St Adrian's Catholic Primary School
To learn, to love, to live
As part of our learning about other major world religions, we have learnt about the concept of karma and belief in the cycle of reincarnation in Hinduism. On Wednesday, we enjoyed a workshop about some aspect of Hinduism led by Christine.
On Wednesday, as part of our learning in History, we visited Hampton Court Palace – one-time home of Henry VIII. It was great to see the places where the history we have learnt about happened. We used all of our history skills to learn from the building, artefacts, paintings and guides what life must have been like at the Tudor court. We had a great time, and no-one was left behind in the maze. A great big thank you to the parents who gave up their time to come with us.
Our learning in RE, this week, has focused on other world religions. We have learnt about the Hindu concept of karma and dharma and how valuing creation is lived through the lives of Hindus.
On Friday, there was an outbreak of spots across the school as children dressed up in support of Children in Need. It was great to see so much creativity in your spotty gear! Thanks also to our parents for their generosity.
It was lovely to see the whole class working together to perform in our Harvest celebration, with our Caritas Ambassadors leading our prayer and reflection. Thanks to all for your hard work and to the parents for the donations to the food bank at Feed.
Thanks also to everyone who supported our cake sale. You raised a staggering £370, some of which we have already spent: on pencil cases for everyone to avoid the complaint of lost stationary, and on a fan in anticipation of warmer days in year six: it is great to enjoy a sunny aspect over the playground, but the summer months often takes the temperature in our room to the mid-thirties. We hope that our fan will make these days more bearable. We still have quite a bit of money left and so are busy planning how to spend it.
I hope that you all have an enjoyable and safe half-term holiday. I look forward to seeing you all when we come back in November.
This week, we have enjoyed printing from the plates we made last week. Our artwork has been inspired by natural themes we have seen in the work of Peter Clayton. We have experimented with printing onto different colour papers and our own painted backgrounds.
Our Caritas Ambassadors are growing into their roles with the children, this week, leading our classes in praying the Rosary.
We look forward to next week, when our ambassadors will be helping us to celebrate in our Harvest assembly and our whole class will work together to perform our harvest song. We would be grateful for donations to our collection of items for the Feed food bank in St Albans which can be brought in at anytime over the next week.
It was great to welcome so many of our families into school this morning to share our class assembly.
We travelled back in time to learn about the life of Catherine McAuley. We also learnt about the beginnings of the Sisters of Mercy, who founded our school. The children shared the Mercy values of Dignity, Excellence, Justice, Service and Stewardship and reflected how we continue to live these everyday through our golden rules. The children did a fantastic job: working together to act out the stories and share their message. They should be proud of what they have achieved together.
To mark National Poetry Day yesterday, we wrote cinquain and haiku on the theme of God’s unconditional love. The children neatly captured profound ideas in just a few syllables.
It’s the end of our first full week and the children are settling in to their new classroom and their new role as Year Six.
It was good to meet with many parents at the ‘Meet the teacher’ morning. If you weren’t able to make it, I am always pleased to meet with parents after school (excepting Tuesdays). You can find a copy of my presentation on the Google Classroom – but I am a visual person, so my prompts may not make complete sense without my narration!
The children have worked together, this week, to learn about our class saint, St Paul. One of the outcomes of this has been a new sign for our classroom door.
Although we have only been back at school for ten days, the children are rising to the challenge of their new topics across the curriculum.
What a week it has been for Year Six!
On Wednesday, our hard work together paid off when we shared our performance of Craig Hawes’ ‘Porridge’ with our friends in school and with our families . The children did themselves proud and it was a joy to watch their performances, their singing and their dancing. Here are some photos of the cast.
After visiting our new secondary schools on Thursday, we were back on Friday to get our end of year reports and SAT results. We are very proud of all of the children – their hard work and progress has been amazing!
It is hard to believe that we are heading in to the final week of the summer term and the final week of primary school too. There is still lots to look forward too and we hope that our parents will join us for the leavers’ mass on Wednesday and our graduation assembly next Friday.
Have a fantastic week-end!
After shaking off the cobwebs from the half term break we had to roll our sleeves up and get back down to business. Lots of the children had laboured over their homework on the Sacrament of Marriage and this stood them in good stead when called upon to write an essay on the subject incorporating some conceptual and abstract ideas and connections.
Later on, we explored some of the ideas raised in Monday’s Preferential Option for the Poor, watching a fabulous video on wealth distribution and competing in races which are rigged from the start to enable certain people to win and pull away whilst others to have no chance of catching up.
25th October
Is the Year 5 Harvest Earworm still in your head – I know I find myself humming it constantly.
A great rendition given with gusto and some Flemish Signing – which I think is a first for the school.
Meanwhile in maths we have been getting our hands on with the manipulatives and have strengthened our understanding of multiples, factors and cube numbers.
Along with a renewed focus on Catholic Social Teaching, the children are preparing and leading their own class acts of worship…
It was nice to see so many of you at Parents Consultation and I was able to discuss with you how hard the children have been working. In RE, we are nearing the end of our work on the Life of St Maximilian Kolbe and how he has inspired us. Similarly, we are finishing our work on Viking art. Here is the working wall showing some of the children’s work.
4th October 2024
So much has happened this week. Have produced some wonderful work on the pioneering ladies who feature in the film ‘Hidden Figures’ . Much of the work will go on display for our celebration of Black History Month. This will alsoset us up nicely for next week when we take the book ‘Hidden Figures’ as our class reader ( originally, I had planned for ‘Coming to England’ ). In RE we started to learn about St Maximilain Kolbe and will be continuing to focus on him next week.
27th September 2024
The week started with the Mercy Mass. We were able to say fond farewells to Jackie Harrison and Ed Behan who have been stalwarts in their devotion to the school as governors. Later, we were able to let off a bit of steam in PE with some Volleyball practice.
While some of the girls in the class were putting on a fantstic display at the Tag Rugby, the rest of the class were honing their printing skills in art.
AS part of the RE work on the Ourselves Topic, we have learnt about the Sernon on the mount , producing our own mini plays to illustrate the learning. The week was finished with a pupil-led act of worship.
13th September 2024
There has been a whirlwind start to the term and we have hit the ground running. The children are already established in their reading groups and some of them have started the YARC reading focus ( my intention is that all children will have their turn at this over the year). We have learned about Catherine McAuley in RE and also found out about our new class saint (St Josephine Bakhita). In maths, we have completed the first topic (place value) and there is some additional revision support on the Google Classroom to prepare for the forthcoming assessment. In English, we have written fables inspired by The Midnight Panther and the works of Aesop. We are now learning about the daring exploits of Philippe Petit (The Man Who Walked Between the Towers).
In art, our studies have taken us to the rather niche ‘Viking Art’ – here are some photos of us designing Viking Jewellery in the Osberg and Jelling style.
Summer Reading Challenge
In our assembly this morning, our visitors told us all about the Hertfordshire Libraries’ Summer Reading Challenge.
Over the school holidays, the children will not be bringing books home from school, so this is an ideal chance to visit your local library and join the library challenge.
You can register for the challenge in your local library and all you have to do is read six books across the holidays. The children will find a huge selection of books to choose from and earn stickers, a certificate, a medal and a special pencil as a reward for their holiday reading. You will find out more here.
Joining the library is free and children are able to borrow up to 30 items! This is a great way to try out different authors and different types of books.
We hope that as many of you as possible join in and we look forward to hearing all about your reading adventures when you return to school in September!
The term is racing by now and we are busy rehearsing for end of school production – the children have worked hard to learn lines, songs and dances and now we have taken our practices to the stage to try our hand at acting!
Despite all of this, we have still found time to complete the Bikeability course and bake biscuits in maths and set up our class to show off lots of our learning from the year so far. It was great to be able to welcome so many families to our class on Wednesday evening. If you weren’t able to make it, here are a couple of photographs of our class.
In our French lessons, we have been expanding our vocabulary to talk and write about things ‘dans ma ville’. The children made triaramas to show what they have learnt with Mme Dembek.
We hope that many of you were able to join us for the Father’s Day assembly on Friday and that the children continue to show their appreciation for all who care for them, especially their dads, this Sunday.
Next week, we are looking forward to both the district sports and our Bikeability lessons. We will also be busy baking in maths and continuing to rehearse for our end of school production. In learning about other faiths in RE, we will also be learning about Sikhism. There’s never a dull moment…
Have a lovely weekend.