Author: Mrs Hayes

It has been a very hot week, but the children have still continued to show what great learners they are. They started the week with a Teddy Bear’s Picnic in the shade as temperatures were already reaching 30 degrees. The children revised their Design and Technology learning by making wraps and they enjoyed rereading the recipe instructions that they wrote during this topic to help them to make another delicious wrap.

Starting with a performance by the cheerleading club,, the children have celebrated their talents all week, finishing with a very successful talent show. Well done to all the Year 2 children who auditioned for this event. They really are a very talented bunch! Here are some photos that show what a wide range of opportunities the children have in the many school clubs available to the children here at St Adrian’s. There is a club to suit everyone’s interests!

The children have coped very well with the heat this week, but next week is set to be even hotter, so please do send your child in with at least one full drinks bottle. Why not send in a second bottle, filled with frozen water as this will be great for the children to enjoy later in the day.

What a busy week the children have had as part of our Commonwealth Games celebrations. The Sponsored Bounce was great fun for all of us and Sports Day was a wonderful event with the children displaying super sports skills as they joined in with all the games activities.

When we visited Ashridge, we found many exciting minibeasts in the woodland and grassland habitats there. As part of our learning in science, on our return to school, we were keen to create a microhabitat at school where we could explore minibeasts every day. Our bug hunts have shown that minibeasts like spaces that are damp, dark and in the shade, and we have had great fun this week finishing off Bugingham Palace, a bug home for all kinds of creatures. We will enjoy finding out what creatures will move into their new home over the next few weeks.

It was lovely to see so many families visiting school, for our first Open Evening in three years. The children have worked incredibly hard this year and it was a wonderful way to celebrate their amazing learning. Thank you for sharing the evening with us.

We have been so lucky in the month of June. We started the month with a Habitats visit to Ashridge, last week we learned about Judaism in an inspiring workshop and this week, we reinforced our learning in history with a day long series of activities focussing on the Great Fire of London. We all looked tremendous dressed up in our 17th century outfits and our teacher for the day, Master Jonathan taught us many things about how people lived 350 years ago. As the day progressed, we learned more about how the fire developed and what the people of London would have done to try and stop the fire. During the afternoon, we explored artefacts collected from the fire, and considered what they told us about the owner and their life.

We could not have run the day without the support of nine adults from Year 2 and Year 3 and we are very grateful for their invaluable help and enthusiasm. Thank you!

As part of our whole school learning about our sister faith of Judaism, we took part in a workshop that taught us all we needed to know about the Jewish day of rest called Shabbat. The workshop took us back to our autumn RE, where we had learned that God rested on the seventh day and the Jewish people do this as part of their Shabbat on Friday, going onto Saturday at sunset.

The children had great fun exploring the Jewish resources, such as the kippar (cap), Torah (religious text), yad (pointing stick) and tallits (prayer shawl) and showed great respect as they learned about this fascinating religion which has so many connections with the Catholic faith. Our morning ended with our own liturgy where we enjoyed grape juice and challah bread, followed by a whole school assembly where we taught the rest of the school a Shabbat song and found out lots of new things from other classes.

Shabbat candles, shabbat candles. Burning bright, burning bright. Challah on the table, challah on the table, it’s Friday night, Friday night.

Over the last few weeks, we have been watching the caterpillars in our class change, as they ate and ate, grew bigger and bigger, developed cocoons and then emerged from their chrysalises as beautiful butterflies. We even created a beautiful bee and butterfly garden in our outside area, which the insects will be able to visit when they need to collect nectar and drink. This week, we were overjoyed to let our butterflies go free – some fluttered away straight away, but some brave butterflies stayed close to us for ten minutes, so that we were able to get a really close look at them. Your challenge as you take a look through the photos is to Spot the butterfly!

This week, we planted up the herbs that came into school as part of the Coronation of Mary liturgy. They smell wonderful and we are looking forward to watching the bees and butterflies visit them once they start to flower through the summer. Take a look at our infant gardens as you pass through them to see what you can spot.