Junior School Newsletter Friday 24 April 2020
DEAR PARENTS
@SibfordJS
A virtual “welcome back” after what has been a discombobulating Easter holidays! I hope you all managed to have a bit of a rest and that the imposed extra family time that self-isolation has given us has been blessing in disguise – I know it has for me. Thank goodness we’ve been blessed with sunny weather that has allowed us to get outside! I want to begin by extending a huge “thank you” to you for successfully taking up the challenge of delivering the home-learning we have planned for the classes. Getting to grips with the technological obstacles has been a steep learning curve for us all, but I can honestly say I am much more proficient online than I was before! We have been incredibly impressed with the way in which the children have risen to the challenge and the standard of the work they have been submitting. Children are very adaptable creatures and they have responded magnificently to the sizeable upheaval they have faced. The official newsletter of
El Dorado High School teachers
I want also want to pass on my congratulations to all of the pupils (and parents!) who gamely took part in our Easter Family Alphabet Challenges. There was an impressive mix of talented submissions, funny videos and happy smiling faces in photographs. We hope you enjoyed doing them as much as we did watching them!
Junior School Newsletter Friday 27 March 2020 The Junior School staff are enormously missing the children, especially for those of us on campus who are experiencing uncharacteristically quiet playing fields and buildings. However, the regular daily updates through submitted work and photographs has gone a long way to plugging that gap. We know that the trial we are facing will not last forever and the daily news updates seem to indicate the tentative steps towards a recovery. In the interim, we will continue to do our best to keep their learning progressing and the minds positively engaged. Head of Junior School Stickers: William - Year 4 Home Learner Certificates: EYFS - Milo Year 1/2 - Fergus Year 3 - Tom K Year 4 - Read and Lieu Yen Year 5HS - Oliver R Year 5LM - Joseph Year 6NH - Logan Year 6AP - Ruby Well done to everyone on a fabulous week – the staff and I look forward to seeing how you get on next week. In friendship. Edward Rossiter Ps. Did you know it can take a photon 40,000 years to travel from the core of the sun to the surface, but only 8 minutes to travel the rest of the way to earth?
@SibfordOxon
@SibfordOxon
FOUNDATION AND RECEPTION To utilise the good weather and make to most of my classes love of the outdoors our new topic is 'out in the garden'. Luckily, the weather has been glorious again and many of the children have been making the most it. Joining Year 1 and 2, for our first week back, we have been reading 'We are going on a bear hunt'. The children have been very creative with their natural story maps and fabulous at using them to retell the story. In maths we spent time setting up a visual timetable, thinking about the different times of the day. We then had some fun with positional language. Where is the bear? We have also been gardening, going on scavenger hunts (on our daily walk), practising our throwing skills thanks to Dave Brassett and making our own Tree of Curiosity. One child wants to know why an apple falls down and not up? Finally, a big shout out to all the amazing and creative parents in Early Years who have worked hard to bring that extra bit of magic to their children's learning. Thank you.
YEAR 1 AND 2 This is a somewhat different start to Year 1 and 2’s new topic ‘Take it outside!’. That may seem a little strange considering the current restrictions but it’s focusing on all those activities you can do out in the wonderful sunshine we’ve been so lucky to have this week. The children have been working on ‘We’re Going On a Bear Hunt’, thinking about the setting in particular. There have been some great approaches to their learning, particularly when making the cave at the end of the story. In their maths work, they’ve been focusing on different strategies to help them with addition and subtraction and Becca Edwards has been particularly impressed when teaching some of the children on Teams, showing their fabulous understanding of number. There’s been lots of topic work, in the new form of a ‘Pick n Mix’ format, focusing on animals, weather and Bear Hunt obstacle courses! Although it’s a different way of teaching at the moment, the children in Year 1 and 2 continue to impress and show a great work ethic completing their activities and tasks. Becca Edwards is certainly impressed.
YEAR 3 Children in Year 3 started the new term with a new book and a new topic. In English we are looking at the Owl who was Afraid of the Dark by Jill Tomlinson. Among many other things children have used excellent vocabulary to describe Plop’s character such as inquisitive, nervous, clumsy and anxious. Our new topic is all about the amazing rainforest. Work produced has been flooding in, demonstrating a wide variety of tasks tackled. Determination to do our very best while drawing rainforest animals has been noted! Throughout the week I’ve seen annotations, calculations, labelled maps and rainforest drawings. But the highlight of the day, is off course, when you see each other either on Teams. Thank you parents for all the work you are sending via email and for your help with facilitating your child’s home-learning. Stay safe.
YEAR 4 What a week! I have been so proud of 4KS and how they have adapted, approached and embraced our new way of working. There have been teething issues with cameras, muting microphones and Teams… but, at the end of only week 1 we have also had sporcle scores smashed, veg plot envy after a plant identification task, increased technological skills (them and me!), masses of fantastic work handed in and house points a plenty. Keep up the fantastic work 4KS - I am super proud of you all.
YEAR 5 This week has been quite remarkable really. We have resumed our learning in virtual form, using Microsoft Teams and Firefly. After a few teething problems, most of us have mastered working in a virtual classroom, which has allowed us to share ideas, ask questions and feel connected to each other whilst we are all learning at home. Once again, the children have amazed us with the speed and resilience with which they have got to grips with all of this. They are even helping each other, either with technical issues or questions about their classwork - they really are all superstars! Using all of this technology to help us, we have begun our new topic on the Victorians this week. This has involved researching Queen Victoria – looking at pictures of her at different stages of her life and thinking about her role as an incredibly influential monarch. In DT, investigating Victorian toys has also given children the opportunity to explore what life might have been like as a Victorian child. Many people have commented that they prefer the toys we have today to those that the Victorians had! We found out that Jack in the Boxes were a popular Victorian toy – many of us even had a go at making one.
YEAR 5 In English, we have begun a new unit of work on persuasive writing, where we have looked at different types of adverts and the tools that writers used to persuade people to buy their products. During our live lesson yesterday, we discussed our ideas about what makes a good advert together. The children then wrote their own adverts – which were absolutely brilliant and show that they have learned a huge amount this week. All things considered – we have had an absolutely brilliant start to the new term. It is quite possible that we have all (staff and children) learned more this week than we have for quite some time. Huge thanks go to every single member of Year 5, both children and parents, for your hard work, determination and enthusiasm. Make sure you have a good rest this weekend!
YEAR 6 In Year 6, children and teachers are glad to be back in lessons and learning again, and we have hit the ground running for the Summer term. The Ancient Greeks is the topic for the next few weeks, where we will learn something of this period of history as well as studying many of the most famous myths. Year 6 have already learnt about Pandora’s Box, Perseus and Medusa, and the Trojan horse. They very much enjoyed hearing how the Greeks were spurred onto victory, so that the Trojans had to hoof it. “More puns?” he asked. “Neigh!” they replied. Year 6 were able to apply these terrible puns as they wrote newspaper reports about the battle. Sadly, we have to report that some of our Year 6 group are turning to a life of crime. Many of our number have been practising their graffiti skills as they learnt how to create “tags”. Luckily, as these were their names, it should be fairly easy to find the culprits if there is an outbreak of Street Art in the local villages. Year 6 have also been very busy in maths this week as they have had a mixture of live lessons, MyMaths lessons and independent learning. As in all subjects, the children have adapted amazingly well to Home Learning, have got to grips with using Microsoft Teams, and have all managed to hand their work in using Assignments. Nick Hadley’s maths group have been learning about finding the nth term in a sequence and how to apply ratios to problem solving. Ratio was very handy for this week’s food tech challenges. Lots of delicious pasta dishes were created and the instructions would work well in Jamie Oliver’s next book. Alice Pennell’s maths groups have been looking at calculations involving money. They have added amounts and worked out how much change they would need. We ended the week by giving the children the opportunity to discuss how they are feeling about the current situation, and to share their ‘good news’ stories. We also talked about the amazing feat of Captain Tom – a true inspiration to us all!