Newsletters

George Spicer newsletter - Thursday 9 December 2021

• Covid 19 update The Prime Minister is moving England to Plan B. Please click here to read the details. 
• School Christmas lunch and Jumper Day is Tuesday 14 December – donations on this day will go to Save the Children. 
• Free School Meals vouchers – all Edenred vouchers have been sent out via email to those who are eligible. Please ensure that they are converted to a supermarket voucher by 7 January 2022 or they will be cancelled.
• Twitter! – Don’t forget to check in with George Spicer's new Twitter account @GeorgeSpicerSch
• Website We are continually reviewing and updating our website. Do take a look at the newly updated curriculum pages.

Attendance week ending 09/12/2021

Overall school = 93.96% Lates = 98

Best attendance: 1st Theseus 97.19% 2nd Sioux 97.02 % 3rd Ra 95.84%

Punctuality: Well done Osiris, Bluebell & Primrose with 100% for punctuality

A massive thank you from # Help for Hunger

What an incredible school community we have! Your amazingly generous donations on Monday filled 5 cars with items for the Help for Hunger hamper appeal.  A massive, massive THANK YOU to you all for spreading such kindness to others in our local area.

Reception

Can you help Reception?

Weighted items are a wonderful resource that help children to feel safe and grounded. Weighted snakes and vests can be place on children's shoulders or laps to help with sensory feedback, fidgeting and anxiety. These items can be very expensive but are easily made as well. If you are interested in arts and crafts or would like a small project to enjoy then we would love you for you to help us make some weighted items. Below you will see some links on how to make weighted snakes and vests but feel free to do some research of your own if you'd like. This is also a good opportunity to recycle old vests, zip up jumpers and socks that you don't want anymore! Please let us know if you can help and please do not feel obligated to spend any money - recycle and reuse is the way forward. 

Weighted snakes  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eF8ddNegPyU

Weighted Vest

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sOJpTTl-Ac4

In Spring 1, Reception will be learning all about People Who Help Us. We'd love to introduce the children to a variety of people and wondered if anyone has connections that we could take advantage of. 

If anyone has connections to any of the following people who wouldn't mind coming to talk to us then please let me know. 

*Medical workers - nurses, doctors - including GPs, radiologists, surgeons, ambulance and paramedics, vets and vets nurses etc etc etc. 

*Police Officers, community support officers (we are meeting PC Odong)

*Postal Workers 

*Firefighters

Year 1

This week, Year 1 are making Christmas cards as part of ‘Enterprise Week’. They have planned their design as well as the materials and equipment that they will use. Today, they started making their card template. They will be making a card using a sliding leaver. Year 1 are very excited to make their Christmas cards.

Below are some examples of their designs. They will evaluate their designs at the end of the week. In PHSE, the children also looked at needs and wants. They had lots of fun sorting different images such as a laptop, phone, food, shelter into needs and wants.

Year 2

This week in Year 2, as part of our Enterprise week, we have been designing and creating hand puppets of the characters from Wind in the Willows! Firstly, we designed our hand puppets in our sketch books and outlined which materials we may want to use, the equipment we would need and some simple steps to follow. Once we had done this, we used our felt to cut out the shape for our hand puppets and carefully cut them out. Next, we used our threaded needles and began to sew the two pieces together. We had to show lots of resilience and perseverance and can’t wait to finish them this week!

See if you can guess which Wind in the Willows characters we have created from the pictures of our hand puppets below…

Year 3 

This half term we have been working really hard to create authentic totem poles. We started off by learning all about totem poles and what the Native Americans used them for. We know that they were a very special way of marking out a tribes' territory and a way to demonstrate things in their culture that they are proud of. 

We used papier mache to cover a tube and a box to make the base and pole for our creations. We then painted them brown to represent the wood.  

We looked at the different sections of the total pole and first sketched them and then went over in felt tips to ensure the colours popped! We then used polystyrene to create a stamp for the wings which created a beautiful effect. We printed the wing design onto card and attached them to the totem pole. 

We are absolutely thrilled by how well our art skills have developed and we are so proud of our brilliant totem poles!

Year 5 

Year 5 Fieldwork trip to Southbury Road

Last week, Year 5 undertook their fieldwork for this term! The children were given the task to carry out a survey to determine what new business would succeed in Southbury Road. We firstly recorded a range of shops on Southbury Road to support our decision on which business (shop) we thought would be the best for Mrs Thomas to open. We also agreed that we would want to carry out a questionnaire and ask local residents their opinions to consider what facilities they would want to be opened in the area. During our fieldwork trip, we recorded a tally of the variety of shops along Southbury Road, hoping to see a gap in the market for Mrs Thomas! Interestingly, each class decided on suggesting a different business venture for Mrs Thomas! We also considered the infrastructure of the local area (Global Goal 9 - Industry, Infrastructure and Innovation) and how future changes to our town and local area would greatly impact local businesses, for example, proposed cycle lanes. 

Enterprise Week

This week, Year 5 have begun creating wooden photograph frames as part of our Enterprise Week project. We began by discussing what made a good photograph frame and deciding on a success criteria for our product. We also considered how we could make this product ethically, using recyclable materials such as cardboard, paper and wood to help our environment (Global Goal 13 - Climate in Action). Using wooden dowel rods, a hack saw and a bench hook, we sawed the dowels to create a frame. We had to ensure we were precise and regularly double checked our measurements to check our photograph frame was level. We also chose to include a winter scene image and include a creative cut out (using the brown cardboard) to frame our design. During this week, we have had the opportunity to generate ideas and make changes to our original plans, helping us to be more reflective learners. Also, we really enjoyed learning how to saw, using a hack saw with precision and accuracy. Read the Year 5 newsletter section next week to see our finished products! 

Year 6 

This week, for Enterprise Week, in our PSHE lesson, we discussed the links between jobs and money. We started the lesson by thinking about the different jobs people do. We looked at the reasons behind people working paid/unpaid jobs as well as part-time and full-time work. 

Then, we explored the different ways people are paid when working in their jobs (monthly salary/hourly rate/commission). We had interesting conversations in relation to the amount people are paid based on the job they do, when comparing footballers to doctors, and trying to understand how a someone's qualification impacts the type of job they can do.  

We referred to the UNCRC Articles, discussing the importance of Article 24 (Health, Water, Food and Environment). We discussed how important money is in order for us to be able to receive our basic needs of water, food and shelter to help us function as humans. 

Also, linking to Article 6 (Life, Survival and Development) as we need a certain amount of money in our lives to be able to source our basic needs to help us survive. 

Creativity in Nature Project for Bush Hill Park Wildlife Garden, 
George Spicer school & Kingsmead school

Some of our Year 5 pupils are taking part in a project to promote the wildlife garden in Bush Hill Park, by designing 8 new signs to direct people towards it.  They recently visited the park to identify the wildlife that can be observed there. This week, our pupils went to Kingsmead School to join some Year 7 & 8 students for an art workshop, drawing the wildlife they had seen, to go on the signs. They were a credit to George Spicer with both their behaviour and artistic skills!