This week...

Such a busy week. All our flower seeds, veggies and fruits are now planted!! It was such a mammoth task. Mrs Mather also gave us some peas and beans to plant too! If we are lucky enough for everything to grow we will be full to the brim with healthy foods!

The weather has been a bit better this week which has allowed us more time in the garden. The children really do miss being able to access both learning environments.

On Wednesday we explored what would happen if we put carrot tops in a little dish of water…would they grow….mmmm? We then watched a short video, click here. We are watching our carrot tops very closely. I have sent home an experiment sheet so you can join in at home. Let me know how you get on.

Worship

I have had a request from the children to put ‘My Lighthouse’ song and actions on the blog. We have been learning it all week in readiness for assembly on Friday. Our link class also came to visit in Wednesday to help us remember the actions. Here goes…click here for the actions and here for the song.

Our word of the week has been ‘witness’. We have been witnessing others who are sharing the news of Jesus. All the friends and nursery ladies have been spotting disciples of Christ in each other.

Emma’s blog

Hello everyone, 

We have had a fantastic week of brain growing, and lots of fun too.

Firstly, we have been busy exploring the different parts of a flower, and what helps the flower needs to grow. We found some really interesting names with one part being called the petiole, the part of the leaf which joins it to a stem or branch. Also, the flat part of the leaf is called a blade, and the children found it so interesting. The children then drew a flower on the touch screen, adding details such as nutrients and roots. Look out for the children’s wonderful creations as they bring them home.

The children have continued to plant seeds in the garden and everyone has planted a sunflower seed in their own pot. The children are working hard to make our garden look, smell and feel fantastic. I can't wait to see what it will look like once everything has grown. 

We have some exciting news too, our wormery has started to change in just 1 week. The dead leaves are starting to disappear and we can see worm tunnel. The sand and soil has started to mix together. It’s all very exciting, I will keep you updated with further changes.  

Here is a video of a wormery over 20 days (don't worry, please don't think you have to sit and watch it all day, every day. The video has been speeded up!). It’s so incredible how the amazing earth worms work so hard under the ground. Click here

The children are always so curious about finding seeds in their fruit; they say we should plant them and see what's happened. We did some exploring by cutting up some fruit with safety knives and looking for what seeds we could find in apples, pears, blood oranges, bananas naval oranges and tomatoes. We found seeds in everything apart from the pears and we couldn't understand why there weren't any seeds. Once we collected the seeds, we then diced the fruit to make a smoothie with the blender. We had it with our snack, it was delicious, mmmmm

 We are going to put the seeds in a clear bottle and see how the seeds germinate. Fingers crossed something happens to them and as always, I will keep you updated.

We have also been so busy with numbers this week, continuing to make 8 using our fingers and working out where numbers should go to be in order. Here is a game to play. Have fun! Click here.

 Have a great weekend everyone 

 Emma

Michelle

Hello and welcome to this week’s blog. T

This week we have continued learning all about worms, including reading Superworm and exploring worms. We found lots in the garden, maybe you could look for worms in your garden.

We have enjoyed playing a game looking for the vegetables with Supertato on Cbeebies. The children requested the link on the blog, so here it is. Click here

We have continued with our gardening in the sunshine and have planted sunflower seeds and more wild flower seeds. Our garden is going to look so beautiful when they bloom and we can’t wait to see all the bees and butterflies they attract.

We have been looking closely at the different parts of the flower, from roots to petals, and have used lots of different media to represent our own flowers, from the computer, to painting and collage.

We have been practising recognising all the letter sounds we have learnt so far. Some of us are getting a little mixed up with ‘d’ and ‘b’ when we see them written down. Here is Geraldine the Giraffe exploring these 2 sounds: Click here and here. Why not go on a letter hunt for ‘d’d and ‘b’ and see how many you can find in your house or when you are out and about.

We continue to practise our Fundamental Movement Skills in PE with Mr Nay and Mr Murray and we have gained more and more confidence when using the beams to balance and jump. We are concentrating on our landing, making sure we land on our feet with our legs bent.

Activities for practising jumping at home, click here.

As you will know we have worked hard at independent skills, and now the children can mostly put on their own coats and zip them up, put their shoes and socks on after PE, recognise their own name on their tray and book bag. These are all essential skills your child will need when they start school in Reception. One other important skill that children will need to master is to use a knife and fork to eat their lunch. We can only practise this with the children that have a school lunch, here at nursery, so now would be an ideal time to give your child lots of practise at using a knife and fork at home, ready for September.

Have a lovely weekend and we will see you next week.

Michelle

Purple Mash

I have updated the pinned learning threads in the virtual classrooms, if you have a minute take a look. Also, keep checking to see if your child’s key person has posted any activities to do. Purple Mash is a safe site and it is FREE!

Finally, I’m sure you will agree that we have been extremely busy.

Try and have a restful weekend as next week will be just as busy. Most of all make time for enjoying being together.

God Bless

Barbara

Genesis 1:29 29 Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food.

This week has seen the start of the Our Lady’s growing season, with our lunchtime gardening club. A selection of children from Reception to Year 6, have joined in. Each week, we will be busy in the polytunnel and nurturing our raised beds in preparation for this years plants. It has been wonderful to see the excitement and enthusiasm shown, no matter the task! From transporting compost, removing shrub cuttings, planting potatoes and weeding, it is truly amazing how much you can achieve in such a short time, with amazing eager assistants!


Year 6 Weekly Blog- “We do not need magic to transform our world. We carry all the power we need inside ourselves already.” J K Rowling

This power was most certainly evident in the Year 6 classroom this week… we are reminding ourselves daily that we hold this power, our inner strength, to do the best that we can, and as we remind the children daily, that their best is ALWAYS good enough. This week in class, the children have most certainly given just that… they have and I know they will continue to work incredibly hard. Their resilience and their whole attitude to their learning, makes us all so proud of them already. To us they have already achieved so much.

"Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age."

In our prayer and liturgy this week, we reflected on Jesus’ appearance to His diciples after the resurrection. We discussed at length how Jesus asked us all to be witnesses. We have to open our minds to the scripture and open our hearts to God. We spoke how we can be witnesses to our faith, because we know Him, feel His presence, we experience His love and we can see how God works among us on a daily basis, in our lives, at chruch and around our school.

What have we been learning this week?

We have been working so hard this week, and we have managed to fit in so much learning. Thsi week we have had feedback in our grammar paper from last week. We have taken our 2nd mocks in Maths this week and we have even had a visit from the fire service to give us a lesson on fire safety. What a varied week!

English - This week we have looked at the question ‘was friar Lawrence responsible for the death of Romeo and Juliet?’. The children were excellent in their debate, brigning forward valid reasons and backing their arguements up with evidence. Next week we will be revisiitng discussion writing and starting to write a discussion piece on this. I can’t wait to see what they can do!

Maths - We have been problem solving with percentages, learning about coordinates with Mrs Gregan and started to look at how this links with reading data from pie charts!

With a bank holiday coming up, and only a few weeks to go until May, every day is crucial. Please ensure that your children are in school on time to maximise every learning opportunity.

Delving deeper through talk …

Every week now I am going to give you a question that I would like you to explore together and discuss at home. This could be over the dinner time as a family, at bedtime, on a walk or even in the car. How ever you choose to discuss this question is up to you, but the idea is that it will help to give an insight in to what we talk about in school, help children to understand more about themselves or others.

How have you been a disciple of God this week?

After your feedback for Grammar, what do you know you need more practise at?

Learned and Wise butterflies

This half term we will be on the lookout for all the children that are learned in their actions, finding God in all things. Those who are wise, who use their learning for the common good. These children are the role models of the school, who drive their own learning and who have the wisdom to know when and how to apply one’s learning. This week we thank Angel for working for the common good of our classroom this week.

Leading Learners

Well done to Leo and Harvey this week.

Leo we are so impressed with your focus on your learning, you really couldn’t work any harder. You listen intently to every part of every lesson, which shows in the progress you have made. We love the way you are always curious to find the solution to problems with such steely determination and you ask such focused questions that show just how inquisitive you are.

Harvey Wow what a week you have had! We are so proud of your positive attitude, the minute you have walked in to school until you have left! You have been so resilient in your learning this week and have kept going even when things have been tricky! You have been so determined to complete all your work independently, but asking if you need extra help. We are so proud of your ‘I CAN’ attitude Harvey- you can achieve so much with this mindset!

Lunch Time Awards …

Marvelous Manners awards … Georgia

Role Model of the week … Dominic

Helpers in the morning

This week we have the following children helping to take the younger children to their class:

Dominic Connor-Sean Matilda Nicola

‘The Boy at the Back of the Class’ …

As a class we have been reading the novel ‘The boy at the back of the class’ and the children are really enjoying this opprotunity to listen, enjoy and discuss this book. The children have loved hearing how Ahmed has transitioned in to his new school, learning about his background and seeing the friendship between him and the narrator develop. Luckily, The Grand at Blackpool, are performing this on stage and we thought it would be a great opprotunity to go and see this live at the theatre! It is the week before SAT’s too, which will give us some nice light relief from revision. With the cost of the coach and the tickets, this is £21, which is now on Parent Pay.

Notices


‘Treasure Trail’ evening at St Bede’s on Wednesday 1st May- please arrive between 5:30pm - 6:45pm to complete the trail.

Final payments for Borwick Hall is 3rd May, please see Parent Pay

Have a lovely weekend.

I will see you on Monday.

Mrs Harrison, Mrs Webster and Mrs Barker

Year 6 Home Learning 17.04.24

READING

Please have a go at the short reading comprehension.

Maths

This week we have continued our work on percentages. Please have a go at the example SAT’s percentage questions provided.

Long division- Please complete the division questions using our long division strategy. This week our focus is just on 4 digits divided by 2 digits. Thanks to some more of our wonderful helpers who have prepared a short video to help you remember the strategy …

Spellings

This week’s spelling focus are abstract nouns. We need to know what abstract nouns are for our SPAG and let’s learn how to spell them… Maybe you could think of some more abstract nouns with your grown ups? Remember to practice these throughout the week and to complete the quiz on Purple Mash.

2) Below is a list of the Year 5 and 6 word list that children are expected to be able to spell by the end of Year 6. Why not take a look at them and see how many you know how to spell? How many do you know you need to work on?

Mrs Barker’s group spellings …

Let’s look at the rule… ‘i before e except after c’

deceive, conceive, receive, perceive, ceiling, receipt,

HALF TERMLY OPTIONAL HOME LEARNING

In line with our new homework policy, each class will now have some optional tasks in addition to the set reading, spelling and Maths. Year 6 homework will look slightly different to other classes, as the need for reinforcement and revision is crucial on the run up to SAT’s, but then in Summer 2 term will follow the structure outlined on Mrs Gregan’s blog last week. The optional tasks below are for the whole term, some will build on previous learning and others will enrich this half term’s learning. Please click on the link below to view the tasks for this term. You can do these in homework books, as photos, powerpoints or however you like.

Year 3 Homework- Tuesday 16th April

Spellings

This weeks focus is ou sound
Spelling quiz will be on Monday 22nd April.

  1. young

  2. touch

  3. double

  4. trouble

  5. country

  6. rough

  7. enough

  8. tough

  9. cousin

  10. couple

Reading
Reading targets have been reset and the children have already started making good progress towards their new targets.
Our Author of the month for April will be Peter Brown.

Summer Term Optional Homework

As mentioned on Mrs Gregan’s weekly blog last Friday, the Summer term sees us launch our new Home Learning Policy. Below is a link to this half terms home learning tasks.





Year 5 Weekly Blog 12.04.24- ' You are free to choose but you are not free from the consequence'

This week we have reflected on how our actions, regardless of their nature, have a consequence. We discussed what the ‘ripple effect’ is and how our actions can create a series of knock on effects- which is why we should always stick to our class targets of ‘being kind’ and ‘treating others how you would like to be treated’. We referred this to the Bible in how Mary is the untangler of knots- emphaising the importance of forgiveness and making the right choices.

And just like that, we are underway into our third and final term of the year! A mixture of nerves and excitement have been present in the children. Excited for the summer term, the nicer weather and closer to the six week break but also nervous of edging closer to their final year of primary school. The children’s focus, determination and resilience has remained on a high- even after the Easter break- allowing us to really get into our learning for the half term!

What have we been learning this week?

English- We have began our new poetry topic where we have began to investigate and read the opening of ‘The Highwayman’. The children have created a toolkit of their poetic devices and have been able to identify these in our poem. I have been super impressed with the children’s imagery and creative thinking- especially today when they were creating their own metaphors based from stanza one.

Maths- After two weeks of getting stuck into our long multiplication method, the children were amazed to discover ‘short multiplication’- a more effective way of using the same method but to answer bigger multiplication problems. The children have been able to use their times table knowledge to speedily answer difficult calculations- something they should be really proud of.

History- We have started our new topic- Crime and Punishment. This unit has hooked the children instantly, in which they have recognised the significance of the topic and understand the maturity that comes with learning it. We discussed about any crimes that we know of already and analysed these to rank them in order of seriousness. We then have been looking at what Crime was like in the 17th century- to understand why certain crimes were higher and what type of punishments were used.

Science- For this half term, our focus will be all things materials. We kicked the week off with looking at the different properties that a material can have and understanding what the vocabulary means. We have then experimented with different classroom materials to test which properties that have/don’t have.

Deeper thinking questions

Every week now, we would like children to explore their weekly learning at home by discussing interesting questions with family members. This may be at the table during dinner, before bedtime or when out for a walk. However you choose to discuss these questions is up to you but this may give you more of an insight into what we have been learning in class.

How do you think crime has changed over your lifetime?

Do you think prisons really work?

Let’s Celebrate

  • Arthur for being a focused learner- You have come back after the Easter holidays and got stuck straight into your learning. Your eyes and body posture has been centered towards the teacher which shows that you are ready to learn and you have been able to answer all questions when chosen straight away. Keep this up for the rest of the year!

  • Ruby for being an enthusiastic learner- I have loved your enthusiasm towards poetry and how you have just fully emerged yourself into it. You have enjoyed spotting our poetic devices in our new class poem and you have even been creating your own poems in your free time- which have been a delight to read.

    Excellent work!

  • Virtue Butterflies- Our virtues for this half term are learned and wise. Our butterfly goes to Liam- you make such wise decisions both in and out of the classroom which really shows your maturity. You never let a game of football and the emotions get the better of you. Inside the classroom, even when you are sat with friends and they are not making the right choice, you still remain on task regardless of distractions.

    Lunchtime Certificates

    • Marvellous Manners- Rex

    • Role Model of the Week- Ruby

Notices

  • Eco Trip- We will be going to Hope Park on Friday to check now our bulbs have grown after we planted them before Christmas. We will be going from 12:30-2:00. This will be weather dependant so make sure to check the forecast in the lead up.

  • Netball Tournament- Mrs Gregan will be taking one team to the tournament on Thursday 18th April. Please check the sports page to see if your child has been chosen.

Year 1 Homework 12.4.24

Reading

Once again thank you for all of your hard work over the holidays, lots of the children have been telling me about the videos and we can tell they have watched them.

Please continue to read regularly at home and sign the challenge boxes, just a reminder it is one box per day.

Handwriting

We have enjoyed using letter join this week to help us with our pre-cursive handwriting. Please click on the button below for more information, there is another copy of the log in card on the second page. If you have any problems please email.

Once you log in, you can click on free play to explore at home or Year 1, there will be a box that comes up that says:

Find the letter ‘a’ and ‘d’, click on easy letters, then click on the ‘a’ and ‘d’ at the bottom of the screen. You can click on the play button to see how you write the letter, then click on try and the bottom of the screen under the play button so you can practice each letter.

In your child’s yellow reading book there are log in cards for computers and tablets, ideally a tablet would be easier as they can use their finger to practice the formations. The online programme is great at helping learn the direction of each letter and where to start but it is important that they are using pencils to practice writing on paper. We have been learning a rhyme to help us hold our pencils correctly. We have focused on sitting at the table properly, feet on the floor our non writing hand holding our book or paper, sitting up straight. In the purple books there is a letter formation sheet and the pencil rhyme. I would like to see on the next page lots of ‘a’ and ‘d’ on the line and circle your best one.

Extra challenge can you write you name using pre-cursive letters?

Optional Challenges!

It is wonderful that the children are so excited about their learning and to see how keen they are to continue this outside of school. We welcome any opportunity to share these learning experiences with you at home, which is why we have created ‘optional challenges’ across each year group which can be explored over this Summer 1 half term.

These challenges link to the wider area of our curriculum, there are some activities to help with retrival and some with topics that are coming up.

Below you will find the optional challenges linking to the topics and areas of learning that we will be exploring this half term. These fun challenges are designed to cover a range of skills without being stressful or time consuming for you at home. You are welcome to complete them in any order you wish and it would be lovely to see pictures or examples of things that the children have enjoyed at home.

As always, thank you for your continued support.

Have a lovely weekend

Miss Drummond

Year 5 Homework due Thursday 18th April

Spellings

  1. accommodate

  2. accompany

  3. according

  4. achieve

  5. aggressive

  6. amateur

  7. ancient

  8. apparent

  9. appreciate

  10. attached

  11. available

  12. average

SPAG

The children have been given a set of grammar and punctuation questions which have been stuck in their books.

Science- Materials

Pick an object/material in your house and analyse its properties by using the table to help you.