Newsletters

George Spicer newsletter - Thursday 3rd March 2022

Parent Consultation - a reminder to book your child's parent consultation appointment, which is taking place on 25th March.  Thanks to all those parents who have already booked.

Mental Health Awareness week - w/c 21st March 'Happiness inside and out' -  more information to follow in net weeks newsletter

Year 5 Bikeabilty - starting weeks commencing Monday 7th & Monday 14th March, Year 5 children will be bringing in their bikes.  Please can children in other year groups who bring their bikes/scooters to school put them in the racks by the pencil playground, for both these weeks.

Free sessions to help support your child 

MYME are keen to run free sessions for George Spicer parents who would like to learn ways to support their child with topics including supporting your child’s worries, supporting children’s sleep, the importance of play and special time, supporting children around friendships.  If you would be interested in attending please express your interest via this form https://forms.office.com/r/55RrzYCTLZ

Attendance week ending 03/03/2022

Overall school =  95.79% Lates = 123

Best attendance: 1st Sioux 99.17% 2nd Elm 99.14% 3rd Spitfires 98.92%

Punctuality: Unfortunately no class had 100% punctuality this week. Well done to Thoth with 99.46% 

Reception

Tuesday 1^st March was a very busy day in Reception! We celebrated Pancake Day and St David's Day. We learnt about why we have Shrove Tuesday and we made pancakes, had pancake races and even tossed our pancakes to see whose pancake would go the highest. We wrote our pancake recipes so we knew which ingredients to put into the mixture.

  

    

For St David's Day we learnt all about the national emblems for Wales and we drew observational drawings of daffodils using a variety of media; pastels, water colour paints and sketching pencils.

Year 1

Year 1 have had a busy week learning about a key person in History, Florence Nightingale who offered her support as a nurse during the Crimean War.

Anna-Maria said “She helped lots of soldiers”.

Nate “She cleaned the hospitals to stop disease spreading”.

Joy “She was known as the lady of the lamp because she checked soldiers at night using her lamp”.

We also learnt about Mary Seacole last week.

Blake “Mary Seacole wanted to help but the War Office said no as she was black. She was discriminated.” Year One have really enjoyed learning about both key people who made a positive change to soldiers lives during the Crimean war.

In Maths we have been learning about length and height. Using classroom equipment, we had to find an object that was longer than a glue stick but shorter than a ruler. We enjoyed our investigation.

 

Year 2

This week in Year 2, we kicked off the next part of our London topic with a brilliant assembly delivered by Miss Hall on The Great Fire of London. We learned all about how the fire started, why it spread so rapidly across London and what happened after the devastation had settled. We look forward to writing our own chronological reports and sharing all the brilliant information we gathered during the session. We have tried to include time adverbials to highlight to the reader when these events were taking place and order them as part of our chronological report. (See if you can spot any in our writing!)

In Reading, Mr Roberts and Miss Spillman’s reading groups looked at a book called Anna Hibiscus. It is the story of a girl in Africa, who lives in a compound but becomes bored and jealous of the girls outside who sell oranges on the road side. She decides to pick some fresh oranges from her garden and sells them on the street too. Without knowing, Anna has put the girls out of business, who may need the money more than Anna herself. Her Grandfather helps Anna to understand how hard these girls work, by taking Anna to the market to haggle for oranges and bring them back for the girls all day. Anna soon realises what it is to truly work hard.

As part of this text we discussed whether children should be working at such a young age and made links to the UNCRC articles.

(Article 32 – Protection from harmful work)  -  “These girls are to young to be working on the side of the road, they should be going to school instead.” – Eric

(Article 3 – Best interests of the child) – “ They need to play sometimes with their friends. I suggest they sell fruits and begetables on some days and then on the other days they play with their friends.” – Elizabeth

World Book Day

As part of World book day, year 2 have made their own book marks and they did a scavenger hunt for certain words from the stories.   

   

Year 3 

RE

In RE, Year 3 have been learning about belonging to a religion and have been looking at how Christians show belonging by being baptised. This links to Article 15 - Setting up or joining groups. We know that different religions all show that they belong in different ways. 

Art

In Art, we have been busy working on our Anglo-Saxon coins, and have been adding the final touches by painting them silver or gold. 

World Book Day

As part of World Book Day, we looked at the book The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. We did lots of activities based on the book including acting and writing. All of the children were extremely excited to find out what happened to Lucy once she was in the wardrobe and made some great predictions. We shared our favourite stories and spent time talking about who we came dressed up as. We also joined the World Book Day live lesson and got to listen to different stories being shared and watch a performance from Matilda the Musical.

Year 5 

Science: Living Things and their habitats.

This week, Year 5 started their new topic, Living things and their habitats. In our first lesson, we learnt to identify and describe the function of the reproductive parts of a plant. 

During the lesson, we learnt about the male (stamen) and female (carpel) parts of a plant. We dissected a lily flower to understand each of the reproductive plants and how they function. We then discussed what we already knew about pollination.Pollination is the transfer of pollen from a male part of a plant to a female part of a plant to reproduce seeds. In small groups, we acted out the process of pollination whilst also considering how Climate Change (Global Goal 13 - Climate Action) and the role of global warming is having on the bee population and how this in turn will affect the population of the bee species and therefore, pollination. 

 ‘We learnt that pollen can also be inside the anther as well as on the outside. We identified the male and female parts of the flower.’ – Riley, Osiris.

‘Gently, we opened the flower to find the different parts of the flower. The stigma was in the middle of the flower. We found many anthers inside which were surrounding the stigma. Working as a group and investigating was fun.”- Nasra, Ra. 

PSHE: Healthy Me!

In PSHE this week, we started our new topic, Healthy Me! In our first lesson, we learnt about the health risks of smoking and discussed how tobacco affects the lungs, heart and liver. Looking at a range of smoking advertisements, we discussed the responsibility of the media and how it can at times endorse smoking and make it look ‘cool’, however others portray smoking as an unhealthy lifestyle choice. This linked to Global Goal 3 - Good health and Well-being. Having looked at, and discussed, a range of images linked to smoking, we discussed the message they portrayed and the impact this could have on the mental and physical health of future generations as well as the financial implications this has on our National Health Service. 
We ended our lesson by discussing the importance of Article 13 - Sharing thoughts freely when discussing topics such as smoking and being able to make an informed decision and discussed our own opinions on smoking and how to resist peer pressure. 

English: Elizabeth I diary entries

In writing this week, we have been writing diary entries as Elizabeth I as she considered a moral dilemma: To help support her cousin, Mary Queen of Scots or have her, 'taken cared of' by her royal advisor, Robert Cecil. The children showed authorial voice in their entries, in capturing Elizabeth's moral dilemma and emotional turmoil, showing indecisiveness through a range of language features, such as rhetorical questions. 

The Year 5 team have been very impressed with the children's enthusiasm for the Tudors and Stuarts topic and we look forward to updating you next week on our History learning as we begin to look at the Stuarts, Oliver Cromwell and the formidable Charles I and his relationship with Parliament! 

Year 6 

 SHACKLETON DAY!

To conclude our “Scott Versus Shackleton” topic, Year 6 spent Monday and Tuesday fully immersing themselves in the Endurance expedition, led by Ernest Shackleton. The children learnt all about the mission and even had the chance to dress as 19th century Antarctic explorers. Read below to find out more about the fascinating activities Year 6 took part in this week:

Year 6 test the morale of the men! 

The resolve of the men on the expedition was commendable and their faith in Ernest Shackleton never wavered. We wanted to find out more about the characters of the men on the expedition and how they managed to stay so resolute and never give up, even at the bleakest of times, (UNCRC article 6: Life, Survival and Development). We looked at key moments of the Endurance Expedition (GG 15: Life on Land) and rated from one to five what we felt the morale of the men would have been at each of these parts, plotting this on a line graph of the journey. We justified our answers, using our knowledge of the expedition to support the numbers that we gave (UNCRC article 13: Sharing Thoughts Freely). 

          

      

Year 6 become Ernest Shackleton! 

Ernest Shackleton is known for his exceptional leadership skills and his ability to motivate and lead his men, even during the toughest of times. We looked at the point in the expedition when the Endurance sank and the men realised that they were thousands of miles away from civilisation, with no way of calling for help (GG 15: Life on Land, UNCRC article 6: Life, Survival and Development). We thought about what Shackleton may have said to his men at this point to ensure that they kept going and did not give up hope. In groups, the children practised reading a section of motivational speech that Shackleton may have delivered to his men during this time. The children then acted these speeches out in their groups, thinking about tone and volume of voice and body language and trying to encompass the 'voice of Shackleton' (UNCRC article 31: Rest, Play, Culture, Arts). 

          

   

Year 6 become Historians!

We watched a documentary (secondary source) about Shackleton's Endurance expedition to learn more about all the hardship the brave men faced on this expedition.

The documentary revealed how Shackleton's Captain (Frank Worsley) navigated the Endurance crew to Antartica. It showed the legendary survival story of Shackleton and his crew once the Endurance was crushed and the men were left without their ship (GG 15: Life on Land), through images of the ship with the men unloading their belongings (primary sources). As we watched, we discussed the significance of Worsley's seamanship and navigational skills and how this helped saved them all! (UNCRC article 13: Sharing Thoughts Freely)

      

    

Year 6 become Geographers.

In order to understand the distance between England and Antarctica, the children used Digimaps (an online mapping website) to plot the journey from Plymouth, making a stop at Buenos Airies to then continue the journey to Antarctica. Using the iPads, the children explored the website, using tools to mark, plot and measure the distances. Below are some images that show the children using the maps:

      

Year 6 become Musicians!

We wrote song lyrics detailing Shackleton’s failed Endurance Expedition and his attempt to lead his men back to safety (Article 31 of the UNCRC: Rest, Play, Culture, Arts). We used the tune 'We don't talk about Bruno,' from the Disney hit Encanto, and added our newly created lyrics. 

Spitfires Class wrote the first verse, Lancasters Class wrote the second verse, Hurricanes Class wrote the third verse and Defiants Class wrote the fourth verse.

 

 

       

Year 6 does "Art Attack!"

One of the activities we undertook during our immersive Shackleton day was try to recreate the Endurance ship in a creative way. The catch... the children had to use PE equipment to make an artistic interpretation of Shackleton's vessel. (Article 31 of the UNCRC: Rest, Play, Culture, Arts)

The children were split into teams and told to work collectively to create a large-scale replica. The team work exhibited throughout the session was phenomenal. With the children needing minimum input from the teacher and taking charge of their own projects. 

 

This activity was very much a case of: "Trust the process" as when other teachers walked through the hall you could see many quizzical faces. What seemed like unorganised mess turned into some creative masterpieces which all had an individual flair to them. We were so impressed with the art the children created.

RE - Hinduism.

In RE this week, Year 6 concluded our topic on Hinduism by looking in closer detail at a Mandir, the Hinduism place of worship (UNCRC article 14: Freedom of Thought and Religion). We looked at key features of a Mandir and recognised many of the Gods on display and features of the Mandir from our previous lessons.  The children then made comparisons between the Mandir and other religious places of worship that we have studied so far (UNCRC article 2: No Discrimination). 

                               

   

"It was good to see the differences between the shrines in houses and Mandirs, where people perform Puja, as we have learnt about Puja in previous lessons. " Eliza, Spitfires.

"I can see that Mandirs can look really grand, as can Mosques. Another similarity is that you must take your shoes off before entering both the Mandir and the Mosque." Reuben, Lancasters

World Book Day

Well done to the children and staff that dressed up for World Book Day.  Here are the Year 4 team. Don't they look great?

 

Last call 📢 Enfield Music Services 

Book or renew @EnfieldEMS summer term lessons before 11^th March 2022 to avoid missing out! Visit: https://traded.enfield.gov.uk/musicstore