What a wonderful first week back we have had! The Primary and Early Years Section has been alive with learning and it has been fantastic to see all our young learners settling into their new classes.
It was also a pleasure to see so many of our ĢƵ families at our Parent Information Sessions this week and we look forward to seeing you again next week when you will have the opportunity to meet the Primary Leadership Team. We will also be inviting families in for our first IPC Exit Point next Friday.
Our Early Years children have made a fantastic start to the school year and have already had lots of adventures. As well as settling into new routines, the children have made self-portraits using natural materials and clay, made their own play-dough and formed new friendships. We also read stories related to starting school and began to talk about the different emotions that the children may be feeling during their first week back. We are looking forward to many more exciting adventures over the course of the year.
Year 1 have enjoyed their IPC learning this week through the manipulation of clay and using naturalistic objects to make representations of the Learning Animals. In our English, the children have read the story ‘Cave Baby’ and created actions to match each of the animal characters we meet. In our Mathematics, the children have enjoyed exploring numbers to ten in different forms (numeral, representation and word). We have very much enjoyed our first week together!
Year 2 has been buzzing with excitement and our students have been exploring creative activities together. They’ve started off their journey in English by reading a story of “Goldilocks and the Three Bears” by Polly Borland and Emily Jenkins, where the children embarked on an imaginative investigation into the mysterious mess left in the classroom, sparked by the three bowls of porridge—one of which had mysteriously been eaten! In Maths, they have been unleashing their creativity by designing Monster Cards, focusing on the concept of tens, with a goal of reaching a total of 100. Moreover, our Brainwaves IPC topic has taken flight as they have collaboratively created the Class Job Charter, outlining the responsibilities that will help them thrive together. Adding to the excitement, they also made Learning Animals using natural materials and clay, integrating art with nature to foster a deeper understanding of the world around us. This year is off to a fantastic start, brimming with creativity, collaboration, and discovery!
Year 3 have enjoyed the challenges that a new year group has brought, they have developed new friendships and shown great resilience and confidence. During our Science lessons we have begun learning about the skeleton and how different elements of it work. This week we explored skeletons as structures and how they support us. During our investigation into this, we discovered what it was that creates a stable structure out of paper and tape (representing the bones) and a tennis ball (a brain)! We can’t wait to find out more about how the other parts of our skeleton work.
Our Year 4 students’ first week back at school was a whirlwind of excitement and discovery. The students thrived on reconnecting with friends and sharing stories about their summer adventures, sparking lively conversations and laughter. They were particularly captivated by their new unit. Brainwaves, which began with exploring resilience through the inspiring story of “The Dot”. The tale encouraged them to embrace their creativity and they eagerly took to designing their own unique dots, each one a colourful expression of their individuality. We also enjoyed sharing our approach to Maths problem solving with an engaging investigation.
It has been fantastic meeting the new Year 5 students and seeing them reunite or begin forming new friendships with their peers. They have enjoyed their introduction to the Brainwaves IPC unit and have been working their brains by solving riddles, ditloids and other tricky puzzles. Students have been refreshing their knowledge of place value in maths and sharing their favourite books in Guided Reading. It has been a really positive and enjoyable environment in the Year 5 classrooms so far and we look forward to getting to know each other better.
Year 6 have had a wonderful and very productive start to the year, getting to know their new classmates and teachers. They have also spent time re-familiarising themselves with Google Classroom and Google Calendar, which is used throughout the year in preparation for secondary school. In IPC, they began their Brainwaves entry point, investigating optical illusions, solving puzzles and using their knowledge to crack tangram codes. It was a wonderful way to begin the topic and encouraged lots of discussion and debate!
In Primary Music this week, the students have been learning some new songs and playing name games such as Up the Ladder, Down the Ladder and Who Stole the Cookies From the Cookie Jar? Many students even sang solo introductions in class as we played Yoohoo! Who Are You?, with the school record being 6W who had 20 students volunteer to sing solos! We will continue playing music games like these in the upcoming weeks as we start developing our skills in vocal and rhythmic improvisation to prepare for future learning on barred instruments and hand drums. We wrapped up our lessons by learning some new song games, such as London Bridge and Doggy Doggy, Where’s Your Bone? The primary students at ĢƵ are doing an absolutely fantastic job in Music class and we can’t wait to see what they will do next!
We have also enjoyed a number of language lessons including Nepali, French and Mandarin and will be updating you more on that over the coming weeks.
It has been a very active and enjoyable first week of PE across the Primary School! Our youngest learners in EYFS and KS1 have been exploring moving with music. Moving slow or speeding up when the drums beat fast! Our Year 3s and 4s have been focusing on developing and refining some of their fundamental movement skills that will form a strong foundation for their learning in the year to come. You may have seen our Year 5s and Year 6s challenging themselves in some initial fitness testing out on the Primary Astro this past week. Completing these tests is a great way to identify areas of strength and future improvement as well as developing their understanding of health and fitness. Students will be continuing their learning next week before switching to some new units in Week 3 which will also see swimming introduced for some of our year groups.
In Library this week, students had a wonderful experience exploring new books and sharing the titles they read during the holidays. They were enthusiastic about being back on campus and engaging with the library’s new collection. The students read books from various genres and actively recommended a selection of books to their peers. The students demonstrated great enthusiasm in learning about the authors and their works. We are eager to continue reading and enhancing our reading skills in this academic year.
With our co-curricular program starting next week, we are very excited to see what our students achieve next week and in the year to come.
