Welcome back to the Summer Term

Year 2

This week Mr Reads writing group started the week by doing some gardening. This was to help inspire our writing for the next few weeks where we will be looking at the book "Curious Garden" by Peter Brown. Our first writing task was to think about our gardening and how we could use our senses to describe the experience. The group have written some great recounts as a result of their experience.

We tidied up the raised beds in the outdoor classroom and planted some new flowers in the house team colours. See the before and after pictures of the raised beds.

Year 3 and 4

Yr 3 and 4 are starting a new book this term - Leon and the Place in between - and to start the text the children took part in circus skill training. There was skipping, hula hooping and even an attempt at juggling!

Year 5 and 6

In Science this week Year 5 and 6 started their new topic - Material and changes in properties. The children took part in an experiment this week to test whether mysterious objects were magnetic, permeable, rigid or transparent. This will help us with our final outcome where we have to design a new clothing range for an outdoor clothing company - keep an eye on the shops!

We also started a new text (The Boy in the Tower) and arrived in our English lessons to discover we had been taken over by pernicious vines and plants! The children discussed how the plants might behave and made decisions about what they would pack should disaster strike!

Plays and performances

Year 1 and 2

Year 1/2 has been learning the recorder this half term and were able to perform to parents and carers this morning. They played a number of songs including a boogie and finishing with baby shark. They have worked really hard on their music and the music teacher was very impressed with their progress.

Year 3 and 4

Year 3 and 4 performed in our Spring Assembly this week.

They spoke with confidence in front of an audience for the first time since COVID closures. There were more than 100 adults who came to watch our performances - it was so great to have so many people join us in school again!

This week was time for our second ever performance of our Beyond The Beat musicians. Wind, strings and brass instruments all delighted the audience by how much progress they had made! We were also joined by some expert musicians from Hampshire Music Service as well as from Kings School and Westgate School.

Year 5 and 6

To end our Evolution topic, we studied a range of fossils. We were each given a different fossil; from it, we had to determine what the creature could have looked it, its diet and what its habitat might have been. We also discussed how fossils support the theory of evolution.

Help Us to Win a Fabric Canopy!

Stanmore Primary School have entered a competition to win a canopy worth £15,000 from A&S Landscape, a manufacturer of enclosed dining extensions. This stylish canopy from A&S Landscape would help us provide for our children and help our community thrive. For us to win this exciting competition we have to collect the most votes! Please click here to vote for our school.  

Once you have voted, please help us to spread the message on friends, parents and supplier’s websites as well as social media to help us win!

Jubilee Planting

Sweet peas and sunflowers

To celebrate the Queen's Platinum Jubilee, we will be creating a 'Jubilee Garden' located outside Acorns. Each child and member of staff at school is invited to plant a specially commissioned Jubilee sweet pea seed, as well as range of sunflower seeds, which will create s stunning display . We will also be planting a wild flower border around our Jubilee tree (planted as part of the Green Canopy scheme) on the front field. A special blend of wildflower seeds has been created for the Jubilee, with a red, white and blue theme. We can't wait to see them bloom!

Litter Picking

To demonstrate our Key value of 'Respect', we have participated in the 'The Great Big Schools Clean with Keep Britain Tidy' campaign, which was launched this week. We enjoyed a live lesson featuring a children's author, Sarah Roberts, who read her book, 'Somebody Crunched Colin'. Each class took part in litter picking in the school grounds with our new litter-pickers. It was astonishing how much rubbish we collected! Children are reminding themselves to dispose of their litter carefully to show respect to the school grounds as well as to the environment.

Exploring Light

The Tempest

Year 4 5 and 6 were lucky enough to welcome the Young Shakespeare Company into school again for a production of The Tempest. The children were able to actively participate and were introduced to the rich language of William Shakespeare.

Year 3 and 4

In Science we are working on light, and we are improving our working scientifically skills by carrying out a variety of investigations. This week we were investigating the thickness of materials and how opaque they are.

We have also been looking at shadows: how they are created and how they change.

Year 5 and 6

This week, it was Aspen’s’ turn to explore how birds beaks have evolved and changed due to where they live and what they eat. The children loved picking up the various objects with different utensils and were able to use that information to describe which birds may live in different habitats.

Bird beaks!

Year 5 and 6

This week in Science we have been exploring adaptation and evolution. To help us understand why birds beaks have developed the way they have, we conducted and experiment using chop sticks, tweezers and other utensils to help us pick up different objects. We were able to explain how a bird’s diet has a direct impact on the structure of the beak and vice versa.

Top Tips to help with children's behaviour

Top Tips

• Be consistent: say what you mean and stick to it.

• Make the consequence fit the crime.

• Empathise, but keep boundaries in place.

• Never say ‘no’, use ‘when and then’ instead.

• Don’t say don’t. say what you do want.

• Calm and controlled voice.

• Notice and praise.

• Thank you, not please.

Mummification and News Reports

Year 3 and 4

Children in year 3 and 4 have been writing a fact file on mummification linked to our work in history and English. As part of our curriculum work, appreciate, participate and innovate, this shows children starting to innovate. They have the knowledge of the topic, and they were tasked with presenting it however they like in order to best communicate their ideas.

Children in Years 3 and 4 have been working on their 'Discover' Arts Award, an introductory award, certified by Trinity College, London. The children had to participate in a range of activities, from identifying arts words, creating their own work and discussing it with others. They collected evidence of their work in oog books which were sent to Trinity College to be certified. We are delighted to announce that everyone who participated on the day passed their award, and the certificates will be with us shortly. Congratulations to all of the children - your work was highly praised by the assessors!

Year 5 and 6

To show our understanding of a character's emotions, we created black out poetry. Using a page from the text, Swimming against the storm, we selected key phrases or words to show how Eliza was feeling about her sister Avery going missing.

In English this week, we responded to our text by creating our own news reports. The children performed their reports to the class and were even filmed!

World Book Day 'Don't judge a book by its cover'.

World Book Day

The theme for world book day was “Don’t judge a book by its cover”. There were lots of activities in the classes, including using clues and prompts to try and guess what book was wrapped in the brown paper!

Children came into school wearing dull clothes, then painted bright, vibrant t-shirts linked to a book, and went home looking great!

Year 3 and 4

On Monday Year 3 and 4 took part in the Discover Arts Award, run by Hampshire Cultural Trust. It was a great day where we could be imaginative and creative using a range of ideas and media.

Year 5 and 6

HOOK DAY! To launch our new text for writing, we took part in a range of team games where co-operation, trust and communication were vital. With our experiences from the games, we made short predictions about what our new text could be about.

Year 5 and 6 also started their new Science work on ‘Evolution and Inheritance’ and the children thoroughly enjoyed trying to match the baby photos with the teachers and the people in their class!

Onion's Wedding Day

Year R

This week in year R we have been preparing for Onion and Radishes wedding. The children have made decorations, prepared invitations, designed menus and used the book “The Scarecrows wedding” for extra inspiration. On woodland Wednesday the wedding took place, children had special roles including best man, father of the bride, bridesmaids and there was even a group of dancers. Safe to say Onion and Radish had a great wedding day.

Year 5 and 6

Oak class became meteorologists this week: acting out the actions of a tornado where hot air collides with warm air to produce an updraft which results in a tornado. We then made tornados in a bottle and researched how they were formed.

In Aspen the children created their own circulation maps, using ribbon, wool and pens to illustrate the way that blood moves around the body and it’s function.