SHOEBOX APPEAL

Thank you to all those families who have generously donated a beautifully wrapped and packed shoebox for this international charity that sends Christmas Gifts to children in need in war-torn countries. 

We are delighted to be able to send off 40 shoe boxes this year.

CHARITY SUPPORT

The School Council are actively involved in choices for where many of our Charity fundraising donations go. 

We'd like to share with you last year's Charity Fundraising, which is in addition to the Friends fundraising for the school

2018/2019 Charity Donations - TOTAL = £2026

• (September) Staff Macmillan Coffee Morning = £270
• (October) Harvest Festival Collection for WaterAid = £143 & Food to Waveney Food Bank
• (November) Samaritans Purse Christmas Shoe Box Appeal = 35  Shoeboxes
• (December) Nativity Collections, Jumper Day Collection & Carol Service Collection for Christian Aid = £858
• (December) Staff Christmas Collection for St Elizabeth Hospice = £90
• (March) World Book Day Collection for Book Aid International = £324
• (March) Red Noses = £286 to Comic Relief
• (June) Nursery Pyjamarama for BookTrust = £55

Thank you to all our wonderful families who are so generous to these worthwhile causes.

Open the Book

Today, the ‘Open the Book’ team visited and shared a story from the New Testament, ‘Let the Children Come to Me’ (Mark was 10: 13-16). We learnt how children were taken to see Jesus in the hope he might bless them but the disciple prevented them from going near him. Jesus became indignant, and said to them: “Let the children come to me; do not hinder them, for such belongs to the kingdom of God. Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it”. Afterwards, he blessed each one of them. 

Year 6 Maths

Over the last 2 weeks, VWh have been using the 4 operations with fractions. 
After addition  and subtraction, we moved in to multiplication and division, initially using visual aids to help us visualise what was going on.  
When dividing fractions today, the children learnt about using the inverse operation and taking the reciprocal of the divisor (inverting) before multiplying. 
To conclude, we must always remember to simplify and convert our final answer back to a mixed number. Some children used went on to applying their learning when faced with BODMAS fraction problems. 

Computer Club is buzzing

Computer club has been busy this term with many year 3 and year 4 children attending.  The range of activities being used includes:-

• Coding using Scratch 
• Number sharks - partitioning, symmetry and number bonds 
• Revelation Art creating topic based pictures
• Pivot
• 'Rockstars' improving times tables

FOREST SCHOOL

WEEK 3 - CLASS KB

We started the morning by doing an autumn leaf ID hunt, we discussed deciduous trees and evergreen trees. The children then enjoyed making some fantastic fairy doors and leaf garlands as well as accessing ongoing activities.

Odd Socks Day - in support of Anti-Bullying Week

Today the children at school were all invited to WEAR ODD SOCKS to celebrate that we are all different, this is in support of Anti-Bullying Week.

Sing Praise at Mills Meadow Care Home

Last week, Sing Praise went to Mills Meadows to sing.  It was an action packed time the children had there and here are a few comments which some of the year 2 children made.

“We sang to the elderly people at someone’s birthday and we also met a special dog.” – Honor

“I liked the fireworks and singing “Autumn leaves are falling”  and “Glory to God” – Daisy

“I liked the fireworks” – Grace-Lily

“I enjoyed watching the tree being planted” – Finley

Remembrance Assembly

During the last week the children have been learning about the meaning of Remembrance and why on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month we have two minutes silence.
Mrs Picton spoke today in our Remembrance assembly about the sacrifices that our armed forces make to ensure we live in a free society.
One of our talented Year 6 musicians played the Last Post beautifully at the end of the silence.

School council share new equipment and games

School council led part of our assembly this morning to introduce and share with the rest of the school the exciting new equipment which the Friends of the school donated.  We have new ankle skips, skipping ropes, frisbees, hoops and footballs for each of the playgrounds.

School council showed the children some new games and gave them some ideas to play with the new equipment.  The school council will share new games for the hopscotch too.

Thank you to the Friends of the school for the kind donation.

Can any of you remember any skipping games or other playground games that you played when you were younger?  Maybe you could teach the children in your families some of the songs or games that you played.  It would be lovely to increase the range of songs and activities on the playground.

Author Visit

Hitcham's Head Chef

Mrs Cooper was delighted to present all the Hitcham's Head Chefs with their certificates today for taking part in this fantastic event earlier this term.

She made everyone's mouth water as she described in detail the wonderful dishes the children had created, telling us of the ingredients and flavors. It made us all very hungry by 9.30am this morning!

The judges of the competition were very impressed by the children's talent, ability, calmness & skills. They named the winners as Max in Year 5 & Tallulah in Year 6.

Well done to all the children involved - you should be very proud of your achievements. 

Thank you too, to all the judges and a special big thank you to Miss Dineen, Mrs Jenkins & Mrs Cooper for the time and effort they put in to running this event.

First Class Photos in the EADT

Today's EADT  included our Reception Class photos as part of their 'First Class' supplement. The photos of our children were taken in the recently created Reflective Area.

Framlingham Co-op - Grand Re-Opening

Framlingham Co-op Grand Re-Opening - Mrs Picton and a few of our Class Ambassadors attended the ribbon-cutting ceremony of our local Co-op yesterday following it's extensive refurbishment. They had a tour of the store with the Manager. (Photos courtesy of the Co-op)

Report from two of the Year 6 Ambassadors who attended this event.

Gold at Local Football Tournament 2019

On Wednesday 6th November 2019, nine children from year five and six participated in a local football tournament. The children showed, readiness, responsibility and respect throughout; we are very proud of them. Thank you to parents and volunteers who supported them. 

FOREST SCHOOL

WEEK 2- CLASS KB

The children were excited to find a letter today from a woodland spirit asking them to help make more spirits to help protect the woodland. They were then allowed a magic ribbon from the tree and enjoyed creating some amazing wands.

Cross Country 2019

On Thursday 31st of October, the majority of KS2 participated in a local Cross Country event. Most of the children took the challenge in their stride and seized the

opportunity to run with their friends in a beautiful setting. Thank you to parents and staff for supporting this event. Well done children!

Story Time in Reception Classes

What a lovely end to the school day for the children in classes KM & CH. They were lucky to have their mum or dad come in to read them some stories again this month. They all seemed to thoroughly enjoy this extra special time together.
There is one more of these events before Christmas on Monday 2 December.

Nursery learning about Diwali

This week in Nursery we have been learning about the Hindu celebration of Diwali, the Festival of Lights.

On Monday we shared a book to learn about the Diwali celebration. We thought about celebrations we enjoy such as birthdays and wondered if the children could remember their last Christmas too. We finished the day by watching a clip about a Hindu family celebrating Diwali and talked about things that were similar and different with celebrations we have had. The children were particularly excited by the fireworks!

On Tuesday we shared a book called All Kinds of People. We talked about how we are all different but all very special and how it is lovely to be friends with people who are different from you as it is interesting and fun to learn about them and their lives. We referred back to our learning about Diwali yesterday and how even though none of us are Hindus it is still fun to learn about their special celebration and notice the similarities and differences with things we celebrate, such as birthdays or Bonfire Night. In PE we learnt some Indian dance moves as part of our learning about Diwali and then we copied a dance to some Indian style music. At the end the children shared their favourite moves with the group.  

On Wednesday the children all made some Coconut burfi Diwali sweets with Mrs Eyles. The children enjoyed making Diwali inspired chalk patterns on the ground outside too, exploring how the colours changed when they introduced water.

On Thursday we reminded ourselves of the Diwali celebrations by sharing the Diwali sweets we made on the previous day. We were very pleased that we even had enough to share with Classes CH and KM. 


What a lovely week of learning together! 

Class LH take an enchanting look at native trees!

Class LH launched their 'Enchanted Woodland' topic for this half of term by exploring the playground identifying a range of deciduous trees.   The children also learnt about the fact that most deciduous trees lose their leaves in the autumn and the children's aim was to identify and understand the difference in these trees. It was a fitting start to the topic as we were able to compare the seasons too which linked with our last topic 'Splendid Skies'.  

We were able to think about the start of the "Splendid Skies" topic and how it was in the summer season and the trees were full of leaves and how, in our new topic, as we approach autumn, many leaves have fallen.  Evergreen trees and deciduous trees were discussed as we learnt about softwood and hardwood trees. 

We talked about the shapes and sizes of the leaves.  We observed the greenery of the Willow tree compared to the bare twigs and no leaves on the crab apple tree.  The horse chestnut leaves were 'like hands' and the oak leaf was very distinctive. The horn beam leaves and the silver birch leaves were very similar in size but when we examined them closely, 'the pointy shape' of the silver birch helped us to work out the difference. There was also a hazelnut tree which was bare.  

It was amazing that so many different trees were in such a small area ie our playground.   

Looking at the horse chestnut leaf

Teamwork - checking answers with each other. 

Assembly- Wednesday

On Wednesday, we were treated to an assembly by Mr. Gilder. He began by asking the children to spell the word 'perseverance', and discussed the meaning of the word. He likened it to the term 'sticking it out', using the man who founded the Scout movement, Baden Powell, as an example of the word. Baden came up with the term 'stickability' which "...pulls person out of many a bad place when everything seems to be going wrong for him". Mr. Gilder also talked about Robert the Bruce, a famous Scottish warrior who led Scotland during the First War of Scottish Independence. 

Perseverance can be tricky, particularly when a new skill or aspect of learning appears difficult. If we continue to 'stick it out', the potential for success increases, thus being advantageous to many. 

Crucial Crew- Year 6

On Monday, Year 6 ventured off to Stratford St. Andrew's Riverside Centre to take part in a number of personal safety workshops. There were 8 workshops in total, with the children spending 15 minutes attending each one. Topics ranged from sun safety, where children became proficient in their understanding of damaging UVA and UVB rays and the importance of wearing British Standard sunglasses to provide ultimate protection, to drug and alcohol awareness, where children understood the difference between stimulants, depressants and solvents. They also found out that tobacco cigarettes contain at least 4000 harmful chemicals! The children also experienced the fire safety workshop, where they gained a better understanding of everyday appliances overheating and becoming a fire hazard. Additionally, they witnessed overloaded sockets and practised what they would do if they encountered a fire with a realistic simulation. They came away with a better understanding about phishing and the legal age minimum requirements for many apps- the results of which surprised many. 

Overall, a thoroughly interesting and thought provoking afternoon for our most senior pupils. Hopefully, they will use their newly acquired knowledge to make sensible and reasoned decisions in the future.