School Newsletter : 03 March 2023

Red Nose Day is back!

Support us in this important fundraising event on Friday 17th March, when we will be joining thousands of people up and down the country by getting involved.

All our donations will go towards helping Comic Relief to support amazing projects and organisations who are making a difference for people across the UK and around the world.

Please see below the range of Class Projects that are included in the Homework Overviews for Years 1 – 6 for this half term. These can be found in your child’s Google Classroom, including the outline for Maths and Spelling tasks.

Kindly be informed that all projects need to be submitted into school on Monday 27th March.

Good luck everyone 🙂

On Thursday our school hall was full of incredible book characters from our favourite children’s stories!

We had Mad Hatters and an Alice in Wonderland, Willy Wonka-s and Stick Men, Harry Potters and White Witches, plus many other creative and clever costumes.

Even our school staff made a HUGE effort – we also had an Alice in Wonderland, a Miss Trunchbull and a Miss Honey!

Well done to all the children and their families for putting their thinking caps on and finding brilliant ways to become their favourite characters. A special mention must go to Connie for her incredible costume!

In assembly Mrs Camplin showed the children their World Book Day vouchers they would be taking home that day, so please look out for them in book bags and coat pockets.

You can take this voucher to a bookshop like Waterstones, WH Smith or certain supermarkets to trade it in for one of the special World Book Day books (for free); or use your voucher to get £1 off any other book.

The pupils selected as the winner for their costume in each class will visit Waterstones next week to choose a book and to continue their love of reading. Well done everyone!

World Book Day Class Winners:

From left to right:

• Nursery: Arlo as a bus driver, a character from his favourite genre of books, Transport!
• Reception: Tahlia as a Butterfly from her favourite book, ‘L’anniversaire de Grenouille‘.
• Year 1: Ezra as Stickman, from ‘Stickman‘ written by Julia Donaldson.
• Year 2: Lawand as a vampire, from ‘I Love my Fangs‘ by Kelly Leigh Miller.

From left to right:

• Year 3: Connie as a character from ‘Oh, the Places You’ll Go!’, by Dr Seuss
• Year 4: Grace as Mrs Trunchbull from ‘Matilda‘, by Roald Dahl.
• Year 5: Lola as a WW2 evacuee, inspired from books and studies about this time.
• Year 6: Lauren as Gangster Granny, from Gangster Granny, by David Walliams.

March (continued):

• Monday 20th March @ 19:00 – 21:00: Barbican Concert – Year 6 have been invited to perform alongside pupils from Westminster School in their concert. An amazing opportunity! More details to follow, including how parents can obtain tickets.
• Tuesday 21st March: Pimlico Music Foundation Singing Event at St. Gabriel’s Church – Year 5 to perform and parents are warmly welcomed (times TBC).
• Monday 27th March @ 14:30 – 16:30: Coronation Club (Year 4) Trip to the Royal Mews – separate letter will follow.

Collective Worship

The whole school attends acts of Collective Worship every day.

• Mondays and Tuesdays: key stage singing assemblies led by Mr Carden.
• Wednesdays: Church service led by Graham or Helena, the clergy at St Stephens with St John on Rochester Row. These services are very child-friendly, and Year 6 take a leading role by processing, singing in the choir and reading the Bible readings and prayers.
• Thursdays: We focus on celebrating achievements, led by a member of SLT, School Council or a class teacher with their class. When a class teacher leads the assembly, their class also recite a piece of poetry they have been learning. We would be very grateful if parents could support their children in learning these poems when it is their turn.
• Friday: Opportunities for classes to share what they have been learning with their families and the rest of the school.

This week’s reading in Church was from Matthew 4:1-11, recounting all about Jesus being tempted in the wilderness when he was there for 40 days and 40 nights. Jesus was tempted by the Devil three times:<

• to turn stones into bread when he was fasting,
• to throw himself from the roof of the temple and order the angels to catch him to test God, and
• to forsake God and worship the Devil in return for power over all of the kingdoms of the world

Jesus rebutted the Devil’s temptations, each time with a quote from Deuteronomy in the Old Testament (the Torah, or Jewish Holy Book). Jesus had faith in God’s word and plan for his life, to strengthen him to face what was coming.

After listening to this story, Helena talked to the children about what it is like to be tempted, perhaps to do something or say something that you know is not right. Her advice for anyone tempted to do the wrong thing was: Let Jesus get in the way!

Many of you may be aware from the national press that the National Education Union (NEU), has balloted for strike action on the following dates:

• Wednesday 15 March 2023
• Thursday 16 March 2023

Kindly be informed that our school will be open on all the strike days listed above, with all classes and wrap around provision (Breakfast Club, Extended School Day and After School Clubs) operating as normal.

Please remember that holidays will not be authorised during the school term, and that all children should be in school (on time) every day.

Please refer to the table below for the term dates, including INSET days and Bank Holidays when the school will be closed to pupils.

Alternatively, you can click on the image thumbnail on the right to view the PDF (please note this will open in a new window) or you can click on the link below:

• Burdett-Coutts & Townshend Foundation CE Primary School Term Dates 2022-2023 >

Nursery’s scientists have been experimenting with mixing their own magic medicine to help all the animals at the vet! They were given all sorts of inspiring ingredients to mix and stir, creating a melting pot of conversation and sensory experiences.

This week in Computing, we have been continuing with mastering using a mouse to select and open icons. We are also learning how to move the mouse to the correct place and click without taking our hand off. This is very tricky but we are already making lots of progress. The game we played this week involved choosing colours and clicking the correct place to complete an animal picture.

As Scientists this term we are learning about different ways to be healthy! This could be achieved through improving the types and range of foods we eat, our hygiene, mental wellbeing, exercise and much more. We have been learning about the different food groups and thinking about which we should eat lots of, some of, and less of. Have a chat to your child at home about some of the foods we should eat lots of to fuel our bodies and grow.

In Jemison class this half term, we have become Geographers and are learning about Spain. We have learnt about how to find Spain on a map, and how to find it using more precise co-ordinates using longitude and latitude. We have also learnt about time zones and why some countries are in the night-time while we are in the day, and vice versa. We have investigated the physical features of Spain including mountains, rivers and seas. Next, we are going to look at how these impact on the human features, such as land use and population. We are loving learning about Spain, especially because we often listen to Spanish music while we work. We have made flamenco fans too and have watched videos of people dancing with them!

This week in English, we have been writing diary entries from the perspective of the main character (Fred) in our new class text, The Explorer. We are recalling the traumatic events of the past few days, where we find ourselves stranded in the Amazon Rainforest after the plane to Manaus we’re onboard, crashes. In our writing, we have tried hard to use dashes for drama, using our senses to describe the setting and choosing engaging vocabulary to portray the character’s thoughts and feelings.