Classrooms

Reception Message

4 years ago
Posted on 13th Oct 2020 by

Reception/Y1/Y2 Reading Records

Well done to children in Reception, Y1 and Y2 who have been doing lots of reading at home. I have really enjoyed looking at your reading records this week and seeing all the hard work you are putting into your reading. You have made me and your teachers very proud!

Mrs Sixsmith

 

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4 years ago
Posted on 09th Oct 2020 by

Table manners

This week, we have had a very exciting visitor. Mrs Sixsmith has been to each class to read us a story. We talked about table manners.

We have been set a ‘cutlery challenge’ Can you learn how to use a knife and fork? If you could help your child practise at home, it will help them  at lunch times.   We will be looking in the dinner hall and rewarding children who use them correctly.

Good luck!

4 years ago
Posted on 08th Oct 2020 by

Happy News!

Thursday 8th October 2020

Dear Parents,

I wrote to you a couple of weeks ago and said that I wish I could send you more positive letters rather than constant reminders about COVID. Well I’m doing that now! We have so many things to celebrate at St George’s and I often have parents comment that their children tell them little about what they have been up to in school. So, this letter is a snap shot of some of the things we have been getting up to but please do take time to look on our school website as we regularly post news on there too.

Well done to all our new children who joined reception classes in September. They have settled in so quickly and it has been lovely watching them making lots of new friends. We have been particularly impressed with how they eat their lunch in the hall and they all seem to have great appetites!

We have had building work completed in the summer holidays including outdoor canopies for nursery and reception. This has meant that the children can have lots more opportunities for play and learning outdoors, whatever the weather.

Mrs Blair and the Year 2 teachers have all had their classrooms converted into rooms with a 4th wall- up until this summer, there were just curtains across the 4th wall space which meant some children could become distracted as they could hear what was happening in other classrooms. Teachers have said that the conversions of the classrooms into proper rooms has made a huge difference to the children’s learning. We will be also converting the remaining four ‘curtain classrooms’, which are in the Y3/4 block, during the October half term.

In Years 1-6 we have managed to celebrate Stars of the Week in Celebration Assemblies each Friday using Microsoft Teams (the Y1 children keep telling me that they have seen me on the television!). It has been great to watch the children proudly hold up their certificates to the camera so each class can see on their screens. Nursery and our reception classes also have a Star of the Week but I visit in person to give out the certificates rather than via a Microsoft Teams link.

We will continue to give out special Mentions Certificates at the end of each half term.

I am sure you are aware that our school values are honesty, responsibility, respect, happiness, friendship, and kindness. We talk to the children throughout the school day about our values and it is great when we see children making such an effort to live these values in their daily life. For extra special examples of following our school values, children may be given a Values Award. Should this happen, you will know as they will come home with a values sticker followed by a special letter to parents.

Our curriculum across the school has continued to be broad and balanced, even with time pressures and trying to catch up missed learning due to the summer term lockdown. Examples of some of the learning activities in school are:

  • Nursery have had a merry week in school! They have been making Christmas cards which will be printed and then parents can buy at a later stage. They have also been singing and moving to music.
  • Reception tell me they have been enjoying lots of fairy tales and I have had the absolute pleasure of reading them a story too (my own children are teenagers so this was such a treat to be able to read to little ones again).
  • Year 1 are very excited to start making teddy bears next week as part of their history lessons.
  • Year 2 pupils have been busy emailing questions to senior staff and I know Mrs Watts, our deputy head, particularly enjoyed this.
  • Y3 have been learning about Roald Dahl and enjoying lots of his stories. There are some great displays of their Roald Dahl artwork up in school.
  • Y4 enjoyed a great Italian food tasting feast and then went on to having a Charlie and the Chocolate Factory sweets and chocolate tasting experience (lucky Year 4!).
  • Year 5 have really enjoyed learning about the planets and so many fabulous homework projects have been brought into school.
  • Year 6 have been learning about Edmond Hillary and the challenges of mountain life.

The collection of food donations from you all for our Harvest Festival was fantastic. I have received a lovely email from Maninplace which said,

‘Words cannot express how amazed I was when I arrived and saw the generosity of your staff and parents. There was only just enough room for me to sit in my car and drive back to the office. The food has been split between KiP@Maninplace were it will be used to make up food parcels to be given out as needed and our emergency accommodation where it will be given to residents as we bring them in from the streets as they take their first steps towards recovery.’

One of the highlights for myself, Mrs Watts and Mrs Foxley is the start and end of the day when we are on duty on the playground. We love how friendly and happy the children are and hearing so many voices saying, ‘Good morning!’  and ‘See you tomorrow!’. What a great way to start and end the day!

Don’t forget that tomorrow is a mufti-day in school so children can wear their own clothes. We are taking part in World Mental Health Day and the theme is Hello Yellow. If your child would like to wear something yellow that would be great. Children do not need to bring in a donation of a pound.

I would like to take this opportunity to say thank you once again for helping us keep our school community safe, especially at the start and the end of the school day. As a school, we feel very much supported by our parents which I know from speaking to some of my friends who teach in other schools is not always the case. As I always say, any issues please let us know so we can work together to get them solved.

Yours sincerely,

Mrs Sally Sixsmith

Head Teacher

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4 years ago
Posted on 05th Oct 2020 by

Red Riding Hood

Good morning.

The children continue to enjoy coming to school-its a joy to see them running in smiling every morning. They are working so hard and its lovely to see them enjoy learning.

Over the next two weeks, we will be looking at the story of Little Red Riding Hood.

In Letters and Sounds, we continue to practise our listening skills. We are also working on using our mouths to say the sounds in words-we are working on short words with 3 sounds and we try to say the first, middle and last sound. This will help us hear the sounds for our reading and writing next half term.

We will continue to develop our reading skills by retelling stories, listening to others reading us stories and talking about and linking pictures in books. We are also now pointing at words and starting to point to each word and move our finger along the text from left to right.

Well done to all the children that are reading at home-you are helping develop good habits that will help your children develop a real love for books and reading.

We will continue to develop our fine motor pre-writing skills by squiggling pictures, going to the dough disco and writing our names in shaving foam, sand and using water on paintbrushes/

We are working hard to develop a good tripod pencil grip when making marks.

In Maths, we will focus on the number 8. We will write it (make an ‘s’ and climb back up), count it and look at different ways to make that number. We will also be learning about and making patterns.

We will be having a go at drawing and writing what we would put in a picnic basket for Grandma.

PE is on a Friday (no PE kits needed yet) We are enjoying going into the hall and will be practising patterns of moving e.g. hop then skip, jump then step, building up to a sequence of moves e.g. jump, jump, step.

We will be going outside in all weathers so please make sure your child has a warm waterproof coat in school.

Activities you could do at home:-

Develop their blending and segmenting skills playing a game of Simon says.

E.g. Simon says h-o-p. Simon says s-k-i-p.

Can they remember some of this things red riding hood says?

Go on a 8 hunt. Where can you see these numbers? Can you collect 8 things from the house?

Can you use household items to make a repeating pattern?

Can you draw a route through the forest for Red Riding Hood to follow?

Can you make a food item to take to Red Riding Hood’s grandma? You could make a sandwich, a biscuit or a cake.

Feel free to email us photos of you and your child doing the activities above on

receptionteam@stgeorgesschool.org.uk

4 years ago
Posted on 02nd Oct 2020 by

Thank you!

We have had a great week in school again this week. There is such a happy and cheerful feeling across school and the children are showing such good attitudes towards their learning. Thank you so much to all parents and carers for your continued support, including reading with your children and helping with homework.
 
Thank you also for being so patient at the end of the day when you sometimes have to wait (in the rain!) to leave via the exit path. It’s great to see so many families working together to keep our school community safe.
 
Let’s hope we get to see some sunshine over the weekend. Keep safe and we look forward to seeing you all on Monday. 😊
4 years ago
Posted on 29th Sep 2020 by

SEND update

Hi everyone,

Firstly, I’d like to take this opportunity to introduce myself. I am the new Special Educational Needs/Disability coordinator at St George’s. I’ve spent these first few weeks getting to know the current systems in place and have lots of new ideas in mind about how to improve our SEND offer; ensuring the children are receiving the best provision possible.

I just wanted to give you a little update. We have just bought into a new program called Provision Map. This is an online system where teachers will be able to create IEPs and you will be able to view them at home, meaning you will be informed about any extra support and interventions that are taking place. I am hoping that this will all be set up by at least half-term.

I have been gradually adding extras to the SEND page on our website. Here you will find the SEND policy and information report, along with some links that you might find useful. Do keep checking back as I will be adding lots more to it.

Thank you also to those parents who have completed the SEND survey about your views of the current systems in place. I really do appreciate it! The link is here if you haven’t already completed it – I will provide the results from this within the next couple of weeks, along with the actions I will take to improve any particular areas.

It is important to me to get to know parents and work closely alongside you – although this is a bit trickier given the current situation! With this in mind, please do get in touch if you have any concerns or just want to talk something through.

Thank you for your support,

Mrs Evans

4 years ago
Posted on 25th Sep 2020 by

End of the school day

Thank you so much for your support at the end of the day today. We are trying REALLY hard to ensure families are socially distancing on the exit path. Lots of you worked with us today to wait until it was safe to move down the path- your support is very much appreciated.
We do have far too many parents coming to collect at 2.55pm. This is causing the crowding on the exit path. PLEASE come in your allocated time slot.
All children have come home today with a detailed letter about the end of the day plus it is linked here to this post.
We hope you all have a lovely weekend. See you on Monday 😊
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4 years ago
Posted on 25th Sep 2020 by

Jack and the Beanstalk-Part 2!

Good afternoon.

We hope you’re all well. The children have been really busy in school this week and are continuing to enjoy all our activities.

Over the next week, we will continue talking about the story of Jack and the Beanstalk.

In Letters and Sounds, we continue to practise our listening skills. We are working hard to segment and blend sounds – even when we read the dinner menu.

We will continue to develop our reading skills by retelling stories, listening to others reading us stories and talking about and linking pictures in books.

Well done to all the children that are reading at home-you are helping develop good habits that will help your children develop a real love for books and reading.

We will continue to develop our fine motor pre-writing skills by squiggling pictures, going to the dough disco and using cars in water to make marks.

We are working hard to develop a good tripod pencil grip when making marks.

In Maths, we will focus on the numbers 6 and 7. We will write them, count them and look at different ways to make that number. We will also be using and learning positional language e.g. in front, behind, above, below, left and right.

We will be having a go at using our imaginations to talk about what could be at the top of a beanstalk.

On our garden yard, we will plant some seeds and dig up the vegetables we grew over the summer.

PE is on a Friday (no PE kits needed yet) We are enjoying going into the hall and will be practising moving and dancing like some of the characters from the story.

We will be going outside in all weathers so please make sure your child has a warm waterproof coat in school.

Activities you could do at home:-

Can you sort some household items into groups of initial sounds e.g. find things that being with s and things that begin with p.

Can they retell you the story of Jack and the Beanstalk?

Go on a 6/7 hunt. Where can you see these numbers? Can you collect 6/7 of household items/toys?

Can you play hunt the bear? Hide the bear and give your child clues e.g. under the table, behind the door..

Draw/paint a picture of what could be at the top of a beanstalk.

Plant a bean. Over time, observe it and keep a bean diary, recording what happens as it grows.

Feel free to email us photos of you and your child doing the activities above on

receptionteam@stgeorgesschool.org.uk