Headteacher’s Wonderful

Work Newsletter Week 7

Dear parents

It’s that time of the week again and a chance to enjoy the wide range of amazing work that’s been produced in the kitchens,

bedrooms and living rooms of our homes. What a talented and hardworking lot we have!

Ayla Nursery This week in Nursery we have been enjoying The Smartest

Giant in Town, which is a story which takes traditional tales and gives them a really fun twist. The Nursery children have been playing memory games and rhyming games based on the characters in the book, as well as imagining giant versions of

themselves.

Perhaps most popular of all this week has been the design task,

which combines art, craft and science. The children have been making their own boats. Here is Ayla floating her beautiful boats. Ayla has been sending us wonderful work every week

and today it is her turn to shine. Well done, Ayla! Tom and Kate

Silje RJS For their last week of their 'What a Performance!' topic, the children in RJS have been putting on their own

incredible performances of 'The Gingerbread Man'. They've also done some excellent gingerbread man writing and made gingerbread men out of mud and clay. In Maths, they've been

learning about 2D and 3D shapes. They've made their own dice for a 2D shape game, been on a shape hunt and set up a 3D shape shop.

Silje has enjoyed The Gingerbread Man story so much, that she has stitched her very own fabric gingerbread man using her

daddy's old T-shirts and some recycled buttons. This gingerbread man hasn't run away but has already become a favourite bedtime toy. Silje, I can see that he's been made with

a lot of love. His expression is brilliant and I love his yellow bow accessory! Really lovely work, Silje. Well done! - Johanna

Daya RKI As a grand finale to our 'What a Performance' topic, and to mark what would have been our first class assembly, this morning children in RKI put on a fantastic musical performance

of 'The Gingerbread Man' via live satellite link up (Zoom). The host experienced some technical difficulties but, as always, 'the show must go on' and the songs have never sounded

better, even with energetic running-on-the-spot-whilst-singing from many of the performers. It was a brilliant end to five weeks of circus performances, storytelling, role-playing, small world

building, story map creating and singing. Well done RKI!

The Wonderful Work award this week goes to Daya, who not only practised all the songs and learnt all the words, but also

dressed up as a gingerbread man for our performance! You look amazing in your gingerbread outfit. I just hope that naughty fox doesn’t gobble you up. So, run, run, as fast as you can! Kate

Artie 1KE This week, the Year 1 children have been delving deep into their imaginations to write some really fantastic fantasy stories. Inspired by the picture book, The Magic Bed, the children were

asked to choose their own magic object and think about where it would take them on the journey. The stories have been a joy to read!

I have been truly inspired by Artie's attitude to remote learning.

He has worked extremely hard week after week to produce some really wonderful work. Artie's story features his older brother Rafferty as the main character. When his new pet snake

begins to talk, he reveals that he has the power to take him on a magic carpet ride. How exciting! The story is not yet finished but I am looking forward to hearing how it ends! Well done

Artie. You truly deserve this award for your incredible efforts! - Kat

Kaiash 1LJ The children in Year 1 have been writing fantasy stories inspired by John Burningham’s wonderful book, The Magic Bed. They

started by drawing a story map to plan their own story about a magical flying object that takes their character on an exciting

adventure. Next, they acted out their journey, before writing their stories over several days.

I have been so impressed by Kaiash’s remote learning this term. He approaches all his school work with great enthusiasm,

dedication and attention to detail, as this magnificent piece of writing demonstrates. He really enjoyed making up his Magic Pillow story, and acted it out several times before writing his

adventure independently, using exciting story language. What a beautiful book he has made! Kaiash ends his story with the words, ‘Who knows what Andrew’s next adventure might

be?’ I certainly would love to find out! – Louise

Ilando 2DC Year two have been using their familiarity with times tables to learn to quickly solve multiplication and division problems.

Ilando has worked hard on his number facts, and has had fun

doing it as well. He chose to submit this piece because "I am really into maths and I really enjoy doing it." Ilando, you've really made an effort to present your number facts neatly and

carefully. It's wonderful that you are proud of your work, and we are as well. David

James 2CW This week in Year 2 the children have taken great pride in turning their night-time stories into books.

Here is James exhibiting his book 'James the Night-Time

Trainer' which is beautifully presented throughout. I particularly enjoyed the descriptive commentary and felt like I was in the stadium (shame it was Arsenal). I am very impressed that James

included the simile 'curls like a banana' to describe the way the ball travels and wrote a blurb which includes a 5 star review from The Independent and a £6.99 price tag - very reasonable for such a great book! Chrissie

Jaden and Uri 3LG Year 3 have had another very busy week: mastering ‘the bus stop method’ for division, writing an instruction text, creating a

poster to encourage people to save water in a bid to be more sustainable and cooking. As ever, there are so many wonderful pieces of work from 3LG to choose from.

Although Jayden's tuna fishcakes certainly made my mouth water, Uri has produced an excellent and detailed set of

instructions for lighting a fire using a fire flint, which I'd like to share.

He even included a photograph of himself modelling how to do this successfully, which made it such a personal piece of writing

and clearly on a subject that greatly interests him. If I were to get lost in the wilderness, I'd want Uri and his flint and steel with me! Well done Uri! Lorraine

Miao 3NL And there were more fishcakes in 3NL – either with tuna or using an alternative vegan recipe. Nick was even lucky enough

to have some delivered to his house by a member of the class who lives up the road. What a treat.

Miao also enjoyed making the recipe and had fun with the shape

of her fishcakes too. Although I didn’t get to try these ones, they look spectacular. Well done Miao! Nick

JJ 4EJ WW2 has been drawing to an end in Year 4 this week. The children have made tinfoil cargo boats to get the maximum number of soldiers off the beaches at Dunkirk, made models of

atoms that were split to make the atomic bomb, designed medals for animal war heroes and created their own propaganda posters to spread a message of their choice.

Congratulations to JJ for his brilliant propaganda poster with a highly relevant message for us all. Your design is excellent and

your message is loud and clear. Well done! Emma

Cayley 4MK What a busy week 4MK have had. The class also looked at the propaganda posters used by the government during World War

2 to get across vitally important messages in a clear and forthright way, before designing their own propaganda poster to communicate a message which could be relevant for the

times we are living in now. And as today was our last day looking at WW2, the children baked eggless sponges to celebrate the end of the war!

This is a fine example of a propaganda poster designed by

Cayley. It has a very clear message, delivered very forcefully, in just a few words. Fantastic work! Mags

Eva 5JS This week Year 5 have been reading traditional and mythical

tales from Benin in preparation for writing their own. We've read lively stories of Oba kings, Prince Ogun, gods, magic cowrie shells, treasure and a cunning old bronze caster. A good

storyteller with a good memory was a very respected person in ancient Benin. So, to also mark Mental Health Awareness Week, our children were asked to use as their inspiration for

their own story theme, 'an act of kindness'. I've since received a wonderful series of imaginative stories and again, it's been a very difficult task to choose just one...

With deep thought and originality, Eva has planned, designed and written an engaging and moving tale of a rich eighteenth

century Benin trader faced with a dilemma when one of his slaves - a little boy who reminds him of his own son - tells him of the importance of becoming happier by seeing some

good in everything. I wonder if you can guess what Abimbula's decision will be? Here’s an extract:

In 1730, a trader and his family lived in Benin. The trader,

called Abimbula, was rich and thought very highly of himself.

He had a son called Kwame, he was chatty, bright and thoughtful. Abimbula’s wife, Boipelo, was strong, proud and

beautiful.

Abimbula got up (very early in the morning) to sell slaves.

Kwame and Boipelo were still asleep so he had a quick

breakfast, yams and fresh goat milk. Then he got dressed into a

loose, cotton shirt over trousers. He wore gold’s, reds and

oranges as he was rich.

Abimbula climbed onto his beautiful brown horse. He attached

the cart to the horse’s leopard skin saddle, I will need the cart,

I need to carry all the goods the Europeans give me, thought

Abimbula. Then he and rode to where the slaves were being held(wich was near the water).

Abimbula see’s the 10 slaves waiting to be sold, they look

miserable, but I don’t care, they are worth lots, he thought. He

looked at all of them, and he sees a boy jumping up and down

looking at the water. Abimbula was very confused so he walked

up to him. ‘YOU’ he shouted right in the boys face, ‘Why are

you jumping? Stand still, NOW!’

A huge well done to you, Eva! You have worked extremely hard

to produce a quality piece of writing with an inspiring message for our present times; one that you can treasure forever! Jen

Filip S 5OD In Year 5 this week, the children have been undertaking an art project to create a Benin inspired appliqué - a traditional

needlework in which swatches of fabric are sewn onto a canvas to form a picture or pattern.

Filip has done a fantastic job, with a really creative and

beautifully composed appliqué. Well done Filip! Oli

Kalli and Sans 6RP This week, Year 6 turned to philosophy. They watched 'Spot

and Stripe' who debate philosophical questions on their YouTube platform 'The Philosophy Man'. The platform has great clips which can be used to stimulate lively debate with

children. According to feedback from Year 6, their houses were ringing with philosophical discussion as they argued over such questions as 'Would you rather be a happy sheep or an unhappy genius?' and on the topic of Coronavirus lockdown: 'When this

is all over, do you think this will all go back to normal or do you think things will really change?' The children learnt how to use debate technique to get their points over effectively and

recorded their arguments in writing afterwards.

This week I've chosen Kalli's piece for her extremely thoughtful conclusion about how people should work together in a

community

and Sans's because he has been working incredibly hard on his English and has made outstanding progress, as can be seen

in this week's excellent work. Well done to both of you -your arguments were extremely persuasive! Rhoda

Naveh 6RB In maths this week children were set the task of solving a number of Tangram puzzles. Originating in China approximately

200 years ago, a tangram is a two-dimensional re-arrangement puzzle created by cutting a square into seven pieces and then rearranging them to recreate an image. It proved to be lots of

fun for many in Year 6 if a little infuriating at times!

Well done to Naveh, who demonstrated fantastic skills in visualization and perseverance to solve these puzzles. Rob

So that’s it for another week with a newsletter packed with

inspiration and endeavour. Whilst I love putting the newsletter together, I do hope it won’t be too long before we can go back to the old way of celebrating children’s work – in Thursday

morning assembly! With best wishes

William