In Oak Class we love graffiti maths. Mrs Bramwell draws on the table and we complete tasks using her marks to make concrete representations of our understanding. We have been learning about place value this term and have used the part - whole model, greater than, less than and equal to signs as well as so many more. We really enjoy working collaboratively to try new ways of solving problems. By working with a partner we can discuss our answers and reflect on how else we could have found a solution.

Willow class have been discussing emotions and feelings. We thought about how we can recognise what someone is feeling by their facial expression and their body language. The children came up with their own emoticons for the feelings they sometimes feel.

We also discussed what it is like to be assertive and the difference between being assertive, passive and aggressive. The children considered various scenarios where the body language, actions and words used can show each of these behaviours. They also discussed times when they may behave in a different way.

These discussions were part of our P.S.H.E lessons, Be Yourself. We will continue to work on how we can be the best version of ourselves. This also links to our school values and rules and being a good citizen.

In R.E we looked at the 10 commandments and then created the Willow class commandments to guide us on how to behave in class.

  

We have also shared things we are proud of and have started a celebration wall in our classroom to showcase any achievements or anything we would like to share.

The children in Chestnut Class have been busy preparing and delivering speeches to the school as part of the election process for our Pupil Parliament. In doing so, they all demonstrated great reflection - in assessing why they wanted a place in the Parliament and what they had to offer to it. Many of them also showed fantastic determination, resilience and preparedness to take risks in overcoming nerves about public speaking and communicating their ideas with clarity and confidence. They should all be very proud of themselves!

In Acorn Class we have been learning all about us! We have looked at the different types of families we come from, who we live with and why they are special to us. We have learned about each other’s favourite hobbies and interests and why they make us happy. We are proud of each other and celebrate the many wonderful differences that make us unique. We know that everyone is special in their own way and we appreciate everything we have to give to the world. We will look at these gifts that we can bring to our communities more in the next couple of weeks when we will learn about different jobs and imagine what we would like to be when we grow up!

In Starling class, there has been a big focus on reading for enjoyment this term. Our two main texts have been 'The Witches' by Roald Dahl and 'War Horse' by Micheal Morpurgo. We have developed skills using our learning characteristics, such as creativity, collaboration, participation and curiosity through our sequence of learning tasks, which involves an exploration of vocabulary, inference, prediction, explanation, retrieval and summarising. 

For 'The Witches' we have used the text to answer comprehension questions, and recapped this knowledge every lesson. We have also used our imaginative skills to create art on 'How to spot a witch' using descriptive evidence from the text. We have asked ourselves questions such as 'what will happen next?' and 'what would I do if I were a witch?'.

For 'War Horse' we have really focused on the historical aspect of the book, such as the use of vocabulary to determine the time frame. This is also a first person narrative book, which lets us become immersed in Joey's journey. We have written diary entries and letters to reflect on Joey's experience. We have also used descriptions from the text, alongside a step-by-step guide, in order to draw an interpretation of Joey, either on the peaceful, or war-torn fields of England. 

Robin and Woodpecker class have come together to form a key stage one and EYFS hub. We have developed the environment to encourage all children to become independent learners who take risks and collaborate in their learning. We have daily activities in the continuous provision to reinforce their learning and give them opportunities to try out new skills. We have seen determination for success across the classroom and all children are thriving in their new environment.

Red Kite class have been purposeful and resourceful over the summer and autumn term.  During the summer, the children spent time reorganising our outdoor area which included planting a range of vegetable seeds.  The children then returned after the summer to see the pumpkin's, tomatoes and marrows they had grown. We then put our creations into tarts for all children in the school to try. In Red Kite we then discussed sustainability and where our food comes from. We have begun discussing what we would like to grow next in our garden. 

The children at Helmingham have been taking their learning outside. Hedgehogs used autumn apples to create a numberline on the monkey bars. They worked collaboratively to order the numbers correctly. They demonstrated their resilience and determination when the numbers were not in the right places the first time around, especially as some of the clips were very fiddly for little fingers.

Our staff had to demonstrate resilience on a recent trip to Colchester Zoo too. The children found it very funny that our brave staff had birds landing on their heads in the bird enclosure - it was a good job it wasn’t the penguins!

 The children in Foxes class have been taking risks in their forest schools sessions. They have been climbing trees, crawling through the undergrowth and using tools to drill into large vegatables. They created woodland creatures by adding sticks and leaves to the holes that they had drilled.

    

 

At Henley, the children in class 3 have been working collaboratively to explore the wildlife that is found in the school pond. They demonstrated a determined attitude when their first few trials didn’t uncover much. They eventually uncovered many species of pond wildlife and were able to identify them using prompt sheets (and a very knowledgeable Mr O!).

Class 3 also took part in the National Nature Park Hidden Nature Challenge. They were given different categories to find evidence of in the school grounds:

• The smallest sign of nature
• A repeated pattern
• A nature free zone
• A plant in an unexpected place
• Something new to you

Hidden Nature is all about growing confidence in learning outside, and developing observation and recording skills. Their results were photographed and uploaded to an online map so others can see the hidden nature in our school community.

Class 1/ Jellyfish have been using their ‘resilient and determined’ characteristic as they worked really hard to weave paper to make a woven penguin. It was really tricky for their little fingers but they could feel their muscles working hard to bend the paper and tuck it under and over each part. They really enjoyed making them and learning about which animals live at each pole.

The Jellyfish class at Henley have been working on their personal development as they have been reflective and self-improving, working on their friendship skills. They have been lucky enough to receive a Care Bear in the post to Henley School and have thoroughly enjoyed having it as a mascot to help them think about being a friend. They have talked about lots of scenarios where they can help their friends and linked this to our English learning about problems and resolutions in our stories. They have been practising taking turns in maths games like representing the number on dice using Numicon and they have been sharing their toys like scooters and trikes in the outdoor area. They have shown we have been thinking carefully about how to play nicely together, using timers to share toys we both want and creating fun games to enjoy together like racing cars down the gutters or wooden blocks. They even practised some very grown up maths and made a tally chart to figure out which name would be the most popular for our Care Bear and named it Fluffy. They are going to continue practising being reflective and self-improving in class with the help of Fluffy.

On their residential trip to Lincolnshire, the Barracudas have certainly been taking risks and pushing themselves to complete challenges that they may not have previously thought possible. From climbing tall poles to guiding each other blindfolded through obstacle courses, they have put their faith in each other, worked collaboratively and demonstrated high levels of resilience. The Greenfields staff have been very proud of them!

What a wonderful start to the term Kirkley Nursery has had.  We have seen some familiar faces return and welcomed lots of new families to the Nursery.

The children have all been so resilient leaving their parents, taking risks exploring a new environment and building relationships with the staff.

The staff have worked collaboratively with families to know the children’s interests and planned activities to provide a smooth settling in period.

This term the children are learning new routines and our golden rules, encouraging them to become independent learners.

We also had a visit from the local MP Peter Aldous, a few of the preschool children engaged in some number activities with him.

Developing Personal Development at Middleton

During the month of October, like all schools in the Yox Valley Hub, and indeed like many schools all over Britain we are celebrating Black History Month.  Black History Month is a time of celebration, recognition and reflection.  It gives everyone the opportunity to share, celebrate and understand the impact of black heritage and culture that is an integral part of British history and society long before 1948.  We are using this month of celebration to ensure our pupils are being reflective, and understand what has happened in the past and that all people should be treated with fairness and equality in modern Britain.

We started the month by delivering an Anna Freud lesson specific for different age phases entitled ‘The same but different’, which gave the children an opportunity to be independent thinkers exploring the concept of diversity and how our differences make us special. 

Learning will continue throughout the month and focus on powerful, strong black females who often have had to show great determination and resilience throughout their lives.  Another chance for our pupils to reflect on their own determination and resilience.

We will end the month with a visit from Funmi Akinriboya who is visiting us with her mobile library to share stories with our children, Michelle Taylor, the Mayor from Manningtree and Irie Steel Band who will guide the children through an exciting workshop. 

At Rendlesham Primary one way we are promoting personal development is through our assemblies. This term we have carefully planned opportunities for pupils to discuss and share ideas and thoughts in our assembly discussions.

In at least one of our assemblies each week we have a focus on the news around us and this enables our pupils to question and think about what is happening in our world. By having these regular discussions (age appropriately) about the news we are able to share a whole range of topics and together make more sense of the different events, issues and stories. It is important to us that our pupils grow up as global citizens and talking about the major headlines of the day and current affairs helps us to promote this, just as it is also important to share a variety of fun and exciting news stories from the worlds of sport, entertainment, music and science for example, as well as sharing news closer to home. Our pupils have really engaged when discussing the news and share their thoughts and ideas about each news article freely and respectfully. They are able to reflect on each other’s ideas and work independently and collaboratively to share their thoughts and ask those really important questions. Each week more pupils are wanting to express their ideas and take that risk to want to speak out, they can also identify the learning characteristics for those people that are in the news stories and discuss why it is so important to be resilient,  determined and resourceful.

Riverwalk is now proudly a part of Consortium Trust.

The school took action as we prepared for the move, with a number of changes that were aimed at addressing feedback from Ofsted, after an inspection that took place in June last term, with an overall good rating.

Riverwalk started this school year with a new senior leadership team, that doubled in size, as well as six phase leaders, who oversee parts of the school where students follow their best suited curricular path. We increased the number of high level teaching assistants to support good practice in each classroom and are in the process of recruiting more teaching assistants. If you know anyone who is interested in joining the Riverwalk family, please let us know!

Apart from our regular training this term, we also offered bespoke sessions, aimed at improving understanding of individual students’ medical needs, and their complex sensory needs. As a result of training early in September, we also increased the number of designated safeguarding leads across the school, making sure all students at Riverwalk are safe and any concerns are addressed accordingly.

Riverwalk also decided to support two employees who embarked on their journey as early career teachers.

The classrooms have also been very busy. Some of our lower-school students learnt about Zones of Regulation, exploring different emotions and learning how to address them. As you can see, they really enjoyed presenting different feelings!

In the upper-school, students worked hard to focus for longer periods of time and join their classroom friends for classroom-based tasks. Staff recognised their determination and offered support to overcome their difficulties to access learning.

Children all across the school enjoyed newly introduced music sessions. They created more opportunities to improve focus and listening skills. Staff noticed improvements in reciprocal interaction and spontaneous expression.

Enabling environments encoruaging personal development.

Here at Southwold we have been focusing on creating an enabling environment, providing our littlest learners with the opportunities they need to develop as individuals on their own personal learning journey.

We know that to become collaborators and risk takers our children need to be surrounded by play and exploration opportunities which allow them to be stimulated and challenged and which encourage them to lead their own learning.

Our independent snack station has been a huge hit. Children have loved the freedom of helping themselves and preparing their own food which they can then share over a chat with friends.

By including open ended play resources and real life objects within our environment children have had a chance to be resourceful and imaginative. Our children have loved exploring our selection of natural counting and sorting resources as well as using their senses to examine our natural resources. They have worked together to create, develop and improve play activities. We are very excited to continue watching the children reflect and grow and engage with them within our shared learning environment!

Warren School has undergone major refurbishment work over the past few months to provide a positive learning environment for our pupils.

Many classrooms and corridors have now been fully refurbished, pupils have been enjoying lunchtimes in our newly redecorated dining hall along with new dining furniture.

We also have a new state of the art gym. Pupils have been excited to use the new equipment and engage in 1-1 sessions with our Sports HLTAs, these sessions focus on targets from physiotherapy plans and have a positive impact on behaviour regulation.

This week saw the completion of our EYFS outdoor space & playground, the EYFS pupils have been having a lot of fun exploring all the new sensory equipment and climbing frames.

We are looking forward to sharing updates as the school progresses with refurbishment work over the coming months.

 

This new Academic Year has started positively across both Mendham Primary and St Edmunds Primary. Our new School Culture has quickly become embedded with all stakeholders. It focuses on three key statements. We have created a whole school display for all pupils to view.

We have led Whole School Assemblies as well as having discussions in class about the meanings of these statements. Staff are using these in lessons to ensure that all pupils are fully aware of the importance we are placing on these. Already we have seen the pupils much more focused on learning in this first half term. 

In our Year 5 and 6 classes we also have ‘Culture Creators’. These are pupils who are appointed by their class teachers to reward those children at playtimes and lunchtimes who are displaying our new School Culture. Lots of stickers have already been given out!

In the first of our ‘Discover More with Mr Lea’ sessions our new culture was shared with all of our families. Parents commented that their children are already using these words at home. These sessions were well attended and we have more planned throughout the year focusing on different aspects of school life.

This half term has already shown how collaborative we can be. We intend to continue to strengthen our partnership in the future by creating further opportunities for our families to engage with us.

In Seal class we have been developing ourselves to become determined and resilient learners. We have been starting our day with positive affirmations to boost our self-esteem and give us a positive mindset for the day. "I can do hard things" has been a class favourite affirmation. This has been encouraging us to challenge ourselves within our learning, especially during English. We have enjoyed checking, correcting and evaluating our own writing so that we can be the best versions of ourselves. 

The Shark class have been studying the still life art of post-impressionist artist Paul Cezanne.

We started by developing our skills in composition, overlap and hierarchy by designing our own still life scenes and using coloured paper to identify the position of each part. Once we were happy with the positioning of our individual parts, and we were sure that our work demonstrated overlap and hierarchy we stuck our compositions down.

We have also started to use oil pastels to demonstrate shadow and tone using an arrangement of fruits, gourds and pumpkins.

Some Sharks have even started to draw our class pet - Shaun - in preparation for creating our final arrangements of objects in the style of Cezanne's painting "Still Life with Skull".

The Great Yarmouth Carnival Parade

The children from Winterton Primary worked collaboratively with each other and the community to take part in the Great Yarmouth Carnival Parade.  Thank you to Mr Smout for organising another great opportunity for our children, who made their costumes in school with the help from The Great Yarmouth Arts Festival Team.

Attendance

Winterton Primary school has launched a captivating attendance initiative that has pupils buzzing with excitement. With the goal of promoting regular attendance and punctuality, this initiative has become a staple of Friday assemblies, where pupils and teachers come together to celebrate good attendance.

Every Friday, the school assembly hall echoes with cheers and applause as the class with the best attendance is announced as the week's winner. But the prize isn't just a pat on the back; it's a fin-tastic addition to the class - a fish for their very own classroom tank!

The idea behind the initiative is simple but powerful - to recognise and reward pupils for their commitment to attending school regularly. The pupils have responded with remarkable resilience and determination, aiming to fill up their class tanks with pride.

But there's more to it than just the joy of winning a fish. The initiative underscores the importance of punctuality and regular attendance in a pupils educational journey. The motto "Be sure to sail through the gate by half past 8!" serves as a daily reminder to pupils and parents that every minute counts in our school day. 

This initiative has not only added a touch of excitement to our school but also instills a sense of responsibility in our pupils. They are learning valuable life skills such as time management, commitment, and the importance of showing up, which will serve them well in their futures.

As parents, your support in ensuring that your child arrives at school on time is greatly appreciated. Together, we can nurture a culture of punctuality and resilience, creating an environment where every pupil has the opportunity to thrive.

So, let's continue to sail through the gates by half past 8, and watch as our pupils not only fill their class tanks but also set sail on a successful educational journey!

The school year has begun with new energy at Yoxford and Peasenhall. All children are developing their individual characters and beginning to consider ways of improving their school environment both within the classroom and in the grounds.  We’ve begun the process of electing school council representatives and our oldest children took the brave step of delivering a speech to their peers for why they should be a school council representative during an assembly. It was wonderful to the hear the confidence in public speaking develop along with their ideas for what their priorities are.  We are looking forward to the election results and seeing what our school council develops over the year.

Our year 6 children have also had mini interviews with the leadership team after applying for roles of responsibility across the school and demonstrated wonderful passion for progress.  They all considered their own strengths and interests and how these could help their peers to develop.

Our youngest children in school have buddied up with older children and are engaging beautifully in their own classroom learning and also at play with the older children keeping an eye out for turn taking and sharing.