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Packed month welcomes Juniors back to school


Nursery pupils pick up leaves and twigs during an autumn walk

Pupils in the Junior School have enjoyed being back in school after the summer break and they have been busy getting involved in a range of exciting and interesting activities over the past month.

Below are just a few of the highlights.

Nursery

Our new Nursery boys and girls have settled in really well and have been getting used to their new surroundings.

There has been lots of giggles and sandy toes as they have played in the sand pit, rolled down the hill and splashed in the water trays.

They also embarked on a look, listen and talk walk where they noticed signs of nature and collected items such as leaves, conkers, pine cones and twigs to make a collage.

Reception

After finding a letter which explained how something special had been found on the school grounds, children in Reception grabbed their welly boots and magnifying glasses to go on a hunt.

They discovered a mysterious egg buried in the soil and took it back to their classroom where they made a cosy nest for it. The boys and girls have made a lot of predictions and are very excited to find out what will hatch from the egg!

Year One

Year One children have learned how to sequence and retell a story and make puppets after reading Martin Waddell and Patrick Benson’s ‘Owl Babies’ book.

They thought about how characters Sarah, Percy and Bill would feel and received a letter from the smallest owl, Bill. They then wrote back to tell him not to worry.

The girls and boys embraced their creative side as they made their own collage owls, which are now sitting on a branch in the classroom.

Year Two

In Year Two Science lessons, pupils have been learning about the different food groups and discussing their benefits.

They enjoyed constructing a pyramid using felt which showed the numbers of servings recommended to keep them healthy.

Year Three

Year Three children joined pupils from schools across the country – as well as their schoolmates from Years Two to Six – for a talk from Dara McAnulty, an author, naturalist, conservationist and activist from Northern Ireland.

During the event, which was part of Macmillan Children’s Books’ Virtually Together series, Dara talked about ‘Wild Child’, his illustrated book which looked at different habitats and is full of fascinating facts about the birds, animals and plants you can find there.

The teenager, who is the youngest ever recipient of the RSPB medal for conservation and the winner of the Wainwright Prize for his first book ‘Diary of a Young Naturalist’, shared his top tips of what to look out for, and what to do, when out and about whether in a town or rural setting.

Year Four

Year Four started their electricity topic by completing a set of challenges.

First off, they had to light a bulb using only one wire and one cell. They then moved on to making a buzzer and motor work.

The budding scientists soon learnt that to make the components work, the circuit needed to be complete, connecting each part using the metal parts.

Year Five

In one of their STEM Club sessions, Year Five pupils covered the topic of buoyancy.

They predicted which fruits would sink or float and found out that air trapped inside an object can help it float.

They made a Cartesian diver using salt water and a sachet of ketchup and were challenged to hold it still on a point midway between the top and bottom of the bottle.

Their next challenge was to make raisins dance in lemonade. Bubbles of carbon dioxide in the lemonade attached themselves to the raisins, which then made them less dense than the liquid. This meant that they floated to the top.

Once the bubbles had popped, the raisins floated back down as they were now more dense than the lemonade.

Year Six

Year Six pupils have been learning about the cha cha cha, samba, tango and bossa nova as they find out more about the culture and dance music of Latin America.

As well as mastering the basic steps to some of the individual dances, they explored instruments, rhythms, artists, traditions and learnt songs from countries such as Cuba, Brazil and Argentina.