To all our wonderful Highflyer families

Unbelievably the third week of Term 5 is already upon us – however, as always, it proves to be a short one with only four days – with, fingers crossed, this lovely sunny spell staying put! As such, we have decided to gently postpone our usual spelling ‘quiz’ until Tuesday morning (5^th), with a new list ready-to-go as usual on that day – stapled into planners on the appropriate week if planners are ‘in school’ :) However, Mrs Shrimpton and I have also decided to move our ‘spare’ copies (of each printed list) to just inside our main classroom/playground door – therefore, if the children ever happen to not have a copy for that particular week … they are, I promise, readily available … and super easy for the children to simply take a ‘spare’ (or two!?!) as/when/if ever required … ;)

Our focus for this coming week will be Science Week in Highflyers; whereby we shall be beginning to investigate the needs of plants e.g. what they need to survive and grow, their life-cycle and even naming (and identifying) different parts. Our topic learning will, of course, continue alongside – whilst we aim to identify an array of physical features seen along the beautiful Dorset coastline – and, hopefully, using our newly learnt geography vocabulary accurately and with much enjoyment!

Forest School continues on Wednesday morning (from 10.00am with Anne, Miss Douglas and Mrs Shrimpton) followed by P.E. on Thursday afternoon as timetabled. However, just a really sensitive – and equally polite – reminder that all pupils are kindly expected to have their ‘change of clothes’ in school each Wednesday morning – on arrival (switching into their regular uniform prior to lunchtime at 11.45am) … even, sadly, if they are then involved with a further change of clothes later on in the day re: clubs after school etc, Thank you HUGELY – in advance - for your help and support in this – it is greatly appreciated … especially as some children – as I am sure you can imagine - find it terribly hard to ‘change’ out of their favourite t-shirt following Forest School (dare I type football shirt!) if friends are then seemingly ‘allowed’ to remain in theirs etc …

Our new shared reader (It Came from Outer Space - and other poems by Paul Cookson) should be with you all by Friday (8^th); however, please never feel “too embarrassed” to ever pop in any previous loaned books from school – even if they have become slightly damaged …we, truly, completely understand; and do know that even Miss Wall is ALWAYS incredibly grateful if Year 1 books also happen to resurface/become ‘relocated’ that were outstanding from last year! … :)

Our phonic focus for Week 3 will be the /er/ sound spelt ‘or’ and /or/ sound spelt ‘ar’ after ‘w’ – with two new homophones of one/won … to add to our ‘impressive collection’ merrily decorating our working word wall …

Maths (for Weeks 3 and 4) will look to revise our previous unit about fractions – once again learning how to ‘use and apply unit fractions’ with different operations; alongside our mastering number focus of repeated addition and subtraction strategies (using 2-digit numbers) to calculate and problem solve during our daily session …

Weekly maths homework shall also be whizzing home – as per the ‘norm’ - on Friday afternoon – therefore, please do drop me a quick line if this also to appear … as more than happy to quickly overrun an extra one (or two!?!) if it doesn’t happen to make it past the children’s trays – or accidentally gets misplaced between our assembly at the end of the day and pick-up :)!? – as some of the children have already achieved a brilliantly large folder ‘full’ from our Autumn and Spring Terms alike … which is so VERY much to their credit … and demonstrates some really superb practice/overlearning from our previous week’s learning objectives! Terrific stuff indeed :)

Wishing you all another fabulous week – as always,

Mrs Winters and the ‘HF Team’