Junior School Newsletter Friday 22 May 2020
DEAR PARENTS And so a strange half term comes to an end with everyone, I think, ready for a short break. Over the past five weeks the staff and I have been amazed by the way that the children have adapted to a very different way of learning. The rate of improvement in their technological skills has been astounding and the resilience shown in coping in such an unsettling situation has been remarkable. However we are mindful of how much they are missing what Microsoft Teams, Firefly videos and live chats cannot provide; friends nearby to play alongside with. We are social beings, none more so than children, and much of what makes learning at Sibford successful is the interaction and teamwork. We are exploring ways in which we can manage more of this remotely and hope, after the break, to incorporate more live lessons for some of the younger year groups as well as providing social opportunities for the children to be together. The official newsletter of
El Dorado High School teachers
I would also like to take this opportunity to thank you, as parents for the sterling work you have been doing in guiding your children and helping to deliver the learning. We are very conscious that it is a difficult enough situation to manage children who are dealing with lockdown especially with your own work commitments, but when we throw spelling tests, science experiments and art activities into this mix we know that this presents challenges. It is certainly a testament to their enthusiasm, adaptability and curiosity and your endeavour and guidance that the standard of much that has been submitted has been so high. In Meeting for Worship on Monday, I shared with the children some thoughts on what we might think about when all of this is over, about how one day they will look back on this as a defining moment in history. Most of all though, I shared with them that in turmoil and challenge there are often shining stars of hope that can raise our spirits, whether that be the mountains and monuments now visible where once they were obscured by pollution, or people living in cities across the continent who have thrown open their windows when singing in the evening so that the lonely are included in the songs, or that young children have recognised the difficulties being faced by others and sought to support through letters, cards, posters, charity events and even lovely emails to their teachers! Certainly, in amongst the anxiety and fear, we have seen the very best of humanity.
Junior School Newsletter Friday 22 May 2020 Congratulations to the following children who have received this week’s Home Learner of the Week certificates: EYFS - Rita KS1 - Imogen Year 3 - Oscar Year 4 - Jacob
Year 5HS - Tobin Year 6AP - Charlotte Year 6NH - Tom & Amy
I hope you all have a wonderful half term, enjoy the break and look forward to seeing some of you in school and the others online on the 1st June. In friendship. Edward Rossiter Ps. Did you know that, as a result of a reduction in air pollution, Mount Everest is now visible from Kathmandu, over 120 miles away, after many decades?
@SibfordJS
@SibfordOxon
@SibfordOxon
FOUNDATION AND RECEPTION After six weeks of lockdown ‘home learning’, many of us in Early Years are hoping to be heading back to school. The creativity, imagination and resilience the children (and their parents) have shown has been wonderful and really reflects what I can only describe as the ‘Sibford Spirit’. It has been a learning curve for us all and I hope that upon reflection the parents can look back and feel proud of how much they themselves have learnt. They have a much deeper knowledge and understanding of their child as a learner and now have a whole range of strategies they can use to support and develop their child’s learning. You are all amazing. This week we have been exploring caterpillars and butterflies and for the first time ever the butterflies emerged from their chrysalis with almost perfect timing (of course it was the year we were not in school to see it). We have been reading The Very Hungry Caterpillar and using this as a basis to learn about number and place value, days of the week and story sequencing. We have also used it as an opportunity to explore the difference between stories and information books (thinking about life cycles in particular). Most of the children can now explain the life cycle of a butterfly using technical vocabulary, very impressive I think. Our ‘Out in the Garden’ topic has seen us focus on the creative arts this week. We have been trying to spot all the colours of the rainbow on our nature walks, creating butterfly art works and dances, as well as making our own garden orchestra using old pots and pans.
YEAR 1 AND 2 That’s a wrap for this term with Year 1 and 2’s topic ‘Take it Outside’. Thankfully, the weather has been (mostly) kind for a lot of the activities given over the term. This week, they finished with poetry work building on how their senses can give ideas for writing, ending the week with thinking about how to use treasures from their garden to write their own poem. Partitioning and ‘Frog method’ was revisited to support addition and subtraction work in their maths, thinking about how many different number facts can help us solve problems, especially worded problems. There have been some lovely examples of painted stones, as part of their Art work, decorating them with positive messages or scenes. Animals are everywhere at this time of the year and with their knowledge accumulating over the term, they completed their own research to create a life cycle of a different animal. Following on from their work on becoming a weather forecaster/presenter, they used this understanding to think about how they could make their own weather station. We look forward to starting our new topic next term and no doubt Becca Edwards will continue to see more excellent work from all the children. Have a great half term Year 1 and 2, you have certainly deserved it!
YEAR 3
During English lessons, this week, children in Year 3 continued to look at the Owl who was Afraid of the Dark by Jill Tomlinson. Their main task was to explore and identify the features of diary entries. Children put themselves in the shoes of Plop and wrote a diary entry as if they were him.  Some of the features included writing using first person, informal chatty language, Idioms, opinions and paragraphs. Well done children! In science, children enjoyed creating rain-forest animal food chains. While in geography they explored why the rain-forest is under threat and the measures taken to protect it. Excellent posters and notes to explain these issue followed. This week, brings to an end the big task in DT and Art! Children were tasked to design and make a poison dart frog beanbag. Old leggings have now morphed into spectacular frogs. Designs are resplendent with vibrant colour and pattern. Well done Alice, you built a great Cairn during Forest school. Thank you parents for all the work and comments you are sending via Teams. Thank you for facilitating your child’s Home Learning. I hope you have a safe and relaxing half term break.
YEAR 4 Our rainforest topic in Science has had the children looking to understand and identify food chains in the Amazon rainforest – thinking about the key words: producer, consumer, herbivore, carnivore and omnivore. They found out how food chains usually start with a green plant as plants are able to produce their own energy from sunlight. The leaves turn the sunlight into sugars which act as food for the plant. They looked at examples of food chains from the Amazon rainforest and explained what these food chains are showing. They then worked on re-arranging rainforest plants and animals into food chains. Some even created their own food chains to show feeding relationships between the plants and animals of the rainforest. We have read Mufaro’s Beautiful Daughters this week, making predictions and spotting character traits. The children also imagined how they would react if they were in story… coming across laughing trees and headless men! We then summarised the story and finally thought about what the characters had learnt in the story to plan and write a letter from a future them, to the them of now - thinking about what they may be doing in the future and what advice they would give themselves. This advice includes ‘listening to your mum’, ‘don’t tease your sister/brother’, ‘save your money’ and ‘keep doing things you enjoy’ – great advice 4KS! In our Art topic Portraits, Year 4 have been learning about how Picasso began looking at people’s portraits in a new way. He wanted to see people afresh and incorporate what they looked like from different angles all in one portrait to capture the whole person. This week we tried to create our own Cubist self-portrait, using a face guide of different facial features and a dice to help us randomly select what to include. We used different proportions and designs including bold colours and strange placement of features to show emotion for our Cubism faces. This is why you might not recognise any of us from our self-portraits. Can you guess who is who?
YEAR 5 This week, it’s been all about the Victorians in Year 5. We have made marble bags in DT, investigated Victorian leisure activities in History and explored the life of Jim Jarvis and the work of Dr Barnado through a class novel, Street Child by Berlie Doherty. Jim’s adventures have also provided an opportunity for us to learn about the workhouse and what it might have been like to live there. The children used descriptive language to write in the style of Berlie Doherty about life in the workhouse. We were absolutely bowled over by the quality of their writing. The newsletter just isn’t long enough for us to share all of this with you, but we’ve included just a couple of examples for you to enjoy:
It was like they were stuck in a cage, with a vicious lion guarding the door to hope. (Emily) The smell in the infirmary was dusty and medical, cold and unclean. (Chelsea) Death. That’s what people look forward to in that place. That is what asquerades as happiness in the horrid prison that is the workhouse. (Lucy) The constant smog of smoke was as black as a starless night. (Joseph)
YEAR 5 In Art, we have continued our work on observing nature by creating some fantastic dandelion paintings. It has been great to see how the children have used various different media, whatever they can find at home, to create art work that is beautiful, creative and unique. Our task now is to create a virtual gallery so that we can share it all with you.
As well as all this, the children have continued to amaze us with their ever developing IT skills. This week we have enjoyed sharing PowerPoint presentations in Geography, video clips of some very inventive PE tasks and even a virtual magic show. Despite the challenges of lockdown, and perhaps because of them, we are learning something new every day. We are so incredibly proud of each and every member of our year group for all they have achieved over the past few weeks. Huge thanks must go to all our parents, siblings and family members for all of your support over our first half term of virtual learning. We would like to wish you all a very happy and restful half term break!
YEAR 6 Another busy week in Year 6! The children have been challenged to create their own ‘big art’ composition, using the skills and techniques they have learnt during our unit of work on Street Art. We are hoping to decorate our temporary classroom with them next term. Meg even managed to create a Banksy style NHS hero doll.
In English, their work has centred around a short animated film called ‘The Lighthouse’. Writing in the first person, they have described how the old, lonely lighthouse keeper felt during the story. Here is some of Mintian's descriptive writing… As I climbed the long, cold, winding staircase, I could hear the thunder grumbling and rumbling angrily above me. Bracing myself, I struggled to open the battered door as it slammed itself helplessly on the broken door frame… After I wrenched the door open, I was astonished by what I saw. I had never seen such an epic storm in all my life. Lightening was flashing on the needle-like rocks; wind was howling as if it was trying to make itself heard against the low, steady, continuous rumbling of the grey thunder. It was a nightmare, but at the same time it was also wondrous and epic. Rain was pouring down on the lighthouse as if it was desperately trying to drown the light and sink this soggy world into complete darkness and misery. However, it was not all doom and gloom. The Lighthouse story had a pertinent and inspiring message of hope and compassion, as a small community pulled together in a time of extraordinary need. We hope you have a great half term Year 6. Thank you (and your parents!) for all your hard work this term.