Updates

Autumn Leaves Are Falling Down!

During Forest School sessions for the last half term the children in nursery have been noticing and exploring the season of Autumn.

They have been reading fiction and non-fiction books, reciting poetry and songs to support their conceptual, scientific understanding and of course having hand-on experiences as you can see here!

All of these elements have enabled children to acquire new vocabulary;

“Leaves have blown off in the wind.”

“Some trees have orange leaves now.”

“In autumn there are some acorns on the ground.”

What do people celebrate and why? Learning about Diwali in the EYFS

Today we had special visitors to help us learn about Diwali Festival of Lights.

Our visitors Jan and Vicky follow the Sikh religion and talked to us about how they celebrate. We have also been watching videos about a family who follow Hinduism. We looked at diva lamps and the embroidered Indian suit that Jan wears to celebrate when she visits the temple. Jan brought in food that she had made and would eat to mark the festival and we were able to taste it.

We sang a song about candles and used stem sentences to support our conceptual knowledge of this celebration. We have also read a range of story and information books in order to develop our understanding.

“Some Hindus and some Sikhs decorate their homes with lights.”

“Some Hindus and some Sikhs give presents such as sweets.”

“Some Hindus and some Sikhs clean their homes to celebrate Diwali.”

Tech for Space Webinar

Some of our children from across Year 5 and 6 took part in a Tech for Space webinar last week, to celebrate our Science topics and National Space Week which was a couple of weeks ago. There was lots of really interesting information about how technology supports space missions, and some of the other inventions we have made due to space research.

Lunchtime Art Club

Some of our Year 5 children have worked with Mr Farlow this half term, to develop their drawing skills using oil pastels. They have developed their knowledge about colour choice, perspective and blending, and it has linked to their learning about Vikings. They have shown great resilience and pride in their work.

Code Club: Let’s get Creative!

Today in Code Club we were let loose on the micro:bits to apply some of the skills we have learnt. Some of the girls tried to programme their names to flash up, and some were experimenting with the music functions. It was great to see the creativity in motion!

A Visit From Nurse Sophie

Children have access to a wide range of role-play resources in the EYFS. They can use these in order to develop their vocabulary, imagination and story-telling skills. Our Home Corner is a constant feature in our setting in order for all children have access to nurturing, homely resources that reflect their lives and culture and those of others.

Practitioners enhance the role-play provision to link to the overarching theme during each term.

The Doctors Surgery has just opened in order for children to develop, use and apply their knowledge of the human body, as we focus in on ‘Our Unique Selves’ this term.

Practitioners plan cultural capital experiences, carefully at key points, so that children can access and use resources purposefully. Today Sophie the nurse visited. The children learnt about her uniform, equipment and role. They learnt new vocabulary such as patients, stethoscope and prescription and the meaning of these words by exploring resources and singing repeated songs.

Making micro:bit timers in Code Club

Our girls in Code Club were very successful today at creating a stopwatch. When they pressed the A button, the timer started. The B button stopped it and the A+B together reset it to 0. We had to use concepts such as variables to complete the task and we are looking forward to more coding next week!

Code Club

We run Code Clubs throughout the year for different year groups. This term, we have a group of girls from UKS2 taking part in various micro:bit projects. Yesterday, we made an interactive badge that would show a smiley or sad face depending on which button was pressed. Everyone worked really hard to be successful!