st andrew s hurch school...
TRANSCRIPT
St Andrew’s Church School Newsletter
22nd June 2020
HELLO FROM MRS JAYNE It has been wonderful to welcome back more of the children to school this term and you will receive further updates this week regarding transition plans. The school continues to be very busy and it has further stretched our creativity and problem-solving to enable a safe and welcoming environment for the children and staff. All teachers are in school supporting Nursery, Reception, Year 1, Year 6 and our key worker/vulnerable group(Rainbow Group) as well as the learning at home. They are also writing end-of-year reports which you will receive by email during the week beginning 6th July. All the staff continue to show incredible positivity and dedication, and Tam and I are very proud of the team. To support the reconnection of the classes, the curriculum this term across the school has been framed around the questions: “How can we learn outside when we are inside?” and “What transformations have you noticed?” Each year group is using a (virtual) cultural centre in Bath (and beyond) to inspire learning for the children both in school and at home. At the end of the term we will pull together the learning from across the school to form a wonderful piece of documentation. You will see through the examples of work the projects that are evolving. Foundation Stage and Year 1 have also started the term with a focus on wellbeing and using the Colour Monster story as a starting point in exploring our feelings. We understand and empathise with how challenging and frustrating it is at present while we are still not able to open fully, and I want to thank you for all your support, patience and encouragement it is very much appreciated. We need to keep in our minds the safety of ourselves and those around us to ensure we all stay well. Mrs Jayne x
NURSERY It has been so lovely welcoming some of the children back to Nursery this week and they have settled so well and happy to be back with their friends again.
Both in school and at home, the Nursery children have been thinking about the ocean for World Ocean Day and have explored a wide range of media and materials to do so. At school our two favourite activities have been creating our own ocean puppets, to make lots of shadow puppet shows.
As well as using spray bottles and paint to create a large, ocean themed artwork together as a group.
RECEPTION Reception have been reading the story of The Colour Monster, to help explore and recognise their feelings as they transitioned back into school. The Colour Monster is about a a friendly monster who is a mix of colours so his friend, a little girl, takes him through each colour to help him understand how he is feeling. Jenson said he felt 'Green. Calm and peaceful' Sofia said 'Pink. Loved'. We have loved this approach to identifying our feelings, so much so, that the EYFS staff have made lanyards with mini Colour Monsters and we are all enjoying saying the colour that we are feeling, staff included! We also love our large cardboard model that we made!
RECEPTION
Reception and Nursery have settled back to school brilliantly, the team were very impressed with how the children arrived and cheerfully made their way into their classrooms. The staff would like to thank all parents and carers for talking to their children and preparing them about the changes to our environment and the school routines. Once the children were introduced to their new learning spaces and routines, we all got back to business; learning through play! You can see from the pictures that
they had a fun few days of learning. The highlights had to be the bubbles and learning about the tadpoles!
RECEPTION
Investigating weight in Maths Sofia has built her own balance scales to
investigate weights and has managed to find something larger than apple but bigger than apple, proving that bigger isn’t always heavier!
Alexander has recorded his findings during his maths investigation.
William has been doing some comparisons and checking his estimates were correct. He even made himself into a human balance!
RECEPTION The children in Reception have studied Sunflowers by Vincent van Gogh. They looked at the shapes and colours of a real sunflower and then painted their own picture with very thick paint and a spatula instead of a brush. They have also made beautiful observational drawings.
YEAR 1
Children in the Year 1 Green Group have had lots of fun with bubbles over the past couple of weeks. We created colourful bubble paints and also used bubble wrap to print onto paper.
We enjoyed making giant bubbles at playtime and watched their beautiful colours as they drifted up into the trees.
YEAR 1
Our class book at the moment is The Robot and the Bluebird. We made our own robots from junk modelling. We have also been reading The Colour Monster and reflecting on how to name and describe our feelings.
YEAR 3 This term Year 3 are using The Herschel Museum of Astronomy in Bath as a springboard to learn all about space! Barney is working hard at home to create a fact file about Uranus and make a model of a telescope and the Solar System! Evelyn has written an amazing story about an astronaut and included lots of facts and information about Space!
Keeping your children safe online - Information for Parents
This is especially important in the current situation where children are accessing their learning online and using technology as a form of socialising and communication. The most important thing you can do is talk to your children about what they do online and how they can stay safe. If parents or children have any concerns or worries about anything in their online learning or any other sites/apps or inappropriate content, these must be reported back to the school as soon as possible. School can be contacted by email on: [email protected] or by phone on: 01225 310135 between the hours of 9am and 3pm. Please title your email Urgent Online concerns for Attention of DSL Your Designated Safeguarding Team are: Jayne Rochford-Smith – Designated
Safeguarding Officer Tamsin Stephen – Deputy Designated
Safeguarding Officer Charlotte Buckley - Deputy Designated
Safeguarding Officer Kate Sandey – Deputy Designated
Safeguarding Officer Louise Leach - Safeguarding Governor Please contact the Designated Safeguarding Team if you have any questions or need any further advice. Further information is available on or website : http://standrewsprimarybath.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Parent-E-safety-Information-March-2020.pdf https://learning.nspcc.org.uk/media/1489/share-aware-parents-guide.pdf
YEAR 4 Year 4 are focusing on the Georgians and using No. 1 Royal Crescent as our cultural centre. As part of this project is focusing on transformations, we will be discovering the transformation of our homes, entertainment and many other things between then and
now. Dexter has been out photographing Georgian architecture.
YEAR 5 Year 5, will be using The Fashion Museum, Bath as their cultural centre and focal point. The ‘transformations’ part of the question will centre around the changes in fashion throughout history. Kitty is focusing on patterns and has done a turmeric tie-dye. Kitty said ‘’Turmeric is good because it’s a vibrant yellow and orange colour. I will then focus on the way I’m sewing using hand sewing and the some machine and different sorts of embroidery”.
YEAR 6 During their first week back in the classroom, Year 6 looked at some examples of painted pebbles that the teachers created last year. We decided to create some of our own - they were decorated and inscribed with messages, words or thoughts about our wonderful school, St Andrew's. We hope to varnish them and then leave them around the school - maybe they will be there for years to come. One day, you might come across one of them - pick it up, have a look and then leave it for someone else to find! Year 6 are also using The Roman Baths as our focal point. They studied a little bit about Ancient Rome in Year 3, and will be revisiting it and expanding their knowledge further, building on what we already know about this amazing period in history.
RAINBOW CLASSES
Our Rainbow Classes have settled into their
new spaces and are enjoying their learning
topic “How can we learn outside when we
are inside”, along with the rest of the
school. We are using the River Avon and the
canal as our inspiration and aim to journey
along it stopping at different cultural centres
along the way.
We started at the hidden gem that is
Cleveland Pools. exploring shapes,
swimming pool designs out of Lego, mosaic
designs and some Georgian history. We
used the work of David Hockney as
inspiration.
RAINBOW CLASSES
They have also started looking at Bath
Architecture and have made their own
interpretation on the Royal Crescent.
Our next stop has been the canal and the
locks. We have had an introduction to
Leonardo Da Vinci and spent some time
exploring canal boat artwork.
RAINBOW GROUPS Rainbow class have had a very creative week thinking about the canal in Bath and other canals around the United Kingdom. They have created our own 3D narrowboats and pop-up bridges for them to travel through, inspired by a painting by John Nash. We were fascinated when we learned about a canal in Ottawa, Canada that has 8 locks to travel up and down a height of 25 metres!
RAINBOW GROUPS
YEAR 2 Year 2 will be using The Holburne Museum as their cultural centre and focal point and the journey from school to the museum as a focus too. The transformations part of the question will centre around the changes you can see in the building and its surroundings. This will include transformations in nature and transformations in the architecture. They will be using Google maps to bring the ‘outside’ learning ‘inside’.
Bobby's favourite part was the back of the museum because he likes the modern glass details and he made lots of models using different materials. “I have made a little version in Lego to show the glass details at the back of the museum (my favourite side) and a large size one painted in acrylic colours with the help of my mum. I love having a drink outside on a summer day”.
YEAR 2 Year 2 have been working hard as they began their topic on the Holburne Museum. We have been comparing the architecture on the front and back of the museum and discussing our favourite side. Oliver has shared his model-making skills too with a scene inspired by our weekly story in English. “I made a model of Black Rock. I love the story. I listened to it 5 times already!!”
Rowan has composed his own song and invited two of his friends Kitty and Daphne to accompany him in the performance. We were all so impressed by his perseverance and creativity. The song is called The Nature Song.
Diary Dates
Dates This Term
Week beginning 6th July school reports sent out by email.
End of Term 17th July
20th July. Inset Day. No school for children.
Free School Meals information
Are you entitled?
The government is now going to continue with the free school meals vouchers over the summer holidays, which will be a great help to many families. If you would like a form, please contact the school office. Please note that if you already receive free school meals, you do not need to reapply. Since the outbreak of the virus, we have been helping a number of families within the school by sending card packages to them. We have also received some wonderful donations from to pass on to those who need a little extra help. We have been very touched by the generosity of of our parents and the local community. We have also been given some food vouchers from St Swithin’s Church for those in need. If you would benefit from a food voucher, please contact the school and we will arrange this for you. This request will be treated confidentially. If you email [email protected] and put Support needed as the subject, we will get back to you. You can also call us on 310135.
NURSERY PLACES
Nursery places are available for September 2020
Our Nursery is a wonderful place to start your child’s journey at St
Andrew’s Church School and a credit to this is that our school is over
subscribed for Reception in September 2020.
We have places available in nursery starting in September and we are
also able to accept the 30 hour codes.
Please tell your family and friends and share the link to our website.
Parents can also phone school and myself or a member of the early
years team will be happy answer any questions.
Forms are available on the website at
http://standrewsprimarybath.com/nursery
or by calling 01225 310135
or sending an email to [email protected]
HEALTH NEWS
Please read below a message from health professionals
It is really important to realise that not every unwell child has COVID-19.
If your child is unwell, please seek help. Remember that NHS 111, GP's and
hospitals are still providing the same safe care that they have always done.
Highly trained advisors, who are supported by healthcare professionals, are available
on NHS 111 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. You can call 111 or go online to
111.nhs.uk.
HOMERUN - THE SCHOOL JOURNEYS PLATFORM We would like to kindly remind all parents and staff to sign up to HomeRun .
To sign up please follow the instructions and the link sent via the email by the school office (please email [email protected] if you have any issue). St Andrew’s Church School are pleased to be trialling this innovative app that focusses on strengthening school communities and improving school journeys for everyone.
The HomeRun App includes features such as: Safe closed platform to allow communication between the school and parents
Journey Sharing and Travel Buddies: parents can find suitable nearby parents from the school, who are looking to share their journeys
Safeguarding older children independent journeys through real-time monitoring and notifications
Teachers and school staff can post targeted messages to parents and colleagues in real-time, via mobile and desktop devices
More details on how HomeRun works and the benefits for parents and children can be found at https://www.homerun-app.com/schools
WALKING SCHOOL BUS A group of parents is trying to set-up walking buses for children to be able to walk to school together. This will start in a very informal way, where children and parents will walk together; and if there is enough interest and support from other parents, it can become a more official walking bus where parents can drop off their children at the waking bus stop and the children can walk to school with other adults. Information on how many children walk to school and where from can be extracted from HomeRun (we would like to reassure you that for privacy reasons specific addresses or children’s names are not visible, only rough location), and HomeRun will be used as main app to manage the walking bus once it is set up so if you are interested please make sure you sign up and select the options related to walking and journey sharing. For any question please contact Delia (Y1/Y3), Eva (R/Y2) or Rowan (Y3)
Community pages
Disclaimer: Within our Community Pages, we publicise events which may be of
interest to the families within our school. However, these should not be viewed as
being recommended or endorsed by St Andrew’s Church School.