Headteacher: Anna Moss

24.09.21

Hello Red Class Families,

What a busy week! Well done to all the children for completing their first full week as a class. We’ve enjoyed a lot of new experiences from buying tuck, visiting the hall for PE and going on an adventure to Forest School. Talking of tuck, the children may buy a snack from Mrs Wilson in the morning (when they reach the end of the snake) or they can buy one in the classroom if they forget. The children might need a reminder just before they enter school.

In Phonics, we discovered ‘i’, ‘n’, ‘m’ and ‘d’. Every lesson, we identify objects with the initial sound, play oral blending games and read VC (at, it) and CVC words (sat, pat, tap). Every week, we will send home a new book matched to our work in Phonics. Until the eBooks are established, we will change the books twice on Mondays and Thursdays.

In Maths, we used concrete apparatus to count, compare and talk about numbers to 10. We discovered a new song, ‘Dancing in the Sun’, which is a little bit like an Ibiza classic but all about numbers to 10! There have also been lots of opportunities for subitising.

We visited the hall, this week, for PE. The children moved around in different ways and made shapes e.g. straddle, pike and tuck. We used items of clothing to remember each shape. A pair of trousers helped us to think about long legs for our pike shape whereas the skirt helped us to make a wide straddle shape. We used a pair of shorts for our tuck. At the end of the lesson, we tried different balance challenges:

• Standing on a bean bag with two feet.
• Standing on a bean bag with our preferred foot.
• Standing on a bean bag with the other foot.
• Bending up and down on one foot.

Forest School was fantastic. We played games to establish Forest School rules, shared a story about ‘Ferdie and the Falling Leaves’ to think about the signs of autumn and enjoyed a drink and snack under the forest canopy with lots of time to play and explore in the forest.

We’re looking forward to our school trip to Bishops Wood. I visited the site this week and the guide explained some of the exciting things we will do. I’m sure the children will enjoy a woodland walk, shelter building and making potions. We’ll eat our lunch under the forest canopy and play in the willow sculptures! Mrs Barker will provide a packed lunch for every child. If your child has a small rucksack, please send it into school on Tuesday rather than their book bag. Please pack a drink and snack into their bag. The children should come dressed to school in their Forest School clothes (Blackwell top and jogging bottoms). We’ll change into our wellie boots and wear our school waterproofs. If your child suffers with travel sickness, please let me know.

Thank you for all your parent consultation slips. I will forward Zoom links in October through ParentApp. Thank you for letting us know about 1.40pm collections on the gate or through email as they help us to prepare the children for home.

Wishing you all a sunny weekend.

Best wishes,

Mrs Webb and Team Red Class xxx

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21.07.21

Hello Red Class Families,

Welcome to the final fanfare. In your book bags you will find a little summer holiday learning pack with ideas to help you to get ready for Green Class. The front sheet of the pack was also sent via ParentApp, earlier in the week, so you can click on the links and directly access the YouTube videos. Although the activities are optional, I know Mrs James has recorded some fantastic stories for you to enjoy and Mrs Hampton will help you to dance or relax depending on your mood. I might join in too.

On behalf of all the staff in Red Class, thank you for your kind words, cards and gifts. They really mean a lot. Mrs Hampton and the children also planned a lovely surprise for me with a song, card and gift. I’m really proud of the little people they’ve become. Well done Red Class for graduating from Reception. You’re a big part of our Blackwell family and I can’t wait to hear about your adventures in Green Class. Look after your little plant pot as you ‘grow into Green Class’ and use your bookmark to remember your time in Red Class.

Stay safe and enjoy your summer holidays my little ones.

Mrs Webb and Team Red Class xxx

09.07.21

Hello Red Class Families,

Last week, I mentioned the Worcestershire Summer School Games. Schools from across the county took part in Paralympic themed events and this week we received the results. Reception and Key Stage 1 (Year 1 and Year 2) were put into the same category for results. I’m pleased to tell you that Red Class came first in the county for wheelchair tennis. I haven’t told the children yet, just in case they’re not delivered in time, but we should receive medals before the holidays as county champions. This is incredible news and I’m very proud of their achievement.

We’ve seen some very tired little ones, this week, which is very common at this stage in the year. When the children are tired, they find it hard to sustain their listening and to get along with their friends. To help the children to be successful, next week, we will continue with the same routine as routine is important for young children, but we will reduce the length of carpet sessions, complete activities for our class assembly (art, singing, role play), introduce the traversing wall to support playtimes and add ‘quiet and calm’ sessions such as mindfulness activities. If 1.40pm collection is an option for your family, then I would encourage families to do this next week.

You will find your child’s annual report in their book bag tonight and information regarding staff for Green Class next academic year. The children will meet their new teacher on Monday and will complete some artwork for their new classroom. Mrs James is a fantastic teacher. I know the children will enjoy their time in Green Class in her care. Mrs James will present a ‘Welcome to Year 1’ meeting on Thursday over Zoom.

Hopefully, the flags made it home to you and we can all wave them on Sunday for the big day. I hear there might be an important football match. 😊

Best wishes,

Mrs Webb and Team Red Class xxx

P.S. We’re really short on socks at the minute. Please check for any spare school socks and send them back to school.

Hello Red Class Families,

This week, the children received some exciting post from African Promise. They were awarded a certificate for their hard work raising money for the charity and a card to explain how their donation would help. Well done Team Red. It was lovely to read the message from African Promise:

“Thanks to your efforts we could provide food for more than 1,250 meals which means each of you has helped to make sure a child your own age in Kenya will receive a lunchtime meal for around 45 days.”

This week, we started our ‘Deep in the Jungle’ topic. It was a busy week learning songs and poems, practising animal yoga poses and making animal masks ready for our class assembly You Tube video. We used our painting and paper craft skills to create a jungle scene for our display too.

During the last few weeks, in Phonics and Maths, we will consolidate our learning from the year. Finding 1 fewer than a given number to 20 and working on ordinal numbers will be a prime focus as this is where most children need a little bit of help. We will also revisit the digraphs and trigraphs covered this year. Handwriting sessions will focus on capital letter formation and number formation until the end of term. Home handwriting books will finish at ‘z’. So, you can keep your books at home if they’re up to date. Please send your handwriting book into school if you need any letters. Well done to all those children working hard on their letter formation at home as it really makes a difference in the classroom.

During the last few weeks, Red Class participated in the Worcestershire Summer School Games. This was a virtual competition and all schools competed on their own school site. The events were themed around the Paralympics and we used a range of skills including bouncing, dribbling and striking a ball. We look forward to hearing the overall results from across Worcestershire, next week.

Thank you for supporting our Summer Fair. If you were unable to attend the fair, but you would like to buy your child’s produce (lavender pillow), please send £2.50 into school in a named envelope.

Finally, we waved goodbye to Miss Barber today. We wish her every success with her own class in September. Goodbye and good luck Miss Barber. Miss Coyle also joined us in the summer term for some experience in Early Years. We wish Miss Coyle well in her new adventures as a teacher too.

Wishing you all a lovely weekend. I know where I’ll be at 8pm on Saturday (although sadly not in Rome) 😊

Mrs Webb and Team Red Class xxx

26.06.21

Hello Red Class,

It was a busy and creative week with the opening of our school art gallery. We used our collage skills to create a space themed picture inspired by ‘Whatever Next!’ Although, we covered the same basic skills of cutting, sticking and overlapping, each piece of artwork looked unique and showed great imagination. It was wonderful to see the children’s work hanging alongside the work of their friends from across the school. We also enjoyed voting for our favourite pictures.  

As well as creating artwork for the gallery, we designed and made cheese puffs for our special event. The children selected their own cheese and herbs after a taste testing session and evaluated their work. There were some great ideas for changes including the shape of the puffs, adding herbs to the pastry and even trying some chocolate too.

After our visit to the art gallery, we were transported around the world through music as we listened to the wonderful sounds of a string ensemble from the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra. The children were captivated by the sights and sounds of live music.

As we’re nearing the end of the year, we’re starting to see some tired little ones in school. Please try to rest over the weekend and remember 1.40pm is an option throughout the week. We need to keep going for one more topic, ‘Deep in the Jungle’, where we’ll be creating a class assembly video for our You Tube channel.

Finally, it’s the Summer Fair today. We’ll be selling the children’s lavender pillows on our stall, between 12pm and 2pm, on St Catherine’s Road.

Wishing you all a lovely weekend.

Mrs Webb and Team Red Class xxx

P.S. You’ll find ‘v’, ‘w’, ‘x’ and ‘z’ in your handwriting book.

18.06.21

Hello Red Class,

Thank you for a lovely week where we continued our exciting topic, ‘Fantasy Worlds’. We performed events from ‘Whatever Next!’ deciding what Baby Bear and Mr and Mrs Bear would say during the story. This encouraged imagination, developed our confidence to speak in front of others and prepared us to write speech bubbles.

In Phonics, we continued to read and spell words with adjacent consonants including ‘bright’, ‘blink’ and ‘sleep’. We also discovered two new keywords ‘were’ and ‘there’. We read our keywords every day but any games you can play at home, even if you stick your keywords to the fridge, will support your reading progress. Keywords can be found on previous class newsletters. The following words are always useful to revisit: was, you, my, are, all, they, said.

We used the bar model approach, in Maths, to help solve simple word problems. We used the comparison bar model and found the difference between two groups of objects. Our subitising and counting skills helped. In Reception, we use objects and picture cards to create bar models. You can find bar model videos for Year 4 on our You Tube channel just in case you want to see what the children are working towards.

This week, we were great scientists as we used our senses to explore forces and the impact of forces. We investigated how different objects move or change shape by pushing and pulling them. We conducted a science experiment by coating pieces of guttering in honey, shaving foam and baby oil to see how far each toy car would travel. We made some great predictions, posed questions and explained our thinking. We even started to talk about friction.

Our focus letters in handwriting were ‘s’, ‘p’ and ‘j’. We used our handwriting skills to decorate rockets. It was lovely to see the children practising these letters during their play and explore time and including them within their own pictures. Keep writing in your handwriting books as it really makes a difference to your confidence and presentation in school.

Wishing you a lovely weekend.

Miss Barber, Mrs Webb and Team Red Class xxx

P.S. We're running very low on spare socks. If you would like to donate some socks, please pop them in a bag labelled 'spare socks'. If you've borrowed socks, please return them to school. Thank you, as always, for your support. 

Click here for news.

Click here for news.

Hello Red Class Families,

What a lovely week starting our new topic, ‘Fantasy Worlds’. The children enjoyed listening to our story, ‘Whatever Next!’ Over the next two weeks, we will work hard to role play, retell and write our own versions of the story about a little bear who travels to space in his cardboard box rocket.

As part of the story is set in space, we’ve started to find out about space too. For example, developing collage skills (cutting, sticking and arranging materials) to create planets for our new display. Listening to a piece of music about Mercury by Gustav Holst. Using handwriting patterns to draw our very own planets. Considering interesting questions about space in Philosophy for Children.

Is it ever right to travel into space? Is it ever right to visit the moon?

In Phonics, we continued to focus on words with adjacent consonants, such as ‘land’ and ‘lamp’. Although phonics is our prime approach to reading, to improve fluency we encourage the children to say words straight away if they know them, particularly words they see frequently e.g. ‘and’. Spotting keywords in the text, before reading, will also support confidence and fluency.

Counting in 5s was the focus in Maths.The children were great at chanting in 5s with their friends and used their new learning to count large sets of objects in an efficient way and to solve problems. We practised doubles, halves and number bonds throughout the week. Today, we played a number bond tennis game. The children ‘blew my socks off’ with their recall. We used a song about Farmer Pete and his 10 sheep and the visual of pink and white sheep on the board really helped. Try recalling number bonds at home and, if it’s tricky, draw 2 rows of 5 sheep and colour a sheep each time to see the pattern e.g. (0 and 10, 1 and 9, 2 and 8 etc.)

Our focus letters in handwriting were ‘b’, ‘h’ and ‘k’. You can find these letters in your handwriting book. As well as a guide to writing the letter, I always include a link to a You Tube video too. We’re still presenting certificates to two children, each week, for their handwriting homework. If you haven’t had one yet, keep going, as I can see you’re trying really hard and it will be your turn soon.

We’re making something very special at Forest School. Let’s just say there might be a treat to buy at the Summer Fair. Each year, we hold a Christmas and Summer Fair to help raise money for the school. Due to Covid-19, the fair might look different this year, but we will still work together to create some fantastic stalls. Mrs Flynn helped the children to think about the texture of leaves today and she modelled leaf rubbing as an activity for the children to choose at Forest School. If you visit a woodland this weekend, you might like to try some leaf or bark rubbings and see what you can find.

Finally, the children have started to use the new shop on the front playground to buy their snack. Don’t worry if your child forgets to buy a snack. We will always remind them. If your child would like to buy a snack at school, just send 30p in a purse or wallet.

Wishing you all a lovely weekend.

Mrs Webb and Team Red Class xxx