Category: Our Classes

This week in Design and Technology, we enhanced our cooking skills by making delicious savoury tarts with seasonal vegetables. We carefully diced and chopped the vegetables, showcasing our cooking skills.

In PE, we concluded our final lesson by enjoying a variety of ball games.

What a wonderful end to another amazing school year! Thank you for your ongoing support and generous gifts. Have a fantastic summer!

This year, learning has been great fun in Year Two and the displays in our classroom reflect all the wonderful activities we have joined in with. Here is a slide presentation to celebrate our amazing learning that shows just how ready we are for Year Three!

The children of St Adrian’s are offered a wide range of extra curricular activities and this week they have been able to celebrate their achievements in a many different avenues. Here are some photos that prove it!

All through the year, the Year 2 children have shown that they are avid readers. They have thoroughly enjoyed choosing books from our library, learned poems to recite to the class and devoured non fiction books linked to popular topics such as The Great Fire of London, lifecycles and favourite artists.

Over the holiday, the children will not be bringing home books from school, so this is an ideal chance to visit your local library and join their library challenge. The children will find a huge selection of books to choose from and earn stickers, a certificate and even a medal as a reward for their holiday reading. You will find out more here: https://www.hertfordshire.gov.uk/services/libraries-and-archives/news-and-campaigns/summer-reading-challenge.aspx

Proving that English and science is not just about writing in books, we did an investigation into the effect of gravity and also made spellings active.

This week was very busy with VE Day Clebrations and also our class assembly.

This week we have been very busy again on the footballing front with our boys playing in the year 5 six-a-side tournaments and other friendly games with Mount Pleasant.

We did well in the Tournament, keeping clean sheets in three of our 5 games but sadly, the fire power of some of the larger schools proved to be too much on the day. The match against Bricket wood was very close, finishing 1:1.

This week, we have been really exploring the gynastic apparatus in PE. Whilst in RE, we have been trying to generate our own ways of symbolising Community participation.

We indulged in a spot of mindfulness this week. We were aware of our surroundings and took time to stand and stare by taking a closer look at our local environment. After considerable input by Mrs Gallaher and Miss Parkes, we were able to conduct a humanities trip to look at recycling in the local area, sustainable living and , linking with history, how railways changed the prospects of St Albans in the 19th and 20th centuries, by walking along the Alban Way , which is a disused railway line and now part of the local cycle network. Also, we were able to spend some time at Sopwell Monastery (SIC).

It’s been a very busy week as usual and this week our sporting chops were on display with year 5 children competing against other teams in hockey and netball. Also the girls in year 5 and year 6 were involved in a football tournament with Girls from Mount Pleasant. Sadly neither of our girls teams could prevail against the superior skills of the Girls from Mount Pleasant. The Year 6 Stadrian’s Girls Vs Year 5 St Adrian’s Girls was a much tighter contest – Year 5 won by 2 goals to 1 with Alessia scoring a brace of goals for Year 5.

Win or lose- everyone had a great time.

This week was science week and the theme was ‘Change’. We looked at chemical changes making carbon dioxide from bicarbonate of soda and vinegar and confirming that Carbon dioxide will extinguish a flame.

The children also experimented with art using invisble ink ( decoded by tumeric)

This week we were able to welcome Miss Parkes back into the fold and the children are looking forward to working with her. I’m not surprised, the first thing she did was treat the class to a morning at Loreto where they watched Sleeping Beauty. On Wednesday, many children spent the evening singing in London.

We finished our art topic on Arcimboldo and fruit – here we are painting – by the way, it was Crazy Hair Day so some of the hairstyles are quite exotic.

The classroom was very quiet this week as the much of the class were away on Thursday representing the school in the indoor athletics – needless to say – we did very well and as usual punched above our weight in the face of two and three form entry schools.

Meanwhile, those holding the fort at school were able to have a rather chilled day and we combined maths, art and RE

We have hit the ground running and Miss Roberts and I have been putting the children through their paces using adverbials, subordination and expanded noun phrases to describe an encounter with a mysterious lost thing- next week, the children will be putting all they’ve learnt in a final extended piece.

In RE we have celebrated the feast of the Epiphany and St Adrian of Canterbury.

In Line with Catholic Social Teaching, the children have studied Solidarity and will be doing some work on Fratelli Tutti – We are then due to start our next topic – Mission.

On Friday we had the Year 5 Cake Sale and my goodness it was busy – the scene in the hall was reminiscent of the First Day of the Harrods January Sales in a time before Internet shopping and when shops were shut between Christmas and 2nd January. Thank you to all the parents who contributed to making this such a successful event.

Finally, another big thank you for the brilliant Christmas presents…

We have ad a really good final week. Thank you to all the kind family members who were able to attend the grandparents day and help the children with their Nativity Books. I hope you enjoyed the carols. Miss Parkes and I would like to say thank you for all the presents and cards – you have been very generous. We wish you all a very happy Christmas and New Year.

The pupils were a real credit at the School’s Mass at St Bartholemew’s – it great seeing so many of the younger pupils there.

How lovely it was to attend the carol service. The children sang so well and all the readings were clear. If you weren’t excited and feeling the Christmas spirit beforehand, you definitely would have been after this.

In RE we have started the topic ‘Hope ‘ which focuses on Advent and preparing for Christmas. We have responded to and analysed Hollman Hunt’s painting – ‘Light of the World’

In English, we have finished reading ‘Robot Girl’ and many were taken by surprise by the M Night Shyamalan denouement. They are currently using this sci -book to write their own Science Fiction stories about intrepid teachers (and latent private investigators) Aretha Cole and Dave McClooney who are on a mission to find out just what is the nature of The Maxtel Corporation’s ‘Project X’

Prayer Week

Pupils learnt about some of the prayers and responses we say at Mass as well as traditional prayers such as the Memorare.

Hinduism Week

The children enjoyed their workshop and also learnt about the Importance of Varanasi and the River Ganges and why it is a place of pilgrimage for many Hindus.

The Museum of Computing History

This is a brilliant museum, located in Cambridge which charts the history of computing from the earliest computers. Whilst there is something there for everyone, if you went to secondary school in the 70s and 80s, I have no doubt that a nostalgic year will spring to your eye. The children enjoyed working with Raspberry Pi s to programme traffic lights and also communicated using morse code.

Although over 40 years old, it was interesting to see that many children still loved playing on the original arcade games of Space Invaders etc.

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!

This week, we had a wonderful time preparing for our sports day on Thursday. We learned how to do a relay race and were also guided by the Year Five children as they taught us how to compete in the obstacle race as well as develop our javelin throwing skills, among other things! Sports Day was tremendous fun; we all showed great sportsmanship and supported one another to do our very best. The morning finished with a delicious lolly, provided by the PTA, so we say a great big THANK YOU to them.