katherines chronicle - net...

Issue No.1 15.9.2017

Head of School Update

Dear Parents and Carers,

Welcome back and a Happy New Year to you all. I hope you thoroughly enjoyed the Christmas

holidays with your family. It has been so pleasing to see the children of Katherines settle well

after the Christmas break. The Children have been working diligently in their classrooms, find-

ing out about their respective authors on Class Name Day. Learning about their Class Charity

and working extra hard in Ks2 to taste the fruits of their labour on the smoothie Bike. The Road

Safety team have also worked with Year 5 and Year 6 this week demonstrating the dangers of

the road; the children all had a go at testing their reactions times and could not believe the re-

sults. Thank you to the team for working with Katherines we look forward to working with

them again.

Katherines Chronicle

OUTSTANDING EXPERIENCES DESERVED SUCCESSES BRIGHTER FUTURES Issue No. 7 12.01.2018

As we begin our second term Katherines has been looking outwards wondering how we can

help the community and how the community can help us. With this in mind we are in the be-

ginning stages of developing our Katherines Community Charter. Children will be encouraged

to think about their citizenship at an individual level, community level and Global level. Look

out for more information on this in the coming weeks and months. We would also like your

opinions to develop our School Improvement Plan, coffee mornings have been set up to seek

your opinion please see the ‘diary dates’ section further on in the newsletter for times and

dates.

Is your child due to start in Reception in September 2018?

This is all children who were born between 1 September 2013 to 31 August 2014. You MUST apply for your child's place by 15th January 2018. You can apply on line and if you need any help making your application, then contact Sharon Newton, Family Support Worker on 07943018698.

Parent Learning Opportunities this Term

ESOL (English Classes) continue on Thursday 18th January 2018 for four weeks.

SATs Attack—starting on Tuesday 16th January for 4 wks.Find out about SATs

and how to support your child to be able to do their best. For parents with chil-

dren in years 5 and 6—but all parents are welcome.

This week’s news quiz

Book Worms Fancy getting to know a new book? Here is our recommendation this week

The Explorer Katherine Rundell

From his seat in the tiny aeroplane, Fred watches as the mysteries of the Amazon jungle pass by below him. He has always dreamed of becoming an explorer, of making history and of reading his name amongst the lists of great discoveries. If only he could land and look about him.

As the plane crashes into the canopy, Fred is suddenly left without a choice. He and the three other children may be alive, but the jungle is a vast, untamed place. With no hope of rescue, the chance of getting home feels impossibly small..

Except, it seems, someone has been there before them .

The Explorer has been shortlisted for the Costa

Children's Book Award 2017.

1. Where does the president of the United States of America live? 2.

3. What is the largest brass instrument in an orchestra? 4.

5. Which country does parmesan cheese come from? 6.

7. What is the name of the highest Mountain in Africa? 8.

9. What type of tree do dates grow on? 10.

11. What are the colours of the five Olympic rings? 12.

13. How many holes are there in a standard ten pin bowling ball? 14.

15. What letter is located between letter E and T on a computer keyboard? 16.

17. How many cards are there in a complete pack of cards? 18.

19. Who was leader of the Romans when they invaded Britain in 55 and 54BC? 20.

Sensational Work this fortnight A look inside…

Beatrix Potter

What a fantastic start to the New Year we have had! The children have really enjoyed ‘Harry

and the Bucketful of Dinosaur’ stories these last two weeks. We have been very busy playing

together and sharing resources in our fantastic ‘Claws and Teeth Vets’ role play area, where

we have tended to all our sick animals. The dinosaurs have loved being pampered and

cleaned in our water tray.

We have tried very hard to trace over our names at the start of every session, with some of us

beginning to copy our names. One of our favourite activities over this week has been Bingo

with numbers to 10.

Sensational Work this fortnight

Dr Seuss and Ahlberg

Claws and teeth - Dinosaurs

Reception children had a very special visit the first day of school. A dinosaur came to our

class and laid some eggs! We were all very excited and wanted to learn lots of things about

dinosaurs in order to take care of the baby dinosaurs once they hatched out of the egg.

We read some stories about dinosaurs to know them better, like Harry and the bucketful

of dinosaurs and The Dinosaur that pooped a planet.

The eggs that were left in our class were made of ice, so we talked about what to do to help

the baby dinosaurs hatch. Some children had very nice ideas like keeping them warm or

putting them next to the heater to help them melt quicker. It was lovely to see the baby

dinosaurs hatch!

Mummy dinosaur sent us a letter asking us to look after the babies while she was away

and we did a brainstorm with lots of ideas that on how to keep the babies safe and sound,

for example; feeding them with leaves, keeping them warm, building a nest... We also

wrote wonderful things about it!

A look inside…

Since we had read The dinosaur that pooped it is about a dinosaur in space. Recep-

tion children got to use their imagination to pretend they had a journey to space! In

our trip we saw planets, the moon, aliens, rockets and lots of stars. It was a very in-

teresting trip through their imagination of the children. Afterwards, we made some

planets and described them. Reception children did an amazing job!


Eric Carle

A look inside…

Year 1 enjoyed a great start to the term looking at Eric Carle’s books that he

has written and illustrated. We copied his collage style and saw the animated

stories too. We were lucky enough to have our special toys come to a teddy

bears picnic where we thought about what they are made of and why they are

special to us. We looking forward to continuing the work

We enjoy reading

books and sharing

them together.

We have been learning the names of 2D and 3D shapes in maths, and

practising our handwriting formation.

JULIA DONALDSON

We had a great start to the New Year by celebrating our class author, Julia Donaldson.

Most of the children dressed up in fantastic costumes and were very excited to share

which book they had come from. We learnt to recite her well known

poem ‘I Opened A Book’ using lots of creative actions. We read lots of her wonderful sto-

ries and learnt that they mostly contain rhyme.

In English, we have continued to explore poetry and have thoroughly enjoyed listening to

poems by Michael Rosen, especially ‘Chocolate Cake’. We found this poem very funny!



Oliver Jeffers

We have had a very busy and exciting two weeks back at school. The term started with

our author day. The children made a great effort to dress as characters from books by

Oliver Jeffers. We spent the day reading Oliver Jeffers’ stories including Lost and

Found and Up and Down. The children made a found poster to help the penguin find

his home. They also learnt more about Oliver Jeffers. We were surprised to learn that

Oliver Jeffers is an artist as well as an author. Ask your child to retell their favourite Oli-

ver Jeffers’ story.

A look inside…

Carbon Monoxide Workshop

Year 1 and 2 were lucky enough to take part in a Carbon Monoxide workshop.

We learnt about the dangers, how to identify risks and how to stay safe. We

had great fun acting out appliances which can cause Carbon Monoxide. Can

you guess what we are?

We met a character called Safety Seymour and will be lucky enough to bring

him home to complete a safety inspection. The children will also be each given

a Carbon Monoxide detector to bring home and keep.

We visited other classes to teach

them about our author.


On Friday 5th January, Change4Life

came in with their smoothie bikes! We

all had to ride the bike for 10 seconds to

help make the smoothie which we then

drank at the end. To start with, we

played a guessing game: guess the fruit

and vegetable – some of them were really

quite difficult to guess especially as we

did it with our eyes covered!

A look inside…

We are enjoying our new topics. In science we are learning about states of matter and we had great fun in pretending to be particles!

Here we are being a ‘liquid’….

as a gas ...

as a solid!

Roald Dahl

Year 3 News letter blurb– Roald Dahl (weekly)

We started our new term with an ‘author

day’! We spent a day finding out more about

our author. We really enjoyed dressing up.


A look inside…


David Walliams Class

A look inside…

Our first day back was happily spent learning about our class’s namesake, Mr. David

Walliams. We learnt about his birthday, his parents, his interests and a little about when

he wrote the books we enjoy so much, then we created our own timelines about him. In-

between the hard work we made some self portraits with hands in order to display our

own David Walliams book cover designs. We chose our favourite books written by him

and added our own blurbs, in the witty style David Walliams favours. We can’t wait to

enjoy another of his books; after we finish The Ice Palace from last term.

In English we have been listening to and writing

our own poems. We are very pleased with our

efforts at writing a poem using Christina Rosset-

ti’s; What Is Pink?

We have also already enjoyed an excellent visit

from the Smoothie Bike. We did some fabulous

sporting activities, discovered some new fruits and

made our own Strawberry, Mango and Pineapple

smoothie by pedal power!


A look inside…


On the first day back we had a CS Lewis day! What is this I hear you ask...well let me

tell you…

We spent the day learning all about our chosen author CS Lewis. First we had to plan

our biography, then we spent time in ICT researching all about his life, including his

childhood and greatest achievements. We then drafted , edited and copied into best our

biographies about CS Lewis, it was very interesting! We have displayed our amazing

work on the wall, you should come and see it! We also completed some art silhouette

work based on the famous Chronicles of Narnia! We were so proud of our hard work.

Well done everybody :)

CS Lewis

CS Lewis Day


JK Rowling

Author Day

We had a lot of fun getting to know our class author, JK Rowling, the writer of

Harry Potter. There were some fantastic costumes! To begin with, we watched a

video about her life, then used that information to make a comic strip biography.

We learnt that although she had a difficult life before Harry Potter was published,

she kept persevering and didn’t give up on her dream!

Next, we learnt about the books of Harry Potter and answered quiz questions to

find out our Hogwarts Houses. There were no Slytherins at all! We then made

our own House crests to represent an animal or characteristic important to that

house.

After lunch, we had a go at a word search for those all important Hogwarts House

Points, and then began to design our dragon eggs and wands. Finally, we used

paper mache to create one of our designs, which we then decorated with paint.

They look amazing!

A look inside…


Charles Dickens

Dickens of a Day

Year 5/6 class had a fun-filled day learning about their class’ namesake – Charles Dick-ens.

The prominent Victorian writer was an advocate for the rights of poor people and the children have explored some of his books during the day. They have enjoyed creating their own versions of book covers for chosen stories and have learnt more about his life and work.

They have entered into the spirit of things by dressing up as some of the characters from the writer’s novels: Little Tim, Scrooge, The Ghost of Christmas Past and Future.

Dickens has produced a massive amount of material during his lifetime. He published

fifteen novels, wrote hundreds of short stories, plays and letters. The children really en-

joyed getting acquainted with some of his most famous pieces of work.

Recipe Corner

Cheese and Leek Fritter—Makes 10

Ingredients

1.5kg potatoes

4 large leeks

4 teaspoons of oil

200g cheese

Pinch of salt

Pinch of pepper

Method

1. Preheat oven to Gas Mark 4 or equivalent

2. Peel potatoes, cut into 2cm chunks.

3. Mash potatoes.

4. Add grated cheese and a pinch of salt and pepper.

5. Sauté diced leeks until soft, add to mash and leave

to cool.

6. Divide into equal size patties put into the fridge

for 30 minutes.

7. Bake in the oven for 20minutes.

Have fun cooking these delicious fritters at home. As ever, if they turn out well I know

lots of teachers that would appreciate them. However they turn out I hope you enjoy the

experience of baking by yourself or with your family.

This week’s recipe from our school’s kitchen

is as follows:

A huge thank you to all those that supported the Save the children Christmas Jumper ap-

peal, the jumpers made at home ad in class were simply fantastic. Some children, lie my-

self, choose to buy their jumpers so we thank you for your efforts. We raised a fantastic

£85.96 for Save the Children, you should all be very proud of your efforts. Even

Stanley managed to make a quick visit sporting his Christmas Jumper, here are Year 1 en-

joying some Stanley Strokes.

Save the children

Diary Dates 19th January: Yr5 Yr5/6 Yr6 Coffee Morning

26th January: Yr1 Yr 1/2 Yr2 Coffee Morning

2nd February : Yr3 Yr3 /4 Yr 4 Coffee Morning

5th February : Mental Health Week

9th February: Valentines Disco

9th February: Last Day of Half Term

12th—16th February: Spring Half Term

19th February: INSET School closed

20TH February: Return from Spring Half Term

23rd February: EYFS Coffee Morning

School Council

Our school councillors have helped each class decided upon a charity to support, this

year. Each class will be hosting a fundraising day, to raise money for these worthwhile

causes. Each class has chosen the following charities to support:

Eric Carle – Barnardos

Julia Donaldson – Save the Rhino

Oliver Jeffers—WWF

Roald Dahl—PLAN

David Walliams— GOSH

Jacqueline Wilson— The Dogs Trust

Charles Dickens— RSPCA

JK Rowling—Save the Children

CS Lewis—CLAPA

Do you know why these charities

are important?

Road Safety Workshop

On Friday 5th January 2018, pupils from Key Stage 2 had the opportunity to take part in

Smoothie Bike workshops as part of the school’s Physical Education programme. Smoothie Bike

workshops are run by Sport4Life and give pupils the opportunity to learn about

diet in an innovative way. During the workshops, students got the opportunity to take part in a

fruit themed warm-up, a blindfolded guess the fruit and finally the main event; the Smoothie

Bike. Students worked in teams, to blend a mixture of strawberries, pineapple and mango as

well as apple juice while riding a static bike. After each student had helped to successfully blend

the fruit they were able to taste what they had made. All the students enjoyed their Smoothie

Bike experience and came away learning something new with smiles on their faces. In addition

to this Mrs Harman and Mrs Camilleri had a bit of friendly competition to see who could create

the most smoothie, by the look on their faces I think they all had a good time.

Friends of Katherines

The Friends of Katherines have been busy organising events for the rest of the year, these dates and events will soon be released. But just to keep you organised our next event will be a Valentines Disco held in the school hall. As per the Halloween disco there will be treats and drinks as well as some fantastic music and lighting. We hope to see as many of your children there as possible. The event will take place on Friday 9th February and will cost £2 per child

To request a place for your child: Nursery

For a nursery place please contact our school directly.

Primary

School year places are allocated by Essex County Council

http://www.essex.gov.uk/Education-Schools/Schools/Admissions/

0345 603 2200

[email protected]

Katherines Primary Academy and Nursery Brookside Harlow Essex, CM19 5NJ

http://www.netacademies.net/katherines

01279 421495

[email protected]

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