Spring term Issue 25: 22nd March 2024
Dear Parents,
This week we’ve had a tea party in Year 3, forest school visits in reception, fire safety talks from the fire brigade for year 4 and 5 and African drumming in year 6. It’s been a busy week at SJSC and next week is even busier.
Next week, come and join us for our Eco March on Goose Green on Tuesday and for our Easter Service at 9.30am on Thursday and remember we finish at 1.45pm on Thursday. We look forward to seeing you and celebrating a wonderful Easter term.
Best wishes,
Alli Crank Joseph Bell
Upcoming Diary Dates
Reception
It’s been another wonderful week with loads of outside learning in Reception this week. The children are getting really creative with their loose parts play outside, and their play in the mud kitchen and the water tray is great to watch as they investigate capacity, gravity and changing materials (without realising it!)
Both classes have visited the Forest school at Peckham Rye Nature Reserve. This time we spotted buds, worms, celandines, and a pair of mallards looking for somewhere to build a nest. We had a great time investigating the best kinds of mud. We collected a few tiny treasures of nature to bring back to the classroom to draw and write about.
We are reading The Extraordinary Gardener by Sam Broughton this week and next, the children are full of ideas about how we can brighten up dull spaces. We would love some trays of bedding plants to brighten up our garden please.
Year 1
Year 1 are in the midst of writing their own versions of The Comet by Joe Todd Stanton. We’ve focused on uplevelling the verbs from the original text and adding fronted adverbials to enhance the way that the story is told. We hope you enjoy reading them as much as we’ve enjoyed writing them!
Year 2
We were so lucky to have Marie (Eddie’s Mum) in today to teach us all about Japan for our Geography unit. We began by looking at Marie’s photos from Japan, comparing shopping streets, castles, and shrines to those in England. We then all had our names written in Katakana which was very exciting, and we practised writing our name using the different strokes in the right order. Finally, we were able to follow Marie in making origami. It required a lot of concentration, but it was amazing to see our finished products! It taught us a lot about resilience and just giving things a go – a huge thank you for Marie and Eddie’s Grandmother for preparing all these amazing activities for us and even more brilliantly, making every single one of us some origami to take home!
Year 3
On Thursday, the year 3s hosted a tea and story event which the parents were invited in to take part.
The children delighted their parents with their poetry, stories and information writing and the parents were able to donate to WaterAid and support the children’s learning by voting for their favourite tea flavours. The children will then be taking this data and turning it into charts and explaining the findings to report back to the Royal Tea Taster.
Thank you for all of the families who were able to come. We appreciate it is extremely hard to find time in between work.
Well done for raising a whopping £180 for WaterAid!
Year 4
Year 4 are learning about electricity this half-term. We were challenged to create a working electrical circuit using bulbs, wires, and cells. All groups were successful and created light! We then investigated what happened when a different number of components, such as more than one cell or bulb, were used.
Year 5
This week in Yr 5, we have continued working on passing and moving in PE. Today we worked as a team to keep the ball as a group, and all took turns at being the defender. Throughout our session, we explored and discussed ways that we can protect the ball from the defender. We are looking forward to applying today’s skills to next week’s sessions.
Year 6
Year 6 had so much fun this week as they continued to learn more about the story of Romeo and Juliet. As we were all invited to the Capulet’s masquerade, we made our own masks to wear to the party. Will the Capulets be able to tell if any of us are from the house of Montague?
Music this week…
Year 1 – Carnival of the Animals; The Elephant. Children were using tuned percussion to create a Low, High,High pattern to accompany the 1,2,3 (oom pa pa) rhythm played by the piano throughout this piece.
Year 2 –This week the children learnt about Mozart, the COMPOSER of the music for the opera, The Magic Flute and we listened to extracts of the Aria’s we are studying (Tamino, Papegeno and the Queen of the Night) performed by the Royal Opera House and sung German.
Year 3 – Children were learning about and practising A minor and F major chords on the glockenspiels and keyboards. These chords provide the accompaniment to our Latin Song. They were also practising their strumming and plucking techniques on the Ukulele.
Year 5- We have been learning about Balinese Gamelan percussion and the children have been practising interconnecting rhythmic patterns originating from “rice pounding” music. Breaking the husk off rice is a long and boring task and so the women in Bali created rhythms which could be pounded using long sticks as they removed the kernels.
News from the Art Studio…
This week in the Art studio, year 3 and year 4 worked with the Institute of Imagination to bring their biomimicry designs to life. The ideas and creative chat were flowing. It was so lovely to see the children collaborating, testing and experimenting. We enjoyed it so much we are going to have a gallery walk and presentations during our art lesson next week.
SCHOOL COUNCIL UPDATE…
School Council have met with Chef Ade, Mr Bell and the Pabulum to discuss school food at St. John’s and St. Clement’s. The children presented the adults with the results of the lunchtime survey. School councillors were very well-spoken and explained their points clearly and in great detail – well done!
The children shared what the classes liked and schools dinners and some suggestions they had for developments such as ‘choice’ days, so school council will have a think about what themes we are studying that could tie in well with school food. Thank you kindly to the adults for listening so thoughtfully and reflectively to the students’ voices.
Eco Team
Stars, Certificates and Values
Stars are celebrated because they have demonstrated the school values, or gone above and beyond.
Well done to all our stars this week …
Have a great weekend. See you next week!