Well that's it !! Autumn term has been and gone and Christmas is nearly upon us.

Can I wish everyone one a very Merry Christmas and a fantastic New Year.

See you all on Tuesday 6th January 2009 !!

Here are a few messages from the teachers...........

RW - Mrs Weston - Mrs Weston and Miss Porter would like to wish all of RW and their families a very happy Christmas. We look forward to seeing you all safe and well in the New Year. Thank you also for our lovely presents. x

RM - Mrs McIntosh - What lovely (busy!) week......the kids have been great!!
Have a wonderful Christmas everybody............see you in 2009! Mrs McIntosh

1/2B - Mrs Barrington - Finally it's the 19th.  The children have had a fun week and are suitably excited and ready for Christmas.  Class 1/2B have had a number of children absent from school with all sorts of illnesses, l hope they feel better very soon.  I would like to say a special thank you for all the lovely gifts.  I well be very drunk and very fat from all the wine and chocolate.
Wishing you all a Merry Christmas and a very Happy New Year.

3/2C - Mrs Chatterton - A merry Chritsmas to all.

3/2B - Miss Bernard - Hello everybody!

 

Have had lots of fun making, cards, party masks and calenders this week. The party was a great success with the children making their own party food. We made our own cheese dip, garlic bread and friut kebabs. The children absolutely loved it. There was not a scrap of food left afterwards. They particularly liked the chocolate dip. They tried everything with it, including carrot sticks, tomatoes, cumumber and cheese biscuits!!

 

Have a fabulous Christmas everybody! Hope everybody has a chance to play as well as have a good rest :) - Miss Bernard 

 

4P - Mrs Peacher - Happy Christmas everyone, enjoy your holidays. Eat, drink and definately be merry!

 

Soon to 4J - Mrs Johnston - Joyeux Noël et Bonne Année, tout le monde!

 

4B - Miss Bolton - Just a short blog this week to wish you all a very merry Christmas and happy new year. Class 4B would also like to say a special thank you to Jade's nan who made the class the most amazing cake for them to enjoy. The children really loved it. Please see the picture below. See you all back on Tuesday January 5th 2009!

 

5D - Mr Duff - What a term !! One word sums it up, superb !! Have a great Christmas, be safe and I will see you all in the New Year.

 

5B - Mr Bird - It's been a fantastic term, lots of ground covered and we finished on a real high note. Enjoy your holiday and I look forward to seeing you next year.

This week was all about the Christmas performances!! After three showings, two of which were in the evening, I think the weekend cannot come quick enough. There were some very tied people this morning that needed an extra hour in bed. I am of course talking about the adults within the school !! The children were fine

I would just like to say a huge well done to all involved. You were great

 Stephen Novy

So what else has been happening this week at Darlinghurst Primary and Nursery School?

Nursery -Last week, in between practicing for the Nativity production, we made star biscuits and then decorated them with icing and hundreds and thousands. This week we have been really busy sewing puppets, it was very fiddly but we are very clever in the nursery so we managed it with some help from the adults. You can see our biscuits and puppets in our gallery. We also performed the Nativity for our Mums and Dads, Mrs Reynolds says we were brilliant.

Reception - This week, RW and RM made Mrs Weston, Mrs McIntosh and Miss Porter incredibly proud by performing their Christmas Nativity beautifully three times - once to the whole school and twice to their families. We also enjoyed a sneak preview of the rest of the school's 'Christmas Around the World' dress rehearsal and were a very patient audience! During the week, we have been continuing to learn the digraphs qu, ou, oi and ue, have been concentrating on 'one more than' in our numeracy and  have produced several pieces of Christmas art work. On Thursday, we watched a 'Russian' themed puppet show which we all thoroughly enjoyed.

1/2B - Mrs Barrington - What a week!  Class 1/2B and 1/2D performed Babushka.  The children were fantastic and really enjoyed themselves.  We hope you did as well.  The photo's taken by Mrs Johnston are super and well worth buying as a keep sake.  Even though we have been busy, the children have been working very hard writing the Christmas story.  On Thursday we were treated to a Russian puppet show, which told the story of a missing nose.  The children really connected with the story.  Next week we have our party and will be requesting the children bring only fruit and vegetables in keeping with us being a healthy school.

1/2D - Mrs Dutton - A busy but enjoyable week we have spent on our  production of Baboushka. We have worked hard but enjoyed ourselves as well. Thank you everyone who helped us with our costumes and got us safely to the evening performances.  We have also been writing about the Nativity story and we have been making our own classroom shop selling Christmas items to help us think about  using  money. 

3/2C - Mrs Chatterton - What a week! Three productions and didn't they do well, to be sure, to be sure. I think we have some budding actors and dancers. we were very proud of their efforts.The children worked on producing a piece of work as a reporter in literacy. They then recorded their work in two's or three's and we have been watching their efforts on the Interactive Whiteboard. We did more work on fractions this week in maths.You might have heard about our science experiment to see how stretchy different tights can be! The children really had fun and are learning more and more about what a fair test entails.

4P - Mrs Peacher - I would like to start this week by saying a big thank you for all of the support and hard work from parents and kids which made this years Christmas production such a huge success. A special well done to David and then Martine for stepping in and being Wise Man 3 at very short notice. The children performed fantastically well and I am very proud of them all. And finally another well done to Martine and Jacob for winning the Book Swap poster competition.

4B - Miss Bolton - What a busy week but one of the best so far this year. The children did me proud and completed 3 fantastic Christmas play performances. 4B worked so well with 2/3CG it was nice to see them all supporting each other. As the audience you probably were completely unaware that we had a few children who had to step into speaking parts right at the last minute - they did so well, you wouldn't have guessed they stepped up literally a few hours before.The rest of the week has been a mass of finishing off topics and work.Next week we will launch ourselves into cutting, sticking, shiny paper and glitter! Please accept my apologise now if your child does come home with glitter embedded in jumpers - we'll do our best to keep everyone as clean as possible!

5D - Mr Duff - What a week!! The Christmas production was the main attraction and you were fantastic. A huge well done, I am very pleased with you all !! I have to say a very big thank you to Mrs Johnston for your help with this. THANK YOU !! Next week lots of fun to be had, starting with Southend United on Monday!

Who wants to swap their book with me? I have this book, which book do you have? - These are only two comments I heard today book the book swap. What a great idea, children bring in books they have read and don't want anymore and swap with other like minded children!! We had a huge mixture of books ranging from Spooky Stories to Captain Underpants!! I really enjoyed the buzz that was going on and the children throughly loved it!! I look forward to the next one!!

 A new page has been added to the website !!

It's Christmas time, so we decided to get into the festive spirit and added a new page to the school's website dedicated to Christmas. You will find lots of different activies, children's podcasts, festive songs and lots more on there. Click here to take a visit.

Steve Mildenhall and Kevin Betsy from Southend United visit !! It's not every day two footballers visit and listen to children read but on Thursday this week that is actaully what happened. Both the lads from Southend United were great, the children really appreciated the fact they took time our of their schedule to come in. A big thank you to Mrs Jones for organising it

 DISCO TIME !!

It was the key stage 1 and 2 chistmas discos this week and I had the pleasure of being DJ Duff for the second time running. So I am hanging up my teacher hat and changing careers. You will now be able to hear me on the Darlinghust FM breakfast show . The children said they all enjoyed themselves and lots of prizes were given out for dancers. Personally I think Mrs Peacher deserved one, I am not sure where all her energy comes from !! Quick thank you to the P.T.A. for all your time and effort.

 

 

AquAid presents Darlinghurst Primary and Nursery School with an award

Instead of me telling you about the great work that AquAid does, click here and read all about them. During the week they presented our school with a framed letter and a photo of the well in Africa that we sponsor. It was a feel good assembly and reminded us how lucky we are in this country compared to others.

 Bienvenu Léo!

I hope you all remember our bear, Bobby, who has gone to spend the school year in France.  He has made friends with Léo fromCannes, who has come to stay with us.

Léo arrived yesterday and brought with him some photos of Bobby enjoying himself in Cannes - he has been to school, to the beach and even horse riding!

We hope Léo will have an exciting time at Darlinghurst.  He has already had his first guitar lesson and cooked some honey biscuits from a World War II recipe with the children in the Rainbow Room.  Not bad for his first full day with us!

 

So what else has been happening at Darlinghurst Nursery Primary and Nursery School this week?

 

 RW - Mrs McIntosh - RW have had a fun week rehearsing for our Christmas perfomance. We have also been busy writing our Christmas toy wish lists, drawing our favourite toys and writing about them. We have made two beautiful displays - one for our classroom and one for the school. On Friday, we enjoyed our book swap - we had fun choosing which books to swap with our friends.We are looking forward to next week's performances.

 

 RM - Mrs McIntosh - Christmas is well and truly here!! Hoorah! The children have enjoyed starting some Christmas activities in class this week and are also working very hard with the Nativity. Don't forget - Tuesday morning and Wednesday afternoon performances.

We've also been continuing with our Phonics - this week was th, sh, ch and revision on short oo and long oo. The children are really doing well - there are alot to remember but they are doing a fantastic job. Writing is the weakest overall area - so get them writing those Christmas cards for practice!

2 weeks.......and counting!!! Have a great weekend everyone.

 

 1/2D - Mrs Dutton - A busy and exciting week for everyone! We have been organising our story of Baboushka for the Christmas play and are getting very confident. Thank you to all the families who have provided a costume, they are great and the children are enjoying wearing them. We have had a super story to read about Father Christmas and his elves and we have written our letters to Father Christmas and postcards to the elves. We have been thinking about coins again, as everyone does at this time of year. We have had two visitors this week. On Monday P.C. Jan told us about Stranger Danger and what we should do if a stranger comes near us. The other visitor is a bit of a mystery! We can only guess who it was but we think a little bit of Christmas magic happened in our classroom!

 

 1/2B - Mrs Barrington -Another busy week in class 1/2B.  The children received a letter from Father Christmas, which as you can imagine was very exciting.  We then wrote all wrote our own reply.  Then on Wednesday there was more excitement with the school disco. 

The costumes for the school play are fantastic!  Well done and a big thank you for all your efforts and support.

 

 3/2C- Mrs Chatterton - We have been rehearsing for our part of the play for a session each day this week.It is coming along really well. thanks to all the parents who sent in costumes.

In literacy the children produced a Roman poem working with a partner. they then recorded their poem for the class to listen to.

We have been working on fractions this week, we have been looking at fractions of numbers. this has really made everyone work hard and everyone has improved in their understanding.

The children may have told you about our science experiment! We had various materials and tested which ones were good for mopping up water. The children really enjoyed this, they also had to say what would make it a fair test.

 

 3/2B - Miss Bernard - Hello everybody!

 

This week the focus has mostly been on getting our Christmas performance perfected. The children are doing very well. Mrs Peacher and I are very proud of them. They have learned to sing "Away in a Manger" in Spanish, beautifully. They actually sing better in Spanish than English.

 

I am also very pleased with the way the children have approached Numeracy this week. They have been doing fractions and they have been applying their knowledge of division to help with their understanding.They were answering lots of different fraction questions this morning during a Mental Maths session and they did very well.We are doing more fraction next week to help reinforce what they have learned.

 

In Literacy we have written Number poems, using a Roman theme. The children are going to record themselves reciting their poems and listen to them, which will be fun!

 

We all had a good time at the Christmas Disco. I want to congratulate the children on being so well behaved. I

 

I'm really looking forward to seeing all the children in their costumes next week. It's always so much better when we see them all dressed up.

 

Have a lovely weekend. - Miss Bernard

 

4B - Miss Bolton - Christmas chaos has officially arrived! Christmas play rehearsals, costumes and prop making has taking over this week. As much as its chaotic, its one of the best times to be in school.

While I'm on the subject of costumes, some children are a little short of green t-shirts. So if anyone has one at home they could lend someone else, we would appreciate it.

Next week we will be concluding all our topics and beginning to look at the Christmas story and what is means to Christians.

As mentioned on this weeks News and Views, next Friday the children as the children would have had 2 evening performances of the play, register will close at 10am. A well earned lie-in all round!

 

4P - Mrs Peacher We have been bery busy rehearsing for the christmas production this week and the children have managed to learn their lines, dances and actions really quickly, well done all. Also thank you and well done to parents for sorting out costumes. We didn't have many books in for the book swap today so we have postponed it until Monday. Please remember to bring in a book that is appropriate for 8/9 year olds and in good condition for Monday. Many thanks, Mrs Peacher.

5B - Mr Bird - Once again the week has been full of a variety of events.

The rehearsals for our Christmas performance have taken on a sense of urgency with the date creeping ever closer.  I always find it refreshing to see the sudden improvement that arrives with the first dress rehearsal and I am sure that Monday will bring that final touch which allows them to be confident for their debut. They have worked hard and are now looking forward to showing you the results of their efforts. 

 

I know that the children were pleasantly surprised, in our special assembly this week when they learnt about how  helping communities in the third world. The presentation, by a representative of 'Aqua Aid', of a framed letter and photo of the well that our contribution has provided, highlighted the impact that aid can have for those in need. 

When he pointed out that by their use of the water coolers in our school, they were directly providing clean and safe drinking water to 3.33 people for each child here, it made it clear and very real to them all.

 

We were also lucky enough to receive a visit from two professional foootball players from Southend United. They came to reinforce the point that reading is cool for all but especially targeted the boys. Steve Mildenhall and Kevin Betsy were great ambassadors for their club and dealt with the numerous questions posed by a rather spellbound audience in a friendly and honest way. Thank you again gentlemen.

 

The children have once again demonstrated that when faced with the challenge of giving a presentation of their choice they meet the requirements and often exceed them. These sessions, covering their speaking and listening skills, have provided the whole class with some very entertaining times and undoubtedly expanded their peer's knowledge over a whole range of subjects. 

 

Wednesday will obviously feature highly in the memories of the children as our Christmas disco is always an entertaining and only 'slightly noisy' event. I was very impressed with some of the more unique dancing styles and it was obvious they thoroughly enjoyed themselves. I know they would all like me to thank the PTA for all the hard work they put in.

 

Our final day also provided a variation with the book swap giving children the chance to obtain some different reading material.
   

 5D - Mr Duff - What a week !!! Play rehearsals, Christmas poems, podcasts, fractions, food tasting, designing posters, visit from Southend United, book swap, creating a new webpage for the website, special assembly, disco are just a few activities we managed to cram in !!

Next week we have the Christmas performaces on Tuesday (1:30pm), Wednesday (6:30pm) and Thursday (6:30pm). You also have the chance to come in later on Friday if you wish (10:00am). I will be in the classroom as per normal and breakfast club is still on, so if you want to come in at the usual time, you are more than welcome. I don't want to be the only one in the classroom, it might be quite lonely !! Good luck next week.