Darlinghurst Primary and Nursery School

Week 11 Autumn Term 08/09

Mr Duff — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 14:52:03 +0000

This week has been "anti-bullying week" and the children have been discussing what to do if they see bullying, if they are being bullied, the different types of bullying and how bullies make us feel.

We, and other local schools, wore blue on Thursday to show our awareness to this sensitive subject.

The Schools Fantasy Football League update !!

Where are you in the league? Click here to find out.

Year 4 - Brendon
Year 5 - Tia
Year 6 - Jamie
Staff - Mrs Evans

Don't forget you get three transfers per month. I have used mine already but to be honest it didn't help me much !!!

It was also International Week this week and lots of classrooms were using books to find out interesting facts, speaking foreign languages and using their ICT and researching skills in order to gain more knowledge about their chosen country.

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

French - Mrs Johnston

Reception have been learning a song about parts of their body.

Year 1/2 shared the story, ‘Aboie Georges’ about a dog who had trouble with his bark.

Year 3/2 are still working on their classroom objects.

Year 4 have been thinking about which animals they like or don’t like and planning their animal books.

Year 5 have started writing about their favourite school subjects.

Year 6 started performing shopping role plays in a clothes shop

Nursery - It was Italian week in the Nursery so we made Italian flags. We also played with some dried pasta shapes and had cooked pasta shapes for snack, they were green, red and cream coloured. We also made muffin pizzas which we cooked under the Nursery grill. We put tomato sauce on them and then put grated cheese on top before we cooked them. We had them for snack, they were yummy!!!

RW - Mrs Weston - RW have thoroughly enjoyed our International Week focusing on France. We have implemented many activities in the classroom: saying 'bonjour Madame Weston' during register, making French flags and comparing the similarities and differences to the Union Jack, handwriting French colours, singing French songs, sharing French books, sponge printing and ordering numbers whilst saying them in French, exploring French games on the computer in the ICT suite and eating 'French' snacks! We are looking forward to starting rehearsals next week for our Christmas nativity.

RM - Mrs McIntosh - Christmas is nearly upon us and we have started to prepare for our Christmas nativity. If anyone has any questions about lines/costumes or performances, please come in and see me.

This week we have been doing lots of French! The children have done a great job at their colours, numbers, songs and snacks!! (They all enjoyed Croissants or Pain au chocolat!) Mrs Johnston has also been doing "6 in the bed" in French and the children have throughly enjoyed it.

We are continuing to learn our phonemes and diagraphs - next week they will be oo (look), oo (moon), y, x, ch. Any extra practice at home will be very helpful.

Have a great weekend! Mrs M

1/2D - Mrs Dutton - This week we have been very busy! In our writing time we have been thinking about three stories from other countries and we really enjoyed them. In our number work we have been finding out about money; what different coins look like, how many pennies they are worth and how to go shopping and get the correct change. On Thursday we talked about what bullying is and how we can stop it happening. I must say that the children had really good ideas which we talked about sensibly. Well done everyone. We are also getting excited about our singing, our words and our dances for the Christmas play. Thank you to all parents who are able to help us with costumes for our Russian story.

1/2B - Mrs Barrington - It's all about the money in Class 1/2B. We are beginning to recognise different coin values up to £2.00, some of us have been adding three different coin amounts and we have also just started using the £ sign as well. We have made a very good start with our part in the school Christmas play. I have been really impressed with how quickly the children are learning the words. Next week we shall cover the famous Russian story Babushka in literacy. In numeracy we shall continue with money, money, money.

3/2B - Miss Bernard - Hello everybody!

Another week has flown by! Starting preparations for our Christmas performance, the children are getting very excited. I am too, they always do such a good job.

This week we have been experimenting with number through multiplication and division. The children have been exploring the relationship between the two operations and using their skills to solve word problems. I am very pleased with the progress they have made, generally they have shown good understanding. They will get the opportunity to develop their skills further as we are doing a whole week on multiplication and division again next week. On Friday there will be a 2 times tables test and some children will also be tested on dividing by 2.

This week we have also been doing activities in connection with Anti-bullying and International Week. The children have thought really carefully about what bullying means through discussion and role play. They have also thought about ways to combat bullying, they have expressed these ideas through creating poems and posters.

We have focussed on Spain this week to extend our knowledge gained from our European Day of Languages.We are now learning to count up to 20, we have learned greetings and discussed Spanish traditions, comparing them with our own. The theme for our Christmas play is Christmas around the World and, yes you guessed it, our country is Spain.

So, hopefully, by the end of this term the children will be very knowledgeable about this part of Europe.

3/2C - Mrs Chatterton - This week we have focussed on anti- bullying week and looked at Ireland as part of International week. what a busy time.

The children have produced an Anti-bullying poem and poster. the children found out about Irish traditions at Christmas , did a drawing of the Irish flag and found out about Leprechauns and shamrock.

Miss Bolton's class joined us for a read through of our part of the xmas play!!! So wait for the children to tell you what they will be doing.

4B - Miss Bolton - Somebody decided that we would have both Internation Week and Anti-bullying week at the same time for this week - so its been a week of real variety!

We started the week though by counting all the pennies we got from our Children in Need penny trail. I thought it would only take an hour - but 2 hours later, we were still going! It turned into some good learning though with maths as we counted and weighed all the different coins. Myself and Mr Lloyd took a grand total of £266.86 down to Nat West to pay into the Children in Need account. Thank you all so much for your generous donations. There is a couple of picture of us counting in the Gallery.

The other highlight of the week was beginning to introduce the children to our Christmas play - Christmas Around The World. We have paired up with Mrs Chattertons class and have chosen to do Ireland. The children have been given song words for Slade's 'Merry Christmas Everybody' and further details of cast, scripts and costumes will follow shortly - get practicing the Irish dancing!!

4P - Mrs Peacher - Class 4P have had a special week this week with Anti-Bullying week and International week. Each child in the class chose a country that they would like to research at the start of the week and they have been using the internet to carry out their research. They each found out the countries flag, population, landscape, wildlife, capital city and language including how to say hello. We had countries as close as Wales and as far flung as Senegal and Libya. They have been using skin colour paints to match to the people from their chosen countries. We will put all of their work together on a display. For anti-bullying week we made friendship posters to be displayed in the classroom and out in the playground. We also wrote poems from the point of view of either the bully or the victim. Well done to our new addition Alexia who wrote a particularly good poem.

5B - Mr Bird - Our focus this week has been divided between International Week and Anti-bullying Week. Both of these areas have provided the children with numerous opportunities to explore these important topics from several different perspectives.

International Week was encompassed in our work on myths and legends, PE and music, with Thursday giving the children the chance to try out some Greek language and an introduction to traditional Greek dancing. They really entered into the spirit of the day and clearly enjoyed demonstrating their new found knowledge. We hope the children have not been too traumatised by watching their teachers demonstrate Zorba's dance !

The ever important task of exploring, recognising and discussing the issue of bullying was tackled in a variety of ways. It was refreshing to see that our children take this matter seriously and show a level of awareness that should certainly reduce their chances of becoming a victim, or indeed them being involved with any act which could be construed as bullying.

This week ended with the first reading of our contribution for the end of term performance. Everyone was keen to participate and with the invaluable help given by Mrs Johnston, copies of the children's lines have already been given to them. I suppose now would be the time to say to all the adults at home who will be listening to their children practising, enjoy every performance. I am sure you will be hearing it several times during the next couple of weeks but it will be worth it, honestly.

5D - Mr Duff - Greece is the word!!! Being International Week, we dedicated a whole day to find out about our chosen country, Greece. This even linked into our P.E. lesson with the dance Zorba the Greek. With Mr Bird, Mrs Evans and myself demonstrating to the children they couldn't wrong (yeah right)!!!

Another topic this week has been around anti-bullying. I must say the children were very sensible when approaching this subject and very grown up discussions were had.

The parts for the play have been given out, so please learn you lines as the performances are only just around the corner.

Next week we will be writing our myths. Please remember how you build suspense and tension and the rest we will go over again before you write.

6M - Mr Martin - Which surfaces cause the most friction? This is the question we have been pondering this week. As scientists, we have been devising our own investigations to test our predictions. With our results, we were able to draw scientific conclusions which we could apply to everyday circumstances such as safety in the home.

As the Festive Season hurtles towards us, we have begun rehearsing for our contribution to the schools' Christmas production. It's been fun singing rocking around the Christmas even though it's only mid November!

6H - Mr Hautler - Another exciting week has come to an end. The parts for the Christmas play, which is the Christmas Tree Story from Germany, have been cast and the actors are busy learning their lines. Our work on Eastern Europe has continued, we are being Travel Agents advertising a Country. In I.C.T we made a powerpoint presentation on Forces. We will evaluate these next week. The week has been great fun and we are looking forward to coming back on Monday!

Week 10 Autumn Term 08/09

Mr Duff — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 14:13:28 +0000

Guess what we have been doing today !! You have guessed it - "Children in Need" !!!

Most children and staff have come dressed in something beginning with the letter "p". I myself was fitted for my pirates hat last night. My wife had a big black sheet of paper, cellotape, a stapler and a scull and cross bone. I sat there patiently, whilst she conjured her magic and voila, Pirate Duff was born !!

My wife was definitely not the only one with her Blue Peter head on. There were some fantastic costumes in and around the school, ranging from painters to plumbers, policemen to paramedics, princes to princesses. My personal favourite was Sonny in 4B who came dressed as a Phoenix, superb.

To top it all Miss Bolton and 4B did a fantastic penny trial in the hall - see their photos here

Morrisons Vouchers

Please keep these coming in. The offer is over so no more vouchers will be given out in the shops. Please check your coats, handbags and pockets for any vouchers and send them into school so Mrs Johnston can make her shopping list.

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

French - Mrs Johnston

Reception have been learning some instruction words to go with an action song.

Years 1/2 have been revising their colours and learning an action song.

Years 3/2 have been learning about items in their pencil case.

Year 4 have started to make books about their pets.

Year 5 have compared French and English school timetables.

Year 6 have been playing a clothes shopping game.

Nursery - This week the Nursery children have been sticking squares on to their Elmer pictures. We also made firework pictures at the beginning of the week. We all dressed up in something beginning with 'P' so had lots of pirates and pink princesses.

RW - Mrs Weston - RW have continued with our toy theme using bears as a stimulus this week. We have focused on the traditional tale 'Goldilocks and the Three Bears', re-telling the story to an adult, making moveable bears, writing an apology letter from Goldilocks to the three bears and discussing the similarities and differences between our own versions of the book that we brought in independently and the three bowls, chairs, spoons etc that we used to re-enact the story. We are looking forward to making porridge on Monday and then taking part in International week where we will be studying France.

RM - Mrs McIntosh - This week RM have been continuing the theme of bears, particularly Goldilocks and the 3 bears, and have encorporated lots of maths, literacy and creativity.

Today lots of the children have come dressed in something beginning with "P" and have had a great day raising money for Children in Need....thank you!

Next week is "International week" and we will be doing something "French" everyday - learning more colours, numbers, songs and on Friday we'll be asking for the children to bring in a French snack (eg Croissant, Pain au chocolate, french bread). Also can I remind you that Thursday is "Anti-Bullying" week and the children are asked to wear something Blue.

Have a great weekend, Mrs M

1/2B - Mrs Barrington - Class1/2B have had another enjoyable week learning about the Island of Struay. We made clay islands and have almost finished painting them. We also made our own sunset pictures with some pleasing results. Our numeracy involved doubling and halving the children can now double money. This could come in very handy! Next week will have an international feel and then on Thursday our learning we be centred around anti bullying.

1/2D - Mrs Dutton - We have been thinking about what it is like 'Living On An Island' with our Katie Morag stories and have been looking closely at the important illustrations and writing about our favourite part of the story In Numeracy we have been working hard to double 2 digit numbers and some of us have been halving numbers as well! We have also been thinking about how plants and animals are both similar and different.

Thanks for all the boxes, we will be using them next week.

3/2B - Miss Bernard - Hello everybody!

I cannot believe that another week has gone by. We seem to be so busy and it's not even Christmas yet! The children have worked really hard on telling the time, but they know that they need to practise more. So children, remember to practise telling the time at home whenever you can! We have also been writing recounts of our trip to Colchester Castle. The children had to think carefully about what makes a good and interesting recount. I have not read them all, but so far they seem to have made a very good effort.

Next week is Antibullying and International Week, we will be doing lots of interesting activities connected within these themes. The country that we will be looking at will be Spain to expand on what we learned on International Day of Languages. So children, could you find out what you can about the city of Barcelona and anything about Spanish Christmas customs.

Thanks! Have a great weekend - Miss Bernard

3/2C - Mrs Chatterton - We have been wriitng about our trip to Colchester castle in the form of a recount. They all said they enjoyed the trip and not just their lunch!

We have been working on time this week- please talk to the children about time as much as possible as it is really helpful if they have some input at home.

Many children completed their materials homework- well done. We have been looking at why certain materials are used to make various objects around the school. Quite ahrd for them to grasp.

4B - Miss Bolton - Today has been a fab day. I can't remember how many penny trails I've done over the years I've been here...but its been quite a few. I was a little worried yesterday that the credit crunch had hit us and the half box of pennies we had wouldn't have completed any kind of trail But after a day of plugging and shaking buckets outside, we got more pennies than ever! The class really enjoyed themselves going 4 times round the hall in pennies, filling the school badge in the middle and then becoming penny artists by creating picture of Pudsey Bear of their own - all in pennies!

Just got the task of counting them now!!!

Thanks to everyone for their donations and support - Pudsey and the Children say THANKS!

Here's a link to the Gallery to see some pictures of our fab Penny Trail.

4P - Mrs Peacher - This week 4P have been writing playscripts based around either Madagascar or Finding Nemo, which links to our science project on habitats. Our ICT this week also linked to habitats and may I say that Mrs Reeve commented on how impressed she was with the children's ICT skills. Well done everybody, keep up the good work! We had lots of interesting costumes for 'p' day today. I particularly enjoyed Libby's panda bear with bamboo stick snack! I am totally worn out from changing my costume everytime someone entered the classroom. I have been a puss cat, pirate, princess and pink lady. It has left me a little confused so I am going home for a cup of tea and to watch Pudsey! Have a nice weekend!

5B - Mr Bird - Week two of the Ziggy challenge has been well supported by the class with the majority of children walking or cycling to school. Their actions have been reinforced by the partially created traffic calming measure which is taking shape outside our school. I know the children were very pleased that the artwork for the 20 mph signs in the area came from one of the year 5 children from last year, it certainly gave them an incentive to produce some nice pieces of art this week.

Art featured in more than one form, with the children creating some poppies from paper plates for the backdrop to our two minutes silence. There were sufficient poppies to produce a large ' 90 ', in recognition of the importance of this year to the three remaining British ex servicemen who served in WW1. The children coped very well with our school Act of Remembrance and clearly had a better understanding of how this fits in with other community events.

Our work on myths has moved on and the children have enjoyed exploring aspects of this area through drama. This approach had the desired outcome of focusing them on the central aspects of an interesting myth, a point which will

be of great assistance to them when they create their own piece of writing.

With the week ending on a very positive note of heightening everybody's awareness of the 'Children in Need' charity, we entered into the spirit of raising money by taking part in a sponsored dressing up day. The fun had will hopefully go some way to providing help to many children in the future.

5D - Mr Duff - We have the Ziggy Challenge up and running and our monitors are in place. Well done Daniel, Tom and Callum you are doing a great job.

The discussion work on our myths is coming on very well and next week will be starting to plan how this will link into our writing.

In maths we were finding the difference by counting on to the next multiple of 10, 100, 1000 and beyond. You were visualising number lines really well. Next week we will be looking at doubling and halving.

Our soft area (book corner) will be ready Monday, so we will have a nice chilled out place to read books within the classroom !!

6H - Mr Hautler - This week we have been looking at the different types of triangles in maths and we've been writing non-chronological reports in literacy. We have started preparing for the up and coming Christmas Production. We have very little homework this week as we need to prepare ourselves for the 11 plus tests next saturday.

6M - Mr Martin - We have been investigating the forces all around us and divising our own experiments to see how friction affects the journey of the vehicle. In addition to this, our Eastern European topic is ticking along nicely as we have been able to learn about it through many subjects such as art, music and literacy. We have really enjoyed making biscuits to support the Children in Need and dressing up as something beginning with 'P'. We wait with baited breath to find out the grand total - we hope its alot!

Week 9 Autumn Term 08/09

Mr Duff — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 14:13:53 +0000

Welcome back !! I hope you all had a good half term !

Well the children had any cobwebs well and truely brush away on Monday with a fantastic activity day that was enjoyed by all. I will let Mrs Johnson explain......

Fantastic Elastic!!

Wow! What a day we had on Monday!

We celebrated our own World Games Day. John Massey from the Small Earth Games Company came and taught us games from around the world. The games involved thinking skills, PE skills and lots of fun. Ask your child which country their game came from.

The highlight of each session was the French skipping. Some of you adults may remember this from your own school days – a lot of the teachers do! We also learnt that French skipping started in China but is played around the world.

The day ended with an amazing assembly when the children showed off to each other. They had learnt different skills during the day which they can teach each other in the playground.

French skipping is great for increasing agility and stamina. Apparently, 3 minutes of French skipping is as good as a 20 minute run! Go on grown ups – get your children to teach you some French skipping over the weekend!

Thank you Mrs Johnston for organising such a great day

Update from the School's Fantasy Football League

Lots of points being scored and the fun is well on the way !!

The present leaders are.......

Year 4 - Kyle M

Year 5 - Tia B

Year 6 - Jamie C

Staff - Mr Bird

So the first week back is now been and gone. We are edging closer and closer to the C word. I won't add a count down just yet, maybe the beginning of December will be more appropriate !!

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

French - Mrs Johnston

The Reception classes have been learning the song ‘6 au lit’ (6 in the bed) and were so sensible playing in the ‘bed’. RM – can you spot your shoes? Click here to see

Y1/2 have been learning the song ‘6 au lit’ (6 in the bed) as well as the names for some animals.

Year 2/3 have been continuing their number work and learning classroom instructions in French. They saw a short film about a French classroom, noticing some of the differences and similarities.

Year 4 have carried on with their number work – repetition and reinforcement is really key here, so do encourage your children to count in French at home – not just reciting the numbers to 10 or 20 which they can do easily but to count various objects or say numbers out of sequence. 4B read ‘Un pour l’escargot, dix pour le crabe’ with Mademoiselle Jamet.

Year 5 have been learning about their school subjects in French. 5D also read ‘Un pour l’escargot, dix pour le crabe’ with Mademoiselle Jamet and looked at numbers up to 100!

Year 6 have been extending their knowledge of clothing vocabulary and adjectives to tackle a reading comprehension!

Nursery - This week in the Nursery we have been doing a lot of work with colours and shapes, we made pictures by printing shapes and also by sticking coloured shapes. Mrs Elliott has been busy helping us to make a Mr Men and Little Miss display for the wall.

RM - Mrs McIntosh - Where did half term go?!!!

This week we have been looking at Toys - bears in particular. Many children brought in their favourite bear from home and we spent some time drawing them and comparing them. Mrs Collison even brought in a really, really old bear!

We are still practicing writing our names and would encourage any help from home to do this too. Many of the children produced lovely "numbers books" from their half term homework - well done!

We are now beginning to look at some "tricky" words in our reading - so far they are: the, to, I, go, into. These are non-decodable words that the children will learn from site rather than sounding them out.

RW - Mrs Weston - RW have continued with our toys theme this week looking at 'teddies'. We brought in our own teddies from home which we discussed and compared and drew them using pastels in the classroom. Some of us used the computer program 'First Artist' in the ICT suite too! We also made our own mini teddies choosing suitable fluffy material from a range to cover them with, and read the stories 'Old Bear' and 'The Teddy that was Left Behind'. We revised our phonemes so far and continued with our blending and our tricky words. Mrs Weston was very impressed with our half term holiday homework where we made number scrap books. We shared these on Friday. A great big thank you to all the parents who supported the children with this homework. A lot of effort obviously went into them.

1/2B - Mrs Barrington - Back to school and back to learning for class 1/2B. We all enjoyed our trip to the two war memorials on Tuesday. The children made some fantastic drawings and showed a great interest. I am hoping to put some of the photos onto our school website. This week we also started our Katie Morag work. The children really liked the first story Katie Morag delivers the Mail by Mairi Hedderwick. We also visited a really good website about island life in Coll which is where Mairi Hedderwick based her stories. I have put the web address here as l know the children would like to share it with you. www.visitcoll.co.uk

3/2B - Mis Bernard - Hello everybody!

The children have worked really hard this week on Addition and Subtraction. They have been drawing blank number lines and using them to help themselves work out answers. They have done well with these and I am very pleased with their efforts.

They have also had lots of fun writing instructions for their work partners on how to dress a Roman Soldier.It really made them think about the elements that make a good set of instructions. Especially when their partners were having problems following their instructions.

We are all very excited about our trip to Colchester Castle Museum tomorrow. In Literacy, next week, the children will be writing recounts all about it. So make sure you remember lots of details children! In Numeracy we are revisiting time. An area of Mathematics that children find difficult especially without practise. So make sure you practise telling the time at different times of the day over the weekend children.

Have fun! - Miss Bernard

3/2C - Mrs Chatterton - Due to our fantastic trip to Colchester castle the blog for us is late. We had a super time at the castle, the children knew so much about Romans beforehand, but they learnt even more.

This week we have been writing instructions on how to put a paper Roman soldier together. The children then had to swap instructions to make him.

We have worked on addition and subtraction for maths.

For science we have been starting our next topic on materials.

4B - Miss Bolton - This week has flown past - they do say time flies when you're having fun!

This week we started a new programme of topics. We leave history behind this half term in favour of some geography. Our topic is called 'Village Settlers' which looks at how and why towns have grown from a thousand years ago to present day. In science we have started looking at Habitats of living things. In art we will be looking at Dream Art and making dream catchers. In ICT learning the skills needed to use word processors effectively.

Our main highlight of the week though was International Games Day where we learnt games from Brazil, Pakistan and French skipping. It brought back lots of happy childhood memories for me seeing French skipping again. Although, today, health and safety rules mean the elastics have to made a certain way - I remember just getting a long length of white elastic from my mums sewing basket and tying a big knot in it! How times change!

It really has made a positive change to playtimes though and its been great seeing the class enjoying French skipping. Here's a couple of pictures of class 4B French skipping.

4P - Mrs Peacher - Class 4P have had a great start to this half term this week and I am really pleased with how all of the children are progressing so far this year. We are looking at playscripts as our literacy project over the next few weeks and we have found some budding actors and actresses in the class ( as I am sure you already know!). We have also begun our new science project, habitats, and the children had loads of fun collecting bugs and other creatures from different habitats around the school. A particular mention for Iona this week for her fabulous story about the scorpian and the tiger visiting each others strange habitats which she wrote for her homework. Infact I am very pleased at the amount of homework that is being done by all of the children. Keep up the good work :) Mrs P

5B - Mr Bird - Everybody seemed to have benefitted from the break last week and the children really enjoyed the opportunity of being able to share some of their experiences with the class.

The children have fully encompassed the themed approach to myths and legends. Following the viewing of a film, which helped to demonstrate some of the features present in these tales, the mood was one of enthusiasm for their future tasks. Immediately after the film there was more than one potential Ancient Greek character setting out on a quest, rather than their normal playtime activities.

The involvement of a number of classes in the 'World Games Day' provided the children with a very different type of challenge. I know that the combined year 5 classes thoroughly enjoyed the chance to compete in a very lively Spanish game that required speed and dexterity. Without doubt, the children's response towards the opposing players demonstrated how far their sense of fair play has developed over the past year.

One result of the World Games Day has been the transformation of the playground to one that would have been a familiar sight in the past. Many of the children, who had previously not been aware of French skipping, are now eager to take on the challenge of fast and accurate skipping to keep fit.

We have also examined the origins and meaning of Remembrance Day this week and the children have exchanged their thoughts and ideas about the impact this has on our local community and the rest of the nation.

Please continue to send your children in with any books you may have about myths, legends and fables, as the widest range possible is always highly beneficial.

Mr Duff - 5D - You have worked extremely hard this week well done. We have looked at metric and imperial units of lenghts. We had a great discussion about this and don't forget to look out for the countdown markers on the roads. Tell your parents what they mean!!

We have started our new topic of Myths and Legends, we even got a chance to look at Jason and the Argonauts to get us into the swing of things. We know what the difference between a myth, legend and fable and I think you have taken on a lot of knowledge this week.

What makes a good learner? We all now know!! The learning skills will be displayed on our newly created signposts and we will make good use of this.

What else have we done this week? Ummm, skipping, singing, recording our voices, book club feedback, introduction to our new science topic, learning about remembrance day, Mr Hautler teaching you P.E. and many more things - wow what a week back !!

Keep up your reading, what a fantastic job you are doing. This will have a direct impact on your progress this year. Homework is to learning our song, the division facts of the 9 x table and your spellings

Mr Martin - 6M - We have really enjoyed our first week back as we have started a new term as we are going to be exploring the exciting topic of Eastern Europe. We have been looking at how this excitng region has changed in recent history and been investigating the people and its cultures. In science the FORCE has been with us! As we have been looking at how forces come into our daily life and we have been researching the life and work of Sir Isaac Newton. Next week we shall be making our own Newton Meters whilst carrying out our own scientific explorations!

Please note that until further notice PE is on Friday.

Week 8 Autumn Term 08/09

Mr Duff — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 13:59:02 +0100

That's it, the half term is over, 8 weeks gone !! Wow, that was quick !!

Another week closer to Christmas, ummm that's a bit frightening !! Anyway moving quickly on !!

What's all the pennies for? Well I will let Miss Bolton explain..........

As tradition dictates, I will be completing a penny trail for Children in Need again this year with my class. So this is an appeal for you to dig deep down the back of sofas, in bottom of handbags and inside piggy banks to donate as many 1p and 2p coins as you can to this very worth while cause. Every penny will indeed help!

Please bring them in any time up to November 14th and give them to myself, Miss Bolton.

Thank you!

Introducing the Gallery !!

The website has a new feature, it's called the Gallery. Now, I am old enough to remember Take Hart and the music that went with the pictures that were featured in their gallery. Unfortunately I haven't got that to hand but I am sure our gallery is just as good. Click here to have a look.

Mrs Johnston would like to say a few words........

VIPs French VIPs visit Darlinghurst

French VIP visitors!

We were very pleased to welcome three very important visitors from France to Darlinghurst today. They were Jean-Jacques Mandirac, an Inspecteur d'Education Nationale, whose role is more or less be a Headteacher to 40 primary schools, Yvon Deverre, a retired Adjoint de l'Inspecteur d'Académie who was in charge of over 300 primary schools in the Nice area and Anne Villeneuve, an MFL (Modern Foreign Language) adviser for Nice primary schools.

They very much enjoyed their tour round the school and commented on how bright and colourful it is. They were very envious of our interactive whiteboards and large outside playing areas.

The children, as usual, were polite and enthusiastic in greeting our guests with cries of ‘Bonjour’ following us around the school.

This is part of a wonderful opportunity for us to share and compare language, culture and educational practice.

Click here to see a photo of our guests

Gardening Club

Gardening Club have been busy again, this time planing daffodil bulbs under the trees near the front of the school. They'll look lovely in Spring.

Thank you Mrs Johnston

Update from the School's Fantasy Football League

After the first week Mr Bird and Caleb (year 4) are top of the league but please remember it's a long season!

Tia is the Year 5 leader and Jamie is the leading the way in Year 6

So we now have a week off. I am sure the children and the teachers alike need the rest!! I know I am looking forward to it and hopefully it doesn't pass too quickly.

Anyway, we will see you back in school, bright and breezy on Monday 3rd November. Enjoy your break

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

Mrs Johnston

What a busy week, I seem to have been here, there and everywhere just for a change!

Year 6 have been continuing their work on adjectives. They can now describe clothes with colours, size and length matching singular, plural, masculine and feminine!

Year 5 have been learning about school subjects and finding out that French children learn the same subjects as they do.

Year 4 are learning numbers up to 40.

Year 2/3 are learning numbers up to 20.

Reception and 1/2 have been practising their colours and numbers to 10.

Numbers seem to be our theme at the moment and the dedicated group of parents that come on Fridays are learning scary numbers up to 100! We will continue this after half-term. New members are welcome to join us.

If you are going abroard during the holiday, especially France or Spain, I would be grateful if you could bring me any packaging from your foreign food shopping eg biscuit boxes, food packets etc. They could be folded flat and I will reassemble them. They will be of great value when we play shopping games. Merci.

Nursery - We were very busy in the Nursery this week making cakes. We measured out the ingredients, mixed them together, put the mixture in cake cases and then cooked them in the oven. The next day we decorated them with yellow and green icing and then counted out 5 jelly beans to put on top.

We also played with the cornflour and water mixture, it made a terrible mess but we did have fun.

Click here to see our photos

RM - Mrs McIntosh - What a long.....but very good half term. The children have settled in so well and have worked extremely hard. We have covered an awful lot and the children have coped with the new routines and pressures very well. I hope they have a good rest and come back with just as much enthusiasm and drive as they have had this half term.

Next half term, our topics are Toys/Christmas.......a very exciting time of the year. I love Christmas and will be encouraging lots of mess and singing in the classroom from 1st December!! (if not earlier!)

It was great to see so many of you at Parents meetings this week and was encouraged by how much you are supporting your children's learning at home. Please continue this over the half term holiday.

The homework I have set for the holiday is to make a number book - to see how many different numbers we can see as we travel around our environment - Writing, photos, pictures, cuttings will all be welcome! I hope you enjoy sharing this experience with your child.

Have a great week and see you on Monday 3rd November! Mrs M

RW - Mrs Weston - RW have really put their phonics knowledge into practise this week by starting to read captions such as 'a cat in a hat' and 'socks on a mat' and matching them to pictures. We have read and used the tricky words 'to', 'the' ,'no', 'go' and 'I' (tricky as they cannot be blended using our phonemes) and written them into sentences in our handwriting books.We have made hand prints continuing on our bigger/smaller theme and compared their sizes, and also brought in and shared photographs of us when we were babies. We played a game of 'guess who?' with the photos and spoke about the things we used to do when we were smaller. Mrs Weston is looking forward to seeing everyone's number books after half term and hopes everybody has a safe and happy holiday.

1/2D - Mrs Dutton - This week we have enjoyed naming shapes and counting how many sides and corners each one has. We have also looked at some shapes to find their lines of symmetry. We have been listening to, following and writing instructions: some of us wrote instructions to an English speaking alien to tell him how to clean his teeth. We did remember to tell him to clean his mouth afterwards!

On Thursday we had an interesting visitor. Nurse Becky came to tell us about her important job caring for children who are in hospital on Neptune Ward. She showed us her instruments and how to use them carefully. We then practised on each other.

After the holiday we will be doing Show and Tell on Thursday afternoons and PE on Monday afternoons. Have a lovely week everyone.

3/2B - Miss Bernard - Hi everybody!

Have had a lovely week of looking at poetry. The children have been writing poems based on a Roman chariot race. They also had to try and include adjectives and rhyme, which they made a really brilliant effort with. The children read each other's and made some very positive comments.

In Numeracy we have been interpreting data using, tally & bar charts and also pictograms. The children enjoyed recording the data.The have decided that they need more practise interpreting it. We will also be doing data analysis in Science so that the children can get more practise.

After Half Term we will be looking at instructions and the children will be writing instructions for their talk partners to follow to dress a Roman Soldier. They will be seeing how easy the instructions are for them to follow. In Numeracy the children will be building on their addition and subtraction skills.

I hope that you all enjoy your Half Term holiday. I know that I will! - Miss Bernard

3/2C - Mrs Chatterton - I can't believe it is half term already. Our topic on Romans has gone down so well that we will continue it until we go into Christmas mode. It was so nice to see so many parents turn up on Wednesday. Mrs Grant and I we pleased to tell you all about your Childs successes.

We have been busy writing poems about chariot races this week. Some of the poems are fantastic.

In maths we have looked at tally charts and pictograms.

Sorry if in the holidays the children keep asking about Roman roads. they were told some still exist and they are straight. so if you go along a straight road wait for the voice in the back!!!

Have a lovely half term with the children - Mrs Chatterton

4B - Miss Bolton - So here we are at the end of our first half term already! So much work completed already and a lot of successes had by the majority of the class. We've come to the end of our World War 2 topic and its amazing how knowledgable the children are about that era after just 6 weeks.

Some of our topics for after half term will be; geography based - Village Settlers, Science - Habitats, Art - Dreams and in Literacy we will be starting to look at play writing.

The first day back too will be an exciting one as we will be celebrating World Games Day. Each class will have a workshop with some international visitors teaching the children games from around the world - in particular, French skipping. The children will be given the opportunity to buy some colourful French skipping ropes that week too.

Its that time of year again when the Children in Need appeal begins. As it is now become traditional, I will be completing a penny trail with my class again this year. Please start collecting and bringing in as many 1p and 2p coins as possible ready for November 14th. Thank you.

Have a good half term break!

4P - Mrs Peacher - Well hasn't the last seven and a half weeks just flown by! Class 4P have completed their World War II projects this week. I was particularly pleased with some of their work including Danny and Charlie's spitfire drawings in ICT and Dean's Colin Carrot poster! The children will bring the projects home shortly to show you what they have learnt. We made some great horrifying halloween cards and wrote up the instructions as part of our literacy project. I have provided the children with the materials so that they can teach someone else, over the half term, how to make one too. We also finished reading our class novel today, The Demon Headmaster. Look out for the sequels kids, 'The Prime Ministers Brain', 'The Revenge of the Demon Headmaster' and 'The Demon Headmaster Strikes Again'. Enjoy your half term holiday!

5B - Mr Bird - Class 5B

This week has provided the children with the opportunity to put finishing touches to their instruments and to evaluate the design and construction. It was good to hear how frank they were regarding any improvements that they would make, as this demonstrated their ability to gain the optimum benefit from the experience.

With the end of this half term also marking the conclusion of our Victorian work, it was fitting that they were able to review some of the facts that they had researched. I was very pleased to hear many of the children say that some of the areas examined, covered information that other members of their families were unfamiliar with. They really do enjoy taking on the role of teacher at times and love to share their new found knowledge.

Having researched a number of Victorian personalities, they completed their written work by writing a short biography on Mary Seacole and I look forward to reading these later. This person's life acted as a stimulus for us to examine a number of social areas. The children's sense of fairness led to some very powerful contributions about aknowledging people's worth.

PE with the team from ASSA ended today. I know the children have really enjoyed these sessions and would like me to record their thanks to this very professional group.

This is a reminder for parents regarding the children's first day back, they will need their PE kit on Monday as there will be a chance for them to show off their skills at French skipping.

Thank you to all those parents who either attended the consultations this week, or have met with me recently to discuss their child's progress.

I would like to finish by saying that I, together with Mrs Amran and Mrs Day, hope that everyone in 5B will have a really good holiday and make the most of not having to complete any homework.

5D - Mr Duff - Bon Jovi get your heart out, the 5D rock band is now formed. We did an outside performance to a crowd of over 50,000. OK, so we took a few photos on the outside stage in the rain but it felt just as good!! Your guitars looked great and I am very pleased with the outcome. Well done

We have now written our biography about Mary Seacole and I will be assessing these over the half term. I have throughly enjoyed watching you research, share your information and generally absorb yourself in this topic. Superb work.

In maths I am confident you have a good understanding of bar charts and how to interept data from these. We are looking at fractions on your return.

This half term has been fantastic, not only have you settled in quickly it looks like you are all enjoying what's happening in the classroom. I know me and Mrs Evans are. Enjoy your half term and see you all on the 3rd Nov.

p.s. Thank you to all the parents that I saw recently, don't forget my door is always open if you need to pop in and have a chat.

6H - Mr Haulter - Another exciting week has gone by us! In maths we learnt how to do the column method to solve multiplication problems. We have finally finished our topic on food and are looking forward to our next topic on...? We learnt about squabbling and designed a board game about it. We also got a think book each and took them home to design the front cover. These books are private as they contain all our thoughts, so if you see one (most of them are decorated with stickers) NO PEEKING!!!

6M - Mr Martin - Half term already? It's a wonder we packed it all in. With the closing of our topic on food- we made bread and cheese and evaluated our results. And weren't they just delicious! Next term, our focus will be on Eastern Europe and we will be looking at this fascinating corner of the globe and investiagating its rich history, culture and people.

Note for the diary P.E. is on Friday until further noice.