Author: Mr Hayes

Over the past few weeks, we have been fascinated to learn about the fight for women’s suffrage in David Roberts’ excellent book, ‘Suffragette – The Battle for Equality’.

The children have hotseated key figures, watched the Epsom Derby, cheered on their favourite horse – even watched Eliza Doolittle encouraging Dover to come home – to help immerse them in the events of the 1913 Epsom Derby and write their own newspaper report of the fate of Emily Wilding Davison. This was great writing that the children enjoyed publishing as their own front page.

Wednesday marked the beginning of the Church season of Lent and we joined the parish community at St Bart’s for the Ash Wednesday service. This penitential season calls us to live closer to God through prayer, fasting and almsgiving. Our Lenten promises set out our private intentions for the season ahead.

This has been another busy and exciting week as we have looked for ways to care for our well being, including keeping ourselves safe online. We have learnt about the positive and negative affects of influencers, enjoyed a taster of street dance and found a moment of calm through yoga. As we have gone along, we have taken time to reflect on the golden moments in our day too.

As we have thought about ourselves, we have also thought of our place in the global family and learnt about the pushes and pulls of migration. Our posters bring together our personal views, together with what we have learnt about the benefits and disadvantages to source and host countries from migration and our persuasive writing skills.

We are enjoying learning algebra at the moment, but the children were insistent that there are more dynamic things to share as part of NSPCC Number Day.

Ironically, in support of the NSPCC, we have been squashing children by making human pyramids: Our maths challenge is to calculate how much mass each person in the pyramid is supporting? Can this amount be expressed as an equation?

After another busy week, Year 6 are looking forward to the long weekend: the school is closed on Monday for children for a staff INSET day. I look forward to seeing you all on Tuesday!

After a busy week, getting a feel for the year six sats and performing at the O2, we ended the week sharing ideas about our playground equipment and proposing new designs. At the end of the lesson, we all had the chance to share our ideas.

It was great to see all of the children back in school for the start of the new term.

On Tuesday, we celebrated the feast of St Adrian of Canterbury, the patron of our school. The children used their research skills to learn more about this inspirational character. Here is Beth’s account:

St.Adrian’s life
St.Adrian was born around 630-37.He was born in Africa and travelled to Italy as a young refugee.

St.Adrian’s work life
He became a trusted counsellor of the pope ,he also turned down the archbishop of canterbury,instead he offered the job to his friend Thedore who became the arch bishop.St.Adrian lived and worked at canterbury.He became a teacher at a school he found in Canterbury where he taught greek and latin for 40 years.

St.Adrians death
St.Adrian died in c.710 and was buried in a tomb and his tomb became famous for miracles, mainly people who are struggling with work and tests would go and visit.His body was found hundreds of years ago when work was being done on the monasteries. 

St.Adrian inspires 
The life of St.Adrian was an inspiration to many migrants who often arrive in britain every year.St.Adrian made changes to the religious structure and literature that still remain today. 

Why is St.Adrian the patron saint of our school?
St.Adrian inspires us to learn because he was a keen learner and educator.He taught us to love because he wanted to help people and he cared for them in every way and so we help others and love others like he did.St.Adrian taught us to love and learn but he teaches us to live and be a follower of jesus we do things without trying to sin. St.Adrian became a Saint because he loved others, was a follower of God and learnt new things and shared them with the people.   

Wishing you all a happy and prosperous new year!

Many thanks to you all for the kind words, cards and gifts. I hope that you and your families enjoy a peaceful and blessed Christmas.

To end the autumn term, I’d like to share with you all out DT work, where the children have been busy learning different sewing stitches and designing felt Christmas decorations – You can see the results are really impressive and have been much admired by everyone who has visited our classroom. I hope that they will grace your Christmas trees for many years to come.

We started the week sharing the Christmas message with our families and friends at our carol service. Thank you to all of the parents for your support of the children in helping them to learn the songs.

At the other end of the week, our prefects did a fantastic job helping with the school Christmas lunch. In the afternoon, we finally had the chance to let our hair down with our class party. Following games, the children threw some shapes on the dance floor before showing off their moves to the classes who were outside on the playground.

We’re going to need a bigger tree! As we get nearer to the end of our DT project, designing and making Christmas decorations, our poor tree is groaning under the weight of all the decorations that the children have made. The children and I have struck a deal and are going 50:50 in our new Etsy store!

Today marks the beginning of Advent, the Church’s season of expectant waiting and preparation for both the celebration of the Nativity of Christ at Christmas and the return of Christ at the Second Coming. We read in Matthew’s Gospel, “Keep awake therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming.” Our RE display is bordered with lanterns – a reminder that we should be watchful – each of which contains our Advent promise as we reflect on our lives and resolve to live closer to God.

We have also worked together this week to make a door display for our classroom to remind us of the Advent season. The Advent wreath is full of symbolism: the circular shape stands for God’s infinite love for us; the materials of the wreath lead us to reflect on the everlasting nature of God; the four candles shape our preparation and remind us of Christ’s Nativity.

As we enter December and this Advent season, we look forward to the celebration of Christ’s Nativity and sharing this message with you at the key stage carol service on Monday, 11th December.

Beth says, “On our class trip, we went to Hampton Court Palace, we learnt about the Tudors and many of the events that took place there.

We went into the Great Hall, where all the important people ate twice a day.There were many long tables including one where the king and queen would eat with their most important courtiers. On the ceiling, there were heads called eavesdroppers to remind the  servants that they were always being watched. On the walls, there was a huge tapestry showing a bible story. When Henry VIII beheaded  Anne Boleyn, he wanted every trace of her removed from the palace, but one of her signatures still remains in the carving on one of the walls.

We also visited the Chapel Royal. Henry VIII was a very Catholic person and went to church every day. We saw the place where Henry VIII would sit for Mass. This was separate from where his Queen would sit. Another thing we saw in the chapel was Henry VIII’s  crown, although  it was a  replica because the real one was destroyed by Oliver Cromwell. It is made of pearls, emeralds, rubies and sapphires.

In the kitchen there were many bags of food and a fireplace where the meat would be cooked and places where they made the meals. Nearly 1,200 meals every day because they had to feed 600 people twice a day. 

I learnt many things about the Tudors on our school trip to Hampton Court Palace. “