Pixies Class

The Reception children have made an excellent start to school life and have settled into routines with great enthusiasm. They have been developing friendships and engaging in a range of activities to support their learning. The children have painted self-portraits and participated in discussions about similarities and differences, including creating a class graph to record and compare eye colours. As part of our discussions on families, the children drew who lives in their homes and used natural objects collected from around school to represent family members.

This week, the children enjoyed a successful visit to the Cotswold Wildlife Park. They observed farm animals as an introduction to our forthcoming work on Harvest, learning about the roles of different animals at this time of year. They also explored a variety of other animals in the park and compared their habitats with those on the farm. A particular highlight of the trip was the train ride and the opportunity to see a four-day-old baby rhino.

From Monday, we will begin our phonics programme. Children will bring home sound books to practise, which will lead on to reading books in due course. We kindly ask that all children have a suitable book bag or school bag to ensure books are kept safe when travelling between home and school.

Elves and Griffins Class

(Group write in the class)

Our trip to Cotswold Wildlife Park

"On Wednesday, we went to the Cotswold Wildlife Park. Because we are explorers studying the Arctic and Antarctic, we went to see animals from these places. 

We started looking at Humboldt Penguins and, although they are not from Antarctica, they live in the Southern Hemisphere and have lots of similarities to penguins who do, like Macaroni, King and Emperor penguins. 

We found out that there are 17 species of penguins in the world. They all like to eat fish, and they have sharp tongues and spikes on their beaks, so the fish don’t slip out. Penguins have black and white colourings to camouflage them from predators like orcas and leopard seals. They are very speedy in the water and use their wings so they can fly through the water …  swimming at 20mph! We also found that the penguins were very noisy, honking loudly because they were communicating with each other.

Next, we went to visit the wolverine. These animals come from the North Pole, where it is slightly warmer than the South Pole. We think it was a little bit shy because it was hiding by a huge tree at the back. We found out that they are very good at climbing trees and that they store the bones of their food in the trees so that other animals can’t get them.

Then we went to see the Snowy Owl and Great Grey Owl because they live in the Arctic. Some of the facts we learned are, they can turn their head almost all the way round and that’s because they have 14 bones in their neck … we only have 7! They fly very silently with their special feathers, so they don’t scare their prey.

After that, we had a fun time playing in the adventure park. Some of us were just like monkeys and when we slid down the slide we were like penguins tobogganing on the ice. Then we had lunch followed by a train ride, which was really good fun.

Some of the other animals we saw were the red panda, the giant tortoise, the giraffe, a very noisy lion (and his roar was LOUD!) and finally we saw the 4-day old baby rhino, called Marcus. He was cute.

It was a fun and exciting day for adventurous explorers!"

Dragons Class

This week in the Dragons class, they have been learning about different biomes and starting to make a display board of ocean biomes and freshwater biomes. They learnt about the Portugese explorer Ferdinand Magellan who went to discover the spice islands via the South American coast. 

In science, the pupils have been working with Mrs Bartlett to identify the different parts of growing plants and finding them on plants in the garden. They have been learning about flowers and bees and which parts of the flowers attract the bees.  

The Dragons were excited to gather produce grown in the school garden; tomatoes and peppers, and to make chutney with them with Mrs Blackwell.

Wizards Class

The Wizards class made apple and blackberry jam in their cooking lessons this week. They have been learning about the five pillars of Islam and about the Islamic God; Allah and his messenger Mohammed. They have made Mehindi (Islamic) patterns and created front covers for their topic books. 

The pupils in the wizard's class investigated the explorer John Cabot and found out that he sailed a ship called Mathew from Bristol to the Americas. 

Date for your diary: We will be celebrating harvest at St. Nicholas' Church, Chadlington at 9.30am on Thursday 23^rd October. You are very welcome to join us.

As in previous years, we will be collecting dried food, including packets and tins (e.g. biscuits, pasta and soup) for the North Oxfordshire Foodbank; there will be a box inside the foyer from Monday 13^th October for you to add your donations. A huge thank you in advance!