Dear Parents and carers,

 

This week, as readers and writers, we read through King of the Sky together. We analysed the feelings of the main character and how they develop over the course of the story. We thought about how we might help everyone to feel included in our own lives and in our school. We created a story map of the key events and locations in the book. We noted down a selection of adjectives for each, before spending a lesson writing our own descriptive sentences using some more ambitious adjectives.

 

As mathematicians, Corvus started our unit on Multiplication and Division - learning about equal groups, using arrays to help us multiply and revising our 2, 5 and 10 times tables by applying them to a variety of problems. Draco has been learning how to multiply 3 single digit numbers together and use short multiplication (written method) to multiply 2 digit numbers by 1 digit numbers.

 

As geographers, we have begun our new topic - Settlements. We have been looking at where early settlers lived and identified the differences between hamlets, villages, towns and cities in our local area. We explored how North Hinksey is a village within the city of Oxford and started to look at OS maps.

 

As musicians, we worked with Oxford Song to create a fantastic melody for our song on the Stone Age and began to learn the group song that we will perform with the other class and Botley school. Our joint concert where we welcome parents to attend will be on Monday 14th December. The venue will be in central Oxford and when this is confirmed, we will let you know the name of the venue and specific timings.

 

As athletes, we continued our fitness unit, this time focusing on aerobic exercise. With regular breaks built in, we performed a variety of exercises designed to improve our fitness, such as star jumps, horizontal jumps and toe taps as part of our circuit training. We also had relay races focused on slaloming around cones in turn. We also started a unit on gymnastics with the sports coach.

 

Next week

 

As writers, we will have a dedicated lesson on using conjunctions before starting to plan our own version of the story of King of the Sky.

 

As mathematicians, Corvus will start our unit on Multiplication and Division, looking at equal groups, arrays and multiplying by 2, 5 and 10. Draco will be learning how to multiply and divide 3 digit numbers by 1 digit numbers and apply this to complete related worded problems, including multi step. As geographers, we will explore OS maps in more detail, learn to use grid references on a map and plan our own settlement using OS map symbols.

 

Important Information

Please could you make sure that children come to school with indoor and outdoor shoes. As the weather deteriorates, the field is likely to get muddier, making it essential that students have indoor shoes to change into after break and lunchtime.

 

The HSA AGM is on the 1st December at 8pm. This meeting will be held online, with a link below to the meeting. We warmly welcome as many parents as possible to hear about the amazing work of the HSA over the last year and the funds raised. HSA AGM Link

 

We kindly ask for your help in reminding children that personal toys should stay at home. Bringing toys into school can cause unintended upset and disruption to learning, and school cannot take responsibility for lost or broken items. 

Items brought in specifically for Thought of the Day are still very welcome! These will be kept safe and put away once your child has finished sharing.

 

Thank you so much for your support and understanding.

Homework:

Please complete the Maths Practice Journal – Week 8 and return it to school on Monday.

Please also encourage your child to practise on Times Tables Rock Stars regularly. Let us know if you need their login details.

 

Dates for the diary:

11th December -  HSA Christmas Bazaar 5pm- 7pm

11th December - Christmas Dinner Day - children can wear Christmas Jumpers

14th-18th December - Spirit Week - details to follow

14th December - Oxford Song event (venue and timings to be confirmed)

17th December - Upper School (2-6) Christmas Service at St Peter and St Paul led by Aquila 10am

18th December - Term ends at 1pm