Children First – Aspire – Challenge – Achieve

Dear Parents/Carers,

It is difficult to believe that we will be entering the final week of term 4 next week. After speaking to the

children this week about celebrating differences in our school community, the children provided positive

feedback about the visitors from Gillingham Mosque. Our guests explained their beliefs and gave the

children an insight into the religion of Islam. This really helped the children understand that being British

is having British values and one of the British Values that all good British citizens demonstrate on a daily

basis is a ‘mutual respect for and tolerance of those with different faiths and beliefs.’

Sports Relief Week was this week and evidence of sporting activities were seen all around the school with

Miss. Bolden organising events within the school for staff and students taking. Read in more detail about

the events over the page.

This week we had our first group of children receive their ‘Silver’ awards along with ‘Sliver’ badges. There

are children of all ages who have now managed to gain six nominations for their work in calculations. I am

sure there will be many more children gaining Bronze and Silver awards in the coming weeks. It would be

great to have a ‘Gold’ winner in Term 5.

Following on from the Year 5 trip to the Royal Engineers Museum last week, our Year 1 children enjoyed a

very enjoyable and educational visit to Wingham Wildlife Park.

Over the past few weeks, the school has sent out numerous reminders about the voluntary contribution

towards the Alice in Wonderland production. With a final flurry of £1 donations, we managed to get closer

to the total required but were unfortunately unable to cover the entire costs. Thankfully the PTFA stepped

in and paid for the shortfall. Without their support, the show would have been cancelled, so many thanks go

to the PTFA for their assistance. The performance was very good and all the children enjoyed it very much.

It is well known how expensive it can be for children to experience a live production and for many of our

learners, their first experience of a live pantomime was with the same company earlier on in the year.

Without the support of those of you who did contribute and the PTFA, these kind of opportunities will not

happen as often as we would like.

Next week is the last week of term and it is a four day week as Good Friday is on Friday 30th April. We

hope the weekend is a relaxing one with all children to finish the term with high attendance, improved

punctuality and most importantly, an enjoyment of progressing in their learning!

Mrs J Murphy

Headteacher

Newsletter 25

23rd March 2018

IMPORTANT REMINDERS FOR PARENTS

Thank you to all parents that attended the Y1 Phonics games workshop and the Y2 SATs meeting. The presentation notes for these sessions are available on the school website under the following link:

Our community - Parent workshop and information sessions.

Thank you to parents of Y4 children going on the residential trip who are up to date with payments. Please check on ParentPay to see how much you have paid. Sheets have been sent out if money is owed.

Please can Y5 parents return the form to school showing whether or not you would like your child to see ‘Shrek’. Please pay for the trip via ParentPay. Children will not be able to go unless this has been paid.

Nursery At the start of the week we had snow, the

nursery children found foot prints! We

worked out who or what must have left

them. A pigeon even joined our session

while we were looking for worms. The

children drew their own foot prints and

created patterns in the snow.

Reception

In Forest School this week we have been learning about

the Habits of Mind of persistence and taking

responsible risks. We have been learning to challenge

ourselves so that we can climb our special tree safely.

For some children this was a huge achievement!

The children were very proud of their accomplishments and talked at length about how it feels to

achieve your goal. Good communication skills help the children to be able to become good writers, we

have been doing lots of speaking and listening games this week. In Maths we have been practising

recognising numerals to 20 and beyond, children who have a good concept of number will be able to

apply their knowledge to all sorts of number problems.

Year 1

Our parents came in for open morning, we enjoyed

making animal themed creations together. We

have been making animal movements in PE this

week. In RE we have been using role play to

learn traditional stories.

This week the Year 1 children went to

Wingham Wildlife Park as part of their topic

on Paws, Claws and Whiskers. They saw some

unusual animals including a tapir and a

stinkpot turtle. The children walked through

the lemur enclosure and saw some babies that were only a few days old.

There was also some comical action from the chimpanzees. They then went back in time to look at

dinosaurs to see what it would have been like during the prehistoric period. All the children had an

amazing time and some children even said it was the best day of their lives!

Year 2

This week we have been thinking about

money and the ways we can make different

amounts. We also looked at fractions such

as 1/2, 1/4/ 1/3, 2/4 and we learnt that 2/4

is the same as 1/2. We have tried problem

solving think about what is more 1/2 of 16 or 1/4 of 24. In English we have begun to look at what is

needed to plan our and write our own Non Chronological reports. Along with the whole school, we have

enjoyed taking part in different sporting activities this week for Sport Relief, including our Year 2

afternoon and Zumba with the teachers during lunch.

Year 3

This week has seen New Horizons get out

their trainers in aid of Sport Relief.

Throughout the week, children have taken

part in a range of activities in order to raise

awareness of the cause. On Monday and Wednesday, the children took

part in Zumba with the teachers leading a range of dances to keep the children fit! They danced to

Cheerleader, Macarena and 5,6,7,8! On Tuesday, we played football and hockey all mixed up in ages

and had a great time! Some children had never played these sports before and it was lovely to see

them all having a go. Throughout the week, each year group had a go at their own mini tournament!

We saw golf, tennis, football, netball, hockey and rugby being played! A big well done to everyone who

had a go at something and we hope you enjoyed it!

Year 4

In Maths we have been focussing on ordering

numbers, including numbers with decimals. In

English we have been using interesting

adjectives to write character and setting

descriptions. In Science this week we carried out an experiment to test how plantation near rivers

can help avoid flooding. We have also been really lucky to have enjoyed a range of sports relief

activities and watched a performance of Alice in Wonderland.

Year 4 residential meeting for Parents is on Wednesday 28th March at 6pm.

Year 5

As the term draws to a close we have been

showing off our learning by getting some

fantastic results in our tests. We also had

some of our parents come in for Open

Morning to help us design a new invention

for today's world.

Dates for your Diary – Term 4 Every Tuesday morning ‘Book Club’ is held – don’t forget to send your child’s money into school in a

clearly named envelope

Term 5 Monday 16th April - Y2 Wow event - Dress up as Pirates

Monday 16th April - Y3 Wow Event – Dress up as Greeks

Wednesday 25th April – Friday 27th April – Year 4 Residential Trip

Buster’s Book Club The winning class this week for the most number of additional minutes read is Juniper.

Well done Juniper!

A reminder that the challenge day to read to an adult at home is on a Wednesday.

Thinking Maps

There are 20 different 'Thinking Keys', each designed to unlock different parts of the thinking

process. The use of the keys helps to develop flexible problem solving and thinking habit. Each

week we will share a Thinking Key with you.

Can you touch

a Rainbow?

Next week’s ‘Thunk’ is…

Well done to our TSAT team who all participated in an“8 Hour Cycleathon” for Sport

Relief today.

Should you wish to donate please find the link below.

https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/tsat

TEAM POINTS

This week the ‘Holcombe Cup’ has been awarded to Castle.

Attendance Ace Conifer with 100%

Punctuality Penny Cherry with 0 lates. Golden Tie

Congratulations to:

Ash Yaseen

Elm Jack

Oak Zara

Beech – Jayden

Hazel - Sylvie

Maple - Jeromy

Birch – Mason

Pine – Henry C

Spruce – Ariyan

Apple – Blake

Cherry – Jasmine

Damson - Arjun

Conifer – Caden

Hawthorn – Dolce

Juniper – Tatiyanh

Sycamore - Erin

Achievement Alley

Oak – Amelia

Ash – Tristan

Elm – Charlotte

Beech – Shyanna-Marie

Hazel – Esson

Maple – Lacey-Louise

Birch – Mia G

Pine – Kenneth

Spruce – Riley B

Apple – Connor

Cherry – Adedayo

Damson - Daniel

Conifer – Kaden

Hawthorn – Harry

Juniper – Emma

Sycamore - Isaac