Welcome back to the new term! It has been different in the class without Molly, but everyone has been very kind to our new teachers, and we have now welcomed Stuart to the class, who will be with us until Molly’s return on 30^th November – Sally is still here of course!

Maths

We came back to a recap of our number bonds, and new teaching about part-part-whole equations. This vocabulary may well be new to parents so we shall attempt to explain it here! Simply put, a part-part-whole model is a visual tool that shows how a single total (the whole) can be split into smaller pieces (the parts). We use two different models:

• The Cherry Diagram (Number Bond): A large circle at the top or centre represents the whole, with two or more smaller circles (like cherries on a stem) branching off to show the parts.
• The Bar Model: A long rectangle represents the whole, divided into smaller adjacent boxes inside it to show the individual parts

Once the children can visualise these, remembering number facts and understanding equations (number sentences) is so much easier! We hope that helps you understand it as we do appreciate it is a while since we were all in the classroom!

On that note, please take heed of the dates on the stickers in the homework books! The date is when the homework is due in and which week it is eg Wk 7 November 9^th is this week’s, due in on Monday! This week, lots of children attempted the homework before we had practiced in class, so many found it tricky! If your child has already had a go, please could you go through it again this weekend together, and correct any mistakes they have made now they have had the teaching!

English – Curious Quest

We used our new friends Professor Klunk, Noodle, Titch and Brain to defeat the enemy The Greap, as we worked on the amazing story ‘Jamela’s Dress’ by Niki Daly!

Our Word Bathe this week included contented, pricey, envelop, repair, unobservant and infuriated. Do ask your child to show you the actions! By adding actions, it helps to cement the vocabulary, as well as deepening understanding of the words.

Wider Curriculum – science

We are looking at everyday materials in science this week and next. Having been on a walk around school, we can now explain whether items are natural or man-made. Next week, we will be exploring magnets and magnetism, and then describing the properties of objects in the classroom!

Phonics & Reading

The children are continuing to work through their colour books. We love the children reading at home, but please make sure their book returns snuggly to their bag every time, as changing books happens on different days, each week, in different groups! Please also find a QR code and a weblink for some words to practice at home. There are 2 videos each week and we hope you enjoy sharing them together.

https://schools.ruthmiskin.com/resources/vc-pathways/565490/skmjaK1YIwnp5f6p

PE & Outdoor Learning

Our PE changes to Fitness and Gymnastics this term! We will have Fitness sessions on the MUGA (outside) every Tuesday, and Gymnastics (in the Hall) every Wednesday. Please can your child come in appropriate PE kit to match the session - ie warm sweatshirt needed if outside, but school jumper over T-shirt if inside.

Forest School

Our Forest School dates this term are:

12^th November   (after Oxford Science!)

26^th November

10^th December

Other Dates for the Diary:

7th November - Open Day 10am-12pm

12^th November – Oxford Science visiting the class

13th November - Flu Vaccinations

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 

16^th December – Nativity Play at 2pm

18th December - Term ends at 1pm

On the 11th November our Columba and Aquila class will be gathering at the Commonwealth War Graves at Botley Cemetery at 10:45am for an Act of Remembrance. We welcome all families and members of the wider community to join us.

As part of our Open Day, we are delighted to welcome a local community artist who will help us begin a journey of capturing and celebrating the legacy of North Hinksey CE Primary School as we move forward with our building works.

Throughout this academic year, we will be working alongside Amy, our artist, to co-create a special art installation that honours the school's rich history and heritage while celebrating its future. We know that North Hinksey holds a very special place in the hearts of our community, and we want this project to reflect the memories, stories and experiences of the many people who have been part of its journey.

The first stage of this community art project begins on Saturday, when Amy will be supporting members of the community to create small pieces of collage artwork and share their memories of North Hinksey. We warmly invite everyone to take part – whether you are a current pupil or family member, a former pupil who attended North Hinksey at any point in its history, or another member of our wider community.

We would love to see as many people as possible joining us for this first stage and contributing to something that will become a lasting celebration of our school's story.

If you are unable to attend on Saturday but would like to be involved, there will be further opportunities to contribute throughout the academic year. We will share details of these in due course.

We are really excited about the term ahead, with all the delights that the build up to Christmas brings! We hope you all have a great weekend, and happy Diwali to everyone celebrating on Sunday!

From The Delphinus Team!

What a wonderful way to finish our first half-term in Delphinus Class! It has been another busy week, filled with lots of exciting learning, singing, creativity and laughter! The children have worked incredibly hard over the past few weeks, and it has been so lovely to see how much their confidence, independence and friendships have grown since September. We are incredibly proud of everything they have achieved, and they certainly deserve a well-earned rest over half-term!

Maths

This week, we have been busy revisiting lots of our previous Maths learning! We have enjoyed a mixture of activities, recapping some of the important skills we have learnt throughout the half-term, including number bonds, addition, one more and one less, doubles and finding missing numbers.

The children have been using practical resources, working with their partners and explaining their mathematical thinking. It has been lovely to see how much more confident they have become with their numbers and how they are beginning to apply their knowledge more independently!

English – Curious Quest

This week, we have officially begun our exciting new writing adventure – Curious Quest, created by Greg Bottrill!

After all the wonderful learning we have done through Drawing Club, we are now taking the next step in developing our creativity, vocabulary and sentence writing. The children have been introduced to some rather wonderful and unusual new characters, including Professor Klunk, Noodle, Titch and Brain! The Greap is definitely a baddie though!

Professor Klunk is our imaginative inventor, who needs the children's help to keep his magical Story Dream Machine working! Alongside his curious friends, he will be encouraging the children to use their imaginations, explore exciting vocabulary and write wonderful magic sentences.

The children were particularly excited to discover that special letters from our new characters have been arriving through a mysterious portal in our classroom! This magical portal will continue delivering messages, challenges and exciting new books each week, giving the children lots of opportunities to explore stories and go on imaginative adventures.

We are so excited to see where Curious Quest takes us next!

Wider Curriculum – Milo's Money

This week, we have been exploring Milo's Money, learning all about where money comes from and how we can earn it.

We began by discussing where children might get their money from, before exploring how adults earn money through working and the many different jobs people do. The children had some wonderful ideas and enjoyed talking about the different jobs they might like to have when they grow up!

One of our favourite activities was hot seating, where children were given a secret job role and the rest of the class had to ask questions to work out what their job was. It was fantastic to see the children putting their questioning skills into practice, thinking carefully about what they wanted to ask and listening to the clues before making their guesses. We had lots of fun and some brilliant discussions!

Phonics & Reading

The children have continued working hard in their phonics groups, practising their sounds, reading words and developing their fluency and comprehension.

The children will all be assessed at the start of Term Two, so their groups might change then, but please enjoy spending some time reading together over the break. Even a little bit of reading each day can make such a difference to their confidence and fluency.

Thank you for all your continued support with reading at home!

PE & Outdoor Learning

Well, the weather certainly hasn't been on our side this week! With the horrendous amount of rain, we haven't had as many opportunities to get outside for PE as we would have liked.

However, we have made the most of every little break in the rain, heading outside for some fresh air and outdoor play whenever it eased off, even if it was only for a few minutes! The children have been brilliant at adapting to the changeable weather and making the most of the opportunities we have had.

Forest School

On Thursday, we enjoyed another lovely Forest School session! It is wonderful for the children to have the opportunity to spend time outdoors, explore their surroundings and enjoy learning beyond the classroom. Forest School continues to provide such valuable opportunities for the children to develop their independence, teamwork and confidence, and it is always something they look forward to!

Harvest

What a lovely way to celebrate the end of our first half-term with our Harvest Service on Thursday! 
The children have been working so hard practising their Harvest songs alongside Cygnus and Pegasus, and it was absolutely wonderful to see all their rehearsals come together. We were so proud of their beautiful singing, enthusiasm and confidence!
A huge thank you to everyone who came along to support the children. It was such a special occasion, and we hope you enjoyed it as much as we did!

Parents' Evening

It was another lovely Parents' Evening this week, and we really enjoyed having the opportunity to meet with more of you and share all the wonderful progress your children have been making!
It has been so encouraging to see how involved and enthusiastic you are about supporting your children's learning at home. Having these conversations and working together is so valuable, and we really appreciate all the time, encouragement and support you give your children.
Thank you to everyone who attended our Parents' Evenings over the past two weeks. It has been such a pleasure celebrating your children's achievements with you!

After Half-Term

After half-term, Molly will be away from Delphinus Class for four weeks as part of her required continuous professional development. She will certainly miss the children, but they will be in safe hands and continuing with lots of exciting learning while she is away! It won't be long until she is back, and by then our Nativity preparations will be in full swing! We have lots of exciting things to look forward to as we head towards Christmas!

Open Morning

Saturday 7th November 10am-12pm is our annual Open Day, while this day is predominately aimed towards families who may want join our school next academic year, we open the school to existing families too. There will be a range of activities for the children to enjoy. All families are welcome, children are unable to attend without an adult to supervise them

Finally, a huge thank you for all your kindness and support throughout this first half-term. It really has been a wonderful start to the school year, and we couldn't be prouder of our Delphinus children!

We hope you all have a fantastic half-term, a lovely week off and a wonderfully spooky Halloween weekend! Whether you're pumpkin carving, dressing up, enjoying autumn walks or simply having a cosy week at home, we hope you have lots of fun and make some lovely memories!

Happy half-term from The Delphinus Team!

We have had another lovely week in Delphinus Class! The children have been working incredibly hard and showing such wonderful enthusiasm across all areas of their learning. It has been lovely to see their confidence continuing to grow, particularly when sharing their ideas, working together and having a go at new challenges. We have had lots of smiles, laughter and exciting learning moments throughout the week, and we are so proud of all their hard work!

Maths

This week, we continued exploring Addition and Subtraction, focusing on adding more, solving addition problems and finding missing parts of numbers. The children have been using lots of practical resources, including cubes, counters and part-whole models, to help them understand how numbers can be combined and separated.

Towards the end of the week, we began exploring subtraction and how we can find out how many are left when we take part of a number away.

In Mastering Number, we have been investigating doubles and discovering how even numbers can be made using two equal parts. The children have enjoyed using practical resources to build doubles and spot patterns!

Our Maths homework books are due back on Monday. Thank you for continuing to support your children with these at home!

English – Drawing Club

Our Drawing Club story this week was Rumpelstiltskin, and what a magical adventure it has been! The children have loved exploring this mysterious fairy tale and using their wonderful imaginations to bring the story to life.

We were also incredibly lucky to have a real spinning wheel kindly lent to us for the week! It was such a special opportunity for the children to see a spinning wheel up close and discover how it works, bringing an important part of our story to life. The children were fascinated and had lots of wonderful questions!

We have been designing our own Rumpelstiltskin characters, imagining the room filled with straw waiting to be turned into gold and creating magical spinning wheels. We even had a go at inventing our very own magical characters!

Our Word Bathe vocabulary this week included mysterious, peculiar, desperate, boastful, furious and gleaming. As always, we have been practising using these exciting words in our speaking and writing, alongside remembering our capital letters, finger spaces and full stops.

Wider Curriculum – RE

This week, we have been exploring Christianity and the Creation Story in RE.

We were very lucky to welcome Menna into Delphinus Class, who led a beautiful Godly Play session exploring the Creation Story. The session created a calm, sacred and special space for the children to listen, reflect and share their thoughts about the story. It was such a lovely experience and gave the children an opportunity to explore the story in a thoughtful and meaningful way.

Following the session, the children were given a variety of creative activities and resources to explore the idea of creation for themselves. They absolutely loved using their imaginations to create their own representations of the world, and it was wonderful to see how engaged and thoughtful they were throughout!

We have also been learning about what Christians believe about God and how Christians believe God created the world. We discussed all the wonderful things in nature and thought about how we can look after our planet. The children shared some lovely ideas about how we can all play our part in caring for the world around us.

A Special Visit from The Story Museum!

On Thursday, we welcomed The Story Museum into Delphinus Class for a very special day! The children spent the entire day immersed in the wonderful world of Grimm’s Fairy Tales, enjoying a lovely change from our usual classroom routine. It was such a fantastic opportunity to celebrate storytelling, imagination and creativity, and the children thoroughly enjoyed having James with us. What a wonderful way to bring stories to life! Do ask your child to tell you the story of the Musicians of Breman!

Phonics & Reading

The children have continued working hard in their phonics groups, practising their sounds, reading words and developing their fluency and confidence.

Please continue to make sure your child's phonics reading book is in their book bag each day. This really helps us with collecting and changing books throughout the week. Thank you for your continued support!

PE

In PE, we are developing our hockey skills still, focusing on control, coordination and working together as a team. The children are also practising their listening skills and learning how to move safely while using their hockey sticks.

Harvest Service

We are excited for our annual Harvest Service! All families are warmly welcome to join us at St Peter and St Paul's Church on Thursday 22nd October at 10:00am.

We would be very grateful for any parents or grandparents who are able to volunteer to walk down to the church with us—we will be leaving school at 9:15am. Please email your child's phase inbox if you are able to help.

Children are invited to bring an in-date, dry good as an act of service to be donated to the Oxford Food Hub (such as pasta, tinned goods, or cereal). Please note that children will need to be able to carry their donation themselves, as they will not be taking backpacks to the church.

We are all very excited to share everything we have been practising in church, and we hope to see lots of you there to celebrate with us! It will be a lovely way to finish our final week before half-term.

Parents' Evening

It was so lovely to welcome so many of you to Parents' Evening this week! I really enjoyed having the opportunity to chat with you and share just how amazingly your children are doing in school. It was also wonderful to see how engaged and enthusiastic you all are about supporting your children's learning at home. Your support really does make such a difference! I'm looking forward to meeting with more of you at our second Parents' Evening next week and continuing these lovely conversations.

Next Week

Maths – Addition and Subtraction

Next week, we will continue our Addition and Subtraction learning, exploring fact families and different ways of taking away. We will be using practical resources, pictures and number lines to help us understand subtraction and explain our mathematical thinking.

English – Drawing Club & Curious Quest

Our Drawing Club is changing! We are meeting new characters in our writing adventures as we take the next exciting step in our writing journey! We are beginning to introduce Curious Quest, created by Greg Bottrill! This builds on everything the children have enjoyed about Drawing Club, while encouraging them to become more confident and independent writers. The children will be introduced to a whole new world of wonderful characters, including Professor Klunk, Noodle, Titch and Brain, who will inspire exciting quests and imaginative writing adventures. We can't wait to begin this new chapter with Delphinus Class!

Wider Curriculum – Milo's Money

Next week, we will be exploring Milo's Money, helping the children begin to develop their understanding of money through practical activities and discussions.

Reminders

• Monday: Maths homework books due back.
• Tuesday and Wednesday: PE.
• Wednesday 21st October: Parents' Evening – a few appointment spaces still available!
• Thursday 22nd October: Harvest Service.
• Thursday 22nd October: Forest School.
• Friday 23rd October: INSET Day – school closed to pupils.

          26th - 30th October - Half term

• Monday 2nd November - INSET Day - school closed ot children
• Tuesday 3rd November - Term 2 starts
• Saturday 7th November - Open Morning
• Friday 13th November  - flu vaccinations in school
• Friday 18th December -  term 2 ends at 1pm

Thank you for another wonderful week in Delphinus Class! We hope you all have a lovely, restful weekend and look forward to our final week before half-term!

The Delphinus Team