It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas.......

Phew, such a frantic week. We have started to prepare for Christmas, the children have been making Christmas surprises, singing (lots of singing) and acting out the Nativity (you are all in for a BIG treat, it’s FABULOUS!). Most of our children are just 3 years old and they are performing like it’s a West End production. They have reduced the nursery ladies to tears with their portrayal of the Christmas Story.

If your remember I said we had redesigned nursery last week and that we would endeavour to produce a walkthrough video… I’m afraid to say we have failed in our quest but think we have devised something better!! I will let Clare, Colette and Hannah explain!

Clare, Colette and Hannah’s blog

We have been busying away in Nursery rehearsing our Nativity and doing lots of Christmas crafts (all Top Secret!). What a lovely week it has been, e are all getting very excited.

As the Newsletters have gone out this week...and not wanting to spoil the surprise ahead of the Nativity video going live on the website (Friday 17th December), we have decided to upload a Nursery Quiz to do at home this week instead of the usual photos!

Where will you find this beautiful angel in nursery?

What is this lovely sparkly , twinkly addition to Nursery?

What decorations are on the tree?

Which area of the classroom is this photo taken?

Who lives on this shiny silver web?

What are these little numbered pockets for?

Can you remember the special word getting ready for Christmas?

Pick a colour...how many items can you see on the shelves in that colour?!

Can you name everyone in this special scene?

It’s red and it sparkles...but what it is?

Which Christmas book have you read this week?

Which is your favourite?

Who is this visitor to Nursery and where is he peeping out?

 We hope you could answer all the questions? Next week watch out for our Christmas Taskmaster activity sheet, keep checking your child’s bookbag.

Clare, Colette and Hannah

As you know Friday (and nearly every other day too!) was Silly Sock Day. Thank you to everyone who joined in and made a contribution to Brian House. Here are just a few photos.

Don’t forget:

On Friday 10th December ( it may have said Thursday the 10th on the Newsletters, sorry) will be the second of our Charity events. It is a Christmas themed clothes day, e.g. jumpers, dresses, t-shirts or Christmas colours.

Don’t worry if your child is not in nursery on Friday just choose another day to join in the fun!!

Our Christmas party is being held on Thursday 16th December 9.30 am -11.30 am. Party clothes and dancing shoes are a must!

All children are invited to this event, but if it is not your usual session please bring you child at 9.30 am collect promptly at 11.30 am.

May I thank everyone who has taken the time to return our annual Parent Questionnaire. We have been touched by your kind words and the unconditional support that you give to nursery. Don’t worry if you haven’t returned the questionnaire yet we still have two weeks left before the end of term!

Lastly, it is never easy when we lose members of the nursery team and sadly following Christmas our lovely Clare will be leaving Nursery for a new opportunity she couldn't resist taking. Clare has worked at Our Lady's for over 20 years and has touched the hearts of so many children and parents. It is hard to imagine her not being beyond the Nursery door, but I know she will take everything she has learned and will inspire others the way she has inspired us all here at Nursery. I know you will all miss Clare as much as we will, but that you too would like wish her every success in all she does.

Sarah has also made the decision not to return to Nursery from maternity leave, she has decided to be a full-time mum. She is very sad but knows this is the right decision for her family. Sarah will again, be greatly missed in Nursery and we wish her only happiness and lovely times with Jude.

We hope you all have a fun weekend and enjoy the picture challenge! If the weather is cold and wet why not snuggle down and listen to this Christmas story. We read the book at nursery this week and the children love it. Click here for Laura’s Star

Barbara

Year 4 blog. Friday 3rd December "At this Christmas, when Christ comes, will he find a warm heart?" ."

I cannot tell you how hard children are working at the moment - and loving it too! This week we have reflected on the Season of Advent and why the birth of Jesus is so important to us. Children made Advent promises to try hard to improve something about themselves that will make others around them happy and help them grow closer to Jesus this season.

We are loving our new novel, the Butterfly Lion - it has so many clever twists and shifts between narrators, so children really have to think to understand what is happening. They have been practising picking out main events of the story and have also justified their points with three good reasons. They are really improving in their comprehension of texts! They have also written some fantastic persuasive letters, choosing the point of view of Bertie or his father in the story. They are becoming very confident at this genre.

In maths, we are revising key concepts in addition and subtraction and looking at which is the most effective mental strategy to apply to different calculations, now we understand the Additive relationship.

We have also managed to learn all about mummification this week. Mrs Lyons highly enjoyed mummifying one of the children so that she could explain this process - as did the children! They have then written super explanation texts to describe this gruesome process and again, they are really mastering this genre.

Here is a snapshot of our week!

HRSE

This week in Kidsafe we have focused on arguments and although they are part of life, they can give us Yukky Feelings. Please read the letter below which explains this lesson further. This is the final kidsafe lesson for now. A further recap lesson happens later in the year.

Let’s Celebrate!

These chidren have met their reading targets already: Evan and Franek

This week our certificate winners are:

1. Nicola (Lizzie Ladybird) for striving to improve in all work and for trying so hard and

2. Franek (Cooper Crab) for improving his focus to achieve super results.

PE stars this week were Owen and Daisy for some very creative ratty moves!

Music stars this week were Molly-Ann and Leon

Notices

• If possible, could all children bring a Winter hat and/or scarf on Monday to wear in the music lesson? We are putting together a performance for your pleasure and need them for ‘Winter Wonderland.’

• December 10th – a Christmas themed clothes day; a jumper, a t-shirt or simply Christmas colours. Mrs Hodges will organise ParentPay so that each family and members of staff can make a charitable donation.

• Thursday 16th December Christmas dinner and party day. Children can wear party/Christmas clothes and bring in one special snack and their own drink (non-fizzy)

• Children each need a shoe box for an art project in January. They can start bringing them in now.

Have a lovely weekend everyone. God bless,

Mrs Lyons, Mrs Mather and Miss Woodrow.

Year 6 Home Learning - Wednesday 1st December 2021

Spelling - sh sound spelt si or ssi

decision, collision, Asia, discussion, revision, impression, expansion, vision, transmission, obsession, passion, recession

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Maths - Please can you continue to learn these fraction, decimal and % equivalences

IXL - Maths M10 - M15 Adding and subtracting fractions with different denominators

You have two weeks to complete these strands of IXL consolidating the work from the previous weeks.

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English - Rosa Parks or Harriet Tudman

You now have your research on Henry for our Outcome 1 biography, today you need to collate information on EITHER Rosa Parks or Harriet Tudman for your Outcome 2 biography. The more you collate, the better research you will have to write about.

Think about:

• DATES - significant dates that appear in their life

• Significant people.

• Significant places.

• Context specific vocabulary.

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Year 6 Home Learning - Monday 29th November 2021

Please click on the button to access learning for this week to be completed at home.

And so Christmas begins.....

Helping Others

As you know, an important aspect of our whole school ethos is to support the vulnerable through our almsgiving and charity work. Over the years, working together, we have raised an enormous amount of money which has supported so many people and various charities. Over the last year this work has been more difficult and yet the need has never been greater. The children recognise this and are aware that so many people are struggling and need support. A charity close to all our hearts is Brian House; the children’s hospice up in Blackpool. Staff there work tirelessly, helping very poorly children and their families in what can be deeply distressing circumstances and do so with such love and laughter and deep compassion. It always fills us all with great warmth when collecting for our charity at the end of our KS2 church Nativity service, to find that everyone has been so generous, wanting to help and support.

After great discussion as a whole school community the children have agreed that if every family donates £5 per family, we will be able to raise a large sum to present to Brian House. To do this, they have planned two themed Fridays, the first on December 3rd – a Silly Sock or Terrible Tights Day (worn alongside their uniform). Make your socks or tights stand out! Customising (within reason!) is allowed. The second themed Friday is on December 10th – a Christmas themed clothes day; a jumper, a t-shirt or simply Christmas colours, bright and cheerful. Don’t worry of your child isn’t in nursery on these days just choose another day to join in the fun!

Please send your kind donation in a named envelope to the nursery office. Please know that we appreciate that times are tough and every single donation means so much, thank you. Each and every donation given with love is a true blessing and if anyone can’t manage to donate, please say a prayer for peace and love in lieu which will mean a great deal.

Following this we will be heading into school’s very own Christmas week when each class will enjoy a party day on Thursday 16th December and will have the chance to wear their own choice of partywear. On the same day, Jacqui and her team will be cooking our Christmas lunch, something we all look forward to. If your child doesn’t normally have a school lunch they can order a special Christmas Lunch. Please click here. We need to know numbers by Monday so please complete this form over the weekend and in time for the office to pass on the numbers to Jacqui at lunchtime.

If you have any queries drop me an email.

Barbara

"May your dreams defy the laws of gravity" H. Jackson-Brown Jr

What a super busy week! We’ve written more non-chronological text - as we finished our Ancient Greek work - for now (they keep popping up those Greeks). The children have used their digital literacy skills - to type and edit their work. We continued with these skills in our computing lessons as we typed our Advent promises. These promises will be displayed in class and the hall during this festive season. In preparation for Christmas too - we revisited the sacrament of reconciliation. In class, we completed a silent examination of conscience. This gave use the opportunity to reflect on what we have done and on what we have failed to do. Father Peter has been with us too to share the sacrament although he couldn’t listen to us all today and he will return next week. In maths we have puzzled our way through the week - so much reasoning and in science we studied gravity. Aristotle (ancient Greek) popped into the lesson, so did Sir Isaac Newton and his the falling apple. In RE we are exploring the depth of faith certain biblical figures had - truly heroic !! Please visit the wonderful Art gallery to see how creative we have been and in music we completed our Cop 26 Climate Change Rap we are filming next week - so watch this space!! PE progressed to Netball and the swimming progresses well! Finally, we started our new class novel - the perfect end to a packed week.

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Awards this week:

This week the Grow your brain certificates went to: Lexi (retrieving all her history facts) Holly (super reading progress) and an extra one James for all round focus and enthusiasm! Well done!!

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Important reminders

After great discussion about how to restart our charity work the children have agreed that if every family donates £5 we will be able to raise a large sum to present to Brian House. To do this they have planned two themed Fridays, the first on December 3rd – a Silly Sock or tight with uniform day - make your socks or tights stand out! The second on December 10th – a Christmas themed clothes day; a jumper, a t-shirt or simply Christmas colours. Mrs Hodges will organise ParentPay so that each family and members of staff can make a charitable donation.

Cap and sunglasses! We will be filming our rap next week - could you please bring a cap and sunglasses on Monday. As soon as we have filmed we will send them back home.

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Silly Socks!

Our final meeting of the year began with a beautiful prayer which was written by the councillors in Year 5, then it was straight down to business. Our councillors were brimming with ideas for ways to raise money for our Christmas charity, Brian House, from silly socks to being a teacher for the day! Each class council had come up with so many ideas . This made it difficult for the Student Council to make decisions, but make decisions they did. Look out on your class blog for the big announcement.
It was also decided that Student Council this year are going to be designing and funding a new  item for the playground, we are thinking about trains or boats or racing cars - we are only limited by our imagination. Our final decision will be made in the new year., and hopefully by summer money can be raised, resources bought and the new development installed! 

Year 4 blog. Friday 26th November "An angel in your heart, they say; will give you guidance every day."

There has been a lot of deep thinking in Year 4 this week! In our worship, we have been focusing on how Jesus is king of our hearts and is interested in what our hearts are filled with - hobbies, memories, people, hopes and dreams. In RE lessons we have been reflecting on Angels and finding evidence for their presence in the bible. Children asked so many questions and listened to their friends’ beliefs about angels, using them to refine their own beliefs on this mystery of our faith.

We have an angel to guide our class council each week.

We also practise this prayer in class:

Angel of God, my guardian dear,

To whom God’s love commits me here,

Ever this day (night) be at my side,

To light, to guard, to rule and to guide,

Amen

It is a lovely prayer you could say at night, to bring comfort and foster trust in God’s plan for us.

In other news:

We had a brilliant day on Monday, when children brought in their amazing pyramid creations and all those questions! We looked at evidence to find out who really built the pyramids in Egypt. We found that you cannot always rely on films to tell us the truth in history. Usually artefacts are a super source of evidence and children deduced from what was found, who really did build them.

In maths, we are revising key concepts in addition and subtraction, getting those maths brains flexing ready for some tricky calculations and concepts coming up soon.

On Tuesday, we ended our lovely novel, Charlotte’s Web. We have learned so much about friendship and kindness through this novel, as well as many new reading skills and lots of writing opportunities. We have now started to study our new novel, The Butterfly Lion. Already, children have been so curious, writing many questions and making predictions about this book from reading only the first page!

HRSE

This week in Kidsafe we have focused on Keeping our bodies safe and also discussed keeping secrets. Please read the important letter below outlining what we discussed and what implications it has.

Let’s Celebrate!

These chidren have met their reading targets already: Nicola, Connor-Sean, Millie and Aviya!

This week our certificate winners are:

1. Angel for listening so carefully to teacher feedback and striving to improve in all he does, and

2. Jay for being a very determined young man and trying so hard to do his best.

PE stars this week were Leon and Molly-Ann For super teamwork and focus when practising their sequence.

Music stars this week were Franek and Aviya.

Notices

After great discussion about how to restart our charity work the children have agreed that if every family donates £5 we will be able to raise a large sum to present to Brian House. To do this they have planned two themed Fridays, the first on December 3rd – a Silly Sock or tight with uniform day - make your socks or tights stand out!

The second on December 10th – a Christmas themed clothes day; a jumper, a t-shirt or simply Christmas colours. Mrs Hodges will organise ParentPay so that each family and members of staff can make a charitable donation.

Have a lovely weekend everyone. God bless,

Mrs Lyons, Mrs Mather and Miss Woodrow.