‘’What have you done in
school today?’ Dear Parents,
5th July 2019
A trainee teacher asked me this week what I felt was the best part of working in a primary school. I have to say, of all the questions I get asked by trainees, this is the both the easiest and hardest to answer.
Easy because I can genuinely list a hundred things that make it so wonderful; hard because they just want one answer and it’s impossible to give just one! I have worked on shortening my answer to—we see young people go through every emotion there is, we see them achieve, fail and come bouncing back. In short… they are FAR better at dealing with life than we adults are (or give them credit for) and it is a pleasure to see them succeed where we fail, and they teach me just as much as I teach them.
All the best, Mr J Webster, Headmaster
Stars of the Week Isaac Moran, Nicholas Grimes, Sophie Quint, Imogen Ball, Naya Sheppard, Sadie Rogers, Anna Yu, Alice Leite and Yasmin McIver
In this week’s edition… Clubs Update Page 2 Mission Together Page 4 Year 6 Pupil Lunch Page 16 Calendar of Events Page 19
Weekly Awards Newsletter Team Gardening Club
Page 3 Page 14 Page 17
After School Activities and Clubs From now up until the end of term is a very busy time and may mean that clubs and activities after school have to be cancelled. This page will be updated each week so please keep it handy if unsure. Please note; The After School Club will run as normal up until the end of term, except of Wednesday, 17th July as school finishes at 12pm.
Week commencing 8th July Monday, 8th
No clubs except Taekwondo
Tuesday, 9th
No clubs
Wednesday, 10th
Recorder is on
Thursday, 11th
Show Choir is on
Friday, 12th
Yoga before school is on before school Table Tennis is on
Saturday, 13th
Saturday School is not on
Week commencing 15th July Monday, 15th
No clubs
Tuesday, 16th
No clubs
Wednesday, 17th
School finishes at 12pm
New Academic Year All after school clubs and activities will resume on Monday, 9th September 2019. A new timetable will be given at ‘Meet the Teachers’ meeting on the first day back—Wednesday, 4th September.
Holiday Club Full details of the Holiday Club are now available on the school website. The club will run from Thursday, 18th July and apart from Friday, 19th July, will not be open on Fridays throughout the break. For more details please email Dawn Ford on fordd@stmarys.lpool.sch.uk or call the Wrap Around mobile on 07460292846 2
Music Awards ‘Musician of the Week’, is awarded by Mrs Booth to the pupil who has excelled in class music or instrumental tuition. This week it is awarded to Year 2 pupils, Harry Sankson and Noah Malthouse for their conduct and performance in their piano preparatory exams. Year 3 pupil, George Charnley, is this week’s ‘Singer of the Week’ awarded by Miss Walton, for being so focused and singing well in Show Choir.
Sports Awards The Infant and Junior Sportsperson of the Week awards are chosen by all the staff and discussed in our staff meetings, deciding who has shown great sportsmanship, skills or team work in their P.E. and Games lessons or while on a fixture. This week Year 4 pupil, Dylan Cope wins the Junior Award for his effort and participation in Mondays sports club. Reception pupil, Claudia Heston, wins the Infants’ Award for her determination and team spirit during Deaf Active sessions.
House Point Winners Each week the pupil with the most House Points in each house from each class will receive a medal and this week’s winners are picture right. The medals are returned to class for the following week’s presentation at Star of the Week Assembly. Well done to all the children who have worked hard this week and accumulated the most House Points. 3
Mission Together Mary Dearden from Mission Together came to visit us in School on Monday. The children presented her with a cheque for £200 from our fundraising earlier on in the year and we received a certificate for our achievement. Mary explained to the children just how many snacks and drinks this would provide for the children they work with in Jordan. Mary set the school a task and that is to practice the Mission Together children’s prayer and sign it as well. We are going to record ourselves and it will be used to teach other children around the country how to sign the prayer. We are delighted to be given this task and cannot wait to get practicing. We also look forward to planning more fundraising events to raise money for the next project working with children in South Africa.
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Reception Deaf Active The children put all their skills into place during their last session with Stephen and Adam during Deaf Active this week. They were able to follow BSL signs to complete a team game based on colour recognition and hand-eye coordination and had lots of fun in the process! The children took part in a tense penalty shoot out and demonstrated their co-ordination skills, precision and strength. We have all thoroughly enjoyed these sessions and the children have gained so much confidence with their football skills, deaf awareness and British Sign Language.
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Reception Science Club This week Reception Science Club were investigating Magnetism. We discussed how Magnetism is an attraction that two items have making them stick together! Even from a distance magnets can find each other because of their magnetic field. The children were interested to learn that a magnetic field is an invisible area all around the magnet that attracts other magnetic material. The children then used magnetic wands around the classroom to discover which materials were magnetic. They then had great fun picking up paperclips and magnetic marbles.
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Year 1 ‘All about Brazil Day’. Year 1 had a wonderful day learning all about Brazil. Throughout the day the class took part in a range of activities including Coloured flags of Brazil Made carinal masks Listened to carnival music Labelled the South American map Made Brazilian chocolate truffles called ‘brigadeiro’ Mr Leite, father to pupil Alice, came in to talk to the class about the family’s homeland and he gave a presentation on landmarks, animals and features of South America and Brazil. The class had a mini carnival to show Mr Leite the masks and dancing and then enjoyed their brigadeiros. He gave each child a shell that had been collected from Copacabana beach in Rio de Janeiro.
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Year 2 Literacy Year Two started a new Literacy topic based on the series of books ‘Little People Big Dreams’. The class decided to make their own little books all about themselves and what they dream of for the future. The children were set a piece of homework where they had to write down what their dreams are for the future and they then incorporated this work into their book. The children have thoroughly enjoyed reading the books in this series which include people such as Marie Curie, Rosa Parks, Muhammad Ali, Mother Teresa, Coco Chanel and Stephen Hawking and many more. They have taken inspiration from the books to create their own and illustrate them too. One of the books we read this week was all about Freida Kahlo. The children produced a piece of artwork in a similar style to Freida who was known for her bright colours. The children continue to work on their books and have been dedicated to the task. They look forward to reading their books to the children in Year 1 next week.
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Year 3 Science As part of their Science lessons Year 3 went down to the beach to search for different kinds of rocks. Every children had great fun identifying if it was man-made or natural and having a go at seeing if it was sedimentary, igneous or metamorphic. The children also enjoyed picking up different shells and comparing them to each other’s. It was lovely to go and explore the beach and the children got a lot out of this trip.
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Year 4 Theme As part of their Theme lessons this week, year 4 have been learning about Africa. They focused specifically using globes, maps and atlases to develop their geographical knowledge and understanding of Kenya. The children were introduced to political and topographic maps and they used them to identify bordering countries, the capital city, mountainous areas, lakes and rivers. They then used an interactive globe and a statistics chart to make comparisons between Kenya and the UK.
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Year 5 English This week in English Year 5 worked on a new book - The Man Who Walked Between the Towers. The book follows a street performer who has a goal of walking between the late twin towers in New York City. Before his astonishing feat, the book describes how he starts his journey. The children spent time focussing on one image, the image displays the man walking a across a rope in central park surrounded by lots of spectators. The children were asked to think about what the spectators might be saying and how they could present the discussion. The children acted out the scene and included the speech that spectators might have used.
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6G RE We recently started our final RE topic about ‘Common Good’. We talked about what this means and discussed the idea of fairness. Splitting the world into five groups, loosely split into continents, we demonstrated how unequal the distribution of resources is. The class were split into their groups and the size of each group represented the proportion of the population in the world. There were tokens for food, money, health care and education. It became quickly obvious that there are far more resources available to the richer countries in the world which control around 80% of the world’s money. 6G love to debate so following our activity they debated the issue and highlighted where things were unfair. They discussed how this could be tackled and came up with some good ideas.
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Year 6 Drama We have been looking at a piece of performance/choral poetry that we are hoping to perform at our Prize Giving. The children were using a poem by Michael Rosen and have been split in to groups to perform. They have a tough task ahead, to learn all of the words, speak in unison and breath life in to their performance. Mr Webster looks forward to seeing the end product!
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Newsletter Team at Chester Zoo The roving reports from the school newsletter ‘The Mary-Go-Round– visited Chester Zoo to interview one of the Rangers, Molly. Luke, Anna, Ava and Seb went armed with lots of questions and came away with a whole host of interesting facts! Molly gave the team a whistle stop tour of the zoo calling in at a number of animal enclosures, including Seb’s favourite animal—the giraffe! It was a great visit and an exciting way to finish off their year as reporters. Look out for the article in the newsletter which will be distributed at the end of term.
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Year 6 Pupils’ Choice Lunch This month the Year 6 Pupils’ Choice Lunch fell on the 4th July so the two classes selected an American themes menu to celebrate Independence Day! It was great to see so many parents and family members join the year for a tasty lunch.
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Cooking Club Following on from a bumper crop of strawberries from gardening club, we used them to make healthy strawberry cheesecake (healthy being no double cream used in the ingredients). The children enjoyed bashing the biscuits to make the base. It was a delicious summer treat.
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Gardening Club As the summer term is ending, we have had to opportunity to harvest the fruits of the children’s hard work. The children were surprised to see the onions had grown to a healthy size after a slow long period of seemingly nothing happening., another successful crop was the garlic, luckily George Armstrong was on hand to show us how to plait the garlic stems ready to dry out. Some preparation for autumn was made with weeding and planting autumnal crops such as pumpkins and squash. We are looking forward to picking the trowels back up in September and being stuck in once again.
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Key dates for your diary Please visit the school website www.stmarys.ac/prep for full details of fixtures and important dates. For many of the events listed below, letters and emails will be sent to parents over the coming weeks.
Date
Event
Classes involved
July Tuesday, 9th
Prize Giving Rehearsals at The Atkinson All Juniors Junior Prize Giving at The Atkinson Theatre, Southport, All Juniors 7pm PLEASE KEEP THIS DATE FREE AS ALL JUNIOR PUPILS ARE EXPECTED TO ATTEND
Wednesday, 10th
Crosby Lakeside Trip
Year 3 to 6
Friday, 12th
Crosby Lakeside Trip Infants’ Prize Giving, 1.30pm
Year 3 to 6 Infants
Saturday, 13th
‘Proms in the Park’
Whole school invited
Tuesday, 16th
Whole School Mass to celebrate Year 6 Leavers PLEASE KEEP DATE FREE AS ALL PUPILS ARE EXPECTED TO ATTEND
Whole school
Wednesday, 17th
Term ends at 12pm
Whole school
July
TERM DATES 2019—2020 Autumn Term 2019
Weds 4th September
Term begins for Prep,Year 7 and L6th
Thurs 5th September
Term begins for all
Mon 21st - Fri 25th October
Half-term holiday
Fri 13th December
Term ends
Lent Term 2020
Mon 6th January
Term begins
(Provisional)
Mon 17th to Fri 21st February
Half-term holiday
Fri 3rd April
Term ends
Summer Term 2020
Mon 20th April
Term begins
(Provisional)
Mon 25th - Fri 29th May
Half-term holiday
Weds 15th July
Term ends
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