Dear Parents and Carers,
It was really good news that the primary children no longer need to wear masks. It creates a much better atmosphere when we can hear what the children are saying easily and see their facial expressions of interest or joy.
Thank you to all the parents who came to our virtual coffee morning this week. We hope you enjoyed seeing the children sharing their work and we were pleased with how the live sessions went interspersed with the videos. Thank you to all the teachers and parents who worked with their children so that they were ready to present. We feel it is important that parents have the chance to see some of the things the children are learning across the school. We must also apologise that there was a blip in our communication system and Early Years did not receive the meeting invitation through Engage, as they should have done. I have asked the EY teachers to share their coffee morning videos in their newsletters today.
Class 2 had a wonderful morning at Chocolate Nation as part of their IPC unit on Chocolate. As Antwerp is one of the biggest import ports for cacao beans, this topic is very relevant for us. Here you can see some photos from the trip.
The students had audio guides in English and moved from room to room learning about where chocolate comes from, cacao production, how chocolate is made and the early pioneers of chocolate making in Belgium. There were some fantastic displays made from chocolate ‘en route’. They finished the tour with a very popular chocolate tasting session.
Class 2 were also the stars of assembly last Friday when they shared their Japanese Haiku poems with the rest of Primary. They really pulled out their performance skills and delivered their poems very professionally. It was great to watch.
This week has been our Maths and Science week. All of our students from EYR to Class 5 have been taking part in some great activities all week. The science theme has been Growth. On Monday Secondary students taught classes 3 , 4 and 5 some interesting experiments in the Secondary science labs.
Early Years have been planting seeds, have been out and about with a local walk to look at nature, investigating yeast and making all sorts of things linked to maths and science. Please have a look at our facebook page for some of the photos. All the classes have had exciting activities this week right up to Class 5 students who have been testing out some hypotheses including testing and retesting slime, reversible and irreversible processes and testing soil quality. It has culminated today with an opportunity to dress up as a scientist. Class 4 has put on a Maths assembly and then led maths activities in the Class 1 to 5 classrooms. In the afternoon each class set up science displays and children were able to take it in turns to see what the other classes had been doing.
Best wishes for the holiday week. We look forward to seeing the students back on the following Monday.
Sharon Short
Head of Primary
Lead Safeguarding Officer.