Abberley Parochial V.C. Primary School

Rooted and Grounded in love

Newsletter 8th October 2021

Year 3 and 4 children made a replica Stonehenge on the playground this week. We had sarson stones from Marl-

borogh Downs. Then the heel stones, altar stones, blue stones and station stones were precious stones found

around school. The sarson stones had lintels placed across the top to form the full circles as archaeologists believe

it would have once looked. We replicated the direction to look at how the stones cast a shadow on the ground,

but couldn't solve the mystery.

Our Harvest Festival will take place in the vil-

lage hall on Thursday 14th October starting at

2.20pm. Please send tinned food, packaged

noodles and toiletries into school to donate to

The Salivation Army.

We enjoyed an

excellent piano

performance in

assembly today.

We are proud of our year 3 and 4 hockey

players, who competed well at the Quick-

sticks hockey tournament. They improved

with each game and had lots of fun. Thank

you to all those who made the journey and

transported the children.

Merlins class have made great progress in

their DT project.

Notices

The deadline for applications to secondary school is 31st October. On Tuesday 14th December, we have booked for the whole school to see Beauty and the Beast at the Swan Theatre in Worcester. Further details will be sent to parents closer the time, but we wanted to let you know sooner rather than later to avoid any unnecessary double booking. It is also likely that children will return to school a little later on this day (around 4.00pm), but we will also confirm this in the coming weeks. Parent governor vacancy—An e-mail was sent to all parents advertising for the vacancy on the school’s governing body. Any nominations should be received by Friday 15th October. Lunchtime supervisor—We are currently advertising for an additional lunchtime supervisor. Further details are available through the school website. Rags4riches—Our school collection is this Thursday 14th October, so please bring any used and unwanted clothing bagged to school in the morning. Many thanks for all of your contributions towards this.

Diary dates 14.10.2021—Harvest Festival celebration (village hall) parents of children in reception, year 1 and year 2 invited to attend 15.10.2021—Year 3 and 4 trip to Bishopswood 19.10.2021—Open morning 9.30—11.30 (Macmillan coffee morning 10.30am—11.30am) 20.10.2021—Open morning 9.30—11.30 (Macmillan coffee morning 10.30am—11.30am) 20.10.2021—Flu vaccinations 23.10.2021 to 31.10.2021 —Half-term 1.11.2021—Training day (school closed) 6.11.2021—School tours for new parents 9.30am—11.00am 9.11.2021—Parent’s evening

Abberley Acorns—A reminder that if you intend for you child to attend Abberley Acorns, this should be booked in

advance. We recognise that sometimes situations arise on the day and are open to on the day bookings, but this

should not be the normal procedure. Advanced booking helps us to plan the snacks, drinks and food we need to have

available and also ensures we have sufficient staff to meet the demand.

Bookings in advance should be made by completing the form located in the Abberley Acorns section of the website:

https://www.abberley.worcs.sch.uk/page/?title=Abberley+Acorns&pid=22 To book on the day, please call the school

office. If you have not booked in advance or on the day and your child remains in school, we will call at the end of the

day and treat this as a none collected child. In such circumstances, we cannot guarantee that your child will be able to

remain in school at Abberley Acorns.

Absences from school—Please note that the school day runs from 9.00am to 3.15pm. Only in exceptional circum-

stances should children need to be collected early or arrive late.

We understand that holidays cost significantly less during the term time and until regulation is put in place to manage

this, we do empathise with the challenge. However, we are not able to authorise leave for standard holidays and so

these are recorded as unauthorised absences. If you do wish to take your child/children out of school for a holiday,

we do appreciate you letting us know. The most important thing, from our point of view, is that you value the educa-

tion your child receives from us and recognise that any time away from school may be to the detriment of education-

al progress. We recognise also that time together as a family is so valuable. If a child’s attendance drops below 95%

the impact on their education often becomes more evident.

If you would like to request leave, please complete the form which is obtained from the school office. Whilst any holi-

day will be circled as ‘not agreed’, with the exceptional of certain circumstances, we still appreciate you informing

and being honest with us.

Covid 19—Cases locally and particularly in schools have accelerated. Please be vigilant and aware of the symptoms.

We would ask you to follow the government guidance if your child is showing symptoms and maintain a cautious ap-

proach when other members of your household have tested positive.

Skylarks

Another busy week in Skylarks. This week, in maths we have been learning to use the language equals to, greater than and less

than to compare numbers. We are beginning to use the maths signs < > = to record these comparing number sentences.

In English, we have been identifying expanded noun phases and practising how to write sentences using full stops, capital letters

and trying to include expanded noun phases into our own sentences. Can Skylarks bring in their reading book every day, even if

their book does not need changing as I am trying to find 5 minutes during the day to listen to children read. Thankyou.

In RE, we are continuing to learn about the creation story from the Bible and all year 1’s and 2’s are working on a piece of collab-

orative artwork to show how Christians believe the world was created in seven days.

In computing, we have learnt the importance of asking permission before sharing photographs with our friends. Here is the link

to the cartoon we watched if you want to have further discussions with your child at home Jessie Friends videos

(thinkuknow.co.uk)

In science, we have been identifying which animals inhabit the four world habitats of the ocean, desert, rainforest and the artic.

Year 2’s have been thinking why animals live in certain habitats to which they are suited.

In PE, all year 1’ and 2’s are making progress with their attacking and defending skills in football. This week we played some

matches to put these skills into a game situation.

Please can you find some time each evening for your child to practise their weekly spellings as this will help to reinforce the

learning we are doing in school.

Wrens

This week the Wrens have been busy learning about why we celebrate harvest festival. They talked about what they had noticed in the fields surrounding school and demonstrated an impressive knowledge of different sorts of farm machin-ery! Reception children are bringing home their lines to practise for our harvest festival next week. Please could you take a little time to go over these with your child? In Phonics Year 1 are continuing to expand their knowledge of digraphs and are becoming more confident at identifying and using these when reading and writing. Reception children are enjoying learn-ing the single letter sounds in their daily lessons with Squawk. We have been playing games to practise "oral blending" when we "sound talk" a word and encourage the children to blend the sounds together. We have also started to work on letter formation. At Abberley we teach cursive handwriting where all our letters start on the line. The children have been working really hard to master this skill. In maths our magic number this week has been 3 and we have been investigating different ways of representing this number, including looking at shapes with 3 sides. Can you remember what they are called? Year 1 have been working on ordering objects and numbers from smallest to greatest and using the mathematical language associated with this skill. We built lots of dens at outdoor learning this week and then borrowed the Sukkah which the CREW had used in our Collective Worship to make another den in our small playground. In RE we have been learning about belonging and looking at different symbols of belonging including our Abberley badge. We talked about how the cross is the symbol of belonging to the Christian faith and made our own crosses out of all sorts of different materi-als. Next week we will be learning a bit more about the season of autumn and hoping the weather continues to be kind so we explore our lovely school grounds looking for seasonal signs. If you have a spare of wellies for your child please could you send them into school, as we only have a limited number of spares. Thank you!

Kingfishers

This week in class, the children have been taking time to learn new skills when it comes to writing a diary entry. The diary entry the children are writing are all based on playing a prank on the evil Miss Trunchbull from our class reading book Matil-da. We've worked together as a class to write each paragraph for our joint diary entry and the children have then gone away to up-level and create their own which is even better. The children are really getting the hang of writing for longer periods of time which is developing their stamina and aspirations.

In maths, we have moved onto addition and subtraction. The children have been looking at what it means when they add two 3 digit or 4 digit numbers together and have been using visual representations to note how the number increases sig-nificantly. They have then learnt to position their numbers into a column form ensuring that ones, tens, hundred and thou-sands are aligned correctly to ensure accuracy in their work. We've even moved onto problem solving by finding missing numbers within a column addition calculation. We will be moving onto looking at what happens when we need to 'carry a ten or hundred' across if needed.

Kestrels

In English we have continued with “The Boy Who Grew Dragons” and have come up with our own plants and the mythi-

cal creatures they produce. We have spent time this week planning, drafting and writing our own page for a class book

on plants. Our focus was on using expanded noun phrases and subordinate clauses to improve our writing. We are hop-

ing to have our book finished and bound by next week to show you.

In maths, we have continued with our work on negative numbers, looking at using our knowledge to problem solve and

reason. We have also started working with Roman numerals, which we will continue with next week.

In science, Y4 have been learning to use classification keys to sort living things into groups through a series of ‘yes’ or ‘no’

questions. They had to think carefully about the similarities and differences between animals to sort them correctly. In

science, Y5 have been looking in closer depth at life cycle of a bird and identifying the different stages the animals go

through. Did you know that birds have something called an egg tooth (a structure on the beak) that they use to help

them hatch? It drops off a few days later.

In history, Y4 had an amazing afternoon recreating Stonehenge on the back playground. They even moved the bricks

across the playground using twigs to reconstruct how they would have been moved originally! In geography, Y5 have

been identifying the geographical landmarks of Africa and Kenya.

Kestrels had a fun, and slightly messy, afternoon in DT this week creating bridges using straws, spaghetti and marshmal-

lows. A lot was learned about construction and the best way to strengthen their bridges. I am sure our second attempt at

building will be a lot more successful!

Merlins

This week, I have been so impressed with the children’s attitudes to writing. Throughout the week, we have each written our very own stories based on The Highwayman. The children’s language choices and commitment to create such fantastic description has been admirable.

In DT this week, the children have built the mechanisms of their mechanical models. They worked hard to follow each in-struction and have all created a model which creates either a linear or rotary motion. Next week, we are going to think about the animal that will be the main feature of our moving models.

In Science, the children have been looking in closer depth at the life cycle of a bird and identifying the different stages the animals go through. Did you know that birds have something called an egg tooth (a structure on their beak) which they use to help them hatch?