It has been wonderful to see the children back to school full of energy and with stories about their Chinese New Year holidays. I expect the relief that we were able to be still at school was felt by all and staff have been really pleased with how the Primary students have returned from the break energised and eager to learn.

Inspired by their new story, Year 1 have been having fun writing their own shouty sentences and bossy verb instructions in English. They have also been busy sorting 1- and 2-digit numbers into different categories using Venn diagrams in Maths and in Science they have used their knowledge about materials to design a boat that will float.

Would you choose to live near a volcano? This is the question Year 2 have been debating in class as they consolidated their knowledge on volcanoes. Whilst in Art, they created a collage to show all their learning about natural sculptures using their own drawings, printed photographs and natural materials.

Key Stage One also ended the week by taking part in a House Assembly, playing games and taking part in teamwork activities in order to win points for our Houses!

Earlier this week Year 3 became magicians for the day as they used refraction to make a coin appear in water! In English they have been looking at different fables and have even tried to compare their lives or actions to fables they have read. Whilst in Maths they have been learning various strategies to halve numbers and this has led into some good work and understanding on fractions.

Meanwhile Year 4 have had a brilliant time trying some Olympic sports outside, such as the Javelin throw, Shotput and even a Relay race, as they continue to research more about the Ancient Greeks and how they invented the Olympics. This has also tied in well with the Year 4 Internationalism students’ learning who, as part of their country study on Korea, have been learning about the Winter Olympic Games in PyeongChang in 2018.

Year 5 have been making inferences about different characters, whilst also predicting what might happen next within a set text. It has been great to see the children become more confident with ‘guessing’ what is happening and taking more risks with their own writing. Their Maths lessons have included lots of work on decimals, place value and skills of multiplication and division. They have also been solving word problems and drafting their own mathematical problems for a friend to answer.

Health, diet and fitness were the central topics for Science in Year 6 before the holiday and to conclude their current unit, the Year 6 classes have been busy investigating the effects of drugs, alcohol and smoking on the human body this week. With a combination of station-based learning and student-led connectivist learning, the students gathered information to produce individual colourful informative posters warning people about the dangers of drugs, alcohol and smoking.

What a busy inspiring first week back at school! We are all looking forward to continuing the rest of the term with such enthusiasm.

Katherine Mustoe

Vice-Principal and Head of Primary