Headmaster's Welcome
Headmaster's News, Friday 14th January, 2022
Jan 14, 2022
14th January 2022
Dear Parents
Open Days
Thursday 10th March - Nursery will be holding an Open Day which will be by appointment only.
Sunday 20th March - the School and Nursery will be holding an Open Day.
Please could you share this information with any friends or colleagues who may be interested in attending.
Artist and Composer of the Term
The Artist of the term is Salvador Dali and the Composer of the term is Edward Elgar. The children have been introduced to these important figures in Assembly today. The children will continue to learn about them throughout the term. Please could you support this initiative at home. Thank you.
News from Nursery
Nursery has had a fantastic start to 2022. Our first Forest School session of the year embraced all that winter has to offer in Highfield Haven. We made bird feeders with raisins and pinecones, mixed herbs in the mud kitchen, participated in some collaborative woodwork and also developed our gross motor skills with large mud painting. To top our Forest School session off, we enjoyed hot chocolate that Miss Travis made for us on the fire pit.
We have been out in our local community this week visiting the library. The children loved investigating the different books together and reading a variety of different stories with their teachers. In Nursery, we feel this provides our children with an opportunity to explore literature from an early age and to develop their own communication and language skills.
There has been a focus on a variety of different skills this week from using our scissors independently to developing our mathematical language, in particular our touch counting skills. We have also worked very hard on our own self-help skills such as putting on our own hats and coats. Developing these skills allows our children to become very confident and independent which is a vital foundation for our little learners.
Out and About with Year 2
I visited Year 2 on Wednesday morning as they were just about to start a creative writing lesson. The focus of the lesson was to use expanded noun phrases to create a poem. Ms Eccles wrote the word RED on the board and asked the children what object or noun they would describe as being red. The hands shot up with all the children very keen to contribute and answer the question. The answers were very varied with the children giving a wide range of examples. Henry said fire, flames, lava; Mohini said apples; Krisha added roses; Billy said bricks; Sanketh said raspberries and Nitya added tomatoes. Ms Eccles wondered if they could think of any precious stones and Freddie immediately said rubies. Ms Eccles then asked the children if they could remember who was going to visit the school and what they would drive. Abu Bakr was delighted to tell her that firemen were coming and they would be driving a red fire engine. Chad said how much he was looking forward to seeing that. The children were then asked if they could think of adjectives to describe their nouns: Sanketh said red hot flaming lava and Amelie added bubbling lava. They were asked to use three adjectives and the children all knew that they must use commas after every adjective. Ali then put his whole 2 sentence together: ‘Red, hot, flaming lava bursting out of the volcano.’ The activity really captured their imaginations and the children could not wait to write down their ideas on their whiteboards. Billy said he was going to start by using the brown tree outside. I have included some of their sentences below.
Green is the small, jumpy frog croaking by the pool. Zayn
Brown is a wrinkly, tall tree trunk. Lana
Orange is a stripy, fierce tiger. Aidan
Yellow is the bright, shining sun high in the sky. Isabella
Orange is a juicy, most divine, summertime fruit. Alice
Red is flaming, flickering, burning hot lava. Aadam
Green is sweet grapes, wavy grass and emeralds in a glittery crown. Lailah
Orange is a stripy, fierce, frightening tiger living in the mighty jungle. Mohamad
Yellow is the shiny, hot, burning sun high in the sky. Alaylah
Thank you Year 2 and Ms Eccles for a very interesting lesson.
Sports News
Girls’ Netball and Football against Bridgewater School at home In the Netball match, Hiba scored two goals in the first half and, in the second half, Eliza scored one goal and Naina scored one. Eliza was player of the match. We made sure we spread out using all the space on the court throughout the match which helped us to create important chances to score. It was a fantastic team effort. The final score was 4-2 to Highfield. By Lily and Sophie
In the Football match, our team was Diya (Y6) and from Y5: Lola, Heba, Malaaikah, Hanna, Georgia, Amelia, Naina, Lyla and Aibhlin. When we started the match, our positions were Diya upfront, Lyla and Georgia midfield, Lola, Malaaikah and Naina in defence and Aibhlin as our goalkeeper. We swapped substitutes so that everyone got time on and off the pitch. We had 3 different goalies Naina, Aibhlin and Malaaikah. At half time we were drawing 2-2. Bridgewater scored 2 goals in a minute. In the second half, not more than 10 minutes in, Bridgewater scored another goal. Luckily 5 minutes later we scored our 3rd goal. It was the last 10 minutes and we were drawing 3-3 when suddenly Lyla got the ball, flew down pitch and scored the winning goal, 4-3 to us! Lyla scored 3 goals and Aibhlin scored 1. Great effort everyone! By Lyla and Aibhlin
Rugby at Grasshoppers
The boys in Years 5 and 6 travelled to Grasshoppers on Wednesday to have a contact training session on their superb 4G pitch. It was a real opportunity to introduce the boys to tackling at the premier club in the area. The boys really enjoyed the experience and we hope to return later in the term.
Woodwind Lessons
Mrs Adewale has space for beginners on recorder, flute, clarinet or saxophone. Lessons are available for Years 3-6 and can be individual or group tuition. Please email Mrs Adewale for more details, debbieadewale@yahoo.co.uk
Merit Awards 14.1.22
RB: Vivaan 1W: Henry 2E: Alaylah 3J: Khadijah 3M: Eliza 4H: Daisy 4M: Zaid 5D: Tejas 6P: Hayden
Yours sincerely
J M Duke
Headmaster
