The end of the first half-term!

Hello everyone,

Just a quick message to congratulate all the reception children on completing their first half-term! There were certainly some tired children at the end of the day today. We have sent children home with their 'Who am I?' sheet that was up on the display board this week. There were some lovely things written by different people in the school (including year 4 buddies). Children also have their PE kits with them to be cleaned over the half-term. 

Thank you for all your support so far and I hope the half-term gives you a chance to rest and come back ready for another one! Thank you also for the baby photos, we will give these back to you after half-term. 

Reception team

Right to clean water

As part of our work this week about UNICEF's rights of all children the Reception class did some activities this afternoon with Mr Farrington about our right to clean water. We learnt a hand washing song and talked about all the ways we use and need water. Mr Farrington also showed some photos of how water is used in India to wash clothes, pots and pans, to irrigate fields and to cook rice. The children then chose various activities using water to cook rice, wash pots and pans full of Year 2's curry, clean saris in soapy water and irrigated a patch of soil to grow some vegetables. The wellies came in handy!

Sounds this week and sound pots

Hi all,

Thank you to those who wrote something on the 'Who am I?' wall this morning! Please feel free to keep adding to this all week.

We are making fantastic progress with our phonics and this week we have started the next phase! The sound being covered this week are:

'v' - as in van - Pretend to be holding the steering wheel of a van and say vvvvvv.

'w' - as in wind - Blow on to open hand, as if you are the wind, and say wh, wh, wh.

'x' - as in fox - cross wrists together and say ks, ks, ks

'y' as in yak - Pretend to be eating a yogurt and say y, y, y.

'z' & 'zz' - as in zap/buzz - Put arms out at sides and pretend to be a bee, saying zzzzzz.

After half term there will also be a phonics/handwriting workshop available if you wish to go. There will be a form up outside the reception classroom door for you to write down what days/times would be preferable. We will try to accommodate as many as possible.

Today children also came home with their own sound pot! These are for the children to keep and use as we progress through the year. To begin with children will have received the first few sets of sounds that we have covered in class. Please use these to help consolidate the sounds and as children become confident with the individual sounds, use them to make simple words. If you would like any further guidance on the sound pots please come and chat to us. 

Reception team

POWSA AGM

Just a quick reminder that the POWSA AGM is happening this Thursday 23rd October 19.45 in the school staffroom.
This is a great opportunity to meet the current POWSA Committee, find out what we do for the school and enjoy home made goodies! We are a committed, friendly but small band of parents and we are always looking for new members. the level of your involvement in planning, implementing and running POWSA events is entirely up to you. We don't expect you to be at every meeting and at every event from start to finish but with more members and if we all do a little bit then there is plenty of time for us all to enjoy each event with our families as well as helping out.
It is a lot of fun and in return you receive a huge amount of satisfaction and feeling of pride that you have raised funds which are used to help all our children and our fantastic school.
Please consider coming along and finding out a bit more. Hope to see you there, POWSA.

The Great PoW Poetry Competition!!!!! Get Writing!!!!!!

What a wonderful, exciting and inspiring time of year we are immersed in - beautiful autumnal colours, leaves floating to the ground and flooding the pavements, conkers peppering the streets, crackling fires, Diwali, Halloween, Bonfire Night, moving towards winter and all the excitement of Christmas............so let's fire up our creativity and use it to compose a poem!

I am thrilled to announce The Great PoW Poetry Competition!

The theme is Autumn/Winter.

BE AS CREATIVE AS YOU LIKE! Your poem can be as long or as short as you like, it can rhyme or not, you can use any particular style (Acrostic, Haiku, Tanka, rhyming couplets........) However you choose to construct your poem make sure it conveys the theme, remember the presentation of you poem is important too and why not illustrate it as well!!!!!

For Reception ONLY: if writing your own poem is a bit tricky, why not find a favourite poem about this theme and try to copy it, get an adult to help you write one, use a computer or even record yourself reciting one!

There will be one winner per class so, PUT YOUR NAME AND CLASS ON YOUR ENTRY AND HAND IT IN TO YOUR CLASS TEACHER BY FRIDAY 7th NOVEMBER.

The winners will also be displayed on the New Golden Writing Wall!!!!!

We are a very creative school with a bubbling and overflowing imagination so I would love to see as many of you as possible having a go...........then we can have more competitions like this!!!!!

Get writing!!!!!!!

Good Luck - Mrs. Johnson (Literacy Coordinator)

I have the right to an Identity...

Hello everyone,

Today we started a whole school themed week centred around the 'Unicef Rights of the Child'. The two rights that we will be focusing upon are 'The Right to an identity' and 'The right to education'. 

Throughout the week we will be creating a class charter with the children's rights and responsibilities. The children came up with some fantastic ideas as to what we should include on our charter (including the right to have a trampoline!). This will be going up this week by the computers in the reception classroom. 

You may have also noticed a display with the children's pictures up in the classroom. This is going to be our identity wall for the week. You are welcome to add anything to the wall that you think helps identify your child - and any other children. Feel free to bring certificates/awards and pictures in from home to add to the wall. There will be some post-it notes by the display to write things up if you wish - some have already been added by staff at the school. 

Tomorrow we will be having a visit  from the fire department. Hopefully children will be full  to the brim with information tomorrow after school.

Reception team

Baby/family photos

Hello everyone,

Next week the whole school will be having a week focused on the 'Right to an identity'. In preparation for this could we kindly ask you to bring in a photo of your child as a baby or a family photo. These will be copied and the originals given back to you. We are going to be using them to set up an achievement wall. Parents, friends, buddies, teachers and the children themselves will all be welcome to come and put something up on the wall underneath each child's picture. Thank you for your help

Lastly, thank you for the immense number of Wow! Moments being brought in to school. These are fantastic to read out to the class. Keep them coming.

Reception team

Learning journeys

Hello everyone,

Today your children will have come home with their old learning journeys from Pre-school (if your child went to the Prince of Wales Pre-school). These are yours to keep so please look through them with your children and celebrate all that they achieved so far! The children's current learning journeys will be given out next year when they enter year 1 and the year 1 teacher has looked through them. 

Reception team 

Goldilocks and the three bears...

Hello everyone,

We have started a new topic this week: Goldilocks and the three bears.We read a retelling of the story today and throughout the week we will be looking at alternate versions as well as thinking about the question 'What kind of character was Goldilocks?' 

In literacy this week we are going to be having a go at writing some apology letters to the three bears - we will be encouraging the children to sound out words so any practise at home would be appreciated. In maths this week we are looking at shapes - more specifically the difference between 2D and 3D shapes. We'll also be tasting some different porridges as well as making a map for Goldilocks because she gets lost in the woods (Oh no!). 

In phonics this week we are continuing to consolidate the sounds we have learnt so far as well as beginning the next phase at the end of the week. The only sound we are learning this week is:

'j' - as in jug - The action is holding your hands out in front of you and pretending there is a wobbly jelly on them

Children have also come home with their reading eggs usernames and passwords today. This is a great website for children to learn and practise literacy skills and it is in the reception section on pupil links. If you would like any help finding it come and speak to us. 

Reception team

Joint morning with pre-school

Hello everyone,

To continue with our themed week we had a joint morning with Pre-school today. We carried out a range of activities throughout the morning:

1. Painting a tree using finger tips.

2. Fruit printing a banner that said reception or pre-school.

3. Making an owl out of leaves. 

Apologies for any paint that got onto tops today! You will be able to see all of the lovely artwork hanging up in the classroom. This will be transported to the hall for Friday's harvest assembly at 9.20am - please feel free to head into the hall after drop off for this! Reception will be singing a song and reciting a poem. 

Finally, the timetable for parents evening is up outside the classroom. Please feel free to add your name to a free time. If you are unable to make any time please come and see me and we can see if we can arranage something else. 

Reception team

Autumn photograph challenge!

Hello everyone,

A BIG well done to reception for completing their first school trip up to Maiden Castle Farm. We found out all about Harvest and what this means for people who work on a farm. Quiz your children to see if they know the difference between hay and straw - I do now. We looked at a combine harvester and walked around the farm. 

As we are looking at the festival of Harvest and autumn in general, I thought it would be a nice idea to have a photograph competition. Get your coats and wellies on and take the camera with you and see if you can snap the perfect picture of autumn. We'll judge all the entries and as always with competitions, there will be a prize! Feel free to bring your entries in on a memory stick (that we will give back) or print them out! Good luck.

Reception team

Can anybody help?

On the 20th of October we will be having a Rights Respecting Week to celebrate 25 years of the UNCRC. 

The Children's Voice have decided that they would like to see some of the UNICEF articles of the Rights of the Child displayed in our school entrance. Each year group will be designing and making a flag portraying one of the articles. 

This is where we need your help! We are looking for some plain white flat sheets usually used for bedding that we could have please. As an Eco School we encourage recycling old unwanted items so was wondering if anyone has any old sheets that we could have for our project please. If so please can you either give them to your child's class teacher or pass them on to Mrs Thorpe in Year 1. 

Many thanks 

Maiden Castle Farm...

Hi all,

Just a quick note about Maiden Castle Farm tomorrow. If the weather is bad we may have to call it off but hopefully that will not be the case. Regardless of the weather could we please ask that children come to school wearing home trousers and a school top & jumper/cardigan. Could we also ask children to bring in some Wellington boots because if we do go it will probably be quite muddy up a the farm. 

Finally, children will be coming home with their Rights Respecting Schools home learning challenge tomorrow. This requires children to fill in their little piece of paper with something that links to our theme for the week: 'The right to an identity' It could be a picture they draw or suitable quote/words. Why are the children proud to be them? What makes them special? Please bring all your entries into school and give them to one of the reception team. They will then be judged by the 'Children's Voice'. 

Reception team

Harvest week

Hello everyone,

Next week we will be taking part in a whole school topic all about Harvest. We will be doing lots of cooking and making throughout the week. On Tuesday we are off to Maiden Castle Farm to learn all about Harvest and what this might look like on a farm. On Wednesday we are going to be having a joint morning with the Pre-school children - there will be more details of this early next week. 

In literacy next week  we're going to be looking at autumn poetry. We'll be having a go at making some nonsense word rhyming poems using what we know and learn about autumn. As a small challenge see if you can put some rhyming sentences  together for example:

There was a cat that sat on the mat, wearing a hat, then he saw a bat etc... They can be nonsense words if you like! 

On Friday we will be having a special harvest assembly in the morning where reception will be singing a song. We will also be putting all of our art work up in the hall. We will be accepting any fresh food donations on Friday morning for use in the Harvest display. In the afternoon there will be a Harvest cafe in the hall and parents are welcome to come and collect there children from 2.30pm and go into the hall to taste the food that has been cooked by different classes and look at  the art work. If you have any questions please come and ask!

Reception team

Whole school home learning

This week all children will be bringing home a whole school home learning project. We are really proud to be a Rights Respecting School and will be celebrating the 25th anniversary of the UNCRC in the week beginning 20th October (more information to follow soon).

Article 8 of the United Nations Convention of the Rights of the Child:

‘We have a right to an identity’

We are going to be designing a school flag to be displayed at The Thomas Hardye School as part of our DASP Rights Week Project (starting on the 20^th October). We would like the children to design something we can add on our flag linked to our theme. One design from each class will be chosen by the Children’s Voice. It could be a picture they draw or suitable quote/words. Why are the children proud to be them? What makes them special? All entries to be given to class teachers by the 10^th of October.