear Parents Book week 2019
As you will no doubt be aware, books and reading have dominated our learning this week. We began on Monday with a special themed Meeting for Worship where the teachers shared with the children some of the books that have had a major impact upon their lives. We wanted to share with them that the written word can be more than entertaining escapism; it can be a source of inspiration too. On Tuesday the teachers swapped classes to read to a different group of children. I had the pleasure of reading Roald Dahl’s The Enormous Crocodile to Year 1 and 2 – I hope they enjoyed it as much as I did! We also had the opportunity to give out the Key Stage reading challenges which should have made their way home by now. The children have until the end of March to successfully complete the 10 trials – it would be great if we could have some photographic evidence of them too (particularly “reading somewhere unusual”!) On Wednesday we split into our House groups to take part in a Vertical Learning Morning. Clark, Fry, Gillett and Nansen rotated through four activities including a Gruffalo trail, a Harry Potter spell-casting dance workshop, an art upcycling task using pages from old books and a Roman reading-based board game. Throughout the morning the children engaged brilliantly with the tasks, as you can see from the photographs (that will be on display on Firefly shortly) – the product of their artistic endeavours can also be seen in the lovely new display in the library. When they weren’t involved in the activities, Nick Hadley was extracting volunteers to read to camera – retelling the story of The Gruffalo on its twentieth anniversary. We hope to show the premiere of it soon! Thursday saw the arrival of World Book Day itself and an absence of pupils. In their place we were inundated with Thors, vampires, unicorns, several Robin Hoods, a smattering of Arthurs, the occasional mermaid, a couple of spiders, the odd werewolf, an Icarus or two, Bobby Moore (one interpretation of the theme of Myths and Legends!), not to mention just about the full
pantheon of Greek and Roman gods. A huge thank you to all of the parents who spent so much time creating the marvellous outfits. We really appreciate the work that went into the costumes and it certainly brought books and reading to the fore and helped engage and inspire the children in their learning. While still in costume, and driven by Zeus and Medusa, Key Stage 2 travelled to the Jaffe and Neale bookshop in Chipping Norton, armed with their vouchers, to show off their costumes, carry out some reading activities and make some special purchases. Children in EYFS and Key Stage 1 should have been given their vouchers to take home, but please let us know if the “bookbag administration system” fails as we have some spare! I’m looking forward to giving out more reading certificates following Year 5’s Celebration Meeting tomorrow. This year we’ve certainly seen more children progressing more rapidly than before; I hope they can all keep it up for the rest of the year. Elsewhere we hosted our annual football and netball tournaments (more about those later) as well as an EYFS “Stay and Play” session. Congratulations to the following pupils who received Celebration Certificates: Y1/2 – Harry A Y3 – Harry S Y4MA – Chelsea Y4KS – Joseph Y5 – Mintian Y6AP - Olivia Y6NH – Amber Head Teacher Awards were also given to: Max and Darcey in Y1/2. I hope you all have a wonderful weekend. In friendship Edward Rossiter Head of Junior School Sibford School Ps. As teachers we love a good, complex compound sentence. But did you know that the longest sentence ever printed is thought to be 823 words in Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables?
Foundation and Reception
Oh help, oh no…it’s a Gruffalo, or maybe a wolf, or a giant or some bears. We have been immersing ourselves in tradional tales this week, including some mixed up ones. One was about a kind eco friendly wolf and some mean pigs wanting to destory the beautilful valley he lives in by building high rise homes.
Stories have also been central to our maths learning this week. We started by using our shop role play area to tell number stories. Then inspired by a book a child bought in, we made up stories about ‘dreams’. The kids ideas were so imaginative and they all bought number into their stories. We joined in with the vertical leanring day and took part in The Gruffalo Trail. That was not enough for us
time. We then had a go at making our own collage maps. On Tuesday we also found time to make some yummy vegan pancakes, the children even had a go at flipping them. We then, of course, told the story of Mr Wolves pancakes. On Thursday I am entirely not sure what happened to my class as they were replaced by Robin Hood, Red Riding Hood, a dinosaur, a tortoise, the BFG, an Alicorn, a fairy princess, a dragon and supergirl. We used this as chance to take to the stage and make up our own stories using the characters we had, mostly invovling picnics.
Year 1 and 2
No (quail) news is good news in Year 1 and 2; nearly 2 weeks in, they’re still incubating safely in the classroom and the countdown continues! Explaining to the children that the eggs are to turn into animals rather than hard boiled eggs has been a good discussion point, especially when discussing the lunch of Mr Grinling from ‘The Lighthouse Keeper’s Lunch’ in their English this week. They once again immersed themselves in the setting, imagining what it would be like looking out to sea. After realising that all the characters were slightly frustrated by the pesky seagulls, they thought about how they could use adverbs in their writing and write as the characters using dialogue. Becca Edwards accidently brought her weekly shop into school and so asked the children to help sort it from heaviest to lightest, comparing, using scales and then checking the packets for their weight in grams. They were quite surprised at how some larger objects weren’t necessarily the heaviest and vice versa. This then helped them to weigh using different gram weights of objects in the classroom. When faced with a pile of mystery photos to sort in teams at the start of the week, they began to understand how animals can be sorted into different groups. Some children confidently proving why a fish was a fish and bird a bird! The Very Hungry Caterpillar took them on a journey in their geography lesson, travelling to different food items, which the children then had to create a ‘food’ map using positional and geographical terms in case another caterpillar should choose to repeat his rather greedy journey! After using vegetables for
printing last week, they looked at the work of Paul Cezanne and his still life drawings. In groups, they set up their own composition, positioning fruit and vegetables carefully to draw using pastels on a dark background. Between all of this they managed to fit World Book Day and the Vertical Learning Day too!
Year 3
Year 3 began a new DT topic this week: packaging! They investigated a range of packaging (and got an insight into Helen Arnold’s life in the process!) and found out that packaging can serve a range of different purposes. They considered the materials used and how the properties make it suitable for its purpose, how each package had been strengthened and how each package can be opened/closed.
Year 3 very much enjoyed their yummy pancakes at lunchtime on Tuesday. After lunch, they wondered why we eat pancakes on Shrove Tuesday. To fully understand this, they began by learning about the Christian story of Jesus going into the desert for 40 days and 40 nights and how he was tempted by the devil. They then thought about situations whereby they might be tempted or pressured into doing the wrong thing. Here, they explored the different choices that they had in each situation. One of these included being pressured into making fun of another child by a bully. They role-played the situation and thought about ways in which they could be assertive, say no and stand up for the child being bullied. Year 3 then learned about how Christians often try to give up something (or try to do something good) for Lent to remember the time when Jesus was in the desert without food or water. They discovered that pancakes were a good way of using up all the rich foods in the house before the 6 weeks of Lent whereby Christians aim to live modestly. Tuesday’s Maths lesson was an interesting one to say the least. To consolidate their understanding of long addition, pupils created instructional videos on how to carry out long addition sums with 3-digit numbers. They found it a strange yet liberating experience to be in the position of the teacher for a change! These videos can now be found on Year 3’s Firefly page. On Wednesday, the Year 3 pupils delved into their gene pools, where they discussed and then created their own family trees. As well as mapping how their family members are related to one another, pupils realised that they had lots of things in common with their relatives: rounded noses and cheek dimples for example. Finally, Year 3 have well and truly immersed themselves into a magical world of stories. They have been writing book reviews, creating characters, writing stories, reading stories and of course dressing up as fantastic fictional characters! What a week it has been!
Year 4
Despite a very busy week 4MA managed to include playing a rather energetic Anglo-Saxon trading game. This game involved the children trading items like sheep and crops in order to survive Anglo-Saxon village life. Well done to all the groups who played very skilful games, avoiding trading when they could see they had good provisions and tools.
In English this week 4KS have been exploring list poems, identifying different word types within them and picking apart their features. Drawing on personal experiences and likes, the children were surprised at how easily (and quickly!) they all wrote effective and unique poetry. In Science we have been getting our botanical sketching hats on, as we have looked closely at plants and used watercolours to create some stunning paintings to help us appreciate the intricate parts of the flower. Children enjoyed World Book day: they contemplated their favourite books, illustrations and quotes. A very big thank you to parents who helped provide amazing costumes for their children on World Book Day. Year 4 really enjoyed taking part in the BBC World Book Day Live lesson, participating in the interactive activities and looking out for the questions we had submitted to the three authors taking part.
Year 5
By the time you read this, Year 5 will hopefully have sung and acted their little hearts out in our Celebration Meeting. Over the past two weeks, they have really risen to the challenge of learning a whole new play and 5 new songs! Along the way they have been learning about how Christopher Columbus discovered the Americas in 1492, when he sailed west to reach the east searching for a quicker way to get to Asia to trade. After many years of asking King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain to fund his voyage, they finally agreed to pay, as long as he gave any new land or treasures he found to Spain. Although theses explorations were exciting and daring and brought new goods into Europe, Year 5 have also been thinking of some of the problems that they encountered as well as considering some of the problems that they caused.
Year 6
What a lot of drama in Year 6 this week! Not the usual arguments of 10 and 11-year-old children, but family feuds, star-crossed lovers, sneaking around in back gardens, and climbing up balconies. Not to mention the fights, insults, rude hand gestures and general rowdy behaviour. As you have probably guessed, we have begun studying Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, so Ed Rossiter does not need to rush over to give everyone a detention just yet. The children have been particularly good at deciphering the Tudor language, so don’t be surprise if they wish you a “Good Morrow” or ask “Whither you go?” (However, if they call you a “Banbury cheese” or “Bugbear”, you might need to have words.)
In addition to this, Year 6 have enjoyed their final World Book Day where they have been able to dress up. As ever, the costumes have been superb and highlight the ever-maturing choices that the children are making with reading choices. The children were glad to note on their weekly trip to the library that the World Book Day fun does continue into the Senior School, even if their dressing up comes to an end. Sport Reports U11 Football – Sibford Tournament
On Tuesday afternoon we hosted an U11 Football Tournament with our A & B team competing against 8 other schools. The A team started strong with a good win over Windrush, which set us up nicely in the tournament. Our next game was against an outstanding Cokethorpe team, Both Tom and Nicholas shone in defence to keep the score at 0-0 and get the team a point that would be crucial. Going in to our next 2 games we knew that we needed to score 13 goals to top the group and have a more favourable semi final draw. The boys rose to the challenge and won 7-0 and 6-0 to top our group. This was built on a solid defensive with Bardia and Henry making sure we did not concede, allowing our attacking flair take centre stage with Finn, Freddie and Toby scoring for fun. Our good work was nearly undone in the semi final, where we lacked the composure needed to break down an organised Dr Radcliffe's team. We missed many chances meaning we drew 0-0 and headed into extra time. Again during this period we were unable to score. We headed to the dreaded sudden death penalty shoot-out. Freddie kept his composure and scored, Dr Radcliffe's missed their penalty meaning we had reached the final. The boys had to quickly regain focus after the penalty shoot-out to make sure they were ready for the final. The final saw us up against Cokethorpe who we had played earlier in the tournament. An ever, first half saw us go in 0-0 at half time due to the Cokethorpe goalkeeper making an outstanding save from Finn. At half time the team was very nervous with no one wanting to make the mistake that could potentially lose us the final. The team were then challenged to enjoy the final, instead of worrying about making a mistake, and asked who was going to step up and be the hero to win us the tournament. The hero came in the shape of Oskar who made one of the best saves I have ever seen to keep it at 0-0. This meant once again we would head to extra time and eventually penalties!! After 6 penalties each nothing could
separate the 2 teams and with an injury to the opposition goalkeeper the tournament was ended with the trophy being shared by both teams. The boys should be very proud of their efforts and this is the first time Sibford have won this competition since 2012, so an even bigger achievement. Many thanks also to our Y13 student, Ben and Y10 students Tane and Will who refereed throughout the afternoon and did a fantastic job. U11 Netball – Sibford Tournament
On Tuesday afternoon Sibford hosted the annual U11 Netball tournament. This was a fantastic afternoon with some excellent netball on display. Our U11 team had a strong start in their group matches, winning their first and second games. There was some excellent work in the centre third with Lily playing C and accurate passes fed the ball swiftly to the circle. Lara and Olivia made the most of these opportunities and scored an impressive number of goals in each half. The 3rd game started well for Sibford although the opposition from Warwick also gave an impressive performance. Excellent defence work in the circle by Emma and Audrey limited the scoring opportunities and at the end of a tense match, the final result was a 5-5 draw. In the semi final, Sibford played against Cokethorpe, the winners of Group B. This was a fantastic match with the whole team working tirelessly. Amber, and Elena worked with determination as WA and Rosie worked hard as WD to keep the ball out of the opposition’s circle. After a nail-bitting match, the final whistle blew on a 1-1 draw. This took us into extra time where the winner would be the first team to score. Both teams gave an excellent performance and it could have gone either way. Unfortunately for Sibford, Cokethorpe were able to make the most of a scoring opportunity which allowed them to proceed to the final. Sibford girls finished 3rd overall and should be very proud of their performance. Special mention must also go to Eva and Mila who demonstrated excellent Sibford spirit throughout the afternoon. They worked incredibly hard to support a visiting team who were new to the tournament, these girls showed real leadership qualities as well as very good individual skill. They proved to be very versatile players and we were very proud of the teamwork on display. Well done girls! Many thanks also to our Y12 students, Phoebe and Shae who umpired throughout the afternoon and did a fantastic job. Banbury Young Musician Finals – Saturday, 2nd March 2019
Last Saturday the younger members of the school choir took part in the Banbury Young Musician again. The competition was well matched and unfortunately we came runners up this year, however, we were not discouraged. The winning school choir was lovely to listen to and gave us some food for thought. We also enjoyed listening to competitors from other classes play their instruments. Our next public event will be the Crocus Concert on Tuesday 12th March at 7pm. Tickets are £5 on the door. Please come along if you fancy an evening of great music. Junior School Scholastic Book Fair
Thank you to everyone who supported the Junior School Book Fair and due to your support, we have earned over £300 in rewards to spend on books for the Junior School – Thank you. Lost Property
Eva, Y6 has lost 1 games sock (named), please could everyone check their bags in case it has been picked up in error.