20th October 2016

Dear Parents, Pupils & Guest Readers,

I hope you enjoy reading this latest School News update.

National Poetry Day

At a recent School assembly we celebrated National Poetry day with a short item from each class. We

were delighted to have a few of our older children from Sunnylands Nursery join us to recite a

delightful poem called Little Mousey Brown.

Reception Class presented a funny little poem called Invitation:

Year One demonstrated their understanding of rhyming words by adding on the last word of some

verse read out by Mrs Shakeshaft and Year Two showed us a fantastic class anthology of animal poetry

they had put together, using poetry the children had written out for a homework task earlier in the

week. Year Three pupils presented a critique about two poems: “George” by Hilaire Belloc and “The

Loch Ness Monster’s Song” by Edwin Morgan.

Year Five pupils Agastya and Bella read out a poem they had written inspired by their research on

Britain in World War II. Here is a small extract from it:

Year Six read poetry about personal growth and wrote their own versions. Well done to Alice

Champion and Aneesa Wickremasinghe for sharing their excellent work with us.

Travelling on in Year Two Gymnastics

Year Two pupils have been exploring how to travel around the

Sunnylands Hall during their Gymnastics lessons this term. Initially they

have been using just their feet to skip, hop, jump, gallop and run.

Open house for crocodiles, Dress code: wear smiles, Juicy children for tea! R.S.V.P.

Barbaric Blitz Barbarian bombing and big barrage balloons, London petrified, while German spitfires drop disasters. Inspecting shattered and demolished dwellings, Terrible rifles and sirens making intense sounds….

More recently they have moved on to using both their hands and feet. The

children have also had to think about changing speed and making different

parts of their body the highest whilst travelling too. They also aimed high

as they practised pencil and star jumps!

Year One Local Geography

As part of their Geography lessons Year One walked along

the Crescent to look at the different types of houses found

close to school. Mrs Shakeshaft was impressed by the

number of different things the children noticed whilst

walking and the sensible questions that they asked.

Autumn provides for the Art

Pupils in year One and Year Two had an exciting

afternoon creating Amazing Outdoor Art last week.

They collected natural materials from around the school

garden and then worked in four groups to create a

picture using some of the things they had found. The

grand finale was a picture of a face which all of the

children helped to create.

Nature Detectives

In Reception pupils recently have been working on their topic, 'Nature Detectives'. The children have

been bird watching, hunted for minibeasts outside, learnt a poem about autumn leaves and had a lot of

fun collecting sticks outside to make mini broomsticks!

They have worked particularly hard to create

lovely red and grey wool squirrels, as well as

paper plate pigeons, blackbirds and robins.

It’s all about Materials in Year Five

A variety of materials have featured strongly in the Art and

Science lessons in the Year Five classroom. Through a series of

practical and fun lessons children have been investigating the

properties of different materials. These hands on activities have

also led to discovering that their predictions and preconceived

ideas are not always correct. We have also worked on different

ways of recording results and fair testing.

In Art lessons the children have created beautiful pictures of animals and trees using a variety of natural

materials. Internet research served to gain inspiration for many ideas. Pupils then sourced autumn

leaves, berries, feathers and seed cases needed to create their masterpieces. Nice work, Year Five!

Year Three News

As a precursor to looking at rocks, pupils in Year Three examined chocolate! They looked at different

sorts, how some had holes, some were softer than others and the various shades of colour each had.

They then used their new knowledge of this to describe a selection of real rocks and categorise them

using a set criteria. Mr Burgham then led them through an investigation of different types of rocks,

comparing them with each other to determine which was the hardest and the softest rock, using a table

to record the results.

Pupils in this class have also been busy in their Mathematics

lessons, adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing, looking

at a range of mental strategies and written methods to help

answer both number questions and trickier word problems.

They have particularly enjoyed looking at 3D shapes, using

Venn diagrams and other methods of sorting the shapes.

Thinking Skills

There has of late been a Puzzle Challenge buzz all around Key

Stage Two! A weekly mind-boggling task has brains working and

conversation flowing, as pupils try to reach the answers.

Recently, Alice Champion was our Puzzle Champion with Sanjita

Kurapati, Bella Sieunarine, Ava Brammer, Freddie Brammer,

Tariro Tsiga, Ayanna Malhotra, Agastya Ghosh, Gerda

Mhunduru and Malachi Mubwandarikwa being named Puzzle

Stars. They all successfully identified the jumbled up word

'harvested'. Another cerebral challenge has involved deciphering

word dingbats. Challenges will vary from images, jumbled

words, numbers, riddles and odd ones out to name but a few.

Gardening Club News

After a wet start, we have managed to sow some pansies and

violas seeds and place them in the greenhouse to germinate,

ready for the new year. Members of Gardening Club have

decided to grow flowers this year as last year we had trouble

with slugs and snails devouring our vegetable plants!

Recently we have also gathered cooking apples for Mr Fountain

to use in the kitchen.

Mini Art Club

Here are our Key Stage One children getting 'crafty' at

their Mini Art club. They have been busy making

autumnal wreaths by drawing and cutting out

different coloured leaf shapes. The final touches using

metallic crayons and tying on a ribbon are about to be

added during their next session.

Practical science is fun….and messy sometimes!

Year Four are studying "Human Nutrition" as their science topic this term and recently had a practical

session reinforcing their understanding of the human digestive system. They worked in pairs and began

by making a banana and chocolate spread sandwich which they then cut up and squashed with added

red dyed soapy water -representing saliva. This represented the action of the teeth, jaws and saliva to

break up the food. They then spooned the by now quite disgusting mixture into a plastic food bag and

added green vinegar, which represented the stomach and acids. Having massaged the mixture manually

through the bag the children then spooned the mush into a knee length sock and worked it down to the

bottom of the sock. This represented the large intestine and the children then cut a small hole in the

bottom of the sock and pushed the mixture down. Mr Holmes has decided not to broach the final section

of this experiment’s explanation until he has fully recovered from the trauma of the final clean up.

St Peter’s School Art Gallery-new additions from talented young artists!

A new tranche of work submitted by art teachers has

been recently added to the Art Gallery by Mrs

Haynes. Well done to those whose masterpieces are

now being exhibited! Congratulations to Beatrice

Furnell, Teegan Edwards, Mya Churchill, Julia

Dixon, Theone Garwe, Oscar Lim, Maham Khan,

Sophie Walshaw and Juno Sanderson.

Year Four visit Kettering Recycling Centre

As part of this term's Geography topic Year Four visited the Kettering Recycling and Education Centre

to find out more about how waste disposal and recycling can help to save our planet. The children had

already begun to learn about the themes of ‘re-use, reduce and recycle’ in lessons and this practical visit

helped them to put their learning into perspective. We were shown around the centre by the Education

Officer who was able to clearly explain about all the various skips and their purposes and how

important it is to reduce the amount of waste we send to landfill. The video on landfill that the children

were shown brought home the need for this reduction and the children were all highly interested in the

morning's visit.

Pupils Sharing Progress with Parents

I hope that families attending this week’s Share Your Work sessions found plenty to praise their children

about in terms of work already completed in the first half of this first term!

ISA Football Tournament

St Peters School sent two teams to the ISA five-aside football competition in

Kidderminster. One of the team comprised of Year Three and Year Four

students while the other one was represented by selected pupils from Year

Five and Year Six.

Our teams worked hard all day. The younger team gained a 4-3 win and

also scored a number of goals during the competition. Well done to:

Tasmin Crabtee, Dalitso Mlia, Oscar Potts, Simon Sieunarine, Freddie

Brammer and Theo Garwe.

The older team: Matthew Kaye, Ieuan

Brinkworth, Tom Hargreaves, Ava Brammer,

Sherry Naeem and Henry Barry- did not

manage any victories this time and were dealt

a blow with the loss of key player Matthew

Kaye during the competition due to an injury.

This competition provided a good guide as to where we need to be and Mr Holmes & Mr Burrows have

planned in further work in games lessons aimed to continue to develop all our players.

Final amount raised for NSPCC was…..

…£417.57! Thank you for supporting this charity’s work in ensuring children are safe,

happy and have the means to communicate any risks to their personal safety and

wellbeing.

Fruity Treats Stall after School today!

Mr Fountain will be running a Fruity Treats Stall in Sunnylands Hall after School

today, to raise some funds for his favourite charity: Lakelands Hospice. Some of

you may remember that last year Mr Fountain won the Strictly Come Dancing

competition at the Hospice. He has left the dancing to others this year but is still

keen to help out. If you would like to give your child a healthy sugar rush after

school and at the same time support another good cause, you are warmly

welcome to come along today!

I hope that children have a lovely restful half term, use the time to read, play puzzles, practice tables or

number facts and get out in some autumn sunshine with their families, weather permitting. Well done

boys and girls on your efforts during the first part of Michaelmas Term. I look forward to welcoming

you back to St P’s on Monday 31st October.

Yours sincerely

Maria Chapman MA(Ed) Headmistress