Junior School Newsletter - November 29 2019

Junior School Newsletter Friday 29 November 2019

DEAR PARENTS The official newsletter of

@SibfordJS

El Dorado High School teachers

There has been a palpable level of excitement in the Junior School this week, partly because of the increasing rehearsals for the forthcoming productions, but mainly due to the excitement of this afternoon’s PSFA Christmas Fayre. The children are looking forward to a visit to a certain man in red and, of course, trying their hand at some of the stalls. A trip around the Main Hall might also result in some present ideas for family members!

The anticipation for the Fayre began earlier in the week as, one by one, mystery jars began to arrive.

Thank you to all the children (and parents!) who have put their creative minds to work to create such masterpieces – the winners will be judged by Alice Pennell and Lynne Singer, but here are some examples of the festive wrapping.

Elsewhere this week, tuneful choruses, dainty step-overs and carefully practiced character accents have been heard coming out of classrooms and the music block as children and teachers get to grips with their songs and lines for the Christmas plays.

Thank you to all of you for helping the children learn their lines; they’re making rapid progress, ready for next Monday which sees us get into the Dining Room and Oliver Studio for our proper rehearsals.

Wednesday saw some of the children sporting some facial hair that I’m sure contravenes the dress-code! All this was in aid of the Movember Cake Sale and I’m delighted to announce that the school raised over £150. Thank you to all the parents for providing cakes, and not to forget, Graduate Assistant Alex who organised it all – and the other members of staff who’ve sported such impressive facial hair for such a worthy cause.

@SibfordOxon

@SibfordOxon

Junior School Newsletter Friday 29 November 2019 Cressida Cowell – twitter On Thursday morning I had a very pleasant surprise to disturb me from my emails. A number of little knuckles on my door announced the arrival of Early Years accompanied by Sukey Symes and Libby Andrews. They had come to show me their newly finished novel “Knock, Knock” and I was treated to a first reading of the handiwork (complete with actions!) It was too good an opportunity not to photograph and we dutifully posted some grinning snaps on to our Twitter feed, copying in Cressida Cowell the Children’s Laureate. We were delighted, a couple of hours later, to receive the following reply – who knows, maybe there’s a future Laureate among them?

You can follow EYFS and the Junior School @SibfordEYFS and @SibfordJS. Congratulations to the following children who received Head Teacher Awards: Sofia, Tom - Y3, Harry - Y5, Minitian, Niamh and Hanne-Lydia - Y6 I hope to see many of you at the PSFA Christmas Fayre later – have a wonderful weekend.

In friendship

Edward Rossiter Head of Junior School

Ps. Did you know that turkey wasn’t on the menu at the first Thanksgiving? Venison, duck, goose, oysters, lobster, eel, and fish were likely served, alongside pumpkins and cranberries (but not pumpkin pie or cranberry sauce!)

FOUNDATION AND RECEPTION The magic in our topic ‘All things Magical’ just keeps coming in Early Years. This week, with a bit of help from Harry Wragg, we made some sensory potions (using herbs, petals and leaves). To help get the magic working we made up nonsense rhymes, ‘Chiggitty Choot, Flippidy Floot I am going to turn you into an old….boot’.

Autumn at Sibford also feels magical as we managed to spot every colour of the rainbow on our nature walk (along with a tractor, flowers and some sixth formers coppicing trees to make homes for field mice). The magic of Christmas is starting to trickle in as well, as they made some lovely fir cone Christmas decorations in Forest school.

To get ready for our Trip to watch Raymond Briggs ‘Father Christmas’ next week we filled out a chart so the kitchen would know what we wanted in our sandwiches and added up totals. Then of course, our dried peas, did start to sprout as well. I am pretty sure the magic will just continue to grow next week…..

YEAR 1 AND 2 Sammy the Street Dog was the focus for English this week in Year 1 and 2. The story put a different spin on the story of the ‘Fire of London’ and they looked at the events of the fire from the point of view of a different character. At the beginning of the week they created a story map, sequencing the events of the story using key words and sketches so that they could retell the story. Following on from this, a few of the children ‘became’ Sammy with some ‘hot seating’, with the rest of the children asking what it was like to be in the fire. This helped them to think about what senses they’d have experienced if they were to see the events unfold from Pudding Lane! Building on this, they worked on developing a detailed character description of Sammy, working in groups and retelling the story, but changing a few key details!

In their Maths they recapped on their understanding of place value, working on simple arithmetic for subtraction and addition, ordering numbers and using all the number facts. Ending the week with a couple of problem-solving activities!

After all their work on materials, the children were quite perplexed when Becca Edwards questioned them on a fried egg… What she was working towards was developing their understanding about how materials can change, but also whether they can change back (introducing the idea of reversible and irreversible reactions).

The children chose to put a block of ice on the radiator seeing how it would change, mixed coffee into water, douse paper into water and watched Becca Edwards set light to paper; thinking about what would happen to the material. This will help them with a dramatic end to their topic work next week!!! They also finished their fire carts and tested whether they could carry a bucket of water to help put a fire out; the children realised how lucky we are to have more modern fire engines now.

As if they couldn’t fit any more in, they continued their work on understanding the UK and focused on London from a tourist’s point of view; they looked at the different landmarks and built some using a variety of different construction kits including the Gherkin, Shard and London Eye. Becca Edwards was surprised when a child asked for a Lego person to represent a politician when building the Houses of Parliament!

YEAR 3 Linking pottery with history, Year 3 children have started to create their canopic jars. Discussions regarding what exactly they will place in them makes for very interesting listening. The Ancient Egyptians used them for body parts during the process of mummification. Year 3 children are equally as gory regarding the potential use of their canopic jars!  Meanwhile, promising Year 3 archaeologists were spotted excavating a section of land positioned near the Roundhouse. Children wanted to find out what life might have been like at Sibford before they were here. Just like real archaeologists they uncovered the earth in layers. They discovered the deeper they dug, the older the artefacts were that they uncovered. As well as finding artefacts such as wooden and metal jewellery, lace and fragments of pots, they found an area of dark charcoal which they inferred might once have been a fire pit.

YEAR 4 In English the class have been introduced to Rosa Parks. We looked at a biography of her life, then read some information about events that happened in 1945 and 1955 resulting in her arrest. We are now busy planning a newspaper report from when the laws on bus segregation were changed, thinking about a catchy headline, writing it in the past tense, third person and in time order.

Maths has involved looking at capacity, culminating in the children working in small groups to create a paper container that held the exact amount they had been given, ranging from 100ml up to a litre. We then saw how accurate they were by using rice to measure the capacity, the children then adapted their container and re-measured the capacity. There were house points for the closest group and the best adaptation.

We’ve been building bridges in History, using arches to increase their strength.

The Romans did not invent the arch, but they developed it and were the first people to use arches for very large buildings and to use concrete in their construction. Some books, card and figurines were all that was needed to undertake the investigation, which the children wrote up with diagrams, result tables and their findings.

YEAR 5 We have had another busy week, beginning the preparations for our Christmas production as well as doing all our usual activities. These have included measuring capacity in maths (which turned out to be rather messy), continuing with our investigations on how light travels in science and researching the sinking of the Titanic in preparation for our final Big Write of the term.

We have also bought cakes and worn moustaches as part of the Movember campaign and some of us have represented the school in the U11 Partnership Swimming Tournament and the Partnership Cross Country Finals.

A highlight of the week was enjoying an Iftar meal together to help us understand more about the Muslim custom of fasting during the month of Ramadan. We learned that Muslim families eat this light meal, comprising dates, honey, bread and olives at the end of a day of fasting. They then pray to Allah before enjoying the main part of their meal.

Most of us enjoyed our Iftar meal (although not everyone was a fan of the olives)! It helped us to understand more about life as a Muslim during Ramadan and to consider the belief that fasting helps Muslims to have empathy with others who are less fortunate than themselves.

YEAR 6 ‘Oh! But he was a tight-fisted hand at the grindstone. A squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous old sinner!’ No, it isn’t Year 6 being particularly unpleasant about Nick Hadley, but the beginning of Dickens’ wonderful description of Ebenezer Scrooge from “A Christmas Carol”. After learning about Dickens’ life, especially those parts of it which were to influence his writing, the children have read through a (very) condensed version of the book in script form and have discussed what makes it a ghost story. From this, Year 6 have begun working on their own ghost stories, this week focusing on character and setting descriptions. They have learnt how to turn a normal house into a desolate, eerie, dank, derelict, lifeless, building in the gloomy, dismal woods – all words the children in 6NH have collected in their word bank. Several of the children have already created spine-tingling settings, all ready for them to introduce fantastic character into over the next couple of weeks as they write their own Christmas related ghost stories. Don’t have nightmares!

Our World War Two topic is coming to an end, with Year 6 learning how the Axis forces were caught in a pincer movement from the Allies during 1944/5 – the Soviets in the East, and other Allies up through Italy and from Normandy after D-Day. The children were amazed at the rapid demise of the Nazi forces at the end of the war.

In our final, and rather fitting set of lessons, Year 6 will learn what Christmas was like for many children during the war years. Most of them will remember the words of a former evacuee from our railway trip earlier in the year: “I was given a doll as a present for my first Christmas. That was the only Christmas present I had during the war.” She seemed grateful to have received even that. Something for Year 6 to think about as they write their Christmas lists!

OTHER NEWS Junior School Christmas Disco – Thursday, 5th December 2019 – 4.30pm to 6.30pm A reminder that we are holding a Junior School Christmas Disco on Thursday, 5th December in the Dining Hall, from 4.30pm to 6.30pm for all Junior School Pupils. Children attending the disco will have a playtime from 4pm to 4.15pm and then return to their classrooms to change into their party clothes before the disco starts. This will be a Ticket only Event (£5 per ticket to include a meal and drink) and any money raised will go to the charities selected by the School Council. If you would like your child to attend please send in payment to Lynne Singer by Monday, 2nd December latest.

Please note Prep/Chess Club and Football Club will NOT run on Thursday, 5th December 2019, so if your child does not wish to attend the School Disco they would need to be collected by 4.30pm latest.

Please note that collection from the Junior School Disco will be from the Junior School pupil entrance at 6.30pm prompt NOT from the Dining Hall. At 5.45pm, children in Year 2 and below will be taken to the Year 1 and 2 classroom to watch a Christmas movie and can be collected from 6pm onwards and by 6.30pm latest.

Lost Property Loki, Y4 has lost his black swimming hat which is Matt black . Thomas, Y5 has lost his school jumper which is named. Harry, Y4 is still missing his PE Waterproof jacket. Tobin Y5 has lost his swimshorts.

Sibford School Parent Questionnaire You should have received an email regarding the Sibford School Parent Questionnaire. If you could set aside a few minutes to complete our questionnaire we would be very grateful. The questionnaire will remain live until 9.00am on Monday 2nd December.

Junior School Newsletter Friday 29 November 2019

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The official newsletter of

El Dorado High School teachers

@SibfordOxon

@SibfordOxon

@SibfordOxon