Heartsease Primary Academy Newsletter - 2nd February 2024

joanne.rowley • Feb 06, 2024

Welcome

Dear Parents and Carers,

The last two weeks have flown by but I am pleased to report that the children are making strides forward in their learning.

The Year 6 children undertook their SATS Mock last week and the results are promising with the children achieving closer to what we would expect. It is always difficult in Year 6 because the mock tests are an end of year paper, but the children have only completed half of the year so far. The children did however do really well and it is exciting to see their progress.

In the next newsletter I will update you on our progress in writing which is the focus over the coming two weeks.

Thank you for your continued support.

Mr N Campbell

Office update

Aspens Select - Lunch ordering system

If you wish to order your child a school meal please note that the orders have to be placed before 9am on the day. If you have not set up your account and need some assistance please visit the school office so we can provide you with your log in details and help with setting up your account. To find the link to access Aspens Select, go onto MCAS, select 'announcements' and the link can be found in this section.

Free School Meals

A reminder that if your child is in Yr2 (Amber and Aqua), they will no longer be entitled to a universal free school meal when they move into Yr3 (Coral/Crystal). You may still be entitled to free school meals and you can check if you are at www.norfolk.gov.uk/neo You could save up to £400 a year.

Absence / ordered lunches

If you have ordered a lunch for your child via Aspens but your child is absent from school please can you make sure that you cancel their lunch order to avoid being charged if you pay for your child's lunch, thank you

Diarrhoea/Vomiting

Please be reminded that if you child has an episode of diarrhoea / vomiting they need to be at least 48 hours clear from the last episode before returning to school.

Parent Cafe drop in sessions

Come along and meet with our Pastoral Team and Attendance Officer to discuss any issues or concerns.

Wednesday 7th February

Wednesday 13th March

This is an open session for Parents / Carers to attend. The team will be available from 08:30am - 09:30am on the above dates. These sessions will be held in the Pastoral office, please enter via the main school office.

Refreshments will be available.

We look forward to seeing you there.

World Book Day - Friday 8th March 2024

(Due to World Book Day conflicting with the day the school photographer is coming in to take class photos we will celebrate World Book Day on the above date)

World Book Day changes lives through a love of books and reading. They are a charity that operates in the UK and Ireland.

World Book Day was created by UNESCO on 23rd April 1995 as a worldwide celebration of books and reading. World Book Day is marked in over 100 countries around the globe. The first World Book Day in the UK and Ireland took place in 1997 to encourage young people to discover the pleasure of reading. As World Book Day founder, Baroness Gail Rebuck, recalls “We wanted to do something to reposition reading and our message is the same today as it was then – that reading is fun, relevant, accessible, exciting, and has the power to transform lives.”

Children are invited to come into school dressed as their favourite book character.

Olly Day - Road Safety Magic Show - Thursday 25th January

The children enjoyed watching Magic tricks by Olly Day whilst learning all about how to keep safe and how to Stop, Look, Listen and Think when crossing roads.

Fortnightly class updates and achievements

Nursery

We are continuing to look at different Nursery rhymes. Last week we concentrated on Hickory Dickory Dock. The children made clocks and used them to retell the rhyme. We talked about different parts of the day, learning the words day and night and sorting pictures about different activities we do during these times.

This week we have been learning teddy bear rhymes. The children have painted teddy bear pictures. We had a Teddy Bear's picnic. The children brought in their bears and everyone made a sandwich to enjoy. We were lucky enough to be able to sit out in the sunshine on Thursday, but wearing our coats. A typical British picnic!!

Ruby Class

The week of Monday 22nd January, Ruby class learnt about Africa and found it on a map. We learnt the key features of amphibians, reptiles and fish; then sorted African animals by which group they belong to and what they eat (omnivore, carnivore, herbivore). We tasted banana crisps. Olly Day came to school to do magic and teach us road safety. We read Julia Donaldson's 'Ugly Five' and 'Kindness is my Superpower' and wrote about kindness and unkindness. Some of the class continued learning 2D shape names, others started learning 3D shape names.

The week of Monday 29th January, we will learnt about Asia, finding it on the map and sorting animals from that continent. We read and wrote about Julia Donaldson's 'Monkey Puzzle'. We learnt the distinctive features of insects and looked at life cycles of butterflies and frogs - their babies don't look like the adults. In history, we began learning about David Attenborough. In maths, we learnt 3D shape names.

Bees Knees - Week commencing - Monday 22nd January

Aidan - For amazing progress in all areas of his work and speech.

Bees Knees - Week commencing Monday 29th January

Bethany - For being confident when showing a new pupil around the school.

Reception (Jasper / Jade Classes)

w/c 22.1.24

This week our focus book was Little Red riding Hood. The children enjoyed retelling the story to each other, using props, in the small world, home corners, puppet theatre and outside. They used their sound/letter correspondence to write about parts of the story. There are some lovely displays of weaving up in the classrooms, following the children learning about basket weaving. In maths our focus was comparing numbers within 10( and beyond). We introduced the concept of addition by combining two groups and of subtraction as the difference between two amounts.

w/c 29.1.24

This week our focus book was The Gingerbread Man. The children learnt actions to the story and practised acting out the story as a way of remembering the order of the animals. They enjoyed being the different characters in the home corners and outside, chanting,'run run as fast as you can, you can't catch me I'm the Gingerbread Man'. The children designed their own gingerbread men in playdough, paint and collage. In maths our focus has been the use of the part-whole model in the concept of addition, as the combining of two parts into a whole, together with the vocabulary 'altogether'.

Bees Knees - Week commencing - Monday 22nd January

Jade Class - Phoebe

For her super retelling of the story of Little Red Riding Hood to the class using props.

Jasper Class - Allirose

For always trying hard and being focussed in her learning.

Bees Knees - Week commencing Monday 29th January

Jade Class - Frankie

For his enthusiastic approach to learning and his retelling of the story of the Gingerbread Man using actions.

Jasper Class - Cody

For always asking questions about out learning and is curious to know more.

Year 1 (Onyx/Opal Classes)

Over the past two weeks we have learnt that different animals eat differently; some are herbivores, carnivores and omnivores. However a omnivore, such as a pig, couldn't eat a sandwich like us! We built on our knowledge of the Earth by learning where the Equator was and what we would need to take with us due to the tropical climate. Last week we shared a 'meal' in the classroom, we laid the table with posh cloths, candles and special food like Jews do during Shabbat and why they do these activities. We discovered that Mary Anning was the first person to find a plesiosaur, ichthyosaur and even fossilised dinosaur poo!

Bees Knees - Week commencing - Monday 22nd January

Opal Class - Emma

For improved independent sentence composition; This week we wrote a poem with rhyme and repetition.

Bees Knees - Week commencing Monday 29th January

Opal Class - Aleksander

Over the past few weeks he has been able to answer every enquiry question in Science due to listening and thinking hard.

Onyx Class - Tyler

For Improved learning behaviours (doing work and joining in).

Year 2 (Amber/Aqua Classes)

In Year 2 we are reading a story called Coming to England. It is about a family moving from Trinidad to England, the author, Floella Benjamin, really did this journey when she was a child. We will be predicting, answering retrieval questions and summarising parts of the book. In writing, we are learning to identify subheadings and specific sections of non-chronological reports. This will help us learn to write our own on our science unit of material and their properties.

In history, we are learning about how Edith Cavell would treat the injuries of all soldiers, Allied and enemies, because she was compassionate towards all people. We will be role playing parts of her life to understand how heroic she was. Did you know that she is buried at Norwich Cathedral? You can go and visit and see a statue and her grave (all for free) at our over 1000 year old cathedral!

In geography we are understanding the difference between aerial photos on maps. Our focus will be on human features and how they look on maps.

In PSHE, your child is learning how to be safe and about how they are allowed to say no if they feel uncomfortable. They have learnt to then tell a trusted adult about what happened. Your child can speak to all staff here, including asking to go to talk to Pastoral. We also have a worry box in our classrooms if they would rather write down their worry. We always follow these up.

In maths we are continuing with multiplication and divide (2, 5 and 10s). You can help your child by giving them a division sentence, for example 15 divided by 5. Prompt them to draw 5 circles and share out 15 into each one to find the answer.

Bees Knees - Week commencing - Monday 22nd January

Aqua Class - Mahoor

For excellent mental maths skills. You are fantastic at solving division and multiplication calculations.

Amber Class - Sasha

For a brilliant first week at Heartsease Primary and pushing herself to complete her work to a good standard.

Sasha's resilience has come on leaps and bounds in just 5 days.

Bees Knees - Week commencing Monday 29th January

Aqua Class - Mia

For being kind and helpful in class. It's fantastic to have you as a member of our class!

Amber Class - Bastian

For being so respectful, kind and caring to all of his friends and his teacher and beginning to believe in himself because he truly can do anything he puts his mind to! You are AWESOME Bastian!!

Year 3 (Coral/Crystal Classes)

Year Three has continued to investigate forces and have moved on to understanding non-contact forces. These are forces that can act over a distance without touching. Gravity and Magnetism are examples of non-contact forces. We learnt that we can move paper clips with a magnet without needing to touch it. In writing, we are continuing our non-chronological reports on Norfolk towns - if you have any information about a town or village in Norfolk to share with us, it would really help our writing. Of course our big event was the trip to the Time and Tide Museum. Here we saw first hand real artefacts from Stone, Bronze and Iron ages. We actually got to hold the fossil of a Step Mammoth's tooth - ask us how big it was? We hunted deer (Don't worry Deirdre was a pretend deer), we prepared for battle as Iron Age Celts and we made our own bronze brooches. We even got a free return ticket so we really hope to go again soon!

Bees Knees - Week commencing - Monday 22nd January

Crystal Class - Cali-Rose

For working hard to improve her focus and engagement in all lessons. It's been lovely to see you engaging more in class discussions and collaborative work. Well done, Crystal Class are proud of you!!

Coral Class - Mia

Mia has been working hard to use her phonics in her reading lessons. She has now completed the phonics programme and is applying these to reading complex words in class. She has been developing her comprehension skills and works daily to try and answer every question. Well done, Mia!

Bees Knees - Week commencing Monday 29th January

Crystal Class - Scott

For always being an inquisitive learner. He always asks questions to extend his thinking and understanding of an idea of concept. Well done! Crystal Class are proud of you!!

Coral Class - Kiril

Kiril used technical vocabulary on the trip to the Time and Tide museum yesterday that showed how hard he has been working on his learning. Well done, Kiko!

Year 4 (Garnet/Topaz Classes)

Over the last couple of weeks in English, we completed our cultural stories unit, and have started our new unit on persuasive writing and adverts. In Maths, we completed our unit on perimeter and have stated our new unit on fractions. In reading, we finished our core textbook: 'The Girl Who Stole an Elephant.' We created a restaurant review and first person reflection for retrieval. We also compared and gave a personal response on a narrative extract, and looked at speech and discursive text for making inferences.

This week, we started our new core text: 'The Boy at the Back of the Class.' In art, we investigated 3D sculpture and form where we made wire sculptures with layered tissue paper, and recreated Giacometti figures. In history, we started our new unit on the Vikings, and learned about what life was like for them. In geography, we learned how to use latitude and longitude to locate places on a map.

Bees Knees - Week commencing - Monday 22nd January

Topaz Class - Chloe I

I was very impressed with her effort and motivation in our art lesson. Brilliant!

Garnet Class - Gracie-May

For putting in a fantastic amount of effort in both reading and writing this week.

Bees Knees - Week commencing Monday 29th January

Topaz Class - Lorna

I was very impressed with her organisational skills, and attention to detail in our art lesson. Wonderful!

Garnet Class - Bella

For creating a fantastic third person narrative in writing this week!

Year 5 (Emerald/Sapphire Classes)

Over the last two weeks, Year 5 have been revisiting stories based in a different culture. The text we are looking at is set in Ancient Egypt and is about a young boy called Ibi who is helped by a crocodile. Mathematics has moved from division to fractions. Each math group has been multiplying a fraction by an integer. In geography we are learning how to read grid references and have been onto a new website called Digimap. The children were very excited about finding their houses.

Swimming started on Thursday for Sapphire Class. Emerald’s session will be next term (date to be confirmed)

Bees Knees - Week commencing - Monday 22nd January

Emerald Class - Bailey

Throughout the week he has engaged well in lessons and contributed to discussions in a well thought out way.

Sapphire Class - Lennon

For being enthusiastic in all lessons and never worrying about answering questions.

Bees Knees - Week commencing Monday 29th January

Emerald Class - Roxie

For working extremely hard at keeping focussed in every lesson, completing the task given to her and keeping in her seat. You can do it, now keep it up every week!

Sapphire Class - Zoe

For her excellent work in mathematics lesson especially when calculating how to multiply a fraction by an integer.

Year 6 (Diamond/Quartz Classes)

Diamond Class took part in an Into University activity week. They completed their 'Creative Arts Degree'. This involved research about Creative Innovators, a drama workshop, completing creative challenges, visiting the Sainsbury Centre Art Gallery to sketch and create their own Zines and finally presenting their work to parents in a large lecture theatre at UEA.

Their behaviour was outstanding and we were very proud of them for the whole week.

Bees Knees - Week commencing - Monday 22nd January

Quartz Class - Frank

For showing real resilience and determination in his writing this week. Frank has shown some excellent description to create an atmosphere in his third person narrative. Well done!

Diamond Class - Tallulah-Belle

For her amazing drawings during our visit to The Sainsbury Centre.

Bees Knees - Week commencing Monday 29th January

Quartz Class - The whole class

For their amazing attempt at their 'Mock SAT's' this week. Everyone showed great resilience and determination. Well done!

Diamond Class - Ripley

She has been determined to improve her scores in the practice SATs.