Newsletters

George Spicer newsletter - Thursday 27th January 2022

•  It's been another busy week, as always, here at George Spicer. Covid guidance has changed again today and you can read the latest government updates here. Do continue to be vigilant regarding your children's health and not send them into school if they show symptoms. Don't forget to report all absences by 9am, either by phone or email, with a reason.
• Attendance - Our attendance levels are still slightly below where we would like to be but we have definitely seen an improvement in punctuality. Keep up the good work!                                                                                                     
• Our financial year end is 31st March. Please ensure that all school meals, clubs and trips are paid up before this time. We ask that Breakfast & After School Club and school meals are always paid two weeks in advance. Thank you for your cooperation.
• Donations of books and games - we always welcome good condition books and which all the children can access. Please leave at the offices or classrooms. 
• Vacancies - we have some new job opportunities at George Spicer. Please visit the 'Vacancies' page under 'Our School' on our website. Contact the school offices if you'd like to find out more.

Attendance week ending 27/01/2022

Overall school = 93.56% Lates = 59

Best attendance: 1st Daffodil 98.61% 2nd RA 98.39% 3rd Anubis 97.31%

Punctuality: Well done Elm, Primrose & Apache with 100% for punctuality

Reception

This week, Nurse Zara came to visit. She taught us all about what a nurse does in their day to day lives. We had some fantastic questions from the children. Alex in Daffodil asked, "Do you work at night time?" and Matilda from Snowdrop wanted to know, "How do you become a nurse?". 

We thoroughly enjoyed our visit and hope to meet another nurse this week too. We are also working hard on our independent writing this week. It's much easier to complete a writing task when we're feeling inspired! 

Year 1

Year 1 had a very exciting week. They had to make spears out of wood, clay, slate and twine. Children had to follow a set of instructions. We also learnt what bossy verbs were. Did you know that spears were used to hunt for animals during the Stone Age?

Then we all wrote a set of instructions as a class. An example of the shared writing is below:

First get a long wooden stick.

Next, find a small piece of slate for the spear head.

After, put the stone on top of the wooden stick.

Then place some clay on the bottom of the spear head.

Finally, tie some string around the clay.

We really enjoyed being Neolithic people and making spears!

Year 2

This week in Year 2,  we have been building our Roman scutum. (shields). After designing our shields using some of the symbols the Romans used, we cut them out using gold card and added the boss (the central metal square). We will be practicing our testudo formation this week, ready to recreate the pivotal Battle of Watling Street, in which Boudicca finally meets the Romans in battle to seek her revenge…

In our writing this week, we have been writing battle speeches, from the perspective of Boudicca, before she burnt London to the ground! We tried to use rhetorical questions in our speech for impact and to motivate the Celtic army to take their revenge on the Roman invaders.

Year 3 

Year 3 began their new topic last week - 'Anglo-Saxons vs Vikings'. We introduced the topic with a fantastic immersion day where we learnt some new information about the Anglo-Saxons and Vikings, comparing how they both lived and discussing similarities and differences. As part of the day, we learnt about the diet of the Anglo-Saxons and had a go at making some bread. Bread was a staple in the Anglo-Saxons diet. We then used the iPads to do some research about one of the Anglo-Saxon leaders, Alfred the Great, and looked at other sources to decide whether the information we found was reliable or not. Lastly, we had a look at the Viking letter system, the runic alphabet/futhark, and created a bookmark with our own names using futhark.

We also began our new Science topic - light. We investigated how important light is for us to see. We put some objects underneath a box and made holes in the box - at first we couldn't see much, but the more holes we made, the more light there was and the more we could see. We then shone the torch through one of the holes and looked through the other to investigate what affect this additional light had on how much we could see!

Year 5 

“The fact that Henry killed two of his wives and one of his wives died in childbirth goes against Article 6 (life, survival and development.” – Indigo, Anubis   

Year 6 

In Science, we have been learning about Evolution and Inheritance. In our lesson last week, we studied the evolution of the Indohyus. We began the lesson by choosing an animal (either a tiger, gazelle, otter, blue whale, kangaroo, shark or hippo), that we thought the Indohyus would evolve into. We then explained our reasoning for choosing one of those animals. 

“I tried to use the process of elimination for this and so I don’t think it is the Shark or the Blue Whale at all as they live in water” – Raeed, Hurricanes 

We found out that it evolved into the Blue Whale! We looked at the different stages in its evolution across the years and discussed how this animal adapted to its environment to help it survive. We then created posters detailing the evolution of this animal using pictures and explaining the differences in the animal as it evolved through each stage. 

Art - Scott vs. Shackleton Portraits

This week we have been continuing with our Art focus of photorealism. The children have been working on their final piece of their photorealistic portrait of either Scott or Shackleton. 

They have thought carefully about the proportions of the face and the angles and positioning of the heads. They have been thinking about the size of some of the features (like the eyes and nose) to make sure the features are in proportion with their drawing. We will be continuing this work, adding more detail using different graded pencils. 

PSHE - Dreams and Goals

In our PSHE lesson this week, we looked at the different problems that happen around the world. We discussed some images that showed people living in poverty, people with disabilities, refugee children and discussed how this made us feel.

We then looked at several UNCRC and Global Goals, trying to understand the importance of them and how they help us as global citizens think and act about the different issues that we face globally (UNCRC Article 42 - Everyone must know children's rights).

                                                                                                                                                           Olivia - "Lots of people around the world suffer from earthquakes and floods, and so we need to learn about these to become aware of them."

Dante - "The world would be so horrible and mean without the UNCRC and Global Goals. Without it the world might be destroyed."

Zeeshan - "Without the UNCRC or Global Goals children living in poverty won't have a chance to show what they can do."

We also looked at activism and some examples of famous activists in the media (Malala and Greta Thunberg). This helped us understand some of the global issues that we face, including climate change and gender inequality. We each then thought about an issue that concerns us all, that we would like to change and raise awareness for (our goal for the world). 

Below are some examples of our activism posters: