Headteacher: Anna Moss

16.12.22

Hello Red Class Families,

Our last day was full of fun and laughter with a pantomime, party games and celebration assembly. In fact, it’s been a week of Christmas activities with our Christmas Show and a delicious Christmas dinner (thank you Mrs Barker and Mrs Miles). We’ve listened to carols every day and discovered how people celebrate the festival of Christmas.

Towards the end of term, especially near Christmas, the children become incredibly tired and give their every effort at school meaning their emotional ‘cup’ runs empty by home time. You might have seen a few grumpy or tearful faces this week or maybe you’ve had a few extra cuddles. Their behaviour is simply saying, “I’m tired and I’m ready for a break”. Well done little ones, you’ve fought bugs galore and demonstrated such resilience.

On Monday, we popped two reading books into every child’s bag to share during the holidays and new eBooks are available too. In January, we will begin a new topic, ‘Building a Business’ and we’ll continue our writing adventures as we learn to form letters using the cursive script. If you want to make a start during the holidays, Mrs Moss has made a number of videos on our You Tube channel showing letter formation. We always start with the curly caterpillar letters: c, o, a, d, g, q. Writing your name with cursive letters would be useful holiday homework too. Remember your tripod grip when you hold your pencil. If you’d like some holiday Maths homework, then please count forward and back to 5, then 10 and 20. Try 1 more and 1 less tennis to 10 using your hand to hit the ‘ball’ and work on your positional language. Perhaps, choose one decoration on your Christmas tree as a starting point and then find another above, below, between, to the left, to the right, in front or behind.

The children worked hard on their Christmas cards and calendars. We used our collage skills of cutting, sticking and overlapping and selected an appropriate colour for each season. Every year, you can look back at their 2023 calendar and see how much they’ve changed.

Finally, a big ‘THANK YOU’ for all your support and encouragement this term. Your kind cards, gifts and messages mean a lot to the team and we feel really lucky to be part of one big Blackwell family. Your child’s first term at ‘big’ school is complete and look at all we’ve achieved together. Children who are reading words and sentences, making new friends, singing in front of an audience and attending a school trip!

Wishing you all a Happy Christmas and a Wonderful New Year filled with fun, laughter and plenty of rest.

Mrs Webb and Team Red Class XXX