Year 1 - comparatives, superlatives and senses

Phew – what a week we have had! 

We hope that you have enjoyed the bagels; they seem to have been a success in Year 1 so far. The children have come in quietly and sat sensibly on the carpet to eat and getting on with their early morning work when they have finished. We serve bagels at 8.40am to 8.45am to allow the children time to finish and get ready for their day of learning.

In maths, we have been using the ‘part part whole’model for addition and subtraction. The children have used equipment to help their understanding and have recorded the related addition and subtraction number sentences. We are looking forward to revisiting multiplication and division next week. 

In English, we have been learning to use comparatives (longer, shorter) and superlatives (longest, shortest) in our writing. The children used their skills to write a ‘Guess Who’ information sheet for their friends to play. We have also been learning about the third person singular (he runs, she washes), and the appropriate suffix (‘s’ or ‘es’ ) to use. This forms the English homework this week.

We explored our senses in science, naming the sense, body part, and how it helps us to understand the world around us. Yesterday, we created some ‘sensory mats’ from items round outside and in the classroom, and thought about how animals use their senses to survive.

Both Juniper and Maple classes loved their first ukulele lesson – we are looking forward to performing to you all at the end of the summer term (date to be advised). 

We continue with our reading and phonics work daily. 

Thank you to everyone who has practised their computer login typing at home. Juniper class were all logged in within 5 minutes, which is excellent! We were then able to spend additional quality time in our ICT lesson. 

We hope that you have an enjoyable Bank Holiday weekend!

A little bit of Hollywood comes to Stanmore

Our vision says that we are committed to purposeful and irresistible learning where our children are inspired to thrive and be the best that they can be.

This week we really went the extra mile to achieve this, inviting a Hollywood production designer into school. He is working on some incredibly well known films that I know your KS2 children will be excited to share with you. Theo even got to try on one of the costumes.

He shared his experiences with the children – growing up and attending school in Hampshire and using his hobby and skill of drawing to gradually build an amazing career for himself which takes him all over the world. He described his own resilience, one of our keys for success, coping when a drawing that he is particularly proud of doesn’t make the final cut. His message to the children was: ‘follow your dreams because you really can achieve anything.’ I was really proud of our KS2 children who showed respect by listening intently and asking some really interesting questions.

Easter message from Mrs Taylor

This term has been one of many changes and improvements. We have continued to build momentum, re-establishing Stanmore as a school where your children enjoy purposeful learning. I enjoy hearing children talking about their learning and sharing their outcomes. The corridors proudly display some high quality writing, artwork and 3D models. In the classrooms, the learning journeys that children are working on in English and mathematics are also displayed. This helps children see how a problem in maths is broken down and rebuilt, or how writing is constructed. We have a consistent approach to teaching through our ‘Stanmore Lesson.’ We know that a more consistent approach to homework is still needed.  

In the summer term, we will continue strengthening the curriculum so that we are ready for new topics to be launched in September. I would like to thank all of the teaching and support staff in supporting the new initiatives. 

Our Leadership team is strengthening. Parents Evenings were well attended; I would like to thank parents for your support. One of the members of the leadership team: Mrs Taylor, Miss Norris, Mrs Fenton, Mr Read, and Mrs Ruddick-Smith, are always available to meet with you and discuss concerns or ideas. We have been able to offer more support to children who are on the SEND register. Mrs Fenton (SENCO) has met with every family this term. We have a more comprehensive reporting and feedback process with parents and external agencies.

As you are well aware, there have been changes to staffing. While we have taken every measure to minimise disruption, inevitably some classes have been affected by the changes. After Easter, Miss Day (Bumblebees) and Miss Evers (Rowan) are both joining us as permanent members of staff. Miss Askwith (Ladybirds) and Miss Jessup (Birch) will remain with us until the end of the year. Mrs Mason joined us in February as a permanent member of staff and ‘Ready to Learn’ Leader. I still can’t promise that there won’t be further changes or disruption. However, we are now in a more stable position than we were at the beginning of this term.  

I would like to thank Mrs McNeill for her contribution to the school, particularly in supporting small groups of children. She is leaving to spend more time with her family.  

I hope that you all enjoy a happy and peaceful Easter with your families and I look forward to seeing you for the Summer Term.

Year 4 - King Alfred

Well what a busy Spring term we have had in Year 4. We started off with a visit from a member of Hampshire council, who asked us to explain who the statue in Winchester was and why he was great. We were also asked to make a sculpture of his head, as visitors to Winchester,  often complained that they couldn't see it. Some of us chose to make bust of his wife. 

So we got a true likeness, we planned a trip to see the statue. We wrote directions on how to get to the statue from school, which we then followed to check that we weren't going to get others lost. When we where there we used the information board, to find out that the statue was of King Alfred.

We then researched who king Alfred was and why he was so important to Winchester, that we needed a statue of him.  

So we would understand the life and times of King Alfred, we had the opportunity to investigate, draw and use some artefacts during our immersion day. Below are just some of the photos we took to help us better understand life at this point in history.

After this we had lots more questions, that we wanted answered, so we dug deeper and found that King Alfred the great, managed to defeat the Vikings. This is where a learning took us next. We investigated viking village life as part of our home learning. This lead on to our class discussion about whether they would have preferred to be a Viking or and Anglo-Saxon. 

Finally we had a debate about whether King Alfred's statue should be replaced. We decided that due to the impact that King Alfred had on Britain and particular Winchester that we couldn't replace it. 

Year 1 - Happy Easter!

This half term has simply flown by and here we are – at the end of our second term together in Year 1. The children have stayed focused on their learning this week, as well as enjoying events such as the spring concert and a very entertaining Easter assembly, run by Mrs Laver. 

We have finished our ‘chick’ art project – the children were so proud of their work. They worked very hard in each of the sessions to independently create their chick and making it the best that they could. The finishing touches were added on Thursday, along with a ‘birth certificate’ for each one.

In maths, we have been working on using non-standard units to measure length and height. We had great fun drawing around a partner and seeing how many straws, felt tips and Dienes high they were! We also worked on thinking about how long some tasks might take (a clap, writing a sentence, watching a film), and sorting them into hours, minutes and seconds. We also compared time (hours, minutes and seconds), and asked questions like, ‘Is ten seconds longer or shorter than one minute?’. To end the week, we have been exploring turns (quarter, half and three-quarters), and used our knowledge to give ‘robot’ instructions to a partner. We also looked at turning ‘tiles’ into patters and describing the turns that we made. Many of the children found this quite tricky, so if you are able to have a go at home, that would be great!

We have finished our ‘Oi Frog’ poetry and enjoyed sharing it with the children in Year R. Our poems have made a super display outside Juniper Class, which many children have stopped to look at and read the poetry. Fantastic work, Year 1!

 In RE, we have been continuing our learning of Remembering- sad then happy, by learning about the Easter Story. After listening to the story, the children created a timeline of the events of Easter week, identifying when those involved would have been sad and then happy. We thought about the messages that the story gives us today, and the importance of Easter to Christians. 

The children loved performing at the Recorder concert on Tuesday; very many thanks for being a wonderful audience! Next term, we will be learning to play … that’s a surprise for after the holidays!

We continue with our phonics and guided reading daily. Many of the children have moved book bands this week – congratulations to you all! We hope that you keep reading and enjoying books over the holiday.

Next half term, our topic will be ‘When I grow up’. As part of the topic, we will need each child to have a named, empty, clean and dry 2l soft drinks bottle with the original label removed (lid needed too!). Please bring these in after the holidays.

We will also be thinking about the different jobs that people do. A letter will shortly be coming out to request parent/carers/family members to come into the classroom and talk to the children about their job. This only has to be for approx. 20 minutes or so, and if possible, we would like to hear information such as what you do, if you need any special equipment/skills/training/clothes and the best thing about your job. Very many thanks in advance if you are able to help!

We would like to wish everyone a lovely, relaxing Easter break!

Year 2 - KS1 SATs at Stanmore

At the recent KS1 SATs evening we covered:

• What are SATs in Key Stage 1?

• What do the SATs tests look like?

• How do teachers assess/results?

• Age related expectations

• What can you do to help?

The slides can be downloaded here

Year 1 - Chick-loads of fun!

Creating feathered friends

The penultimate week of the term draws to a close, and the children have had a feathery ending! Juniper and Maple had a wonderful time this afternoon creating their feathered friends, which they will be bringing proudly home in time for Easter! 

As well as our DT activities, the children were extremely excited to wear their pyjamas and onesies to school today; happily, no-one fell asleep in class…

Investigating 3d shapes

In maths this week, we have enjoyed learning about 3D shapes. We have worked on identifying and naming 3D shapes, exploring their properties and working out how we could sort them, justifying our reasoning. Next week, we will be moving onto measure, using non-standard units to measure height and length, as well as exploring seconds, minutes and hours. We will end our unit of measure by learning about turns and using our knowledge to explore the school grounds!

We have now planned and written our animal poems, which we will be publishing on Monday. We look forward to performing them to Year R later in the week! The children have worked extremely hard on including plural nouns and prepositions in their work – we await the final results!

In RE, we have started to think about the Easter message, and exploring sad and happy feelings. We have shared a lovely book, ‘Badger’s Parting Gifts’, by Susan Varley, which stimulated conversations about when we have been sad and then happy. Next week, we look forward to hearing the Easter story and learning about it in more detail.

The children have been busy practicing for their recorder concert on Tuesday 2ndApril in the school hall. Year 1 will be performing from 2.20pm – 2.40pm approx.., and Year 2 from 2.40pm – 3.00pm approx.. The gate by the school office will be open from 2.15pm. We look forward to welcoming you.

As always, we enjoy our phonics and reading daily. 

Notes:

Recorder concert: Tuesday 2nd April in the school hall. Year 1 will be performing from 2.20pm – 2.40pm approx.., and Year 2 from 2.40pm – 3.00pm approx.. The gate by the school office will be open from 2.15pm. 

Home learning: Due on Monday 1st April please. Thank you to those who have already returned theirs. 

When I grow up topic: For this topic, each child will need a clean, dry 2l plastic soft drinks bottle with the top on and label removed (labelled with your child’s name). To be bought into school after Easter please. Thank you!

PE kits: These will be sent home this week for the holiday. Please could you check that your child’s plimsolls/trainers still fit, as several children say that theirs are too small. Many thanks. 

Year 5 - jubilantly wearing pyjamas!

Following on from the very exhausting week of Bike-ability, we have been working hard on our Maths and English.

In Maths this week, we have been looking at fractions. We have also been learning how to convert improper fractions to mixed numbers. Using bar models to help us, we successfully mastered it!

In English, we are working up to our narrative from the point of view of a plastic bottle floating down the River Itchen. In order to fill in our senses sheet that we were given, we explored the school grounds and used technical vocabulary to ensure our story would have lots of descriptive language in it. Using similes, metaphors and personification, we created sentences that we could use in our stories.

On Friday, Beech class came in jubilantly wearing pyjamas! We are collecting money for young carers and the Friends of Stanmore.

We are all looking forward to our learning next week before we break up for Easter.

Year 6 - A message from the palace (and 10 Downing Street)

Last December, as part of our Monarch topic, Elm class drafted formal letters to the Queen. In the letters, we were asked to inform her of our wishes for the country for 2019. Many of us chose to write about pollution, litter and the plastic in the ocean crisis. We all waited patiently, with crossed fingers, in hope that she would reply- AND SHE DID! 

Arriving in a red and cream envelope was a letter from the Correspondence Officer. We couldn’t quite believe how formal her response was! As our letters had environmental concerns, they were forwarded on to the Prime Minister (how exciting).

This morning, just after Mrs Kempson had read us out an email from our favourite author ( Mrs Kempson had email David Long to thank him for inspiring us with his unbelievable survival stories), Mrs Eagle entered with another VERY important looking letter. 10 DOWNING STREET HAD REPLIED - thanking us for the wonderful letters, and asking us to join the Eco-Schools Programme.

We absolutely love writing letters and sending them off, as having a reply makes it all worth while and we feel like we are being listened to.

A letter from Buckingham Palace to our Year 6 pupils at Stanmore Primary

A letter from 10 Downing Street to our Year 6 pupils at Stanmore Primary

Six nations rugby?

The Tag Rugby team represented Stanmore Primary School at a Tag Rugby Festival on Thursday 21st March 2019 at Winchester Rugby Club.

Each team player showed sportsmanship, teamwork and respect towards their teammates and other teams. They cheered for everyone and clapped when other teams scored; at the end of each match the children shook hands with their opposition. There were some amazing tries scored, great footwork and some fantastic tackles made but the highlight for me was their pure enthusiasm and enjoyment of my favourite game.

At the end of the festival, teams were awarded for different things; I recieved an email after the event from a different school who said 'the children believe that Stanmore showed the best sportmanship and that we deserved this award more than they did'. I then recieved the certifiates which were presented to this school to hand out to our team! Well done to all of you, you all did something yesterday that you should be proud of! I can't wait until next year.