Junior School Newsletter - June 12 2020

DEAR PARENTS Another busy week draws to a close and we continue to be amazed by the children’s creativity, resilience, and adaptability. This has seen them respond to the new challenges of online learning, the requirement often to show more independence about time management and the need, sometimes, to tweak the work set to suit their environment. From pizza parties to virtual safari trips, from placing your trust in your sibling to do blind taste tests to working with recycled material to create artwork we have seen all manner of brilliant efforts from the children – almost all carried out with beaming smiles! Perhaps one of the most pleasing things we have noticed is the way in which children are looking out for each other – whether that be helping with technical difficulties online (some of the Year 5s are certainly more advanced in this than I am!) or acting as a virtual buddy to newly joined classmates.

They are all aware of how much they are missing their friends and how much their friends are missing them and, judging by the happiness seen on the faces of the Early Years, Year 1s and Year 6s back in school, they really are appreciating the important role they play in each other’s lives. This very much demonstrates the substance of our Meeting for Worship on Monday where we explored how, by helping each other, we all benefit.

Earlier this week, I am sure you will have heard the most recent announcement from Gavin Williamson regarding the process of continuing the phased returning to school for further year groups. The good news is that the guidance gives schools who have the flexibility to do so the opportunity to explore reopening to further year groups before the end of the summer term, providing it is safe to do so. With this in mind, a letter has today gone home to the parents of all pupils in Years 2-5 to explore the interest and possibility of a broader reopening of the Junior School before the end of term. At the earliest, this might be from the 22nd June, and the Senior Leadership Team and staff are working hard to put the significant logistical planning in place with this ambition.

To do so we need as much time as possible and would appreciate responses to the letter by 12 noon on Monday 15th June. Later next week further details will be sent out and parents will have the opportunity to ask questions to myself and class teachers. In the interim, could I ask that these questions are not asked directly of class teachers – their core focus will need to be wholly on continuing to deliver remote teaching and learning and preparing for a possible return.

Congratulations to the following children who were awarded Home/School (delete as applicable!) Learner of the Week certificates:

Tobin, Kaiya and Oliver R – Year 5 receive Headteacher Awards for their Geography projects. David in Year 5 and Evie and Sam in Year 6 also receive Headteacher awards.

Thank you all for your continued support and for the fantastic encouragement you are providing for our home learners.

In friendship

Edward Rossiter

Ps. One for any Tolkien fans this week! Did you know the dark region on the north pole of Pluto’s moon, Charon, is called Mordor?

@SibfordJS @SibfordOxon @SibfordOxon

FOUNDATION AND RECEPTION Don’t you just love it when a plan comes together? We had been exploring birds that migrate to Africa in the winter, particularly swallows and decided to go bird watching around the grounds. After seeing numerous pigeons and black birds, we spotted a few swallows and then a few more and then a whole flock!

A bird (parrot) featured in our class book this week, Beautiful Bananas, that is about a girl taking some bananas to her Grandad. It does not go very well, and she has all sorts of problems along the way, like a giraffe flicking the bananas into the river. Luckily, he helps her solve the problem and gives her some flowers for her Grandad. We used this story to explore how many stories have problems and how they are usually solved by the end! We then chose an animal from the story to look at in more detail, making our very own Tinga Tinga animal pictures. This linked beautifully to our maths, where we had been exploring fabric from Kenya and The Gambia. We picked out shapes and looked for repeating patterns.

As well as working on a number of skills the children have also been going on nature walks with PE. Last week they found all sort of exotic fruits (including a giant pineapple) and this week they went on a Safari, spotting lots of wild animals, usually only found on the African plains.

We have been continuing our ‘interactive talking box’ at home and in school. This week we got to meet a duck called Henrietta and a take a tour of a very cosy den that one of the children had made under their bed. Things that would definitely not fit in the shoe box that we usually use in school. A positive of lock down?

YEAR 1 AND 2 Year 1 and 2 have enjoyed using ‘Beautiful Bananas’ as their book of the week for English, but it’s been a bit more of a creative week as they’ve been making puppets and backgrounds in order to help them to retell the story, even with a few days when they were banned from writing and the adults had to do it for them!

Becca Edwards has thrown all sorts of shape and space investigations at them this week for their maths, including sequences, a flip flop investigation, symmetry, and quadrilateral animals! It been lovely to see them using all aspects to help them solve these mysteries and revisit lots of skills.

Pick n Mix activities have included using their senses, but this time tasting and smelling different things and describing them; an important skill to have. They have created some lovely bird art but linking this to geography and how/why birds migrate. Beautiful Bananas is all about surprises, so linking to this and their geography work, they filled a suitcase with things they thought they might pack if they went on a trip too! Another busy week in the world of Year 1 and 2.

YEAR 3

This week in Year 3, children put their finishing touches to their stories. Their challenge was to write their very own chapter to add to the book called, The Owl who was Afraid of the Dark.

We hope you enjoy the following lines from our stories:

Plop woke up feeling brave. He decided that today would be the day that he would learn to hoot. He was full of beans although he was a little anxious…Plop’s mum and dad were really tired, but not too tired to go hunting. They stretched out their wings and soured out of their nesting hole….. “Can I go and find someone else to talk to about the dark,” asked Plop. Plop fell out of his amazing tree. A small white dog ran over and snuffled Plot’s bottom. “How rude,” said Plot…He was mistaken for a conker by the duck. The duck said The Dark is Beautiful,” They had a big chat and played hide and seek together…..He noticed that it was getting late and told the family that he would have to go home as it would be breakfast time. He thanked them for sharing their food and for telling him that Dark is an Adventure.

Plop said goodbye, bowed his little bow and few off home.

In Maths children tackled multiply mazes, fractions of amounts and measuring length.

Year 3 continued their afternoon tasks as they picked n mixed their way through a variety of different subjects/ activities. Activities included making 3 dimensional Indian elephants and collecting and analysing fingerprints.

YEAR 4 In English this week, 4KS have been looking at West African Ananse stories, focussing on our half spider half man main character. The children have summarised parts of stories and predicted endings of stories using pictures and words on a storyboard. We have recapped adverbials, talking about how to spot them when we are reading as well as use them in our writing. We have then used a picture to imagine what might have just happened, be happening now and be about to happen – in order to plan and write our own Ananse stories.

Our ‘Pick n Mix’ activities have been varied and produced lots of fantastic ideas and work…

The children turned into forensic scientists, going through the detailed process of taking fingerprints of all their fingers and studying them to identify the different patterns they could spot.

History required the children to look at the historical hero that is Elizabeth Fry (the Quaker after whom our Fry house is named). They learnt about how she improved conditions for prisoners – thinking about why she did this and what the effects of her doing this were.

Creativity has been unleased as the children reminded themselves about ‘Hastimangala’ the Indian elephant festival. We have had amazing model elephants made and 2D elephants decorated – looking just like they have been part of the festival fun.

As well as this all of the children are working hard on their times tables and either managing to beat the number that they can do in 5 minutes or completing them all – great work and commitment 4KS!

YEAR 5 In Year 5 our minds are still on all things to do with the sea but it is unlikely that Coleridge ever thought the lines in his poem (about the fateful actions of his “Ancient Mariner”) would be used as the basis for a Science lesson…

Day after day, day after day, We stuck, nor breath nor motion; As idle as a painted ship Upon a painted ocean.

Water, water, every where, And all the boards did shrink; Water, water, every where, Nor any drop to drink.

“Water, water everywhere and not a drop to drink?” The challenge in Science this week was to investigate whether it was possible to make salt water into fresh.

Here’s what they found out: In the experiment the saltwater evaporated and then it rose to the clingfilm.

When it hit the clingfilm it condensed and became water droplets and collected in the glass. As the water evaporated it left the salt behind leaving freshwater in the glass. This is called desalination.

My experiment was successful. I was able to drink the water which only tasted a tiny bit of salt. Oliver R The experiment was a success. After 2 hours the water was very hot and there was a little bit of water in the glass, but enough for me to drink. I could taste the salt a tiny bit but not that much because the salt is too heavy to evaporate from the bowl and fall in to the glass.

YEAR 5 First I put my bowl in the sun and over time the sun heated the salt water which caused it to turn into water vapour and evaporate. This is when the desalination happened, the salt was heavier than the water so it couldn’t evaporate. After that the condensation occurred, the water condensed in to water droplets on the cling film and then slid in to the glass because of the stone and fell from the glass just like rain. Susannah First I put my bowl in the sun and over time the sun heated the salt water which caused it to turn into water vapour and evaporate. This is when the desalination happened, the salt was heavier than the water so it couldn’t evaporate. After that the condensation occurred, the water condensed in to water droplets on the cling film and then slid in to the glass because of the stone and fell from the glass just like rain. Susannah

Another process we have been exploring this week was how to make great art out of rubbish! This art work certainly hasn't just appeared by magic but has been gradually achieved in stages then patiently waiting in between. Lovely work exploring our coastal collage theme for the week.

We have also had more fun outside as well as creating in the kitchen, or should I say Pizza Parlour making our own delicious and healthy creations with all of our favourite toppings.

YEAR 6 Où est le soleil cette semaine?

Not quite the sunny week we were hoping for, but it has not stopped us from going out measuring with our trundle wheels and exploring the ground’s extensive orienteering course. The Year 6 map reading skills are much improved – and much to Dave Brassett’s delight, most of them can now hold the map the right way up. Ellen is still the master of speed and detection! In Geography we have also started to look at the problem of plastic pollution in our seas and oceans.

It is that time of year when assessments are carried out, and as usual, the children demonstrated their great resilience and perseverance through a couple of maths tests. They also wrote some fantastic letters in the character of Jim Hawkins from Treasure Island. We will be passing this work on to their new teachers in Senior School, to showcase their excellent creative writing skills.

In English we have followed young Jim to Bristol in his quest for the hidden treasure and looked at how Robert Louis Stevenson created the exciting atmosphere of a busy 18th Century seaport. Boarding the Hispaniola and setting sail on a voyage that could take up to a year, we shared Jim’s excitement and trepidation about the adventures ahead. What will happen next? Is Long John Silver as nice as he seems to be?

We have continued to look at the symbolism of water in religion, and this week focussed on a Buddhist ceremony. The most common type of offering on Tibetan Buddhist shrines are water offerings, called ‘yonchap,’ which are made in seven bowls.

Due to the rain, we were unable to take our rugs outside for reading time, so 6AP made dens in our lovely new spacious classroom!

YEAR 6 Last week in Science, Andy Downes did a fantastic lesson where the children designed a rocket. They had to add fins and a cone shape to the front of a stiff cardboard tube, and then they were launched using an air pump (the rockets, not the children). Niamh and Amy’s ended up on the roof, and I think Mintian’s went stratospheric and is still orbiting the Earth!

A recent episode of Springwatch detailed how to make a pond in your back garden (the video is on the Springwatch website) and Logan and his family decided to do just that.

Logan sent in a photo of his newly created pond and this was featured on episode 10 of the series (at about 35 minutes if you want to see for yourself on iPlayer). This photo shows Logan admiring his handiwork.