Junior School Newsletter Friday 24 January 2020
DEAR PARENTS The official newsletter of
@SibfordJS
El Dorado High School teachers
I write this newsletter surrounded by haphazard Lego creations, dinosaur footprints, lost bits of K’Nex and with a six-and-a-half-foot pirate adorning the wall outside my office; not quite my regular environment! These (and many other things) are all part of our STEM fortnight which has already seen a varied spread of engineering and technology. Monday began with a Meeting for Worship where we used the inspiration of Alexander Fleming to consider the importance of asking questions. With barely a chance to catch their breath, Early Years and Key Stage 1 then went straight into a workshop with Science Oxford. During the “Inventing Isobel” experience they explored the properties of different materials. After break and lunch it was the turn of Key Stage 2 who used K’Nex to overcome the challenge of meeting the design criteria for a moving car and making a working fairground. The children had a thoroughly good time and produced some amazing designs – just check out the “tongues-out” pictures of concentration on the display in the main corridor! Tuesday saw the first of our presentations where former Junior School pupil Charlotte (now in Year 12) came to demonstrate her award-winning work in robotics. Charlotte has recently designed, programmed and created two remarkable robots. The first allows children in hospital to access classroom learning – and won her an award of £300! While the second, a robotic arm to help patients with Parkinson’s has had its patent snapped up by the University of Bristol! It was truly inspirational to see someone who began their technological journey in the Junior School achieve such great things – especially as she developed her love of coding, fundamental to her robotic masterpieces, while under the tutelage of Nick Hadley! Later in the week, Year 5 were treated to visit from David Fox who came to talk to them about his work in the field of chemistry. He had the children spellbound – which is no mean feat last thing on a Thursday – and we’d like to pass on our thanks.
@SibfordOxon
@SibfordOxon
Junior School Newsletter Friday 24 January 2020 Earlier in the day, inspired by James Dyson and the crazy inventions of Joseph’s Machines, Key Stage 2 undertook a challenge to see who could create the slowest non-stop marble run using an A3 clipboard, some Lego and an indecent amount of blu-tac. Congratulations to Sophie, Meg and Amy who produced the most effective course – we’ll upload some of the photos and videos to firefly in the coming week – but well done to all the children who showed some creative imagination, resilience and scientific endeavour in their approach. We are finishing our week today with Open Classrooms from 3:30. This will be a wonderful opportunity for you to explore some of the science and technology work the children have been doing this week. I do hope to see many of you there and encourage you to look around some of the other classes too. Away from our STEM activities, we have also welcomed 16 prospective Year 7s who have joined us for some of their time. On Friday they will be combining with our current Year 6 to carry out some team-building tasks. Some of these are also staying on to undertake scholarship papers on Saturday – good luck to all of them Next week sees more STEM work with another three parent presentations, our Vertical Learning Morning and, wrapping up the fortnight, a collaborative Celebration Meeting next Friday to which you are warmly invited. Congratulations to Bonnie, Arthur and Henry – Y5 who have received Head Teacher Awards this week. Have a wonderful weekend. In friendship Edward Rossiter Head of Junior School PS. Did you know over 3.8 billion people use the internet today, which is 40% of the world's population?
@SibfordOxon
@SibfordOxon
FOUNDATION AND RECEPTION
If you venture to forest school, you’ll be in for a big surprise! Early Years and Year 3 discovered four sets of footprints and from our investigations we think they belonged to…… dinosaurs! Varying in size from 7.5cm to 260cm, we got to work identifying them. We looked at their shapes, measured them and even took some casts of the smaller ones. Back in class we cleaned up the casts (that belonged to a Compsognathus) and explored how long and tall they were. We also compared our footprints to our own heights and discovered that we were all around 6-7 of our own footprints tall. Year 3 tested this hypothesis and found the same! They also showed us the fun they had been having exploring the Allosaurus footprints. We also had some fun with bones last Friday, but we will let Year 3 tell you all about that!
YEAR 1 AND 2 The week started with Science Oxford visiting Year 1 and 2 and investigating different materials and their properties. This helped them when they merged with EYFS later that day when they looked at the best materials for a pirate ship and then tested their work, spraying it with water! Having looked at pirate ships, their features and structure; they then spent time designing and planning their own pirate ship in preparation to make in the next few weeks! Keeping on the theme of investigations, they looked at how oil might change the way some objects float or sink. In their maths, the week started with them wielding rulers around the classroom to measure anything and everything. They were asked to make comparisons between objects of different sizes, but also measure one another, using number facts to help them counting in decimetres. Towards the end of the week they received another letter and challenge cards from Captain Pete Pigeon requesting some life-size pirate objects to be made. The children worked in teams to make Captain Pete Pigeon himself, Stripy Pete, Pesky Parrot and a treasure chest, these can be seen on display around the school. The Pirates Next Door was the book of the week in their literacy, looking at the different characters and settings; making comparisons between a pirate’s life and their own. They finished the week by inventing their own map symbols, you guessed it, using a pirate theme. The children had to use ideas from examples seen on OS, road and other maps to help them.
YEAR 3
Year 3 and Early Years joined forces for STEM fortnight to explore the theme Dinosaurs. Children dug up some enormous bones and asked a question. "Could these bones be dinosaur bones?"
Year 3 looked at the ring of trees and asked a question. "Were these trees as old as the dinosaurs?"
The science: Trees grow a new ring under the bark each year. You can count these rings to find out how old they are. You can also work out how old a tree is because most trees increase their circumference by 2.5 cm per year, just under the bark. So, to find the approximate age of a tree measure its circumference approximately 1m above the ground and divide by 2.5. The tree we measured was approximately 155 years old.
YEAR 3
KNex challenge "Can you build a motorised car?"
Dinosaur footprints. Children used the information that a dinosaur’s leg length was 4 times as long as its footprint. To work out how long the leg of an Allosaurus, Triceratops, Compsognathus and a Brachiosaurus would have been they completed some multiplications. They went on to discover how long a dinosaur’s body was by multiplying the length of its footprint by 10. We also invited Early Years to have a look at our thinking.
YEAR 4
4KS became Anglo-Saxon town planners in History this week. Firstly, in small groups, they had to decide between three sites to settle at, ensuring that they justified their choices. This turned out to be an exercise in persuasion and compromise! Then, they moved on to independently thinking about placement of their hall and houses, crop fields and animal enclosures. As well as this, they developed an understanding of why we leave a field fallow and why a clay pit is going to be useful.
In English, the children have worked on creating a mythical beast that is going to feature in their own legend. As well as sketching their ideas, they captured powerful verbs and interesting adjectives linked to how their creature acts, looks, moves. What might their superhuman/special powers be? We then looked at settings and wrote the introduction specifically setting the scene. I am looking forward to reading and sharing their legends at the end of the week. In Pottery, as we were waiting for our Roman tiles to come out of the kiln, we made a start on some Anglo Saxon pots. The children used lots of new techniques, making two identical pinch pots and using cross hatching and slip to join them together, smoothing the seal ready to add on necks, handles and feet next week.
YEAR 4
On top of all this, there has been excellent teamwork and resilience shown in the STEM challenges they have undertaken. They worked in small groups to make battery powered vehicles that could move from A to B, and later in the week had fun creating a marble run out of lego - the challenge being for the marble to take as long as possible to get from the top to the bottom!
YEAR 5 This week began with a K’Nex challenge. Children in Year 5 took part in a workshop led by Science Oxford, where they were challenged to design and build a moving fairground ride. After a discussion and a look at some fairground photos for inspiration, the children worked in groups to create some incredible designs, from Ferris Wheels to roundabouts, pirate ships and carousels. Every group worked incredibly hard to produce a design that fitted the brief, also demonstrating outstanding cooperation and communication skills. The children were quite rightly proud of their designs, although breaking them up at the end of the session was fun too! Other STEM challenges have included producing a marble run, designing and building a cardboard chair, learning about the role of a design engineer and an informative talk from David Fox. We have thoroughly enjoyed the first week of STEM fortnight and are already looking forward to week two! In other news this week, we have continued our work on The Great Plague and have been writing letters in the style of Eyam villagers, sending love and good wishes to their friends and family from other parts of the country. The children have really risen to the challenge on this task and have written detailed, accurate and emotive letters, demonstrating a real understanding of what it might have been like to live in Eyam during the time of The Great Plague. Year 5 girls also played brilliantly in a netball fixture against Carrdus School on Wednesday. All matches were closely contested, the girls were fantastic ambassadors for our school and demonstrated excellent teamwork skills. While the girls were busy with netball, the boys remained at school getting their hands dirty (in pottery) making a whole flock of sheep. In just one short lesson they showed some super listening skills and a range of pottery techniques; each moulding a sturdy sheep with a woolly coat. In fact, there was “baahly” any bleating from the boys that they were not on a fixture too! Well done boys (it’ll be the other way around next week).
YEAR 6 What an exciting week we have had – even more so than usual! Our STEM fortnight got off to a great start with the K-Nex workshop run by Science Oxford. Tasked with the challenge of building a moving fairground ride, the children proved themselves to be excellent engineers. Our lovely instructor Sophie told Year 5 and 6 that they would not have time to make the impressive Ferris wheel that she had brought in as it took her 3 hours to build. Ever willing to meet a challenge, three of our Year 6’s managed their own version in less than 2 hours (see the picture). This was in amongst a number of other fantastic moving models that demonstrated a bucketful of enthusiasm, teamwork and imagination. The children did not do badly in the marble run challenge on Thursday either. In Maths, Year 6 have been looking at the work of Alan Turing. It is only fair to warn parents that both maths groups have been working on cracking secret codes. If you are sending messages to others you will need to update from the Caesar shifts, transposition ciphers and Vigenere encryptions as Year 6 are now a dab hand at reading and writing these. Watch out for any Caesar Cipher Wheels appearing in your house to decrypt and encrypt messages as well. Any MI6 agents - take note. 6NH have kept to the security theme by designing and building micro:bit powered burglar alarms for their class trays. These clever gadgets mean that crayon thefts have plummeted this week – good work Year 6! In English 6NH learnt about Edward Jenner, while 6AP learnt about Isambard Kingdom Brunel. Did you know that Edward Jenner had been deliberately infected with smallpox as an 8-year-old? Luckily for all of us he survived and paved the way for modern vaccines (he is thought to have invented this word as well). Friday sees the highlight of this STEM week as the children design and build their own Rube Goldberg machines. These complete a very simple task in a very complex way; in this case, ringing a bell. We will be showing these off on Friday afternoon and very much hope that lots of you will pop in to see them.
OTHER NEWS Sport Report - U9-11 Netball v Carrdus - Tuesday, 21st January 2020 A great time was had at Carrdus School on Tuesday afternoon when all Key Stage 2 girls were involved in their first netball match of the season. 4 matches were played in total and all teams worked hard throughout their match. It was fantastic to see everyone involved and developing their skill and confidence. Well done girls!
Lost Property  Orlando, Y6 has lost his tracksuit bottoms, unfortunately they were not named, but if everyone could check their bags in case they have picked up an extra pair of tracksuit bottoms by mistake. Huxx, Y2 has lost his bookbag and Loki, Y4 has lost his turquoise water stainless steel water bottle.
OTHER NEWS Les Misérables School Edition Tickets for the Sibford School production of Les Misérables School Edition are now on sale and selling well. Performances take place at 7pm on March 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th. You can purchase tickets online via this link for the price of £8 + booking fee: http://bit.ly/SibfordLesMis. Alternatively, tickets are now on sale via main reception for the price of £8. We can accept cash or cheques made payable to Sibford School.
Sibford School Fun in the Country Holiday Club! The Sibford School Fun in the Country holiday club is now taking bookings for 2020 school holidays in February, April, May, July/August and October. The club runs for ages 5 – 11 and costs £30 per child per day. Children can be dropped off between 8.30am and 9.10am. Collection should be between 4.30pm and 5.30pm. Activities include art, crafts, forest school, swimming sessions, climbing, team games, sports and outdoor play. The number of children per day is restricted so early booking is recommended. To book, click here: https://www.sibfordschool.co.uk/fun-in-the-country/.
OTHER NEWS
PSFA MAY BALL - TICKETS NOW ON SALE
‘A Night on the Orient Express’ May Ball is being held on Saturday 9 May 2020 and bookings are now open! Tickets are £65 each, and are excellent value for what promises to be a fantastic night, including reception drink and canapés, formal 4 course meal with coffee, live music, live and silent auction, and as always, some surprises on the night! The event is supporting another fantastic charity this year, Blue Skye Thinking (you can find out more about them here: www.blueskyethinking.org), as well as raising funds for PSFA to support projects within the school. If you would like to book a table or tickets (we can do tables of any number between 8-12) please email Heidi Fowler at psfa@sibfordschool.co.uk. In previous years tickets have sold out so do book early to avoid disappointment.
Junior School Newsletter Friday 24 January 2020
DATES FOR THE DIARY
The official newsletter of
El Dorado High School teachers
@SibfordOxon
@SibfordOxon
@SibfordOxon