The children have come back to school with a positive attitude for making the most of their final term at St Adrian’s. As well as working hard on their SATS preparations the children have had some lighter moments.
St George’s Day
In honour of the Patron Saint of England, St George, the children came to school in their finest red and white clothes.
Earth Day 2022
The class had a great discussion about the impact of our carbon footprint. We analysed all of the activities which we did this morning from when we woke up until we arrived at school: from the electric alarm, electric toast, the cereal packaging, the journey of the milk and production of the cereals and bread for out breakfasts and then our journeys to school. We soon realised that a lot of what we do and eat can have a negative impact on our carbon footprint.
To rectify this, we then thought about positive steps we could take to reduce our impact and be more kind to our beautiful planet. So, we will aim to walk more, use manual toothbrushes, to buy locally sourced food and maybe even have our own chickens for our eggs!
We marked the end of the first week back with a double celebration. Firstly, the children were resplendent in red and white to mark St George’s Day on 23rd April. We learnt about this early Christian martyr and tried to separate some of the facts from the fiction.
Secondly, we marked Earth Day 2022 by learning about the importance of protecting our planet. If each of us invests in small changes, we can make a difference to preserving our planet for future generations. We wrote poems as we reflected on the importance of trees.
We are looking forward to hosting our cake sale next Friday to raise money for our classroom. The children have grand plans for making our book corner more comfortable! They continue to love sharing the books that you have donated to our class library and I thank you for your continued generosity.
Even though it has only been a short week, we have packed a lot in! We returned from the Easter holidays starting our new RE topic, Holidays and Holydays. Check out the updated blog post here.
We also started swimming this week. We were all very excited and much enjoyed the coach trip too.
On Friday, we celebrated both Earth Day and St George’s Day. To mark Earth Day, we though about ways we could care for the environment. We also created posters to encourage others to look after our planet better. We really enjoyed listening to the story, ‘Dinosaurs and All That Rubbish’ too. The story made us think about the small changes we can make to help our planet.
To commemorate St George’s Day, we listened to the story of St George and decorated England flags. We also dressed up in red and white too! We then acted out the story using stick puppets with a partner, it was so much fun!
The RE topic for the first four weeks of the summer term in year 3 is Pentecost. We will learn about the Ascension, how Jesus promised his disciples the Holy Spirit and how the Holy Spirit was spread amongst His followers. We shall explore how the Holy Spirit inspires Christians, spreading energy; and how the Gifts of the Holy Spirit help Christians lead good lives and serve others. A new way of living was established after Pentecost. Reflecting deeply and carefully about this topic will help children understand how their daily lives are influenced by the Holy Sprit and scripture.
These are the key words and themes of the topic: fire, warmth, wind, energy, power, gifts, Holy Spirit, Rosary, Glorious Mysteries, Pentecost
In Luke, 4: 18-19, we are reminded of how we should use the Gifts of the Holy Spirit to serve others and our community:
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring Good News to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.”
The Catechism of the Catholic Church emphasises our share in this Pentecostal gift:
“Those, who with God’s help, have welcomed Christ’s call and freely responded to it, are urged on by love of Christ to proclaim the Good News everywhere in the world. This treasure, received from the apostles, has been faithfully guarded by their successors. All Christ’s faithful are called to hand it on from generation to generation, by professing the faith, by living it in fraternal sharing, and by celebrating it in liturgy and prayer.”
(CCC Prologue )
Prayer and Reflection
Father, pour out your Spirit
upon your people,
and grant us
a new vision of your glory,
a new faithfulness to your Word
and a new consecration to your service,
that your love may grow among us,
and your kingdom come:
through Christ our Lord.
Amen.
(Prayer of preparation for Vatican II)
Home Learning
Think about the Gifts of the Holy Spirit:
Wisdom – that is the gift to be sensible and not to jump to conclusions but be thoughtful.
Understanding – enables people to be compassionate and to take time to find out and be able to appreciate what is happening.
Counsel – means using wisdom and understanding to come to a good decision about something.
Fortitude – there are times when everyone needs to be brave in standing up for what they believe to be right and holy.
Knowledge – without knowledge you cannot make right judgements or have an understanding. It takes practice to have true knowledge.
Piety – this is about reverence and respect for God, for one another and for oneself.
Fear of the Lord – this gift enables people to recognise the awe and wonder of God and be amazed by the love and goodness of God.
R E Homework
Create a montage or picture to depict one, some or each of the gifts of the Holy Spirit. Show, through words or pictures or both, how the gift is used by believers today to serve others. You may want to quote from the scripture we will be reading at school to show how people are inspired by the Holy Spirit to use and share these Gifts.
Matthew 28: 1-10, John 16: 5-7, 1 Corinthians 12: 4-8, 11, Acts 1: 6-11, Acts 2 1_18, 43
You could draw your ideas, or create a collage, or use another medium to represent your ideas. You could include symbols of the Pentecost on your piece of work – flame, wind, a dove, the colour red.
We look forward to seeing your individual pieces of learning, which are due in by Wednesday 11th May.
In the first theme of our RE learning for the Summer term, Pentecost – New life, we learn how each of us, by the way we live our lives, the way we treat others, and by our words and actions, show if we have an attitude of service. Often, we are especially influenced by those whose actions speak powerfully of a life of service.
Christians believe that the Spirit of God is active in each person and, in a special way, in the community of believers, which is the Church. It is the work of the Spirit to enable people to hear God’s message and to live Jesus’ way of service.
We are reminded of this Gospel call by Luke,
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring Good News to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.”
Luke 4: 18-19
Our share in this Pentecostal gift is further emphasised by the Catechism of the Catholic Church:
“Those, who with God’s help, have welcomed Christ’s call and freely responded to it, are urged on by love of Christ to proclaim the Good News everywhere in the world. This treasure, received from the apostles, has been faithfully guarded by their successors. All Christ’s faithful are called to hand it on from generation to generation, by professing the faith, by living it in fraternal sharing, and by celebrating it in liturgy and prayer.”
(CCC Prologue 3)
Home learning
Make a good news board. Collect some good news from everyone in your family and record it in some way, why it was good news and how it made them feel. Take time and care with your work. Make your good news board something that you can be proud of.
Prayer and Reflection
Father, pour out your Spirit upon your people, and grant us a new vision of your glory, a new faithfulness to your Word and a new consecration to your service, that your love may grow among us, and your kingdom come: through Christ our Lord.
What a surprise it was to have snow after a few days of warm sunshine!
We had great fun in the snow as it grew heavier and heavier.
To make our Easter cards, we mixed powder paint together to create our own colours.
We used the paint we mixed to make finger prints.
Do you think there is enough paint for printing?
Look carefully and you will see the cross on our Easter cards.
Take a look in your child’s bookbag for their beautiful Easter card.
The children should be very proud of the amazing Easter gardens that they brought in as part of their Easter Challenge. What a creative bunch you are! Click on the slide show to see all of our gardens.
During March, we have been busy using colours as a way to mark different events and also raise money for charity, as part of our journey with Jesus through Lent. Here we are in all our colourful glory.
Yellow daffodils for St David’s Day
Having fun raising money for Comic Relief.
Celebrating St Patrick’s Day
Yellow and Blue for Reach out for Refugees DAy
Bright colours to celebrate Easter
Break the rules fay!
Well done for all the hard work, fun and fundraising that the children have been involved with this term.. They have certainly earned a relaxing Easter holiday. Have a very happy and holy Easter together.
A gentle plug. Thank you very much for all the amazing books that have been bought for our class library. If you would like to order a book for the children’s library, our list can be found below. Thank you very, very much for your wonderful generosity! Year Two class library wishlist
Our last day of term has been full of colour and fun as the children have enjoyed ‘Break the Rules’ day and raised money to support our fantastic PTA. The morning was punctuated by impromptu renditions of various songs the children know, including our Mother’s Day spectacular and Spring Chicken – I need to make sure I watch Encanto over the holidays after the children’s very impressive version of We don’t talk about Bruno!
It was lovely to see our friend in the choir singing as part of our Easter celebration and I was very impressed by the children who joined with the Chaplaincy team to lead us in our Holy Week liturgy.
So many of you contributed posters to the Easter art competition – well done to Rukksika and Tadhg – and your ‘Growth’ posters very excellent – once again, the children’s creativity and effort are something of which they should be proud. Take a look at the posters in our Gallery.
Thanks to all the children for their enthusiasm and learning across this term. I hope that you all enjoy a happy, healthy, and blessed Easter and I look forward to seeing you for the start of the Summer Term on Wednesday, 20th April 2022.
Easter has been celebrated in many different ways this week. Year 3 have joined in the whole-school events, including the Stations of the Cross and celebration on Wednesday. Well done to Sophia and Pauric who were the Easter Art winners in year 3. The children loved seeing the chicks, which as well as being very cute are symbols of the New Life of Easter, represented by Jesus. We hope you like the Easter cards the children have brought home. In RE, throughout the week, the children have been reading the scripture and exploring the feelings of the different characters’ from their various points of view. Here are the children role-playing scenes from the Garden of Gethsemane. Can you see who is playing Jesus saying, “I left you for one hour and you could not stay awake…” and who are the soldiers coming to arrest Jesus; and who is playing Judas identifying Jesus to the soldiers? The children thoroughly enjoy role-play and are very good at showing emotions in a “tableau”. Today the children considered the ultimate sacrifice Jesus made, for love; and what they can do, for love. Tomorrow they will play the parts of journalists interviewing witnesses of the events all those years ago.
We have continued to explore ways to add and subtract money. The children have been very adept at applying calculating methods – such as using number bonds to 10/100, partitioning and compensating – to money. If you have any opportunity to use money over the holidays, that would be really useful, as would using analogue clocks to tell the time.
The children can take the beautiful new books home now. I’ll send home a spring-themed bookmark for everyone tomorrow, so they have something to mark the page they are on without needing to fold the page/put something thick inside the book etc.It’s also useful to remember that carrying the water bottles separately, out of bookbags, is a good insurance policy to not spilling water over the bag’s contents, including the lovely new books.
From what the children say, there are lots of exciting things planned this holiday, from foreign holidays, to seeing family to having a fun time at home and the local parks. Whatever you do, I wish you a very happy holiday and holy Easter.
On Saturday, 2nd July, six of our pupils went to represent the school in the Annual Six-a-side Girls Football Competition. This is a competition aimed at Year 6 pupils but is open to all age groups and school sizes. Some large schools in the competition have around 90 girls to choose from to make their team. We were very much minnows in a pond full of sharks.
Our first match was against Alban City School. The girls fought hard with Ruby stepping up to take the goalkeeper role. She may be in Year 4, but Aoilbhe was not going to be pushed around whilst older sister Keeva ( our captain) marshalled the defence. Maddison was up and down the pitch shutting down opponents or supporting the attack. I thought we had signed Fred Astaire for a moment when I looked at wonderful, beguiling footwork from Jess. This was a really tight match but not as tight as the intricate angle with which Lara, teased home the winner ( one nil to St Adrian’s).
Our next match was against Samuel Ryder Academy. This is a much larger School and it showed. The girls fought valiantly, none more so than Lara, whose goalkeeping kept us in the game against the Ryder onslaught. We were two nil down but Ruby gave us a glimmer of hope when her rocket from the edge of the box could not , in spite of last ditched effort by the a Ryder defender, be kept from bulging the net. Alas 2 – 1 is how the score finished.
Our final game was against another large school and tournament favourites, Fleetville. Not only is this school bigger, but also, fielding year 6 girls, they were physically bigger as well and put us to the sword.
Our girls did us proud and , against the odds, managed to come third in our group. I couldn’t ask any more of them.
.Check out the new kit
District Sports
This Tuesday and Thursday was the district sports. Pupils fromYears, 3,4,5 and 6 took part in a mixture of track and field events.
Year 5 Netball
This week, our Year 5 netball team played against a Year 6 team from Bowman’s Green and came 2nd.
Year 5 and Year 6 Football Finals
Football Reports
Aidan and Patrick reporting – The Road to Colney Heath
Year 5 Six-a- Side Tournament (The Preliminaries)
Match report 1
St Adrians FC Vs Maple FC
St Adrian’s 2 – Maple 0
Kick Off
Aidan took the kick off passing out to Leo who later passed to Patrick ,whilst Aidan made a run through the middle but when the pass came, Aidan miss touched it. Moments later, Luca had a nice shot to make it 1-0. Maple took the kick off. Moments later Leo took the ball off the player and made a quick pass to Aidan who accidentally kicked the ground.
Half time
Substitutions: Melville – Dara and Michael – Luca
Straight away, Maple took a quick break away. But it was defended by Patrick’s great defending. Soon Patrick made a great ball to Aidan who shot but it was saved but not caught, so Leo could get the rebound to make it 2-0. Full time came just after Leonardo’s one in a million save to keep it 2–0.
Pundits preview
Hello Aidan, how do you feel about the game?
I think attacking is not that great but defending is brilliant because everyone is making an effort to keep a clean sheet. So overall a great performance by both sides.
Michael, do you think we can play better football?
Yes,maybe a bit more shots on target and also midfield need to drop a bit more.
Thank you Patrick reporting.
Match report 2
St Adrians Vs Colney Heath
7-0
Kick off
Michael passed it to Leo whilst Luca was running down the line to make an option for Leo. Then he made the pass to Luca who played it to Michael who had a clear open shot on goal to make it 1-0.
Colney Heath took the kick off ,Michael won it minutes later out-skilling the defenders to make it 2-0 .to St Adrian’s .
Once again Colney Heath took the kick off and ran clear but Patrick used his strength to knock him off the ball. Later Patrick played a great ball to Luca who had a smashing shot that could have broken the back of the net to make it 3-0.
Then 4-0. Then Melville scored a great bottom corner goal for 5-0
Half time
Substitutions
Aidan-Leo
Melville-Patrick
Straight away Aidan scored a goal through the keepers legs for 6-0
Then he hit the post to get the rebound to make it a whopping 7-0
Ouch that must of hurt for Colney Heath.
Pundits preview
What do you think about the game?
We’re through, come on! Yay.
By Aidan,Patrick and Michael
The road to Colney Heath
The Final Tournament Year 5 Six-a-side Tournament (The Finals)
We all thought we were going to win the 6 A Side Tournament because of our performance on wednesday but we didn’t realize that these teams have been training for years.
The first game unfortunately we lost 4-0 to Garden Fields.
But we didn’t give up. Then in the next game, Luca scored , but then they come back 1,1.
Then Michael scored the winner to win the game to make it 2-1.
In the 3rd game we drew 1,1 with a late equalizer and we all thought we deserved it. For us, we were quite unfortunate. We lost 2,0 to Killigrew and I think we stopped playing well as soon as we lost 4,0 to Garden fields. But this was the first tournament we have played and we think most of the schools have played a lot of tournaments before. We came 7th out of 10 teams but, if we won the first match, we could have come first place or at least 4th place. But our passing was a little bit bad at the first match and we were all doing our own thing and we did not have a plan. But we got better throughout the matches. We have very good players on our team but we didn’t work as a team but we will be better next time .
By Dara, Luca and Melville
The St Albans City Cup Semi Final and Final (Year 6)
The game had kicked off with Bowmans Green starting with intensity and giving us an indication of their style of football.It was going to be a tough match.
It was a balanced game,both sides having their share of chances and within the first five minutes Bowmans Green scored the opener.An exquisite threaded pass from the central midfielder to play the left winger in through on goal. 1 v 1 who would come out on top? Dylan,the great goalkeeper or number nine the wonderful winger?It was a brilliant finish and a well crafted goal from Bowmans Green. The crowd cheered loudly,leaping and jumping in exultation.
Not long after, Bowmans Green scored a second it was going to be tough to come back from this.The colossal central defender played a remarkable pass which went beyond everyone and perfectly dropped to number nine who took the ball astoundingly round our main goalkeeper James and shot as one of our solid defenders,Joe, desperately tried to stop the goalbound shot with a last ditch slide but was unable to keep it from out of the net.2- 0.
After half time Luke did some magical footwork, got round all the defenders and calmly slotted the ball past the Bowmans Green goalkeeper.It was a sensational goal! Some minutes had passed and some beautiful football from Paolo and Luke created a goal scoring opportunity which Paolo hammered in the net.2-2! We could win this
Extra time was a game of tennis back and forth but still no winner. Who would win? Penalties came along and St adrians took the first penalty. Paolo up first, to put St adrians in the lead, and he scored a world class penalty 1-0.Bowmans Green scored a decent penalty, unsavable for James.Next was our star sticker Luke who thumped his penalty into the back of the net. Bowmans Green missed their second penalty -unfortunate for them. Up next was Dylan to put us in the lead. A good penalty but a better save from the keeper.How did he keep that out?
2-2.Bowmans Green’s next pen was fantastically saved by James so it was still 2-2- this game was up for grabs.Theo took next and placed his penalty into the top right corner. It was 3-2 St Adrians.We could win.Bowmans Green scored their next penalty which made the score 3-3.Lewis up next to send St Adrians to the final of the district cup smashed his penalty into the side netting of the bottom left corner. St adrians to the final of the district cup!
It was an astonishing, neck – in – neck football match but St Adrains came out on top! Next is St Columbas in the final.Can we win that too?
Report by Theo.
The St Albans City Cup Final St Adrian’s V St Columba’s
We kicked off knowing what our job was. After a slow start from both teams, St Columba’s showed us what they’re made of and scored the opener 1-0 .
Then St. Columbus scored another goal ( 2 – 0 ). We really had to come back from this one now but it won’t be easy but we thought we could do it when Sonny ( our centre-back) scored a free kick from in line with the centre circle to make it 2-1. St. Columba’s scored another one when a former St Adrian’s student put the ball in the net with the very last kick of the game.
Report by Joe
Final Score St Columba’s 3 – St SAdrian’s 1
Our Year 6 Heroes showing their medals.
Kate Grey Visits St Adrian’s
At Assembly on Monday, as part of our role as Sports Ambassadors, we gave a talk to the school about the Daily Mile and upcoming visit from Paralympian , Kate Grey, on Thursday. When the big day arrived, the whole school was very excited to do the Daily Mile and hear the inspirational talk from Kate.
Kate was very kind and told us all about her life growing up after losing her arm to a sausage machine on her parents’ farm. She was only two years old at the time.
Instead of feeling sorry for herself, she said she saw it as a new challenge and did all sorts of sports and activities. In fact, the only thing she couldn’t do, was the monkey bars. When she went swimming for the first time at the age of 4, she found it difficult but was determined to get better while along the way, learning some important life skills and making new friends. She became so good that she represented GB at the 2008 Beijing Paralympics and won a Silver & Bronze medal in the World Championships in swimming. At the end of her talk, we then asked her all sorts of questions about her life journey.
She said how physical exercise had really helped her and that being active every day brings all sorts of benefits. She then led a warm up in the hall which was tiring but fun. Then the whole school went outside to run the Daily Mile (8 laps of our field) .
This week, schools all over Hertfordshire have been encouraged to do the Daily Mile. Quite a few of us realised that it is not as easy as we thought to run a mile but we are determined to get better with practice.
Kate helped us realise next time we have a challenge or think we can’t do something, we should remember what she said and never give up.
On behalf of St Adrian’s, we want to say thank you for coming to our school Kate Grey.
The Sports Ambassadors
Game on!
This week St Adrian’s were represented brilliantly by the girls’ football team at Skyswood. Both teams played with skill and great sportsmanship, with the final score 3-1 to Skyswood. Well done to the whole team.
Tuesday saw St Adrian’s attending the Oaklands Quicksticks Hockey event, for the first time. Two teams represented the school: the “Compete” team played 9 games and the “Aspire” team 8 games so it was a full day. Every child who attended showed energy, commitment, excellent sportsmanship and good humour. Not only did they all enjoy the hockey itself, it was also great fun to meet friends from other schools, compete against them and also compete against the schools’ neighbours, namely Mandeville and Prae Wood. Well done, all the year five pupils who attended. We are all very proud of the way you tried something new and represented your school so well.
What a fabulous end to a wonderful term. We have really enjoyed learning about the Easter story this week. On Tuesday, we took part in the station of the cross assembly. It helped us remember the story of Easter.
On Wednesday, we had our Easter parade. Well done to all the children that entered. The winners were Aila and Alby, congratulations!
On Thursday, we even got to meet some chicks! As part of a programme called Living Eggs, we were able to handle newborn chicks. We linked this back to Easter Sunday and the coming of new life, like when Jesus rose again.
Thank you for the generous gifts for ,my birthday, I am very lucky to have such a lovely class (and parents!).
Have an ‘egg-cellent’ Easter and a relaxing break,
