We would like to start by saying ‘Wow!’ What wonderful children we have: they are resilient, adaptable, eager to learn, show great perseverance and, without a doubt, are jolly happy to be back in the classroom environment- we are so proud of each and every one of them for bouncing back after such a rocky year! 

We have had a wonderful half term in Lower School. Our initial four-week transition period helped us prepare for the next steps in our school journey as well as easing the children back into an environment they know and love. 

We focused our work on the topic ‘Marvellous Me’ where we have explored our feelings, our families, our heritage and background, our bodies including the skeleton and organs and what constitutes to a healthy lifestyle. Year 1 and 2 have been exploring the five senses and had a fantastic guest speaker, Mrs Magee from Clear View Opticians, who explained about the importance of eyes. She helped us to put ourselves in others’ shoes, by providing us with glasses which showed how people with various visual impairments live day to day. 

In Reception we have studied Giuseppe Arcimboldo in Art, who worked with fruits and vegetables to create portraits. We have done some marvellous observational drawing of fruits and vegetables, and we followed in the footsteps of Arcimboldo and created a fruit and veg collage portrait- they looked fantastic!  Year 1 and 2 have created self-portraits and have produced a class family tree, collecting acorns from the forest, and making individual leaves, each for an important person in their lives.

Reception have continued with their phonics and reading journey and we must say, they are doing remarkably well. We have looked at sequencing stories, too, which they have really enjoyed. We have been counting using autumnal objects and ordering skeletons from smallest to biggest. In Year 1 and 2 we have discussed feelings and have looked at what makes each of us unique, using the text ‘All About Me’. We are continuing to build our phonics foundations and to develop our reading  skills and have been looking at the use of labels, lists, signs and posters. In Maths we have concentrated on estimating, place value and adding and subtracting 10, 20 and 30 and are now moving on to working with money.

Lower school have been working hard with Mrs Gallimore to talk about themselves in Spanish, and older children have been retelling the story of The Rainbow Fish.

Mr Nowell has been really impressed by Year 1 and 2’s dedication with their wonderful Harvest Song singing.

We have all been out in the garden preparing the beds for winter, digging up weeds and cutting back the plants. If any parents would like to donate any small shrubs or plants for our garden by Halse Hall please let Mrs Bowden or Miss Henley know!

We have loved watching our pumpkin patch growing bigger and bigger; hopefully they will be ready to harvest after half term. We made a new fire pit in the Forest where the children worked together as a team. A busy half term! Next half term, we will be continuing our topic on Marvellous Me!

Mrs Bowden, Mrs Wells and Miss Henley x