You can follow us ...….. Newsletter No: 6

Friday, 13th October, 2017

CoMPasS

Registered Charity No: 1141329

As I walk around Clifton it has once again been a pleasure to observe our childrens’

creative thinking guide their learning, which has no limits; from astronauts building rockets

in Nursery, model building and scientists in Reception, Naturalists in Year 1, Viking

researchers in Year 2 and Persuasive writers in Year 3. I can imagine our children will

become the leaders and innovators of the future!

This week in the educational press there have been several articles discussing the relative

merits of different educational systems. Pisa tests assess 15-year-old school pupils'

scholastic performance in mathematics, science, and reading and produce league tables

across the world where children from the UK perform lower than some of their

counterparts around the rest of the world. Interestingly an advisory group has been set

up to see how creative thinking can be measured as part of the tests recognising the

significance of this key skill.

https://www.tes.com/news/school-news/breaking-news/pisa-developing-creativity-tests-

pupils

“Creative thinking is a multi-faceted concept involving the generation and refining of ideas

as well as the processes by which such thinking can be improved," Professor Lucas, who is

director of the Centre for Real-World Learning (CRL) said.

We don’t know the types of jobs our children will do in the future, but being creative

thinkers and innovators will be key in the ever changing fast paced world. The Pisa

advisory group are looking to define creativity in terms of habits of mind (inquisitive,

persistent, collaborative, disciplined and imaginative.) You may recognise some of these in

our learning superheroes and school values which are embedded in our school curriculum

and we use to nurture creative thinkers from the youngest age.

The new Chief Inspector of Ofsted, Amanda Spielman spoke yesterday about the

importance of giving grounding in a wide range of subjects and encouraging less focus on

drilling pupils on how to pass tests and more on widening their knowledge and horizons.

She spoke about the need for school leaders not to be solely focussed on the performance

of the school and not to lose sight of the pupil.

Research by the Sutton Trust that was published on Thursday also points to the

importance of this breadth of education. It summarises the enormous importance of these

skills and the need for them to be at the heart of the curriculum. It stated that schools’

main focus is on developing children’s core academic knowledge and skills in literacy,

numeracy, and a range of curriculum subjects. But there are other skills that are

increasingly seen as important to children’s wider development: such as confidence, social

skills, self-control, motivation, and resilience. These are the attitudes, skills and behaviours

that are thought to underpin success in school and work, and include the ability to

respond to setbacks, work well with others, build relationships, communicate effectively,

manage emotions, and cope with difficult situations. Such skills are often referred to as

‘social and emotional skills’, ‘soft skills’, ‘non-cognitive skills’ or ‘character’. They are

usually seen as distinct from academic knowledge and skills, however, they are increasingly

thought to play an important part in learning, as well as contributing to children’s wider

development, well-being and readiness for life beyond school.

At Clifton it is our aim not only for your children to learn to be numerate and literate, but

also to become active learners who question, think, innovate, imagine and are able to

demonstrate our school values and learning superpowers.

I hope that you have a wonderful weekend.

DIARY FOR WEEK COMMENCING

16th October 2017:

Mon Y3 Ukueles Club (lunchtime)

Y1 Netball Skills

Y2/3 Tennis

Y2/3 Chess

Y3 Tag Rugby

Y3 Netball

Y2 Speech & Drama

Tues

8.40am 1T Class Assembly

Y2/3 Choir (lunchtime)

Y1 Speech & Drama

Y1/2/3 Ballet

Y2/3 Karate

Y1/2 Creative Crafts

Y2/3 Chess

Y2 Netball

Y3 Swim Club

7.30pm Public Lecture; ‘ A Philosophical Foundation for Faith’ Prof. Keith Ward

Wed

8.40am RS Class Assembly

Rec/Y1 Yoga Bunnies (lunchtime)

2.00pm Music Concert, Rayson Room

Rec Speech & Drama

Y1/2 Sign Language

Y2/3 Yoga

Y3 Sewing Club

Y2 Art Club

Y3 Recorders

Thurs

Rec Arts & Crafts

Y1 iPad Club

Y2 Tag Rugby

Y2/3 Creative Film Club

Y3 Hockey Club

Y2/3 Book Club

Y3 Speech & Drama

Y3 Badminton Club

Y1 Street Dance cancelled

Fri Y1 Football

Y2 Sport

Y3 IT Club

Half Term Commences

Co-Curricular Activities and

ASC as normal

The Thematic Curriculum at Clifton - Learning for the Future

Thursday 16th November at 7.30 pm in the Rayson Room

On Thursday 16th November Mr Hardy and Mrs Clarke will be giving a

presentation about our curriculum for Years 1-3.

All parents from Nursery upwards are invited to attend this event.

We will be discussing the ethos and aims of the school, including some of

the research that informs our curriculum and learning.

In addition we will explain our curriculum, the processes of assessment

which inform learning and the ways in which we teach your children.

We hope that this will be an informative and useful evening. Please click

here to register your attendance.

Mathletics Trophy winners—3P

Christmas Activity Day is on Friday 8th December. We would like to invite you to come

along and volunteer to help with an activity. Due to the large numbers of volunteers and

to ensure the safeguarding and the safety of our children we have decided to organise

volunteers into slots throughout the day.

You will be able to sign up for a slot and come along to do an activity alongside your child.

Lists will be in the atrium after half term for you to sign up for a slot.

A final timetable will then be sent by email prior to the day.

Music Concert Wednesday 18th October 2.00pm -3.15pm – Rayson Room

Preparations are well underway for our first music concert of the year. The choir, recorder and

ukulele groups will all be performing alongside some of our instrumentalists. If your son/daughter is currently

learning an instrument outside of school, this is their chance to perform in school. There are already a number of

children on the list but there is room for more! Please let Mrs Hayden know.

As the recorder group will be performing in the concert, there will no recorder club after school that day.

It was a lovely morning at Playgroup, the cat, ghost,

pumpkin and spiders on sticks all looked really great. I

hope you hang them up on Halloween!!

Seth had a birthday this week and he brought in a

yummy caterpillar cake to share with everyone,

thank you Seth and Happy Birthday.

See you all next week, I will see if our lovely Chef

Sarah will bake us some buns to decorate for

snack time.

The Magic Far Away Treehouse!

After an exciting delivery of planks of

wood; RS were inspired and built a tree

house den! It is still a work in progress and

lots of ideas and suggestions are being

shared to enhance and improve the

structure. The need for a ladder was

expressed several times, so at forest

school we built two ladders! And then just

like the ‘Collaborator Twins’ the children

carried the ladders all the way back to

school! What a fantastic week of work!

Apple Juice for Sale!

Millie in 1T has used the apples from her garden to have some delicious

bottles of organic apple juice made. Millie and her family have kindly offered

to sell some of the apple juice to raise money for our school charity Water Aid.

The sale will take place on Tuesday 17th

October at 4:00pm in the atrium and

bottles will cost £2:50.

Supplies are limited so this will be on a

first come first served basis!

Our Harvest Festival collection starts next week. Alongside St Peter’s and St Olave’s, we are collecting for Carecent, a

charity run by the Methodist Church, which collects for the homeless in the city of York. Any donations of the following

items would be gratefully received:

Dry goods

Tins of meat

Toiletries

Warm Clothes (men’s sizes)

Please place items on the table in the reception area.

This week in Year 3 the sorting hat arrived! The children chose which house they would be in based on the qualities of Hufflepuff, Gryffindor, Ravenclaw and Slytherin. After the sorting hat ceremony Dumbledore announced he had a problem! Eleven wizarding schools have opened

up around the world and he needed their help to persuade young witches and wizards why Hogwarts is the

most prestigious school of magic. We discovered we have very persuasive children in Year 3 as they advertised Hogwarts using impressive synonyms for 'good' and 'big' and extending their vocabulary with words such as acre, alumni and prestigious. Pop in to Year 3 to pick up a copy of their advert for the Daily Prophet. This has inspired the children to be ready for Open Morning on Saturday as some of the children are helping to show visitors around school.

3P were amazing on Wednesday performing their first class assembly. This was part one of the Year 3 Harry Potter Trilogy. Well done to all the children for performing so confidently on stage and thank you for

all the fantastic costumes, the children looked magical.

This week has been all

about problem solving in

Year 2! We have been

tackling number word

problems, using a variety of

resources. We have

discovered the importance

of looking at the terminology

used within the wording,

giving us clues as to the

operation needed to work

out the answer. We then

adapted our skills to real life

situations and in pairs,

looked at solving

everyday problems!

The Year 3 charity ambassadors had their first meeting this week to share ideas and plan

fund raising events for the year.

First they decided on setting an ambitious target of £8000 to raise for our school charity

Water Aid, as well as Children in Need and Sport Relief which we support every year!

They had so many imaginative and creative ideas for fundraising as well as raising awareness.

Our next big event will be on Friday 17th November for Children in Need. The charity

ambassadors plan to hold a non-uniform day and hold a sponsored ‘Walk or Run for Pudsey’

around our school grounds and we have a couple of other surprises in store too! They also

had lots of ideas for fundraising for Water Aid. Keep a look out for more information on

upcoming events.

You may also have seen on the website the superb total of £5,815.07 that was raised by the

children and the Friends last year for the Small Steps Project.

Thank you for supporting all of our charity work and helping our

children to make a difference and put our school values into action.

In 2H this week we have been exploring the character of

Sigurd, in our book ‘There’s a Viking in my Bed’ by Jeremy

Strong. We went to Forest School with 2M to work on

drama skills. We were asked to imagine different scenes

from the book, working with partners at one stage and on

our own at other times. In the story, Sigurd is amazed by

modern day things such as his reflection in glass and

striking a match. We chose one of these and worked on

freeze framing our expressions. We performed our pair

work, based on the moment when Sigurd bursts out of the

wardrobe and shocks Mrs Tibblethwaite, in the ‘theatre’

area, in front of our audience! Mrs Hall was

very impressed at how well we know the story

and with our performing and listening skills!

All year groups have been enjoying the apparatus in their gymnastics

lessons. As well as learning to stay safe the children have been

exploring different ways of travelling, balancing and

even flying!

It has been out of this world in Nursery this week!

Building space rockets and space stations with the large construction. Using a marbling technique to create planets. Making a starry scene by flicking white paint onto black

paper.

The children acted out the story ‘Whatever Next”, by becoming baby bear and going up the chimney to visit the moon.

This week in

Year 1 we had a

fabulous time at

Yorkshire

Wildlife Park.

The children

encountered

lemurs, lions,

tigers and

giraffes

amongst many

others. We

learnt lots of new information about

where some of the animals come from and what they eat. The children

enjoyed asking the zookeepers lots of questions.

They also attended a ‘Bear Necessities’ workshop at which they found out where polar bears live and how they have

adapted to their environment. Lots of animals are becoming endangered and the children discovered that polar bears

are becoming threatened too because of icebergs melting and the planet

becoming warmer. Did you know

that the longest time a polar

bear has swum without a break

is 9 days! The polar bears

certainly seemed to be a hit with

Year 1!

We all had a lovely day and the

children were great company and

very well behaved.

Learning Superhero

Velvet, Daisy, Alex, Harry, Fionn, George, Maddie, Millie, Henry and Freddie

Value Champion

Nancy, Ruari, Monty, Cate, Lilly, Amelie, Natalie, Myla and All of Year 1

House point trophy Walmgate

Holly

Mathletics

Gold

Victor

Music Awards Arthur and Margherita

Well done to all our Core 5

Silver

Will, Mattie, Jacob, Isaac and Juliette-Rose

click here

Professor Keith Ward: The Christian Idea of God Tuesday 17 October 7pm Eminent theologian Professor Keith Ward takes a fresh look at the ancient philosophy of Idealism and shows that a combination of good science, good philosophy, and a passion for truth can underpin religious faith. Book your free tickets here.

Professor Anil Seth: What in the World is Consciousness?

Wednesday 8 November 7pm

Without consciousness there is no world, no self: nothing at all. Understanding its material and biological basis

is now one of modern science’s greatest challenges. Book your free tickets here.

Barbara Taylor Bradford in conversation

Monday 27 November 7pm

Leeds-born Barbara Taylor Bradford is something of a Yorkshire legend. With her books having sold nearly 100

million copies, she will be talking about her life, her work and her new novel, Secrets of Cavendon. Book your

free tickets here.

Terry Waite: Survival in Solitude

Wednesday 6 December 7pm

Terry Waite was taken hostage in Lebanon in 1987 and held in solitary confinement for 1,763 days. Following his

release in 1991, Terry has gone on to write a number of books and take up presidency of two major charities.

Book your free tickets here.

Science Society Christmas Lecture

Tuesday 12 December 7pm The St Peter’s Science staff return for their hugely popular annual lecture, featuring fascinating insights,

interactive challenges and dynamic demonstrations, this year focusing on the periodic table. Book your free

tickets here.

If you have any access requirements, are hard of hearing or have any other special requests, please book your tickets using Eventbrite, then

email events@stpetersyork.org.uk or call 01904 527 315, stating which event(s) you are attending and how many tickets you have booked.

Please note that many of our events sell out, and you must bring your ticket with you to guarantee entry. Please either print off your ticket

or display it to us on your smartphone or tablet on the evening. With all best wishes, Ben Fuller, Head of Public Lectures, St Peter’s School,

York, YO30 6AB

Tickets are now available for the St Peter’s School Christmas Term Public Lectures.