Author: St Mark's Teacher

Choir Events Before Christmas

KS2Choir

Dear Parents and Carers,

Many thanks for your offers to take children to our concert in Church Cottage tomorrow. Please meet at school at 10am to make your way to the venue next to St Michael’s Church in the town centre. Detailed letters were sent out in named envelopes to the individuals involved so I hope the letters all made their way safely home last week. The children will wear full school uniform for singing to the elderly. They are welcome to wear a Christmas hat. Children will be finished by 11:30am for their return trips to school.

For our school carol services on December 12, 13, 16 and 17, children will be wearing their choir shirts and ties please. We will provide the ties in school before each concert.

Next Tuesday, we have our final evening performance of our carol service. In our choir session today, the children were told that there is no need for them to attend the after school club choir session next week (17.12.19). It is best they go home and rest before the concert. If children really want to come, please let me know as I am always happy to sing together.

Kind regards,

Mrs Chapman

Brass Concert – Next Tuesday 17th December

Year3

Don’t forget our brass concert next week.

Tuesday 17th December 2019

3BE – 9.30am (Arrive by 9.25am)
3B – 10.30am (Arrive by 10.25am)
3SB – 11.30am (Arrive by 11.25am)

Please come to the office and then you will be brought to the small hall. This is only a short concert for each class to show their new skills learnt this term, so please arrive on time as we need to warm up the next class before they perform.

We look forward to seeing you next week

Year 3 Team

Fabulous Year R!

YearR

It’s hard to believe that the children have only been at school for 12 weeks! They were amazing in the Nativity and we are so incredibly proud of them for the maturity and enthusiasm they brought to the performances. We hope you enjoyed coming to watch ‘A miracle in town.’

This week we are back to normality and will be focusing on RE and our theme is ‘Celebrating Birthdays’. We will first learn about the significance of our own birthdays and then learn more about how Christians celebrate Jesus’ birthday at Christmas.

PE bags can come back in this week please.

Project Outcome

Year4

Year 4 have been working really hard this term on their geography project.  They have enjoyed interviewing the parent/grandparent community as well as enjoying a visit from Bloor Homes last week.

The children have demonstrated great teamwork to create their own housing companies, designing their own settlement for Basingstoke Golf Course.  They will be presenting their ideas in their classrooms on Friday at 2:30pm.  Parents and carers are welcome to attend.

Settlement Design Map by LAB JPS

Settlement Map by Town Homes

This Week’s Homework

Year5

Learning Lyrics

We had our first practice today for the Christmas Carol Concert and noticed that some children are still a little unsure of their words. Lyrics went home a couple of weeks ago so please can some of this week’s homework be dedicated to learning words so that we are able to put on a stunning performance for family and friends.

Rockstars Times Tables

Times Tables knowledge can be a huge barrier with many concepts in Maths and we are eager for children to learn all their tables and be able to recall them at speed. This week, we would like the children to spend a minimum of half an hour on Rockstars. A ‘Battle’ has also been set up with Year 6 (which we are winning!) and Year 4 (which we are NOT winning!) so get practising and earning more coins! The current battle results are below:

Many Thanks

Year 5 Team

 

Year 3 Update

Year3

It’s been very busy in Year 3 over the last couple of weeks. The children have been enjoying reading the Iron Man and have started creating a newspaper linked to his eruption out of the ground. In D&T the children have tested, designed and are beginning to make a maze for the Iron Man to get around the scrap yard. This also links to our Science topic of magnetism and forces. We look forward to sharing our mazes with the Year 1 children once they are finished.

Spelling Shed 

In the back of the children’s reading logs, they will now have a password to access their weekly spellings on Spelling Shed. Spelling Shed will help children to practice spellings through a simple game. The game gives four different degrees of support in the form of difficulty modes; Easy, Medium, Hard and Extreme. Higher levels allow a higher score to be achieved but children can practice as much as they like on lower levels before trying to gain high scores. The scores achieved give a league position and each class has its own league position within a school league and our world league.  We hope the children enjoy learning their spellings.

 

Reading challenge

We have introduced a reading challenge for the children in Year 3. Each Monday we will be checking the children’s reading logs to see how many times they are reading at home. We shared some facts of the importance of reading daily. The children will get raffle tickets depending on how many times they read each week. These raffle tickets will then be drawn out in our year group worship weekly, where 2 lucky winners will get a prize. The raffle tickets will then build up over the half term and we will draw a winner of a bigger prize just before Christmas. So please help your children to complete lots of reading at home! This week we celebrated all those children who read 7 times! Well done.  Our first two lucky winners were Cara and Iremide.

 

I hope you have been enjoying the children’s singing as they are learning the songs for our choir performances. Thank you for your ongoing support.

 

Year 3

Year R Learning Update

YearR

What a busy few weeks we’ve had!

We were very lucky to be visited by the fire service, the police service and the ambulance service and all brought their vehicles to show us which was exciting! The children had the opportunity to look at the different uniforms they wear, find out about the equipment they use and ask questions about how they help people in different ways.

These visits have really enthused the children and enhanced their learning, so we’d like to say a big thank you to Jessica and Ava’s Dads Dan Trump and Ben Matthews who visited from the fire service, Stuart Bond from the police service and Katie Collingwood from the ambulance service for giving up their time to visit the children.

We have also been very busy practising for our Nativity play and the children are looking forward to performing to you next week on Tuesday 3rd and Wednesday 4th at 10am.

Please remember that you will need a ticket to attend either performance. Please contact the office ASAP if you haven’t got your tickets yet.

We will not be having PE again next week so you don’t need to bring their bags to school on Monday 2nd December.

Have a lovely weekend. We hope to see many of you at the Christmas Fair tomorrow!

Parenting Courses

The Ark

I have been kindly passed some details of parenting courses that are coming up in the New Year.  I wanted to share the details of these as they are fantastic courses!

 

Time Out for Parents: THE TEENAGE YEARS 

A 7-session course on Monday evenings starting 20th January for parents of 11-16 year olds

HARTLEY WINTNEY – St John’s Church Centre, Fleet Road, RG27 8ED

January 20th, 27th; February 3rd, 10th, 24th; March 2nd, 9th (no session on 17th February – half-term) – 7.30 to 9.30pm (refreshments from 7.15pm)

Book by email to ken.shorey@parenting.org.uk and include a contact phone number

There is no charge for attending but donations are invited to help cover costs.  £25 is suggested which includes the course handbook (otherwise £7.50).

Course facilitators: Ken & June Shorey – telephone 01252 843803

 

Time Out for Parents: THE TEENAGE YEARS 

A 7-session course on Thursday evenings starting 23rd January for parents of 11-17 year olds

BASINGSTOKE CENTRAL – St Mary’s Eastrop, Goat Lane, RG21 7PZ

January 23rd; February 6th, 13th, 20th, 27th; March 12th, 19th (no sessions 30th January or 5th March) – 7.30 to 9.30pm

To book a place or for further details, email philiphiorns@doctors.org.uk or telephone 01256 464249

Course fee: £10

Course facilitators: Philip & Elizabeth Hiorns and Cathy Hawkins

 

Time Out for Parents: THE PRIMARY YEARS

A 6-session course for parents of 4-11 year olds on Thursday evenings starting 23rd January

ARBORFIELD GREEN Community Centre, Sheerlands Road, RG2 9ND

January 23rd, 30th; February 6th, 13th, 27th; March 5th – 7.45 to 9.45pm (refreshments from 7.30pm)

To help cover costs, participants are invited to make a voluntary contribution of £30/parent

Book online at heartofoakcoaching.co.uk/parenting-courses

Course facilitator: Alison Green – email alisonj.green@outlook.com or phone 07742 045686

 

Time Out for Parents: Understanding and Helping your Child with AUTISM SPECTRUM DISORDER 

A 4-session course for parents of children with ASD on Wednesday mornings starting 26th February

ALTON – Four Marks Primary School, Kitwood Road, GU34 5AS

February 26th; March 4th, 11th, 18th – 10.00am to 12.00 noon

To help cover costs, participants are invited to make a voluntary contribution of £12/parent

To book a place or for further details, email Gill Jacobs at: gill.6ot@gmail.com

 

Information about all the Positive Parenting ‘Time Out’ courses is on the Care for the Family website at cff.org.uk/courses/parenting-courses-time-out.

Kind regards

Mrs Greer

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