Mrs Taha and Mrs Pickering informed me that the children have been working their way through our home library books and that the children would like a few more.
So we’ve purchased more books to add to the collection.
Happy reading everyone!
Today in collective worship, we will be gathering to remember Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. All of our teachers are prepared to answer children’s questions, in an age appropriate way.
In collective worship, there will be a twin emphasis both on sadness at the death of the Queen and also thankfulness for her long life and reign. Marking 70 years of reign this year she became the longest serving monarch. We will mention that the Queen had a really important job earlier this week, as it is the monarch who asks a party leader to be their Prime Minister, and the Queen made a point of doing this final duty.
Any such event will possibly engender conversations in the classroom. Here are some pointers that have been shared with staff but I thought maybe useful for parents too.
Children will want to talk – and they can be asked both to share what they know about the Queen and also any talk about the day of her death and how they heard the news. We will bear in mind there may have been sadness in homes at this time they will want to relate.
We use the terms ‘death’ and ‘died’ and avoid euphemisms.
We are mindful of those particularly affected, allow children to say what they want and need to say and listen carefully.
Staff should feel totally free from any pressure to offer any answers to questions around ‘death’ and ‘dying’, it is ok to not have the answers.
We will make it clear that being sad is natural, as is not knowing what to feel or say.
Here is a prayer that will be offered for children:
God of love,
We thank you for the life of The Queen,
for her service to our nation,
and for her faith in you.
Be close to all of us who mourn,
that we may we find comfort and hope in your love,
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.
An online Book of Condolence has been started – we will be explaining that this is a way in which the Church has arranged for everyone to write a note of sadness or thoughts for King Charles.
https://www.churchofengland.org/remembering-her-majesty-queen
At school, we have lots of books that explore death in an age appropriate way. If you wish to borrow one of these books, then please let me know.
Mrs Gurner
Welcome back Reception,
You may have noticed that we are calling your child’s class ‘Reception’ rather than ‘FS2’. We have made this decision as most documentation from the DFE refers to the class Reception (as you can see from the attachment).
From now on, we are calling FS1 (Nursery) and FS2 (Reception).
Here is some information about the baseline assessment that will be taking place over the next six weeks. It is nothing to worry about, and your child will most likely be unaware that it is happening.
If you have any questions then please speak to either myself or a member of the Reception team.
Thank you,
Mrs Gurner
FS1 have been very busy investigating materials this term.
We looked at how bubbles are made and enjoyed making a huge bubble.
Mud painting. Dry mud we couldn’t paint with, so decided to add water. We discovered it became sticky and so was easier to paint with.
The children said it wasn’t like paint it was ‘lumpy’ and ‘sticky’.
We looked at floating and sinking. The children chose an item of a tray, predicted if it would float or sink. They discovered that the heavier items sank and the lighter ones floated. Then they sorted the objects under the heading float, sink. The dinosaur they decided needed to go in the middle when sorting because it floated and sank.
We have received the below e-mail from Rotherham United Community Sports Trust –
I am pleased to inform you that we have our FREE Mini Millers camps happening during this half term at Wickersley School and Sport College. This is happening on Wednesday 13th April 2022 & Wednesday 20th April 2022, both from 10:15 – 11:45am.
The camp will be fun activities, with inflatables, a chance to meet Miller Bear and much more.
For more information and to book on them for free, please click on this link below: https://officialsoccerschools.co.uk/rotherhamunited/rotherham-united-courses/tots.html
Thank you
Over the Summer Holidays, we have been truly blessed by one of our parents. Mr McCoy and his team of highly skilled builders built a tree house in our Foundation Stage playground.
Our children have loved playing in our new tree house. It changes daily, from the Dragon’s castle to Robin Hood’s Home. School are overwhelmed by the generosity of Mr McCoy and his team. Thank you so much for making our school such a special place.
Dear parents and carers,
On Wednesday 6th October, we are hosting a foundation reading parent workshop. In this meeting, we will explain how we teach reading at St Alban’s and share a few tips that you can use at home.
The meeting will be at 4:15pm and should last 30 minutes. We’ll post the zoom link on class dojo on the day of the meeting.
Thank you,
Mrs Gurner
In FS1 we collected a selection of objects from the story we had been looking at that week the naughty bus. We wanted to find out which objects would float and which would sink. The children put their thumbs up if they thought the object would float and thumbs down if sink. It was explained that they were making a prediction. The children felt the items and said because it felt heavy it would sink, felt light it would float.
In FS1 we were looking at why things float in the sea. We used an egg and placed it in water it sank to the bottom. We spoke about how the sea has salt in it, so we started adding salt. The children estimated how much salt they thought would be needed to make the egg float. After about 8 table spoons the egg began to float because of the salt. The children learnt that the salt comes from rocks in the sea and it makes the water heavier.
We were looking in FS1 how germs spread and the best way to wash our hands. We used glitter as the germs and spread the glitter by touching hands. Then we found out that hand sanitiser cleans a lot of the germs away, but not all. Soap and water cleaned hands the best.
