Summer term Issue 35: 21st June 2024
Dear parents
The summer weather has finally arrived! This has meant that we have enjoyed the playground even more, and hopefully the summer fair will be dry! Please come and join the fun this Saturday at 12:30 - the funds raised by events such as this benefit the school hugely.
Highlights of the week: This morning, we hosted the first Headteacher Parent Cafe - thank you to all those who were able to attend. We will be sending out a summary of what was covered in this session. We had our NSPCC focus week were children engaged in assemblies and classroom sessions about how to keep themselves safe and healthy boundaries, and on Monday year 2 performed a fantastic rendition of opera The Magic Flute.
Staff are busying away writing end of year reports and planning transition sessions. Key dates to note:
Friday 5th July - a letter to families about next year's classes
Tuesday 9th - children visit their new classes and meet their new teacher
Week beginning 8th - Report emailed to parents
We hope to see lots of you at the fair tomorrow.
Have a great weekend.
Alli
Upcoming Diary Dates
Reception
This week Reception have been finding out that being a Superhero is not all about wearing a cape. In Super Milly and the Super School Day, our heroine’s super powers turned out to be “I am a great friend” “I am super Funny” “I can fix things” “I am super kind” we have been asking the children to think about what special qualities they have. In maths we have been finding out about how you can tell how many in the hidden quantity when you know how many there are all together and drawing pictures and jottings to help us with our understanding.
In RE we have been thinking about how the Bible tells Christians that Jesus rescued people who were sick, and we have shared about who has helped us when we are poorly, and what we are thankful for.
Next week we have Superhero Day (Tues), visit from the police on Wednesday and tell us about your job day on Friday.
Year 1
Following on from last week’s learning about the fierce activism of Emily Wilding Davison, this week Year 1 were so inspired by her resilience and bravery that we staged our own protest march for the rights of women. We created posters using the famous green, purple and white flag of the Suffragettes and demanded that women get to vote!
Year 2
In RE this week, we continued to explore Hinduism by looking at places of worship. During the session, children learnt about a Hindu mandir and identified some of the respectful processes you must abide by when visiting one. We also looked at the key artwork and pieces found inside a Hindu mandir.
Year 3
In Year 3, this term we have been learning all about fractions. In this lesson, we compared unit fractions.
Year 4
In Year Four, we have been exploring the fascinating world of the digestive system. We began by studying the internal organs and discussing their functions in detail. Next, we labelled a diagram of the digestive system to better understand its structure. Finally, we watched an engaging demonstration by our teacher, who used a banana/biscuit (the food), bowl (the mouth), spoon (the tongue and teeth), tights (the large intestine), cups (the rectum) and lemon juice (the acid in our stomachs) to show us how food is digested. We found it incredibly interesting! One fun fact we learnt is that the small intestine is approximately 6 meters long. It's called the small intestine because it is narrower than the large intestine.
Year 5
In English, we continued to read our text ‘Sleeper and the Spindle’ by Neil Gaiman. Our focus was on character descriptions, where students learned to enhance their writing using adjectives and their matching antonyms.
Year 6
Year 6 have been using their geographical skills this week, looking at the location of Russia in comparison to the UK! We used atlases to locate the European countries that border Russia and were fascinated to discover that the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad sits 412 miles away, between Poland and Lithuania
Music this week…
This week, Year 2 Van Gogh show cased their production of The Magic Flute to Year 1 and to their families. It was a wonderful opportunity for the children to demonstrate their singing and performance skills and to experience staging a production for an audience. Well done to all of the children! It was fantastic and you should feel proud of yourselves.
Year 4 are now starting their journey on this scheme of work but with songs and staging written for KS2.
News from the Art Studio…
This week in the Art studio, year 4 explored using soft pastels and graphite to capture the texture of textiles. The children worked intuitively to capture the feel and essence of the fabric. We definitely have some future textile designers!
Stars of the Week
Stars are celebrated because they have demonstrated the school values, or gone above and beyond.
Well done to all our stars this week …
Summer Fair
Please join us at the summer fair tomorrow for food, drink and family fun from 12:30 pm to 3:30pm.
There will be lots of fun and entertainment for kids of all ages:
Arts and crafts
Games, including hook a duck and pint slide
Bouncy castle
Face painting
And of course, booty jars!
This year we’re pleased to welcome two new stalls:
SJSC Eco Team plant sale
Kids craft market
And we’ll have food and drink for the whole family:
Bar, with wine, beer and non-alcoholic options
Pimms by Truepenny’s
Brat Bros will be serving bratwurst with sauerkraut and crispy onions, a choice of chicken, halloumi or falafel wraps with tzatziki, and kids hotdogs
A luxury soft service ice cream van serving up cones, sundaes and ice lollies (we get 20% of the profits if sales go over £500, so enjoy a treat!)
SJSC bake sale (home made and store bought donations welcomed Friday 21st and on the day)
We will also have a uniform stall - get any summer bits or look ahead to stocking up for next September.
Just a reminder that entry is free and stalls are cashless. We sell tokens at the entrance (cash and card accepted), which are accepted at all SJSC run stalls. Some stalls also accept card. The food and ice cream vans will run their own payment systems.
For full details, visit our website: www.friendsofsjsc.co.uk/updates/summer-fair-2024
Extra hands needed: if you can spare half an hour or more, we are in need of volunteers to help set up from 9am. This includes erecting gazebos, hanging bunting, putting up posters, and adding to the general sense of excitement.
Summer Raffle
The Friends of SJSC Summer Raffle is live! We have over 50 fabulous prizes, but you have to be in it to win it. Tickets are £2 each and available online only until Wednesday 26th June. Get your tickets here: tinyurl.com/sjscraffle And don’t forget to share with friends, family and neighbours!
Tea towel fundraiser
With the help of the children at SJSC, the Friends of SJSC are holding a tea towel fundraiser for years 1 to 6. Using the children’s art, tea towels have been designed for each year group.
Reminder to order your tea towels by Tuesday 25th June. If you order a tea towel, you can also order a high gloss wooden coaster with your child’s individual picture. Items are £5 each.
The Year 6 tea towel and coaster is attached as an example. Please refer to your relevant year WhatsApp group to see your child's drawing on their year group's tea towel.
Order here: https://st-johns-and-st-clements-ptfa.square.site/
Have a great week See you next week!