Well done to all our EYFS students for continuing to take part in their online learning journey. The children are engaging in so many different activities with such enthusiasm. It is always heart-warming to see so many smiling faces on the screen and then seeing all the completed activities on Tapestry. As always, we thank the parents, who continue to support the children to make sure that they have a comfortable learning space.
Pre-Nursery
This week Pre-Nursery have been focusing on the birds down on the farm, particularly the chicken, ducks and their eggs. Through the story ‘The Noisy Egg’ we have learnt the simple lifecycle of a bird; from egg to chick to chicken. Through interactive activities we explored this lifecycle through understanding the words in the story to visual picture to order of a lifecycle. On top of this Pre-Nursery learnt about meals we have that use eggs. We learnt how to make ‘Scrambled Eggs!’ Yum, Yum! To ensure we grow strong gross motor skills we explored body movement through a farm movement game. Here we ‘trotted like a horse’, ‘flapped like a chick’ and even ‘rolled like a pig’ in mud!
Nursery
This week in Nursery we explored the world of spiders. There were some amazing spider webs made from different materials found at home.
Nursery read some interesting stories about spiders where we learnt that spinning a web is a very busy job to do! And that some spiders just want to be a family pet.
A busy week for Nursery
Reception
This week we continued our topic Under the Sea and talked a little about sustainability and the effect that garbage has on the oceans and its sea life. The children were engaged through the video ‘Saving the Ocean’ and the story of ‘Harry Saves the Ocean’. They understood that there is a lot of garbage inside our oceans and were introduced to the concept of recycling. We encourage you to continue talking about sustainability with your child in order to develop an awareness and responsibility towards our environment. We have also introduced one Social Emotional lesson during our Topic time. This week we talked about kindness and the impact it has on others and on themselves.
In Phonics this week we learnt the new tricky word ‘all’ and a new diagraph ‘th’ which makes two sounds. Through revision and reading, the children will understand which words require the correct sound. We reviewed the Phase 3 sounds and continue to practice reading and writing short words with the new sounds.
This week in Maths, we learnt songs and played games that support positional language, which the children enjoyed. Reception continued practicing their addition skills using manipulatives and number lines.
Developing each student’s English skills is an important learning focus at Britannica and this week the Primary students have continued to extend their English knowledge in various ways:
Year 1 have been exploring non-chronological reports, Year 2 have been investigating suffixes and prefixes, whilst Year 3 have continued to explore the world of Roald Dahl and recommended their favourite books to one of Dahl’s most loved character’s; Matilda. Meanwhile, I understand from the Year 4 teachers that their students have written persuasive emails to me so I await to read those and see if I can be persuaded to buy some new toys for the playground! Year 5 have also been busy writing and editing their short spooky stories, with wonderful suspense and provoking various emotions from the readers! Keep up the great work everyone!
Also, this week Form teachers have been in contact with parents about the upcoming parent teacher meetings. Please do take the opportunity to meet with your child’s teacher to find out more about how your child is progressing and their next steps in their learning.
It has been really encouraging to see how seriously our Year 11-13 students have been taking their English IGCSE and A Level assessments so far, and despite being in extremely difficult circumstances they have shown a tremendous amount of resilience during this period. Additionally, our Year 7-10 students have also impressed with their attitude and effort during our Shakespeare component, which can be a challenge during online learning, but they have shown a willingness to engage well with the texts and characters. Well done!
