Dear Parents and carers,

 

We hope you had a lovely break over half term.

 

This week:

As readers and writers, we have started to explore the new term’s text - The King of the Sky by Nicola Davies. We carefully read the first page, noting down key words and phrases and really paying attention to how it sets the scene. We then created an illustration based on this paragraph, trying to capture the sombre, industrial, lonely feel of the words and labelling it with the key phrases that stood out to us. We then compared our pictures with the Laura Carlin’s illustration in the book, thinking about what was the same and what was different.

As mathematicians, Corvus concluded our unit on Addition and Subtraction with some reminders of column addition and subtraction, estimating and learning about inverse operations. Draco have been practising recalling their 7 times and 12 times table facts.

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.

As musicians, we concluded our songwriting in preparation for the visit of Oxford Song next week. We have written an epic about a Stone Age adventure and can’t wait for our workshop on Monday!

As athletes, we have started our new unit on fitness, performing some shuttle runs and then doing some circuit training focused on working our leg muscles. We also started a unit on gymnastics with the sports coach.

 

Next week:

As writers, we will continue our reading of King of the Sky, focusing on the feelings of the central characters and how they change throughout the narrative. We will use that to build a story map before some dedicated practice of adjectives.

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 3 single digit number together and then will begin to learn a formal written method for multiply 2 and 3 digit numbers by 1 digit numbers.

As Geographers, we will start our unit on settlements, learning about early settlements - how, why and where they developed and the meaning behind place names in the local area. We will identify and compare different types of settlements and then begin to explore OS maps.

As musicians, we will work with Oxford Song in our first workshop, working towards our performance in December. We will learn about music from professionals and work with them to create the music for our composition, thinking about how it can reflect and accompany the words of our song.

 

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.

 

Please ensure break-time snacks are healthy (e.g., fruit, cheese, or cereal bars).

 

Coming Up:

Open morning

As part of our Open Day on Saturday 7th November, 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.

Dates for the diary:

7th November - Open Day 10am-12pm

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

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

18th December - Term ends at 1pm