CoMPasS - St Peter's School, York
Transcript of CoMPasS - St Peter's School, York
You can follow us ...….. Newsletter No: 6
Friday, 13th October, 2017
CoMPasS
Registered Charity No: 1141329
As I walk around Clifton it has once again been a pleasure to observe our childrens’
creative thinking guide their learning, which has no limits; from astronauts building rockets
in Nursery, model building and scientists in Reception, Naturalists in Year 1, Viking
researchers in Year 2 and Persuasive writers in Year 3. I can imagine our children will
become the leaders and innovators of the future!
This week in the educational press there have been several articles discussing the relative
merits of different educational systems. Pisa tests assess 15-year-old school pupils'
scholastic performance in mathematics, science, and reading and produce league tables
across the world where children from the UK perform lower than some of their
counterparts around the rest of the world. Interestingly an advisory group has been set
up to see how creative thinking can be measured as part of the tests recognising the
significance of this key skill.
https://www.tes.com/news/school-news/breaking-news/pisa-developing-creativity-tests-
pupils
“Creative thinking is a multi-faceted concept involving the generation and refining of ideas
as well as the processes by which such thinking can be improved," Professor Lucas, who is
director of the Centre for Real-World Learning (CRL) said.
We don’t know the types of jobs our children will do in the future, but being creative
thinkers and innovators will be key in the ever changing fast paced world. The Pisa
advisory group are looking to define creativity in terms of habits of mind (inquisitive,
persistent, collaborative, disciplined and imaginative.) You may recognise some of these in
our learning superheroes and school values which are embedded in our school curriculum
and we use to nurture creative thinkers from the youngest age.
The new Chief Inspector of Ofsted, Amanda Spielman spoke yesterday about the
importance of giving grounding in a wide range of subjects and encouraging less focus on
drilling pupils on how to pass tests and more on widening their knowledge and horizons.
She spoke about the need for school leaders not to be solely focussed on the performance
of the school and not to lose sight of the pupil.
Research by the Sutton Trust that was published on Thursday also points to the
importance of this breadth of education. It summarises the enormous importance of these
skills and the need for them to be at the heart of the curriculum. It stated that schools’
main focus is on developing children’s core academic knowledge and skills in literacy,
numeracy, and a range of curriculum subjects. But there are other skills that are
increasingly seen as important to children’s wider development: such as confidence, social
skills, self-control, motivation, and resilience. These are the attitudes, skills and behaviours
that are thought to underpin success in school and work, and include the ability to
respond to setbacks, work well with others, build relationships, communicate effectively,
manage emotions, and cope with difficult situations. Such skills are often referred to as
‘social and emotional skills’, ‘soft skills’, ‘non-cognitive skills’ or ‘character’. They are
usually seen as distinct from academic knowledge and skills, however, they are increasingly
thought to play an important part in learning, as well as contributing to children’s wider
development, well-being and readiness for life beyond school.
At Clifton it is our aim not only for your children to learn to be numerate and literate, but
also to become active learners who question, think, innovate, imagine and are able to
demonstrate our school values and learning superpowers.
I hope that you have a wonderful weekend.
DIARY FOR WEEK COMMENCING
16th October 2017:
Mon Y3 Ukueles Club (lunchtime)
Y1 Netball Skills
Y2/3 Tennis
Y2/3 Chess
Y3 Tag Rugby
Y3 Netball
Y2 Speech & Drama
Tues
8.40am 1T Class Assembly
Y2/3 Choir (lunchtime)
Y1 Speech & Drama
Y1/2/3 Ballet
Y2/3 Karate
Y1/2 Creative Crafts
Y2/3 Chess
Y2 Netball
Y3 Swim Club
7.30pm Public Lecture; ‘ A Philosophical Foundation for Faith’ Prof. Keith Ward
Wed
8.40am RS Class Assembly
Rec/Y1 Yoga Bunnies (lunchtime)
2.00pm Music Concert, Rayson Room
Rec Speech & Drama
Y1/2 Sign Language
Y2/3 Yoga
Y3 Sewing Club
Y2 Art Club
Y3 Recorders
Thurs
Rec Arts & Crafts
Y1 iPad Club
Y2 Tag Rugby
Y2/3 Creative Film Club
Y3 Hockey Club
Y2/3 Book Club
Y3 Speech & Drama
Y3 Badminton Club
Y1 Street Dance cancelled
Fri Y1 Football
Y2 Sport
Y3 IT Club
Half Term Commences
Co-Curricular Activities and
ASC as normal
The Thematic Curriculum at Clifton - Learning for the Future
Thursday 16th November at 7.30 pm in the Rayson Room
On Thursday 16th November Mr Hardy and Mrs Clarke will be giving a
presentation about our curriculum for Years 1-3.
All parents from Nursery upwards are invited to attend this event.
We will be discussing the ethos and aims of the school, including some of
the research that informs our curriculum and learning.
In addition we will explain our curriculum, the processes of assessment
which inform learning and the ways in which we teach your children.
We hope that this will be an informative and useful evening. Please click
here to register your attendance.
Mathletics Trophy winners—3P
Christmas Activity Day is on Friday 8th December. We would like to invite you to come
along and volunteer to help with an activity. Due to the large numbers of volunteers and
to ensure the safeguarding and the safety of our children we have decided to organise
volunteers into slots throughout the day.
You will be able to sign up for a slot and come along to do an activity alongside your child.
Lists will be in the atrium after half term for you to sign up for a slot.
A final timetable will then be sent by email prior to the day.
Music Concert Wednesday 18th October 2.00pm -3.15pm – Rayson Room
Preparations are well underway for our first music concert of the year. The choir, recorder and
ukulele groups will all be performing alongside some of our instrumentalists. If your son/daughter is currently
learning an instrument outside of school, this is their chance to perform in school. There are already a number of
children on the list but there is room for more! Please let Mrs Hayden know.
As the recorder group will be performing in the concert, there will no recorder club after school that day.
It was a lovely morning at Playgroup, the cat, ghost,
pumpkin and spiders on sticks all looked really great. I
hope you hang them up on Halloween!!
Seth had a birthday this week and he brought in a
yummy caterpillar cake to share with everyone,
thank you Seth and Happy Birthday.
See you all next week, I will see if our lovely Chef
Sarah will bake us some buns to decorate for
snack time.
The Magic Far Away Treehouse!
After an exciting delivery of planks of
wood; RS were inspired and built a tree
house den! It is still a work in progress and
lots of ideas and suggestions are being
shared to enhance and improve the
structure. The need for a ladder was
expressed several times, so at forest
school we built two ladders! And then just
like the ‘Collaborator Twins’ the children
carried the ladders all the way back to
school! What a fantastic week of work!
Apple Juice for Sale!
Millie in 1T has used the apples from her garden to have some delicious
bottles of organic apple juice made. Millie and her family have kindly offered
to sell some of the apple juice to raise money for our school charity Water Aid.
The sale will take place on Tuesday 17th
October at 4:00pm in the atrium and
bottles will cost £2:50.
Supplies are limited so this will be on a
first come first served basis!
Our Harvest Festival collection starts next week. Alongside St Peter’s and St Olave’s, we are collecting for Carecent, a
charity run by the Methodist Church, which collects for the homeless in the city of York. Any donations of the following
items would be gratefully received:
Dry goods
Tins of meat
Toiletries
Warm Clothes (men’s sizes)
Please place items on the table in the reception area.
This week in Year 3 the sorting hat arrived! The children chose which house they would be in based on the qualities of Hufflepuff, Gryffindor, Ravenclaw and Slytherin. After the sorting hat ceremony Dumbledore announced he had a problem! Eleven wizarding schools have opened
up around the world and he needed their help to persuade young witches and wizards why Hogwarts is the
most prestigious school of magic. We discovered we have very persuasive children in Year 3 as they advertised Hogwarts using impressive synonyms for 'good' and 'big' and extending their vocabulary with words such as acre, alumni and prestigious. Pop in to Year 3 to pick up a copy of their advert for the Daily Prophet. This has inspired the children to be ready for Open Morning on Saturday as some of the children are helping to show visitors around school.
3P were amazing on Wednesday performing their first class assembly. This was part one of the Year 3 Harry Potter Trilogy. Well done to all the children for performing so confidently on stage and thank you for
all the fantastic costumes, the children looked magical.
This week has been all
about problem solving in
Year 2! We have been
tackling number word
problems, using a variety of
resources. We have
discovered the importance
of looking at the terminology
used within the wording,
giving us clues as to the
operation needed to work
out the answer. We then
adapted our skills to real life
situations and in pairs,
looked at solving
everyday problems!
The Year 3 charity ambassadors had their first meeting this week to share ideas and plan
fund raising events for the year.
First they decided on setting an ambitious target of £8000 to raise for our school charity
Water Aid, as well as Children in Need and Sport Relief which we support every year!
They had so many imaginative and creative ideas for fundraising as well as raising awareness.
Our next big event will be on Friday 17th November for Children in Need. The charity
ambassadors plan to hold a non-uniform day and hold a sponsored ‘Walk or Run for Pudsey’
around our school grounds and we have a couple of other surprises in store too! They also
had lots of ideas for fundraising for Water Aid. Keep a look out for more information on
upcoming events.
You may also have seen on the website the superb total of £5,815.07 that was raised by the
children and the Friends last year for the Small Steps Project.
Thank you for supporting all of our charity work and helping our
children to make a difference and put our school values into action.
In 2H this week we have been exploring the character of
Sigurd, in our book ‘There’s a Viking in my Bed’ by Jeremy
Strong. We went to Forest School with 2M to work on
drama skills. We were asked to imagine different scenes
from the book, working with partners at one stage and on
our own at other times. In the story, Sigurd is amazed by
modern day things such as his reflection in glass and
striking a match. We chose one of these and worked on
freeze framing our expressions. We performed our pair
work, based on the moment when Sigurd bursts out of the
wardrobe and shocks Mrs Tibblethwaite, in the ‘theatre’
area, in front of our audience! Mrs Hall was
very impressed at how well we know the story
and with our performing and listening skills!
All year groups have been enjoying the apparatus in their gymnastics
lessons. As well as learning to stay safe the children have been
exploring different ways of travelling, balancing and
even flying!
It has been out of this world in Nursery this week!
Building space rockets and space stations with the large construction. Using a marbling technique to create planets. Making a starry scene by flicking white paint onto black
paper.
The children acted out the story ‘Whatever Next”, by becoming baby bear and going up the chimney to visit the moon.
This week in
Year 1 we had a
fabulous time at
Yorkshire
Wildlife Park.
The children
encountered
lemurs, lions,
tigers and
giraffes
amongst many
others. We
learnt lots of new information about
where some of the animals come from and what they eat. The children
enjoyed asking the zookeepers lots of questions.
They also attended a ‘Bear Necessities’ workshop at which they found out where polar bears live and how they have
adapted to their environment. Lots of animals are becoming endangered and the children discovered that polar bears
are becoming threatened too because of icebergs melting and the planet
becoming warmer. Did you know
that the longest time a polar
bear has swum without a break
is 9 days! The polar bears
certainly seemed to be a hit with
Year 1!
We all had a lovely day and the
children were great company and
very well behaved.
Learning Superhero
Velvet, Daisy, Alex, Harry, Fionn, George, Maddie, Millie, Henry and Freddie
Value Champion
Nancy, Ruari, Monty, Cate, Lilly, Amelie, Natalie, Myla and All of Year 1
House point trophy Walmgate
Holly
Mathletics
Gold
Victor
Music Awards Arthur and Margherita
Well done to all our Core 5
Silver
Will, Mattie, Jacob, Isaac and Juliette-Rose
Professor Keith Ward: The Christian Idea of God Tuesday 17 October 7pm Eminent theologian Professor Keith Ward takes a fresh look at the ancient philosophy of Idealism and shows that a combination of good science, good philosophy, and a passion for truth can underpin religious faith. Book your free tickets here.
Professor Anil Seth: What in the World is Consciousness?
Wednesday 8 November 7pm
Without consciousness there is no world, no self: nothing at all. Understanding its material and biological basis
is now one of modern science’s greatest challenges. Book your free tickets here.
Barbara Taylor Bradford in conversation
Monday 27 November 7pm
Leeds-born Barbara Taylor Bradford is something of a Yorkshire legend. With her books having sold nearly 100
million copies, she will be talking about her life, her work and her new novel, Secrets of Cavendon. Book your
free tickets here.
Terry Waite: Survival in Solitude
Wednesday 6 December 7pm
Terry Waite was taken hostage in Lebanon in 1987 and held in solitary confinement for 1,763 days. Following his
release in 1991, Terry has gone on to write a number of books and take up presidency of two major charities.
Book your free tickets here.
Science Society Christmas Lecture
Tuesday 12 December 7pm The St Peter’s Science staff return for their hugely popular annual lecture, featuring fascinating insights,
interactive challenges and dynamic demonstrations, this year focusing on the periodic table. Book your free
tickets here.
If you have any access requirements, are hard of hearing or have any other special requests, please book your tickets using Eventbrite, then
email [email protected] or call 01904 527 315, stating which event(s) you are attending and how many tickets you have booked.
Please note that many of our events sell out, and you must bring your ticket with you to guarantee entry. Please either print off your ticket
or display it to us on your smartphone or tablet on the evening. With all best wishes, Ben Fuller, Head of Public Lectures, St Peter’s School,
York, YO30 6AB
Tickets are now available for the St Peter’s School Christmas Term Public Lectures.