Newsletter 1 Autumn 2021-2022

Forthcoming events:

25th October to 29th October - Half term

29th October - Go Active Holiday Club

31st October - Deadline for secondary school applications

1st November - INSET Day (School & nursery closed to pupils)

2nd November - Return to school (Autumn Term)

4th November - Whizz, bang sparkle! - Themed School Lunch Day with Aspens

5th November - Nasal Flu Vaccinations (Reception - Year 6 incl.)

19th November - Children in Need

17th December - Christmas Lunch Day and Last day of Autumn term

Our new Autumn menu will be available from Tuesday 2nd November, when we return after half term. A text message will be sent to confirm when it is available to book on ParentPay.

Head of School Welcome

Welcome to our first newsletter of the academic year. The last six weeks have passed so quickly and it has been super to see the children settle in so well after the Summer Holiday. The whole staff team have throughly enjoyed welcoming back our returning pupils as well as some new faces too, including our Nursery and Reception pupils.

As always, the children have been absolutely wonderful, and very enthusiastic, when sharing their thoughts and ideas on their learning. This term they are also taking great pleasure in collating floor book overviews to share, explain and discuss their work - really generating lots of talk and certainly altering long term memories - Wow!

This week, we were delighted to be able to finally welcome our Reception Class and Year 1 families into school. Until now we haven’t been able to hold our usual meetings, so we were thrilled to be able to meet with you and, of course, for your children to have the opportunity to share their learning and show you around their school. We will be organising further open afternoons for the remaining classes after half term.

Returning to our full and exciting curriculum plans, our subject leads are delighted to share an insight into the subject learning across the school with you. We hope you enjoy discovering our curriculum highlights from the term so far when reading this newsletter. Please also continue to look on our website for further detail about all our curriculum plans.

Excited, we are also planning future events leading up to Christmas, which include after school clubs, sports fixtures, a visit from the Screech Owl Sanctuary, Diwali dance workshops and, of course, our Christmas performances. Please keep up to date by reading all school communications. We hope you all have a wonderful half term break and come back feeling refreshed and ready for another half term of exciting learning and fun, festivities ahead.

Mrs Rundle
Head of School

Art

This term for art, our focus is on learning the skill of drawing. We have been learning about using different types of medium in our artwork for example pencils, crayons, pastels and oil pastels. We have all shown great self-motivation and perseverance.

Every class has also learned about a local artist in our art lessons. We have really enjoyed learning about these artists and finding interesting facts about them.

Here is a look at what some year groups have been learning in art this term:

In Early Years, art falls within the 'Expressive Arts and Design' area of learning. Children have explored artists and their work, using this as a stimulus for their own masterpieces.

Year 2 have been using different grades of pencils to draw Tudor houses and drawn and created their own 'The Great Fire of London' pictures using pastel chalks. We have learned about 'Sir Terry Frost' for our local artist study and created some amazing pieces of artwork, experimenting with line shape, pattern and colour.

Year 4 have drawn Roman pots and Roman pillars. They have focused on line and tone and learned about different drawing techniques, planning, refining and altering their drawings as necessary. Children have used research to inspire drawings from both memory and imagination.

We are all very proud of the fantastic pieces of artwork we create and enjoy sharing our art work in every classroom as well as around the school.

Art

EYFS - Sketching

KS1 - mediums

KS2 - Line and tone

Computing

This term, our focus in computing is to strive to create digitally literate pupils. Digital Literacy is at the forefront of our computing curriculum here at Sandy Hill and is covered throughout the school year. It equips pupils with the skills and knowledge to use the technology we have in school safely and, in turn, this also encourages safe, age appropriate use of technology outside of the school environment.

In Key Stage 1, children have been learning about how to stay safe when using the internet with an adult. Year 1 have used their buddy, Smartie the Penguin to help understand how to behave when using the internet. Year 2 have been making avatars that could be used as profile photos online rather than sharing photos.

In Key Stage 2, classes have been thinking about their online reputations. In Lower Key Stage 2, children have been discussing private vs personal information and which are okay to share online and in real life. In Upper Key Stage 2, children have been discussing online identity and respectful, appropriate ways to communicate online.

Design and Technology

This half term we have been really excited for our Design and Technology Days - engaging ourselves in a block of DT learning this way has ensured we get every opportunity to absorb new skills, returning to our 'designs' to make, adapt and evaluate continually developing our technical knowledge!
During our first two Design and Technology Days of the year, we focused on textiles and sheet materials. We have been learning about using different types of textiles and sheet materials to design, make and evaluate products based around our topics of learning. We have all shown great enthusiasm, self-motivation and resilience across DT learning - true Sandy Hill STARS!

Linking our learning to a local designer and their work during our Design and Technology days, children in every class have discovered some excellent design work and creativity here in Cornwall. We have also explored careers within Design and Technology, including costume designers, digital illustrators and many more...

These days have been a wonderful opportunity for us to immerse ourselves in DT learning to explore, develop and refine upon our skills in Design and Technology. We look forward to future DT days - with the construction focus in Spring term and food focus in Summer term!

English

During the Autumn Term, within each class, we have been delving into our class topics as a stimulus for our English work.

We have continued to place reading at the heart of our curriculum. In EYFS, the children have begun to learn their first sounds (phonemes) and learnt how to blend these phonemes into words. This has continued through KS1, with advancing this early reading further and building reading fluency. In KS2, each class have worked had to build on their comprehension skills during guided reading lessons to demonstrate understanding. Each teacher has also loved sharing their class reading books with the children - both new and classics!

Within our writing lessons, we have carefully selected modelled texts, visual stimuli and writing opportunities, which have been chosen to excite and motivate the children to write. Each class have completed some fantastic writing this term; advancing our name writing ability and mark making in EYFS, writing about the seasonal changes and dragons in KS1, through to setting descriptions for historical narratives and writing letters as evacuees in KS2.

Across our English learning, across each class, we have shown this term a real determination to become lovers of literature and language.