Next week, as part of our PSED learning titled 'Same and Different', we will be looking at our families.  If you are happy to, it would be lovely for the children to bring in a photograph of their family that we can share and talk about.   These can be brought in tomorrow (Friday) or at the start of next week.  We will keep these safe in school and send them home at the end of the week.  Should you wish for them not to stay in school, please let us know. Thank you in advance! Mrs Brown

 The school has been lucky enough to recieve a brilliant donation from the PTFA, in the form of a solar powered trail camera, some of us know them as camera traps, to use in our science lessons. Nature Club has taken first dibs, we are planning it's most effective use in recording the ways in which the insects, birds and mammals that live in and visit the school grounds eat fruit in the winter months. Hopefully our first posts will appear in the next two to three weeks. A huge thank you to our generous and dedicated PTFA. Mr Hopegood :)

 We are aware that some children choose to bring their own healthy snack in for morning snack.  Thank you for making these healthy and nut free.   Please see the following website for the guidelines we follow for 'Safer Eating' https://help-for-early-years-providers.education.gov.uk/health-and-wellbeing/food-safety Government guidelines suggest that we ensure if grapes are provided, they are cut.  We do not provide grapes for snack for that reason - They can be a choking hazard.    Could we also ask that popcorn is not provided as this too can prove a choking hazard. Thank you for your understanding, Any questions, as always, please ask. The EYFS Team

This morning, we took some of our Year 5 and 6 runners went up to Colchester Sports Park to take part in a Cross Country event.  The children were role models for the school. They showed fantastic determination, resilience and sportsmanship, tackling the course and pushing themselves against some tough competition. We were delighted to see so many fantastic high-place finishes – a brilliant achievement! There was even a little drama along the way, as one of our runners managed to complete the most of the course without realising a shoe had been lost! That's determination!  We are incredibly proud of all the children who took part, supported one another and represented our school so brilliantly. Well done, Year 5 and 6!

Year 2 had a fantastic time taking part in the Meadow Makers Workshop with Lee Connelly!  They spent the morning in our eco garden creating their very own bug hotels and filling them with a variety of natural materials to encourage little creatures to make them their homes. The children were also very lucky to take home some wildflower seeds to sprinkle in their own gardens and help nature flourish.  What a wonderful morning of outdoor learning!

2C have been exploring non-chronological reports. They have been working collaboratively with their talk partners to analyse different texts and identify their key features.  The children have been looking closely at how these reports are structured and the features that make them informative. This is helping to prepare them to plan and write their own non-chronological reports over the coming weeks.

 Here is our weekly round up for RB and RW. In Phonics, we have learnt the last few sounds of Level 2! Another big thank you for your ongoing support with your child's reading, it really does make a difference. Our story this week has been The Leaf Thief by Alice Hemming and Nicola Slater. We have enjoyed how the characters Squirrel and Bird conversed with one another and the vocabulary used. Our Rhyme time linked into our learning about The Gunpowder Plot. It was 'Remember Remember, the 5th of November'. We liked discovering that Guy Fawkes and his friends nearly blew up the Houses of Parliament in an attempt to kill King James I. We have also looked at signs of Autumn this week. As the weather is changing, we took advantage of our lovely Nature Garden. We stood still and felt the cool wind, we found lots of different coloured leaves and found berries on Evergreen trees. Our Maths focus this week has been on making 5. The children have learnt a fab song called '5 littl...