A great big thank you to the Friends of Stanmore
The FoS have been working alongside the school and teachers to help fund some useful and needed resources for the children, so far we have purchased lots of fun games, guided reading books and some rather cute waterproof sets. The beaming smiles of the staff tell you how great it is to be supported by a great team in our Friends of Stanmore.
Mrs Spencer-Clark and Miss Day with educational games for Year R
Mrs Mason with games for Ready 2 Learn
Mrs Laver with new books for Year 6
Hazel class have been exploring the world through poetry and geography
Hazel class have enjoyed poetry week this week. Some of the children have been writing their own poems, enjoying some classic poetry about change and listening to some of Mr Reads favourite poems, including "Chocolate Cake" by Michael Rosen.
There have been lots of smiles but also considerate reflections on the messages that the poems have tried to get across to the reader. We have also begun work on our treasure islands with the children enjoying working with mod rock, some for the first time. It has been great to hear the children's imaginations working with them saying how this part contains the secret mine shaft and this part is the misty mountain. We are looking forward to painting them and seeing them come to life.
Today we carried on with our geography, making a map of the world on the carpet. We then used our knowledge of the continents and oceans and where they are positioned to give clues for someone to guess the name of an outline of a continent. The children were using terms such as equator, hemisphere, borders and the compass directions as clues.
Test them at home, or maybe even get them to test you!
Cultural Discoveries in Ready to Learn
This week in R2L, the team have been travelling the world in search of different cultures. Earlier in the week, the team had the challenge of creating a pyramid out of spaghetti and marshmallows. The team needed to show a degree of persistence and resilience as the spaghetti was rather brittle and would break if we were not careful. Lots of different structures were designed and the team tried to be the best that they could be!
Later in the week, the team explored the significance of the Chinese New Year. We discovered that 2020 is called the Year of the Rat we immersed ourselves in the festival spirit ending the week by making paper fortune cookies, Chinese lanterns and a paper dragon made from our hand prints. Our target this week was to understand that we can’t always be first.
By the end of the week, team R2L understood that “Team work makes the dream work!”
Elm enter Birds in Flight competition
After being awarded a 3rd prize place last year, in the Birds in Flight competition, Elm class have been invited to partake in the competition again! ( No pressure!)
The competition is run by The Cameron Bespolka Trust - a trust that was set up in memory of a former pupil at pilgrims' School. The competition is a superb opportunity to encourage children to be curious about nature, observe wildlife and explore their art skills.
As a class, we decided that we would like to observe and draw garden birds. Using white card, charcoal and dark pencils we created silver-birch like tree branches, ready for our birds to perch on. With water colours, black ink and crayons, we painted several pieces of paper and waited for them to dry. Once dry, we then cut out simple shapes which we could layer up to make our birds.
The competition closes on the 28th February! Wish us all luck!
Birch have been exploring wildlife and sound this week
Birch class enjoyed investigating the school pond this week as part of our longitude study in science. On a cold Monday afternoon, we were surprised to see the pond teaming with life. We found; water bugs, midge lava (blood worms) and water beetles.
In science we investigated ‘seeing sound’ using cling film. a bowl and hundreds and thousands. You could try this at home!
We are really enjoying learning the play samba and the big drums are our favourite!
Stanmore Post - 24 January 2020
Dear Parents,
Our Stanmore Curriculum is based on the National Curriculum which is set out by the Department for Education. It provides an outline of core knowledge, but each school must then consider how that content is taught. This week I enjoyed hearing from some of our subject leaders during a presentation to Governors, on the strengths and next steps of our Stanmore Curriculum. The rapid improvement that we are continuing to make in subjects like Geography, History, Science, Art and Music, as well as in reading, writing and mathematics, is evident. Find out more about our Stanmore Curriculum at https://www.stanmore.hants.sch.uk/the-stanmore-curriculum
Maple, Hazel and Birch class have had an introduction to Samba and African Drumming this week. During the year all of our children in Year 1, 2, 3 and 4 will have the opportunity to learn two different instruments. The rhythms were sounding good this morning. Parents can look forward to a Listen to Me concert later this term. Check our School Calendar for all events.
Our School Library Volunteers are continuing to make the library a place where children can develop a lifelong love of reading. Children are very welcome to change their library book independently on a Wednesday when the Library Volunteers are in school. This is in addition to their weekly class session. Please remind your children to have their library book in school on these days so they can make the most of their library time. New books will be arriving later this half term from the school library service. If you would like to volunteer to hear a child read on a regular basis please let Mrs Jones in Rowan Class know. Mrs Jones will give you further information on how to support us in our determination to make every Stanmore Child a fluent reader.
Best Wishes
Sharon Taylor
Our reading bag for Year 1 and 2 - Spring Term
To make sure all our children are getting a rich diet of varied texts to read we have our ‘reading bag’. The books for this term are:
The Snail and the Whale - Julia Donaldson
How to catch a star - Oliver Jeffers
Captain Beasties Pirate Party - Lucy Coats & Chris Mould
Molly Rogers Pirate Girl - Cornelia Funke
Paddington at the Carnival - Michael Bond
The Pond - Nicola Davies
Whales providing inspiration for our learning
Year 5 and 6 have been studying a picture book called 'The Whale' by Ethan and Vita Murrow.
The story is about two young people who follow in the footsteps of their grandparents. The story of how they discover and prove the existence of a Blue Spotted whale has inspired us to explore many aspects of language including: relative clauses, descriptive settings and figurative language including idioms.
Zac and Luka gave it a five star rating - 'We love it!'
Friends of Stanmore update - 17 January 2020
Hi Everyone,
Firstly, due to all the amazing support we have received, and the funding we have raised, the FoS have been able to help support the school and teachers in providing them with a chance to ask for resources and extra items that they would like. We have already successfully provided year 6 with some books and the Ready to Learn room with some games and fun resources, this is something we feel very passionate about and hope we can continue to keep supporting.
We received a few gifts from our gift amnesty collections this week. These were very gratefully received and will be sorted through for our upcoming fairs, thank you for your kind donations. If you missed our dates, any further donations can be left in the school office.
On Thursday 23rd Jan, from 3pm, the Friends of Stanmore will be hosting a year 5/6 cake sale. Letters should be out by the beginning of next week including an ingredients form, please can year 5/6 children and parents provide nut free bakes with a full list of ingredients to the office on the morning of the cake sale or straight to the stand. We will hopefully be bringing out the second hand uniform for any of you that are interested and I did see some water proof coats hiding within the racks, as it seems they have been very much needed this week. Please can I also add that we hugely appreciate any unwanted good condition logo uniform that you no longer need, this will go towards more fundraising for your school and I am sure gratefully received by other parents!
A massive Thank you to all of you who attended this weeks members meeting, our next meeting with be held on Monday 10th February from 8pm at The Queens pub in St Cross. This meeting will be very much focused on moving forward with our new volunteer structure and so if you wish to become more involved in what we do, it would be awesome if you could make it, every one welcome to come along :)
Many thanks and have a lovely (wishfully dry) weekend,
Rachel, Hayley, Jen and Amy!
Stanmore Post - 17 January 2020
Dear Parents,
Children in Year 1 and 2 had the opportunity to take part in ‘Bedtime Stories’ on Wednesday evening. This was a lovely event for parents and children led in part by Mrs Jones with a contribution for parents by Sian from the School Library Service. The classroom looked magical with the fairy lights and everyone enjoyed the hot chocolate and marshmallows provided. It was a great way to promote a love of reading. We believe that reading is important because it unlocks children’s access to a rich curriculum now and sets them up to succeed in the future.
Children in Year 4 enjoyed their first swimming lesson at Kings this week. They all demonstrated our Keys for Success, with confidence and persistence particularly evident. We are continuing to promote sport in our school and, after our successful Bronze achievement last year, we are aiming for the Silver School Games Award. Four Sports captains have been elected from Year 5 and this term teams are participating in: Cross Country, Volley Ball and Hockey.
Best Wishes
Sharon Taylor