Junior School Newsletter - June 21 2019

JUNIOR SCHOOL

NEWSLETTER

Friday 21st June 2019 Dear Parents

“I may reach God through Keats, you by Beethoven, and a third through Einstein… No examination has yet been devised the passing of which will guarantee wisdom or culture.

For these are slow-growing breeds, matters of character as well as of intellect and sentiment, the outcome of long exposure to the influences of truth and beauty.” 23.79 Quaker Faith and Practice This week, perhaps more than any of the academic year so far, has seen us celebrate the rich panoply of the Sibford curriculum. The diversity of children’s educational experiences, and the connections they draw between them, is the root to deeper learning; all the more so when it is carried out with enthusiasm and enjoyment.

The variety began on Monday as Year 6 once again headed to Farmoor reservoir to work on their bowlines and tacks. The wind was strong enough to prevent us using the booms, however it did mean that we got to grips with balancing the boats and regulating our speed. Our second session on Wednesday was, fortunately, much calmer and we able to practise our figure of 8s and capsize drills.

While Year 6 were on the water Years 1-4 were enjoying a visit from Ruth Quayle. Ruth’s entertained the pupils with excerpts from her books which combine children and pirates – what else do you need for a successful story?!

Today Year 3 headed just down the road to visit the Rollright Stones as part of their history topic. They prepared for the day by making their own sandwiches, all the while humming along to their latest song. This had been their entry in Thursday’s Summer Revue which saw all the classes sharing a performance interspersed with some lovely individual and small group pieces.

Finally, the week finished with the most recent EYFS “Stay and Play” session. The children in Nursery and Reception were joined by some guests to have some fun on a Treasure Hunt.

Next week we have further sailing to look forward to, our Discovery Awards Evening, our Transition Day on Thursday and finally our Year 6 Leavers Meeting on Friday. Busy, busy!

I hope you all have a pleasant weekend.

In friendship Edward Rossiter Head of Junior School

PS. Did you know that Emperor and military strategic expert Napoleon was once attacked by thousands of rabbits? He’d organised a rabbit hunt to celebrate a victory, but when released, the rabbits swarmed all over the hunters and Napoleon had to hide in his carriage.

Foundation and Reception

What is this life if, full of care, We have no time to stand and stare

This week while out in the playground the children spotted a spider web on the bike. We all gathered around and we could see the spider sitting at the edge. I carefully got a small piece of grass and put it on the web. The spider, came down to explore. The excitement was palatable. I think we went on to locate every single spider web in the infant playground. When someone found one with a fresh bug we found ourselves standing and watching for some time hoping to see the spider come to get it (a bit morbid I suppose?) Unfortunately, we did not, so we found a few videos online to show us what happened when a bug got caught in a spider’s web. We talked about food chains as well and how spiders eat insects but small birds will eat the spiders.

A spider was one of the minor characters in our class book this week – Superworm. Superworm is super long, Superworm is super strong…. Superworm is very popular with all the animals in the garden, often saving them from trouble or finding ways to make them feel happy. One day he is captured by the Wizard Lizard who forces him to hunt for treasure. This bad wizard came to Sibford and stole the precious school jewels. Luckily the super worms in our wormery had seen it all happen and drew us a map so we could find all the lost treasure.

In order to explore worms a bit more we took some of our compost outside and looked at the important job worms do looking after our soil. We made a little wormery so we can explore how they mix up the soil. We have also been doing lots of wormy maths, comparing lengths and thinking about how many worms would be in our wormery if we added more or took some away.

And finally, if you cannot beat ‘em, join ‘em. Early years took on the rain with some good old water play!

Year 1 and 2

Year 1 and 2 have hoped that you’ve had time to read their Dreamtime stories which are displayed in the cloakroom area, which they also shared during the Summer Revue, but they’ve finally moved onto thinking about more factual writing. Becca Edwards presented them with a non-fiction book and they recapped on the different features which you might find in an information book. Some shared class reading demonstrated to the children that the style of writing is different to that of a fictional story. Following this they were asked to focus on writing in a factual style, but still providing enough detail to give information to the reader. In addition, they looked at how labels and diagrams further support the text and were asked to label Australian animals, with short captions.

Their maths saw them revisit number facts such as odd and even numbers and how this helps with multiplication. It was topical that a helpful kangaroom was able to demonstrate the number of jumps to find ‘lots of’ for solving multiplication for some children.

After creating some fabulous paintings in a traditional style, they continued to focus on Australian animals, but paid close attention to sketching them and drawing what they could see. Becca Edwards banned any coloured pencils and so they were only allowed to use grey and so had to think carefully about how to create different tones and textures to draw their animal!

To finish the week, rather than focusing on traditional folk songs in their history, they looked at the importance of national anthems and what they represented, also having a go at singing the Australian National Anthem!

Year 3

A buzz of excitement has been felt around Year 3 this week, as they have been preparing for their exciting trip to The Rollright Stones (which they have visited today). This trip is always surrounded by wonder, as the pupils get to walk in the footsteps of their ancient ancestors.

However, this year the pupils have been in for a real treat, as they have been visiting the stones on the summer solstice: a time of great spiritual significance.

In preparation for the trip, Year 3 have discovered the legend of The Witch of Great Rollright.

With enthusiasm, they learned a poem which tells the story of the witch turning a king and all

his men into stone as they fall into her deadly trap. They thought about actions, intonation and expression to really bring the poem to life. Today, they performed their poem in situ in the middle of the King’s Men stone circle which was very atmospheric indeed.

They have also thought about healthy eating and have found out about why we need foods from each of the food groups and also the importance of getting the right balance.

Unsurprisingly, Helen Arnold noticed that the pupils had been a little more adventurous with their choices at lunchtime for the rest of the week (no more pasta and cucumber with ketchup)!

They put their understanding of the food groups to good use, as they designed and then made healthy, balanced sandwiches for their trip to The Rollright Stones; they devoured them this afternoon whilst admiring the view of Long Compton. They needed to keep their energy up for some heavy-duty stone rolling in the afternoon!

Finally, the pupils’ half-termly projects have been arriving into the classroom and they are very impressive indeed! We had quite an array of Celtic hillforts including one depicted in cake form! As well as this we had stories about Celtic villages, factsheets and some Celtic Jewellery.

Year 4 Following on from our Open Day theme of ‘patterns and examples’, all of year 4 had a go at designing and making a stone mosaic coaster. Their challenge was to create a Romanesque pattern. We still need to grout our patterns but so far we think the results are stunning.

Both 4MA and 4KS united to create storyboards to help retell the Journey section found in the book called Invasion by June Crebbin. Children combined English and History as they discovered the hazards the Normans faced as they crossed the English Channel back in 1066.

4MA maths enjoyed getting outside this week and searching for vertical, horizontal, diagonal, parallel and perpendicular lines. We hope you like the examples we found.

Year 5

This week, Year 5 have been at Forest School, learning how to use a flint and steel to safely make sparks to light a fire without matches. It proved quite a challenge at first to tease life out of two pieces of metal but then we were fascinated to see sparks actually leap out and down into our safety triangle. Next week we’ll try to actually light a fire and then perhaps learn how to tend it so that it is ready to cook over. We also had some fun building our own swings from ropes, Hazel Sykes and Lois Self were very interested in the number of different ways the children found to swing from a tree!

The highlight of the week may well have come early for some however, as first thing on Monday morning Dave the kitten was brought in and shown to year 5; s/he was adorable of course and created lots of oohs and ahs from the delighted onlookers.

Year 6 This week, Year 6 have spent two days sailing. A great deal of fun was had by all, and we are happy to report that most children can remember the difference between a tack and a gybe, how to rig a boat, and how to right the boat after a capsize. As you can see, the warmer weather meant that, despite no rain on Wednesday, Year 6 were still able to come home soggy!

Music Examination Results

Tabitha Y6 Grade 2 Singing Hanne Lydia Y5 Grade 2 Musical Theatre and Grade 3 Flute Junior School Eco Council

A big thank you from Eco Council for your support in buying some of the plants that they sold earlier on in the term. As a result, they have been able to buy a bird feeding station which was an idea from earlier on in the year. It is now situated in Mary’s Garden and hopefully will offer a space for birds to come and enjoy, but also an opportunity for a bit of bird watching. They’ve already got some ideas for how they can make the area more bird friendly, watch this space!

Junior School Eco Council – Eco Bricks

Don’t forget we are still waiting for your Eco-Bricks!

Any completed bricks can be brought to the Junior School office, where there will be a collection box after half term. Once you have placed your bottle in the box, you can collect a sticker to put on the display outside the office to help keep track of our total number of bottles! Thank you in advance for all your help.

Saturday, 29th June 2019 – 2pm to 6pm – PSFA Summer Fun in the Sun – Family Day

A note for your diaries that the PSFA Summer Fun in the Sun Family day will take place on Saturday, 29th June from 2pm to 6pm. Entry is £3 for Adults and £2 for children. Refreshments will be available, have fun in the music tent, join in the art and crafts and enter a team in the “Sibford Challenge”. If you would like to help please email PSFASibfordSchool@outlook.com.

Booking and payment can be made with Lynne Singer in Junior School.

Sibford Junior School has so much to sing about and share that it now has its own dedicated Twitter page. Give @SibfordJS a follow on Twitter and keep up to date with all the Junior School news and daily activities. https://twitter.com/SibfordJS’