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George Spicer Newsletter - Friday 17th June 2022

Hot weather - Please ensure your child brings in a water bottle also it's advisable to put sun cream on them and possibly a hat/cap. If your child suffers hay fever please administer medicine in the morning before they come to school.

Scooter/bikes - If your child cycles/scoots to school please put away scooters/bikes neatly and respect others property. 

Vacancies - We have the following vacancies:

Data and Attendance Officer

Administrative Assistant 

HLTA with Intervention Lead role

Teaching Assistant x 2

All details can be found on the school website here

Attendance week ending 17/06/2022

Overall school = 93.32%   Lates = 37 

Best attendance: 1st Sioux 99.39%  2nd Spitfires 97.1% 3rd Lancasters 97.1%

Punctuality: Well done Theseus and Primrose with 100% punctuality

Reception Class      

Maths ~ Odd and Even Numbers

In Reception this week we have been busy learning about odd and even numbers. We have practised counting in 2s and looking for patterns in numbers to help us find out if a number is odd or even. We shared amounts of counters between two dinosaurs to see if they had an even amount or an odd one out as well as using Numicon to visually represent an odd one out too!

Year 1

This week, Year One began their new topic on ‘Amphibians and Reptiles’. In English, the children have shown great enthusiasm when learning and writing an information text about ‘The Life Cycle of a Frog’ . In Science, children were provided a set of animals that they needed to sort them into Amphibians and Reptiles. Did you know that Amphibians and Reptiles are cold blooded and Reptiles have scaly skin? Children showed confidence when grouping the toy animals. They were able to feel scaly and smooth skin to experience the difference in skin types. They had so much fun! Next week they will be writing riddles….. watch this space!

Year 2

This week Year 2 have started their new Castles topic! We have been learning all about the different features we may find on a castle. It has played an important role in History in defending important people from an enemy and has many defensive and protective features to keep them safe. Looking at different Castles from around the UK, when have labelled the features we have learnt.

    In our History lesson, we have written historical questions about what we would like to find out about castles.

“How does the castle not sink if it is built with a moat?” – Daniel K

“How did they make sure everyone had food inside the castle?” – Ayah

“When did they start building castles?” – Thomas S

“Where did they get water from?” – Miryam

“Who owned/ built the first castle?” – Georgia O

We looked at the crenels, that are part of the wall on top of the battlements, which archers used to hide behind when attacked and quickly shot from the gaps.

Year 3 

Year 3 have been learning about shape this week. We have been looking for different 2D shapes around the school. We described the shapes using our knowledge of their properties - stating how many sides and vertices each shape had.  

We have also been completing our Jubilee artwork and transferred our initial sketches onto polystyrene printing block. We created a watercolour background using red and blue, before printing our polystyrene onto the opposite side. 

Year 5 

Science!

This week, Year 5 have begun their new topic of Light and Electriciy. In our first Science lesson, we began by taking part in an experiment about how light travels! Light travels in waves in straight lines. All objects reflect light and some objects reflect light more than others. We discussed what happened when light travels through water, Water is thicker than air and some light will be reflected off the surface of the water but most of the light will travel through, as water is transparent. Because the water is thicker, it causes the light ray to bend. The scientific name for this is refraction. The water therefore refracts the light.

For our first experiment, we used string to demonstrate the way the light wave travels in a straight line from the light source to the object and then reflecting into our eyes. 

For our second experiment, we asked the question: How does the shape of the mirror change the direction of the light? We used 3 difference types of surfaces to reflect the light: concave, convex and flat mirrors. We worked in small groups with the mirrors, a light source and object to see how the light travels. We found that light waves travel in straight lines and the type of surface can change the direction the light travels in.

Y5 Bush Hill Park Project Update

The Friends of Bush Hill Park have been delighted with our Y5 pupils designs for the sensory garden in Bush Hill Park's Wildlife Garden.  So this week our Y5 group have been helping  by planting herbs, making bottle top chains, decorating CD spinners and advising on the sensory path. Do go and visit to see their achievements!

Year 6 

Geography Fieldwork

Over the last two weeks, Year Six have been undertaking the fieldwork element of Geography. After Miss Eberle discovered how well Year 6 found a premise for Mr Combe's new venture she decided to task us with finding her a home in Enfield. She had certain desirables: it had to be close to school, not too far from a train station, have shops in walking distance and be near enough to the swimming pool for lessons. 

To start this task, the children discussed what the term desirables meant and ranked features of a home (i.e. having a garden over an extra bedroom). Once they had done this, they then set about looking on the property site "Zoopla." Each class had a quadrant of a map of Enfield in which to explore properties in. Once on the website, we set about applying filters to help narrow our search. 

Once we had found a property that was in our section of the map, we noted it down and thought about the pros and cons of the house. As a class, we selected just one of the properties we had found to visit. 

On the day of our visit, we timed how long it would take to get from the school to the house. We then timed ourself walking from the house to the local shop, train station and even the swimming pool. We realised that some of the journey times will be shorter as there will be less people travelling there (it takes a while to get 30 of us to one place). 

Our next job will be to present our findings to Miss Eberle. We are eager to see what she thinks of our house hunting skills and if she likes the houses we have investigated for her. We are going to work on our presentation (or "pitching") skills to encourage her that our class chose the best one for her needs. 

Y6 Parents: Successful Secondary School Transitions Workshop

Tues 28^th June 

10am-12pm 

Online Microsoft TEAMs 

Please book your place here:  

https://forms.office.com/r/jL8in9AYEj  

GSPS Wellbeing Practitioners 

Clare & Victoria

District Sports

A huge congratulations to all the children who represented the school in District Sports this year. It's been a long wait to finally complete again, and the children certainly didn't disappoint. Very well done to everyone for your effort and especially for your sportsmanship, especially Ela from year 6 who made a special effort to congratulate the winning team in the girls' relay.  Great racing from Kelechi, Zeke, Milan and the Year 5 girls' relay team who won their races and came home with a medal!