Term 3

Science Week

Week 3

20th January 2023

Hello everyone,

Well, hopefully you do not need me to send too long an update on Science week as the children seem to have been buzzing about it all week, so hopefully been updating you.

The Science week theme this year is Connections and the children have been making lots of their own scientific connections.

We also had a connections workshop from Miss Hooper, Jaws and Claws, a poster competition, they’ve learnt about local Kent based scientists Charles Darwin (from Downe House https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/places/home-of-charles-darwin-down-house) and Tom Hart Dyke (Lullingstone Castle World Garden https://www.lullingstonecastle.co.uk), made compasses and bird feeders, created their own data and bar charts, completed the year 6 engineering challenge and visited the amazing year 6 Science Fair. Hopefully it was worth cleaning all the mud off them when they got home!

This coming week, on Monday & Tuesday after school, we have our child learning reviews with you all. Thank you for booking them in and if for any reason you can't make it or haven't booked a place, just email us and we will try and schedule it in at another time.

Mrs Austin has asked me to remind you all about reading diaries and making sure you are sending them in regularly and noting when they read. Just a few minutes a night can make such a difference. If they are reading on their own regularly it would be great to know - especially for our new free readers.

And finally, welcome to Mrs Chimmalagi who is now our permanent 1:1 and groups support TA.

Wishing you all a good week.

Best wishes.

Oak Class teaching team

Outdoor learning day

First Aid workshop with Mrs Hardcastle

Year 6 Engineering challenge

13th January 2023

Week 2

Hello everyone

It's been a busy week with various colds doing the rounds!

This week, we've had some useful talk time sessions with the children about how to be kind to each other and reminders of school rules around behaviour. Their learning behaviour has been amazing - and this has shown in their writing in particular. Mrs Austin told us all about the River God NyamiNyami and how a dam got in the way of him and his wife and the children came up with their own endings.

Next week is Science week and we have lots of fun activities planned. I know the newsletter sent out today https://sway.office.com/Ts98oh7moWzyDZpr?ref=Link has detailed everything but please let me know of any allergies (or phobias) to animals (reptiles mainly I believe) via this email address before Tuesday in preparation for the Jaws and Claws workshop. Here's their website for details: https://jawsnclaws.co.uk/

Are you free on Thursday morning from 9.30am - 11am to help take the children to Broadview garden centre? We need an additional 2-3 adults to help walk the children there and back and supervise them when we are there.

Do you have?

Egg boxes (to chit potatoes)
Old tights or stockings (to make cress heads)
Seeds for the allotment to help plan it.
Sticks no longer than child’s fore arm (fingers to elbow)
Stones ie pebbles

If so, please send in to school on Monday/Tuesday.

Would your child(ren) be interested in attending an after school coding/robotics club? The clubs would be run by an external organisation and include a range of different topics, including game building, robotics, stop-motion animation, web building, code quests, Minecraft challenges and many others. Please let me know by email or in their reading diary if you think this would be of interest. I'm not sure at this stage if it's chargeable, just gauging interest.

Wishing you a peaceful weekend.

Best wishes.

Oak Class teaching team

Week 1

6th January 2023

Welcome back everyone,

Hope you all had a good break and the children have returned so enthusiastically this week, which has been lovely!

We've dived into our new topics this week. In maths, we are starting multiplication and division - first working with arrays - and in English we are visiting Africa for some African tales before travelling to North America for our Geography topic this term. The children produced a really good short fact file about what we have learnt already about Africa, thanks to Mrs Austin and her incredible knowledge from living there. In Science, we have been finding out about forces and what is magnetic and what isn't!

Miss Leigh has read with as many children as she could fit in this week and has been so impressed by their progress. A couple of new free readers too!

Home learning went out today. Resources are in the home learning section of the website. Handwriting booklets and some maths resources will go out on Monday with spellings. Any books still to be sent into school please send in on Monday.

PE on Monday afternoons will be Dodgeball - the children have already started gymnastics with Mr Nurden (on Wednesday).

Our new curriculum map is also now on the website here that shows you what topics we will be covering each term in each subject. We hope it is useful.

Have a good weekend.

Best wishes.

Miss Leigh & Mrs Austin

Oak Class teaching team