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Roman Day!
On Tuesday 28th January we had a fantastic visit from Portals to the Past. Iggy shared a huge amount of information about the Romans with Year 4. Here are some photos and recounts of the day.
Mr Applegate
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Latest Newsletter: 27th January 2020
Message from Mr Applegate
To Do!
1. Complete our short online survey by clicking here. (one for each child!)
2. Check out the times for visiting our careers fair with your child. It’s next week!
Our pupils have continued to work hard recently, both in and out of school. A huge well done to Keeleigh in Year 5, who won gold medal in the recent Hampshire County Swimming Championships, alongside her relay team. Congratulations also goes to Ava in Year 5, who has been part of the Basingstoke Gang Show 2020. What great commitment and talent shown by these two girls. Keep it up!
Thank you to those who have volunteered to put sticky back plastic on our new reading books. We still need more help though! Just pop into the office to collect a pack. Thank you.
Finally, thank you for your donations to our World Book Day Costume Swap Shop. We had a small but sufficient amount to run the Shop this Friday. Come to the small hall after school and purchase a costume for £2. FOSM will review the success of this event afterwards, and welcome feedback.
Have a great week! Mr A.
Zones of Regulation
Your child may have been talking about feeling ‘red’ or ‘yellow’. What does this mean? Well, St Mark’s are adopting a really helpful way for children to identify and talk about their emotional state- even when they are angry or anxious! Identifying the colour helps children to know how to move towards a more settled state, which may not always been straight to green. It also enables them to know ‘it’s ok to feel this way’, although we are still responsible for our actions. Why not talk through it with your child?
Star Learners
Year R -George J, Elizabeth, Alexa
Year 1 -Jack W, Cameron, Luke
Year 2 -Jack 2T, Chloe Ma, Oscar
Year 3 -Ruby, Ava, James-Dean
Year 4 -Charlie L, Hollie, Samuel F
Year 5 -Maddie F, Sofie, Milen
Year 6 -Jake S, Sebastian, Connor
Attendance
KS1 Class: 1J with 100%
KS2 Class: 3BE with 99.67%
SimplyHealth donation
St Mark’s would like to say thank you to SimplyHealth for their generous donation of £215! This will help us towards our goal of re-stocking our library. Thank you.
Does your work have schemes which may help St Mark’s?
School Crossing Patrol
We are pleased to announce a new School Crossing Patrol officer will be starting on Monday 3rd Feb. Thank you for making them feel welcome into our community. FYI, school crossing patrols are appointed and managed by the council, and not the school.
Many of you will remember ‘lollypop’ Noel Saunders, who sadly passed away last year. One of his passions was music, and we are working on a musical extravaganza at St Mark’s to celebrate his life. More details will be announced in due course.
Careers Fair
Our careers fair is coming up – 4th and 5th of Feb. We would love to have a few more companies and organisations represented. Can you help? Click here for more details. Remember, as parents and carers, you are invited to join your child in visiting the stalls. The timings are as follows:
- Tuesday 4th Feb – 9:30: 2T, 2R 10:00: 2B, 6P 10:30: 6C, 6S 11:00: 5F, 5T
- Wednesday 5th Feb – 9:30: 5GP, 3B 10:00: 3BE, 3SB 10:30: 4SH, 4EH 11:00: 4T, Bridge
We encourage you to visit this fantastic website, too. There are games, quizes and more to help you investigate different careers, in a really fun way.
Parking!
Let’s be mindful of allowing space on the paths for buggies and children. Thank you.
Persuasive Letter
Read a fantastic letter by Amber in Year 6, raising awareness of deforestation of the Amazonian Rainforest. We think it’s very persuasive -and it was sent off to the ambassador, too!
Dates for your diary
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Regular Notices
Hire our Facilities!
St Mark’s boasts a large hall, a smaller hall, a kitchenette, a very large field and playgrounds. Our hire rates are very competitive. Our facilities can be hired for:
- birthday parties
- fitness classes
- sport events
- celebrations
- training events
- meetings
- and more!
SCL Afterschool Club
Did you know? Our after school club has great features, including:
1. No deposit required. Simply pay as you go.
2. Bookings are online, quick and easy: www.stmarksprimary.net/scl
3. You can book the night before – no need to book weeks in advance, but you can do that too!
4. Children can attend after school clubs, and then go to SCL when they finish – and also pay a reduced rate.
5. There is plenty of space, and the club is financially secure. It’s here to stay.
6. An afternoon snack and meal are provided.
7. Activities at SCL are varied and fun.
8. Cost is £12/session, or £9 if attending later because of a school club.
9. Hours are 3:20pm to 6pm.
10. Child care vouchers are accepted!
SCL INSET Day Childcare
There is great SCL provision at St Mark’s for our INSET day on Friday 3rd April. Click here to book.
What’s my child learning this term?
- Year R newsletter Spring 2 2020.pdf
- Y6 Temples of Doom Project Leaflet.pdf
- Y6 Temples of Doom Knowledge Organiser.pdf
- Y5 European Identities Project Leaflet.pdf
- Y5 European Identities Knowledge Organiser.pdf
- Y4 Who should I follow Project Leaflet.pdf
- Y4 Who should I follow Knowledge Organiser.pdf
- Y3 Whats Inside Project Leaflet.pdf
- Y3 Whats Inside Knowledge Organiser.pdf
- Y2 Me and You Project Leaflet.pdf
- Y2 Me and You Knowledge Organiser.pdf
- Y1 On The Move Project Leaflet.pdf
- Y1 On the Move Knowledge Organiser.pdf
Zones of Regulation
Your child may have been talking about feeling ‘red’ or ‘yellow’. What does this mean? Well, St Mark’s are adopting a really helpful way for children to identify and talk about their emotional state- even when they are angry or anxious! Identifying the colour helps children to know how to move towards a more settled state, which may not always been straight to green. It also enables them to know ‘it’s ok to feel this way’, although we are still responsible for our actions. Why not talk through it with your child?
INSET Days – 2020/2021
- Thur 3rd Sept 2020
- Fri 4th Sept 2020 (School starts Monday 7th Sept)
- Mon 4th Jan 2021
- Thur 1st April 2021
- Mon 7th June 2021
Music Rehearsals and Performances for KS2 children only
March 2020
Wed 18th: 4.15pm – 5.30pm Part A Choir rehearsal and Chamber Choir at Bishopswood Junior School
Fri 27th: 4.15pm – 5.30pm Part b Choir rehearsal and Narrators at Bishopswood Junior School
May 2020
Wed 6th: 4.15pm-5.30pm Chamber Choir rehearsals at Bishopswood Junior School
Thurs 7th: 4.15pm – 5.30pm Orchestra rehearsals at Costello School
Wed 13th: 4.15pm-5.30pm Chamber Choir rehearsals at Bishopswood Junior School
Fri 15th: 4.15pm-5.30pm Orchestra rehearsals at Costello School
June 2020
Mon 1st: 9.30am-2.30pm All day choir rehearsal at St Mark’s CofE Primary School (Children still need to attend, even though it is an Inset Day)
Fri 5th: 9.30am-2.30pm All day Orchestra and Dancers’ rehearsal at Christ Church Chineham
Tues 9th: 9.30am-2.30pm All day rehearsal for whole concert at the Anvil
Tues 9th 7pm Concert at the Anvil
Wed 10th: 7pm Concert at the Anvil
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Year R – Spring term so far
Year R have been busy bees since Christmas. Already this term we have covered our RE theme ‘Jesus as a storyteller’, started our journey through the story of ‘The Jolly Postman’ and celebrated Chinese New Year.
The children were particularly enthused by Chinese New Year and learned lots about the differences between England and China, the different ways that Chinese New Year is celebrated and how Chinese people prepare for this special event. Thank you very much to Arthur’s Mum for coming in to speak to children. The week culminated in a celebration and more information and photos about this can be found on Tapestry.
So far in ‘The Jolly Postman’ he has delivered a letter from Goldilocks to The Three Bears. The children enjoyed a week’s learning based on this traditional tale, in particular investigating the textures of different cereals, learning songs involving high and low sounds to represent the bear’s voices in Music and acting out the story with their friends.
We have now read on in the story and the Jolly Postman has just delivered a letter to the Witch, so next week our learning will be centred around ‘Hansel and Gretel’. We will focus on the journey that Hansel and Gretel take through the woods, leaving a trail of pebbles, and then their end destination – the gingerbread house! The children will make their own gingerbread house biscuit complete with sweetie decoration and this will lead to some descriptive writing.
Phonics
The children have settled well into their new phonics groups. Please continue to practise recognising the individual sounds by sight (letter side now, not the picture side) and building and reading words using the sound cards they have at home. These could be 3 letter words e.g. mat, words containing sounds like ‘sh’ e.g. ship, or for those children who have had set 2 sounds sent home, words containing these e.g. play.
Please also regularly practise reading their green or red key words by sight.
Handwriting
The children practise their handwriting daily when they first arrive at school before register. We have been working hard on the ‘One armed robots’ and ‘Curly caterpillar’ letters, so see if your child can show how it’s done! Please note we form our ‘f’ slightly differently to this. You can refer to your child’s laminated handwriting card from their Summer activity pack for this.
The rhymes for these are as follows:
- One-armed robot letters “Swoop up for one leg, straight down for the other, up and over his arm.”
- Curly caterpillar letters “Up and over to his nose and all the way round to his toes.”
Year 3 – London and Paris
We have been busy in Geography looking at maps and locating Basingstoke, London and Paris. We have enjoyed looking at google earth and spotting the human and physical features of each city. We have described the position of landmarks using geographical vocabulary. It has been lovely to see the children using their knowledge already gained from their knowledge organisers.
In Art we have been inspired by a book called ‘A Lion in Paris’.
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We looked carefully at the pictures within the book. We then started by practising drawing Buckingham Palace in our Art books where we looked carefully at the detail needed. We then used fine black pens to recreate this picture before adding it to a painted background. We then added pictures to create art work similar to ‘A Lion in Paris’. We photocopied our work and are very pleased with the effect.
This week we finished our class reading book ‘The Wild Robot’. The children have thoroughly enjoyed this story that we started reading alongside ‘The Iron Man’ last term. The story has very much left the children on a cliff hanger where they want to know what will happen to Roz the Robot next. We discussed how the author had left an open opportunity for a second book and when we shared that there is a second book they were keen to find out more. The second book is called ‘The Wild Robot Escapes’ . We have included pictures below to show you incase your child would like to read on. We look forward to hearing from those that have been inspired by this first book and read the second one at home.
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Happy reading!
Year 3 Team
Year 1 – Adventurous Toys!
The children have been very excited this week to see what their toys have been up to. The toys have been having parties, reading books, learning some Maths and even hiding under or behind furniture! The children have had great discussions about why they thought their toy came out of the toy box and which toy was in charge of all the adventures. They enjoyed sequencing all the events and writing a recount of the toys adventures.
This week we have also been thinking about addition and subtraction in our Maths learning. We are learning to count on and back single-digit numbers using resources and number lines.
We are also continuing to practise our number bonds to 10 and using these to help us learn our number bond pairs to make 20.
Thank you to everyone who has returned the reply slip and payment for our trip to Milestones. Could we give a gentle reminder for any others to be returned by 7th February please.
Thank you all for your continued support with your children.
Year 1 Team