Junior School Newsletter - March 6 2020

Junior School Newsletter Friday 6 March 2020

@SibfordJS UPCOMING EVENTS The official newsletter of El Dorado High School teachers

DEAR PARENTS (Pre-warning that terrible puns lie ahead!), We’ve had a “leafy” week over the past five days as we’ve tried to choose between our favourite books; this one “author” other one. Some of us had a go at writing our own, while others put the “paperback” and did it on the computers instead. The children have truly “cover”ed themselves in glory with their achievements!

TUESDAY 28 APRIL AT THE MILL

FRIDAY 13 MARCH, DINING HALL

SATURDAY 9 MAY 2020

EMAIL PSFA@SIBFORDSCHOOL.CO.UK FOR TICKETS

Apologies for that, but yes, we have been celebrating books and reading all week, in Meeting for Worship, in class activities, in visits and during special activities with other classes. It began on Monday with a special Meeting where staff, armed with bags of clues, challenged the children to try and guess the famous stories. They duly uncovered Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Harry Potter, The Very Hungry Caterpillar, Treasure Island and several others – an eclectic literary mix to set the tone for the following days! Our theme for the week was one of Seafarers, so expect sailing and pirates to feature heavily!

Year 5 and 6 were then treated to a special performance of Victor Hugo’s most famous story when they went along to watch the dress rehearsal of the Senior School’s production of Les Misérables. I know many of you have managed to catch one of the shows – it is a wonderful production and the team have worked extremely hard to produce such a masterpiece. It is particularly pleasing to watch so many fabulous performances from former Junior School pupils – we’ve still got the grainy footage of their first nativities should they go on to become famous!

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Junior School Newsletter Friday 6 March 2020 On Tuesday, in a brief break from the books, we hosted our annual U11 Netball and Football tournaments. Match reports follow, but well done to all the children who took part in cold and windy conditions and thank you to the parents who came along to support.

Wednesday morning saw us carry out a vertical learning morning. Having gathered in the dining room to be inspired by extracts from George’s Marvellous Medicine and The Worst Witch we then embarked on a carousel of four activities.

- Building reading dens in Fielding House (thank you to Bunny Baker and the 6th Form for loaning us their sofas!) and then sharing stories with younger pupils.

- Creating our own book-based dances inspired by pirate novels.

- Using dice to generate ideas for our own adventure short stories which we then had to write.

- Solving cryptic book-based clues to find our way around the Junior School to retrieve parts of a puzzle.

As usual with these activities, the children had great fun while developing their learning and, as always, it was warming to see the older children take such good care of the younger ones.

Thursday brought with it World Book Day itself – cue an onslaught of piratical characters (and that’s just the staff!) Thank you to all the parents for creating such incredible outfits. As expected there was no shortage of Captain Hooks, Long John Silver and Pirates Loving Underpants, but it was equally impressive to see some of the more inventive connections to seafaring that some children came up with. The day was spent with plenty more book related activities, while Key Stage 2 took turns to visit Jaffé and Neale in Chipping Norton and spend the special tokens.

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Junior School Newsletter Friday 6 MARCH 2020 I’m pleased to report that catering also got in on the act with a special World Book Day themed lunch. In addition to “Gruffalo Pie” and “Hagrid’s Jerk Chicken” we were also treated to special Roald Dahl inspired drinks in the form of “George’s Marvellous Medicine” and the BFG’s “Frobscottle” (although I’m also pleased to report that there was no outbreak of “whizzpopping”!)

To finish the week we have a special Junior School Music Meeting in the afternoon. The Band are itching to unveil their latest song and various other individuals and groups will also be performing. I look forward to seeing you there!

Congratulations to the children who received Headteacher awards: Lukas, Darcey, Imogen – Y1/2 Oliver A - Y5 Niamh and Lily – Y6 In friendship

Edward Rossiter Head of Junior School

PS. This week’s fun fact is inspired by Victor Hugo. Did you know the longest sentence ever printed is 823 words long and can be found in Les Misérables?

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FOUNDATION AND RECEPTION

We started our week off with a beautiful walk around grounds of Sibford. We spotted a bird’s nest, lots of spring flowers and the buds of blossom beginning to form on trees, with some trees starting to blossom already. The buds of one tree were ‘so soft’ and ‘fluffy like stroking a rabbit’ according to some children. As we walked past the monkey puzzle tree, we noticed some of their fascinating branches lying on the ground, some even longer than the children. We picked them up, investigated them and took them back to school (along with lots of other ‘treasure’). They are now waiting in our mud kitchen to be made into something delicious!

Linking to the Sea Farer theme for World Book Day we have been exploring ‘sea’ themed books such as Noah’s Arc, Polly Pirate, The Snail and the Whale and Barry the Fish with Fingers. We set up a photo studio in our role play area so the children could photograph each other’s costumes. Watch out Nick Hadley, we have some budding photographers in Early Years!

I was, yet again, impressed with the enthusiasm and energy Early Years bought to the Vertical Learning Day and how incredibly beautifully the older children guided, supported and encouraged the younger ones.

YEAR 1 AND 2 Turrets, ramparts, arrow slits, drawbridge, portcullis are a few of the terms Year 1 and 2 have become more familiar with this week. They took a closer look at the parts of a castle and their purpose, carefully labelling a castle. This helped them to think about the shape of a castle when making their template for their pottery lesson, where they were able to use the skills learnt last week to make a start on their final piece. Having looked at how castles were designed to stop invaders, there were perhaps some residents that were able to get inside the castle boundaries with more ease…. moles; the children learnt about how some animals have adapted to suit their habitats.

In their maths they moved away from shape to focus on investigating place value and how this can help us to work out fractions of numbers. Tongue twisters were the order of the week for their English work, learning how alliteration can make it quite tricky to read verses aloud and quickly! They even managed to find some time to make up their own, see if you can find them displayed around the Junior School.

Some facts just have to be learnt and in their Geography they looked at how the world is made up of continents and oceans, hopefully this will help them later on in the term!

The week was finished by looking at more work by Paul Klee, though this time a little different to work completed last week, which can be seen displayed in the classroom.

A reminder to KS1 parents: if your child has alternative collection arrangements, i.e. collected by another parent/person or ASC, please can you remember to write these on the whiteboard just inside the classroom. It’s helpful for the end of the day when perhaps sometimes the children are a little unsure!

YEAR 3 In step with Book Week children continued to work on Myths and Legends in English and up levelled a piece of boring text regarding King Arthur. Their writing included powerful verbs and excellent descriptive words. In science children turned their thoughts to ‘How does your garden grow?' and tackled a prediction puzzle about how water is transported in plants. Hopefully when we set up our experiments next week, we will be able to see if our expectations are correct.

Tweeting took on a different meaning as some listened to the birds tweeting from the comfort of the Forest School bird hide. Others put their energy into digging the soil in preparation for Forest School activities.

Art and History were combined when Children had a go at making their own model of Stonehenge. After drawing a scaled down ground plan of the structure children projected stones (in the form of modelling clay) upwards from their plan. We like our little model of Stonehenge and agree we could never find enough modelling clay to do a real size version.

YEAR 4 As well as dressing up as an array of seafarers and sirens, a trip to Jaffe & Neale, spending a morning rotating around book themed dancing, writing, scavenging and reading activities, in 4KS there has been lots of learning happening.

In Geography, we recapped how an anemometer on the top of a wind turbine measures wind speed. Hand held anemometers can be used, but they can be expensive. Instead, with a 30cm stick, 3 pieces of ribbon and some tape, we made our own windicator! Armed with this and our knowledge of the Beaufort scale, we are undertaking daily readings of wind speed and direction. Michael Fish watch out!

In English, to kick off our ‘persuasive writing’ theme, we have started to look at Jeannie Baker’s ‘Where the Forest Meets the Sea’. Despite having very few words, the relief collage pictures convey a strong message about the Daintree National Park in far North Queensland, Australia - making us think about the past, the future and how we impact on these. The eagle-eyed amongst the children noticed that there is something slightly mysterious hidden on most pages: an interesting boat name, a crocodile, the ribs of an old boat, a dinosaur…

This week, the children have combined DT skills with their Science knowledge to start thinking about the design of their battery-powered cars. We reminisced about favourite toy cars and brushed up on key words such as chassis and axle.

Batteries, motors, axles and wheels will be provided – but children have been tasked with thinking about what they want to use as their chassis, so be prepared to find them rummaging through recycling bins at home for bottles and cardboard!

YEAR 5 This week, we have been continuing with our work on The Tudors by learning about Tudor food. We discovered that rich Tudors would have had a largely meat based diet, enjoying huge feasts on a daily basis. Poor Tudors, however, would have eaten very little meat; their staple food was Tudor potage – a vegetable broth that would have been made using seasonal vegetables, stock and pearl barley. To help us understand more about what it might have been like to live in the Tudor times, we decided to make our own potage, using vegetables that we had grown ourselves in the raised beds behind the Junior School.

With the help of Harry Wragg, we harvested a selection of vegetables, including onions, leeks, carrots, parsnips and beetroot. Back in the classroom, we then washed, peeled and chopped these in preparation for the potage pot. First, we fried the onions and leeks, then we added the rest of the vegetables, some stock and the pearl barley and simmered our potage until the vegetables were cooked through. It smelt delicious!

Some of us were a bit nervous about tasting the potage, but almost everybody tried it and most were pleasantly surprised about how delicious it was! Many children had seconds, and none was wasted.

We decided that life as a Tudor peasant wouldn’t have been so bad after all!

YEAR 6 Another busy, exciting week, with lots of different activities and learning opportunities both in the classroom and out. On Monday, we were treated to a performance of ‘Les Mis’, and many of the children were hugely inspired by the talents of their fellow pupils in senior school. Judging by the super performances in Junior School Music Meeting this afternoon, Neil Maddens, Fiona Hudson and Rachel Bee have lots of future talent to look forward to.

We have been looking at The Globe Theatre in Shakespeare’s time, and enjoying acting out the roles of stinkards, actors, royalty and pick-pockets to help our creative writing come to life. We learnt that all the acting parts would have been played by men, and Nick Hadley amused the class with his Oscar winning performance of Juliet on the balcony!

Our new Tuesday carousel of activities has started and one group reappeared from Food and Nutrition with some very yummy looking chocolate creations (what a shame some of them have given up chocolate for Lent!), while another group designed their wooden boxes, and the third group did some serious squitching in the raised beds.

On Wednesday we had our whole school VLM (Vertical Learning Morning), and once again the Year 6 were excellent at helping to look after the younger children. They made us very proud by showing great kindness and maturity, as they danced, acted, read, wrote, made dens, and treasure-hunted their way through the morning.

Another Book Week treat was our trip to Jaffé and Neale. Mainly dressed as pirates, with a cat, a parrot, and a scuba diver thrown in, we learnt that there are over 5,300 books in the shop and that there is a secret book corner that they need to check every night!

OTHER NEWS Sport Reports U11 Netball Tournament – Tuesday, 3rd March 2020 On Tuesday, all girls in Year 5 & 6 took part in a netball tournament. They braved some incredibly cold, wet and windy weather to play six games in total. All three of our teams played brilliantly well, with lots of goals being scored and some excellent teamwork skills on display. A special mention must go to the children on our A team, who were particularly successful and were runners up of the tournament.

Thank you to our Senior School Sports Leaders for helping to organise, coach and umpire the matches, and to all those parents and family members who came to watch us on the day, we really do appreciate your support!

U11 Football Tournament – Tuesday, 3rd March 2020 On Tuesday we hosted an U11 Football Tournament.

Our young A team started by losing narrowly to the eventual winners Blockley before losing to Bruern Abbey by the odd goal. After this the boy’s reaction was outstanding and they beat New College B and then drew 0-0 with a strong Emmanuel Christian School. This meant we finished 4th in our group and had to enter the plate competition.

In the semi-final we faced Bruern B, the game was decided by Henry who kept his nerve and converted a penalty after he was fouled. This meant we qualified through to the plate final to face a well organised Dr Radcliffes team. We started well with Caleb scoring an early goal and the team were thankful to Mani for making 2 outstanding saves to keep us ahead. Henry scored late to relax the team and see us win the plate final 2-0. Special mention to Jack (Y4) for putting in an outstanding display throughout despite playing 2 years up.

OTHER NEWS

B Team A mixed group of Year 4s and 5s under Sam’s captaincy played five matches, some of them in terrible weather. Pitched against larger and older children, it is not a surprise that they struggled, however they showed remarkable resilience (both in relation to the weather and the opposition) and produced some incredible defensive performances. They saved their best till last, drawing 0-0 in their penultimate game (against the group runners-up) before drawing 1-1 in their final game – equalising with the last kick of the game. Well done to all the boys on a fantastic performance.

After School Clubs

After School Swimming Club on Wednesday 11th and 18th March will not be on due to other sporting fixtures. Please email Lynne Singer if you wish to book your child into prep instead.

Also, a reminder that no After School Clubs will run the last week of term (w/c 23rd March) and the first week back of the new Summer Term (w/c 20th April). Before/After School Care and prep will be available for these weeks.

Before/After School and Lunch Club Booking forms for the Summer Term will be sent out shortly.

Junior School Newsletter Friday 6 March 2020

DATES FOR THE DIARY

The official newsletter of

El Dorado High School teachers

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Junior School Newsletter Friday 6 March 2020

CORONAVIRUS UPDATE With the current situation regarding Coronavirus we are taking a number of further actions to keep the community safe: The official newsletter of

El Dorado High School teachers

Emphasizing with the pupils the importance of personal hygiene / hand washing.

Placing information posters strategically around the school.

No longer shaking hands at meeting.

Ensuring cleaning is up to date and thorough.

We have identified a space in school to use as an isolation room, away from the main school community should this be necessary.

Making preparations for a ‘worst case scenario’ of a temporary school closure – including for boarders and those in examination groups.

Keeping in close contact with NHS / Public Health England / Department for Education communication channels and updating accordingly.

Liaising with visiting schools and other points of contact with those outside of our community.

Parents / Guardians Please talk to your child about personal hygiene / handwashing.

Please make sure that pupils have some tissues in their pocket each morning. We have sanitisers around the school so these are not needed / optional.

It is very important that any member of the community self-isolates and calls NHS 111 if they display any symptoms of coronavirus.

Please let the school know straight away if you have any serious concerns or have decided / or been instructed to self-isolate.

If you have any general questions or queries do contact the school.

For more information, click here to here to read the Public Health England advice on coronavirus for places of education.

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Junior School Newsletter Friday 6 March 2020

USEFUL INFORMATION The official newsletter of El Dorado High School teachers

THE 6 STEPS OF HAND WASHING

Palm to palm

The back of the fingers

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The back of hands

Inbetween fingers

The thumbs

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The tips of the fingers

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