Newsletters

George Spicer newsletter - Friday 22nd April 2022

Welcome back! We hope you've all had a restful Easter break. It's been lovely to see everyone in school this week, ready to start the Summer term.

Reporting absences - If your child is unwell or will be absent from school please leave a short message on the answer machine clearly stating your child's name, class and nature of the illness.  Please advise exactly what is wrong rather than 'feeling unwell'.  Absences must be reported by 9am, either by phone or email. Any absence reported without a reason or 'unwell' will be registered as an unauthorised absence. 

Lateness/Punctuality - Poor punctuality leads to a poor start to the school day. School starts at 8.45, gates close at 9am. 

Registers are taken electronically twice a day; in the morning at 9am and again directly after lunch. Any pupil arriving after the close of the register must report to the school office and be signed in on the electronic system giving clear reasons for lateness. 

Attendance week ending 22nd April 2022

Overall school = 93.96%  Lates = 37

Best attendance: 1st Theseus 99.54% 2nd Odysseus 99.05%  3rd Heracles 99.01%

Punctuality: Well done to  Oak, Primrose, Theseus, Lancasters and Hurricanes with 100% for punctuality 

PSHE topic - Relationships 

This half term our PSHE topic is all about ‘Relationships’. It aims to help children build respectful relationships with their self and with others including families, friends, pets and animals. It helps them to identify their own strengths, as well as sharing strategies for building their self-esteem and resilience. It also supports children in learning how to deal with conflict and in building their assertiveness. Another vital part of this topic is about safeguarding and keeping children safe.  For some year groups there will also be links to online safety and social networking, whilst others will explore roles and responsibilities in families and friendship groups, considering stereotypes, love and loss.   

A year group specific overview of what your child will be learning in their PSHE lessons will be emailed to you directly. Once you have read all the information, any questions/queries that you may have will need to be directed to your child's class teacher via email.  

Reception Class

Reception have been working on their dancing skills. We have been exploring different styles of dancing from around the world. We have learnt the Viennese Waltz, the Haka, Morris dancing and traditional Thai dancing. The children had a wonderful time developing their gross motor skills, dancing around the classroom and playground with their friends. We were then able to describe different dances from around the world and use this in our writing.  

Year 1

Year One began their new topic ‘I love Enfield’. They have enjoyed talking about Enfield and things that you can do in Enfield. Children have learnt that Enfield is a town in London.  They have learnt lots of facts. Did you know that Enfield has a golden post box? Also, Enfield had the first ever cash point installed at Barclays bank. How amazing is that! We are proud to be living and studying in Enfield. Children have began writing their leaflets today. Here is an example of one.

We look forward to continuing our topic and finding out more about Enfield and its history!

Year 2

This week in Year 2 we have started our brand new topic – Australia! We began by looking at Captain James Cook and comparing what his journey across the pacific ocean would have been like In 1768, compared to a luxury cruise in 2022.

We discussed the oil painting below, thinking about whether Captain Cook actually discovered Australia when the aboriginal people lived there long before and whether it was right that he placed his flag on this land.

The Founding of Australia (1788) – Algernon Talmage

We used the UNCRC articles to think about which of the rights had been met and which had not after Cook’s arrival in Australia.

Year 3 

Science

Year 3 have been focussing on the skill of drawing bar charts to represent data. This week, we had our first attempt at drawing a bar chart independently. We made sure that we used our ruler accurately and labelled all of our axes. 

Year 5 

Year 5 Ancient Egyptian topic day! 

Year 5 were back with a bang this week, as they started their new topic, The Pharaohs of Ancient Egypt with a WOW topic day! Year 5 were visited by the fantastic Hobgoblin Theatre Company and enjoyed an Egyptian Curse of the Mummy performance! We learnt about the famous monuments, Egyptian gods and goddesses, religion and their way of life. Afterwards, we had the opportunity to take part in a drama workshop and learnt how to create freeze frames of life in the underworld, linking to our prior knowledge of the gods Anubis and Osiris! We also took part in cartouche printing. Before we began our printing activity, we found out that a cartouche is an oval frame which surrounds the hieroglyphs that make up the name of an Egyptian God or royal person. We needed to make sure that our names were inside of the looped rope. This is because Egyptians believed that the rope has the magical power to protect the name that is written inside it and protect against evil spirits both in this life and the afterlife. We began to make links between our prior topic, Tudors and Stuarts, and consider the differences in society, for example, women and men in Egyptian society were treated more equally than during Tudor Times - Global Goal 5 - Gender Equality. A fantastic day was had by all and it was wonderful to start back with such an immersive day! 

Year 6 

This week, Year 6 are learning about the Blitz as part of our WW2 topic. We learnt about Hitler's motives behind the attacks and looked at some of the devastation caused during the bombings. We looked at a selection of primary sources, including photos and quotes  and analysed them to find out more about life during the Blitz. We discussed whether each source showed if Britain was struggling or coping during this time, as well as looking at bias and how sources can be interpreted in different ways. 

As a greater depth task, we thought about which source Hitler may use to make it seem as though Britain were struggling during the Blitz as a means of decreasing the morale of the nation. 

We will be using all of the information we acquired to write third person narratives from the perspective of a child during the Blitz. 

Parent Workshops to Support your Children’s Wellbeing 

Summer Term 2022  

EMS Lessons 

EMS music lessons start next week 25th April

Monday - Guitar/Violin/Viola

Tuesday - Cello

Wednesday - Clarinet/Violin/Viola

Thursday - Piano/Keyboard

Friday - Piano/Keyboard

Parent Group Leader training opportunity