Junior School Newsletter - June 26 2020

DEAR PARENTS

26TH JUNE 2020

So, after three months and two of lockdown, we were finally thrilled to throw open the doors and welcome back all of the Junior School year groups. The Sibford they have returned to is somewhat different to the one they left with many of them having to take up residence in new locations so that we can create our bubbles. It only took a little while for the children to get used to their new digs, and now, judging by the normal cheerful laughter I can hear in and around the school, it’s as if they haven’t been away!

We have tried to make the last two weeks of term as “end-of-school-yeary” as possible and our first big event was our Sockfest challenge on Tuesday afternoon.

The children battled some very warm weather to complete in several events in their bubbles – some more obviously recognisable as athletics with others based around the use of their own socks! Some of the events formed part of the North Oxfordshire Sports Partnership competition with some of the children’s performances possibly good enough for them to qualify for future events (fingers-crossed!).

Yesterday, our thoughts turned to next year as we carried out our transition sessions. Lockdown and restrictions on where the bubbles could go, limited the scope of what we would normally do but I am pleased to report that all pupils were blessed with a sprinkling of the Magic Dust that would turn them one year older for a short space of time! Sadly we have not been able to invite some of our prospective new joiners from outside the school, but it has been good to say a cheery Sibford “Hello!” to Poppy, Katie, Grace and Chloe who started as Sibford pupils on Monday.

Looking ahead to next week, the end of the year is proving to be as busy as any other, if not busier! On Monday and Thursday, some of our Year 5s and 6s will be carrying out 10km hikes which will form the final component of their Discovery Awards. It is a shame that they won’t be able to carry out the full expeditions we would normally do, but it is good that we will be able to recognise their achievements before the summer holidays.

Elsewhere we have our Sports Day on Tuesday – hopefully the weather forecast remains as it is at present – where children will compete in their House teams (go on Clark house!). Sadly, we won’t be able to have spectators on campus, so consequently no parents’ races this year! Then, on Friday we will have our End of Year Awards meeting and Year 6 Leavers’ video and presentation. Busy times indeed!

I’m also pleased to announce that, as a testament to the children’s walking and running, we have now reached 11th nationally, with some children managing to get their 6th marathons for the year this week! The final call for laps will be on Wednesday 1st July so you have still got time to get out there and see if you can push us into the Top 10!

Mani, Ava Mi and David – Y5, Erin and Charles – Y6 all receive Headteacher Awards, and congratulations to the following children who were awarded Home/School (delete as applicable!) Learner of the Week certificates:

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend.

In friendship Edward Rossiter

Ps. Did you know that elephants are the only animal that can’t jump?

@SibfordJS @SibfordOxon @SibfordOxon

FOUNDATION AND RECEPTION We had a wish jar in our house and every time we went on our daily walk, some of it was taken up with Jem planning a walk and picnic with her friends, for when the ‘Coronavirus was gone’.

This week was her birthday, so we got our pack lunches, went on a little walk, and had a picnic with all of her friends. The virus might not be gone but it was nice to be able to start to empty our wish jar. Have you got any wishes in your jar that you can take out?

We allowed the children to direct some of the learning this week. Many of them have a fascination with bird’s nests at the moment. How does a bird’s nest stick to a wall? Why don’t they build them on the floor? We got on our all-in ones and headed for Forest School using mud, sticks, grass and whatever we could find to build our own bird’s nests. We discovered that if the mud is too dry or too wet it will not stick to the tree!

YEAR 1 AND 2 This week Year 1 and 2 have started their ‘Savannah’ project. There have been so many skills involved and we’re sure it won’t be finished by the end of the week as they just want to keep adding to it! They started by making a map of Africa and the different ‘biomes’ or areas, but then made it more interesting by turning it into a board game.

Some were thinking of forfeits such as ‘back to the start’, miss a go! Following this, they then focused on making the other side into the Savannah and then adding African animals to the different areas. In between this, they also focused on the Maasai and learnt lots of facts to hopefully include in their ? cards for the game to make it complete!

YEAR 3

This week, all of Year 3 returned to the beautiful surroundings of Sibford School. With happy, smiley faces children have been delighted to be back and catching up with all their friends. The splendid weather has facilitated many outdoor activities such as, “can I measure the height of a tree by standing at the base of the tree and then walking away from it until I can see the tree when I look up through my legs?� The distance you are away from the base of the tree (when this happens) is equivalent to the height of the tree. With the usual determination Year 3 found a tree and did just that. Thankfully we all agreed that the tree we selected is approximately 32 meters tall but we did discover that some children are bendier than others!

YEAR 4 4KS have been out and about for their maths lessons this week.

They started by exploring the grounds and being surprised at the number of right angles they found. They used their 90o angle finder to spot angles that were greater or less than 90o and finished off seeing how many right angles they could include in a stick picture. They were also seen walking away from trees and looking between their legs until they could just see the top of the tree! Why? When they could see the top of the tree, the distance that they were away from the tree was the height of the tree.

This method works because the angle of sight from between the legs to the top of the tree is approximately 45o.

The angle of the tree with the ground is 90o so an approximate Isosceles triangle is formed. This means that the distance between your feet and the tree trunk is approximately the same as the height of the tree. However, we found that height of the person and flexibility had an impact on our findings. Next, we looked at bricks and the names for the faces of the bricks (stretcher and header) - Year 4 are now experts on different brick patterns! We strolled around the school looking to find different patterns. We found that most of the school buildings use the ‘stretcher bond’ pattern, but we did also see come ‘flemish bond’ patterns. It was also interesting to look at tiles and slabs to see if we could spot patterns in them.

On top of all this, music involved some outdoor drumming in the sunshine and the children have made good headway on their Modroc Ananse spider models.

They are deciding what form their spider takes, is it human with spider like features, or spider like with a human head? Watch this space to see how they turn out…

In English, the children thought about different genres of writing, using recipes to help them understand that books are made up of different ingredients. This was to introduce our topic of books with humour and Mr Stink.

We started by imagining what Mr Stink’s back-story might be, where has he come from and what happened to make him become the smelly tramp he is today?

IWe are gradually meeting more characters and finding out more about their personality traits. Next stop… a delve into his disgusting beard!

Remember – do bring in your money if you want one of the fabulous 4KS class pictures brilliantly put together by Emily’s mum Michelle.

YEAR 5 In and out, inside and outside has been the theme for Year 5 this first week back at school. We have welcomed the children back with socially distanced arms; genuinely, it has been lovely to see them all again. Even though we’ve been able to see the Home Learners in Teams call every day we are really missing the children who have remained at home. We have an ongoing Art project for this fortnight which is hand weaving onto a paper plate. The hardest part was when the children had to set up their own looms before they could begin. So much harder to teach and learn when you have to explain something like this from 2 meters away! Now they are all on a roll and are finding the process of weaving quite therapeutic.

Here you can see how our temporary classrooms are set up in the Pottery and the PE classroom with the children busy at their tasks. We have been very proud of our Year 5 throughout their period of Home Learning and equally proud of how well they have listened to and followed instructions since they have returned. They have soon got used to lining up with a safe distance between them and remembering new routines like hand washing and hand sanitising each time they come in and out. This week we have had many lessons outside being thankful for the pools of shade provided by the many trees we have on the Sibford School campus. A I write, I know both the Year 5 teachers and the pupils are about to experience transition and are equally excited and sad to be almost at the point of waving each other goodbye and going off into the socially distanced arms of their new Year 6 teachers. Hopefully they will tell you all about it!

YEAR 6 The penultimate week of Year 6 and Primary School! Where have the years gone?

As usual, the children have been full of energy and enthusiasm albeit a little warm.

Sockfest on Tuesday was great fun, and a good opportunity for all the children to be together. We have been continuing to follow the adventures of Jim Hawkins who has now landed on Treasure Island, and have written some very atmospheric poems, inspired by ‘The Aquarium’ by Saint-Saëns.

6NH went on a Nature walk looking for examples of the Fibonacci sequence, and all the children have enjoyed some quiet time, reading in the shade of the trees.