St Adrian's Catholic Primary School
To learn, to love, to live
The children have made a very happy start to Year 2 and we are all having a wonderful time as we get to know each other and start our new topics.
It was lovely to see so many Year 2 parents on Monday 9th September. Notes from the meeting can be found below:
Date for your diary: KS1 Christmas play on 12th December at 7pm
The Summer Reading Challenge 2019 theme is Space Chase, an out-of-this-world adventure inspired by the 50th anniversary of the first moon landing.
Children taking part in the Challenge will join our super space family, The Rockets, for a thrilling mission to track down books nabbed by mischievous aliens!
Space Chase will feature bespoke artwork from top children’s illustrator, Adam Stower, and will celebrate adventure, exploration, reading and fun!
Illustrations © Adam Stower 2019 for The Reading Agency
The Summer Reading Challenge is aimed at children aged four to eleven and it is run in almost all libraries in the UK.
Visit your local library during the summer holidays to sign up – the sooner you go, the longer your child will have to read six books!
Staff will register your child for the Challenge and give them some fun materials to get them started.
Many libraries will also offer pre-school activities suitable for under-fours, including specially designed Summer Reading Challenge materials. Visit your local branch to find out more.
The Summer Reading Challenge is the UK’s biggest free reading for pleasure event for children. It is run by the national charity The Reading Agency in partnership with the UK public library network.
The aim of the Challenge is to encourage children to read any six books of their choice from their library during the summer holidays.
Children receive special rewards each time they finish a book and there’s a certificate for everyone who completes the Challenge.
When you return to school on Tuesday you may notice a new addition by the gate in the playground … it is our new recycling bin!
As you can see, it clearly states which materials are accepted and we would love for you to get involved by donating some clothes, towels, sheets, blankets, curtains or even shoes. The bank holiday weekend is the perfect time for a spring clean and all donations are greatly appreciated!
Thank you in advance,
Miss Costello and the Eco Council
Our RE topic is based around the theme of Spread the Word.
Key words for the topic are: risen resurrection Holy Spirit Ascension witnesses blessing Pentecost promise Good News
As part of this topic, we will consider the Big Question ‘Why should we spread Good News’?
The children will read from the bible to find out how the women at the tomb were asked to tell the disciples that Jesus has come alive again. We will hear Jesus’s message that he would give them a special helper called the Holy Spirit and then find out about the effect of the arrival of the Holy Spirit on the disciples at Pentecost as they then went out to spread Jesus’s word on the streets of Jerusalem.
RE home learning
As part of their home learning, the children will think about how they can pass on the Good News that Jesus is alive in each and every one of us. Read John 14: 18-19 and Acts 2: 1-4 together and talk about how the Holy Spirit helps and guides us. Your child will bring home a flower with the phrase ‘Jesus is alive in me’ at the centre, with a space where they can draw a beautiful self-portrait.
Talk to your child about the different things that they do which show that the Holy Spirit is working through them. These things can include
Through a combination of images and writing, ask your child to fill in each petal with a different way in which they show that Jesus is alive in them. They need to write their sentences in their own words (not a direct copy of the bullet points above!) and ensure that their handwriting is neat and correctly punctuated as the flowers will all contribute to a classroom display.
We are looking forward to seeing the finished flowers and you will be able to see them on display during our next Sharing Friday.
The children had a great time on Red Nose Day. They donated money to come into school dressed in red and shared a red snack together while wearing their red noses.
As part of their maths learning, the children found as many different ways as they could to pay for a £1.25 red nose. We also looked at the Comic Relief website and thought about the good that would be done as a result of their donations.
The children ended the morning by writing messages of thanks to our classroom cleaner Mandie, who has been working at St. Adrian’s for over ten years. They were very pleased to be able to give Mandie their messages, best wishes and a gift later in the day. Thank you once again Mandie.
We’ve been celebrating World Book Day this week with special assemblies where teachers have taken it in turns to share favourite stories or poems with the children in their key stage.
We hope that the stories we share will inspire the children to read on and read the books for themselves or find other stories by those authors.
We will list the books we have share on this page.
Monday
Tuesday
Wednesday
The children have enjoyed a wonderful liturgy with Father Francis on the theme of Thanksgiving. As part of the worship, the children all had a role to play and each group planned a different part of the service, including making up their own verses to familiar hymns, writing the prayers and reading from our new class bible.
Father Francis spoke warmly with the children and during his homily, he talked in detail about the importance of the Eucharist as a way of giving thanks in the mass. At the end of the liturgy, the children were congratulated on their singing, which is such an integral part of their everyday prayer life in Year 2. The service ended with Father Francis blessing our food (brioche from France!) and four new bibles which were then delivered to year groups across the school.
Well done to everyone for the very thoughtfully decorated crosses that have come in as part of our class RE home learning. The crosses are all so unique, they look wonderful on the display and reflect the children’s understanding of The Last Supper and the celebration of mass. If your child has not brought in their cross yet, please bring it in by Friday.
I have been asked if there are any books that are recommended for Year 2 children to read. Ideas can be found here: https://www.booksfortopics.com/year-2 and it is also a wonderful idea to visit your local library which is filled with hundreds of age appropriate books for free!
Welcome to our first ‘Fluency Teaser ‘ of the year. Fluency is one of the key aims of the primary mathematics curriculum. Try the activity at the link below at home to give you lots of opportunities to recall addition and subtraction facts as well as some conjecturing and convincing too!
What will your strategy for winning be?
Hand in any examples of the work you complete to Mr Sallis or your class teacher so that we can choose some to share on our fluency blog!
During the last week of the Christmas term, the children had a lovely time, filled with anticipation and excitement. The children started their week with a panto, then enjoyed a visit from Father Christmas (in response to the letters that they sent him at the beginning of December!), ate a delicious Christmas lunch together, attended a mass presided over by Father Francis and shared an advent celebration during which kriskringle gifts were exchanged. The children have certainly responded to Father Francis’s message to share the gift of Jesus by living with hope, joy and love in their relationships with others.
Please note that if you click on any photo, you will be able to watch a slide show of all the photos.
Thank you very much for your generous Christmas gifts. Teaching your children is a privilege, which we enjoy every day. May you have a holy Christmas and a new year that is filled with peace, happiness and good health.
Emma Hayes, Kim Heffernan, Robin King and Sally McCarthy
Year Two are very sad that their amazing display on Saint Teresa of Calcutta has been taken down. We are hoping to put their beautiful drawings up in the classroom. Meanwhile, the children have been inspired by the story of the Annunciation and they are now designing their own angels as part of an Art and Design Technology project. During your visit to the school to watch the children’s play on Thursday 13th December, please do take a look at our finished display of angels which will accompany the Angelus prayer in the dining room. We look forward to seeing you all then.