Welcome to the Beetles!

Hello and welcome!

*Meet the Beetles grown-ups*

The grown-ups in the Beetles class are Mrs Talbot, Mrs Spratt, Miss Barkes and Mrs Madin. We love teaching the Beetles and we are so proud of their achievements!

If you ever have any questions, please do not hesitate to ask. Thank you! 

*Our Christian Value for the term*

Our Christian value for this term is Service in the Community.

Living a life of service is about keeping your eyes open and looking out for ways to make others smile.

Jesus was called the ‘servant king’; his mission was to serve God and to serve all those people he met, through his teaching, his example and the way he led his life.

The Bible teaches us that we should all serve those in need, whoever they are, and ‘go the extra mile’ to put ourselves out for someone else’s benefit.

Who are the unsung heroes who serve us? Who are they at school and at home? How do you serve others?

We look forward to receiving your hand of service, to show how you have demonstrated an understanding of service at home.

“For a community to be whole and healthy, it must be based on people's love and concern for each other.” (Millard Fuller)

*Our Learning for this term*

Spring term 2

This term our topic is entitled 'Ready, Steady, Grow!'

We will be learning all about the different parts of plants and what they need to grow. We will be looking a the lifecycles of a frog and a butterfly and learning all about what happens in Spring. We will be doing lots of planting and growing our own Sunflowers!

We will be drawing and painting spring flowers and looking at the Sunflowers work of the artists Van Gogh and Egon Shiele.

In PE we will doing Gymnastics as well as our work with our Synergy coach.

Our Talk for Writing story is 'Jack and the Beanstalk' and we will also be exploring the stories, 'Mr Wolf's Pancakes', 'Jasper's Beanstalk', 'Eddie's Garden', 'The Tiny Seed', 'Oliver's Vegetables' as well as non fiction books on growing.

In Maths we will continue to explore numbers to ten in depth. For example, the children will learn all of the different ways to make up 8 (7+1, 6+2, 5+3, 4+4, etc). We will also explore making repeating patterns with 3 repeats, using the language 'yesterday', 'today' and 'tomorrow' and exploring the 3D shapes sphere, cone, pyramid and cube. 

In RE we will be learning about Shrove Tuesday (including tasting toppings on pancakes!) and how and why Christians celebrate Easter, and have a visit to St Faith's church. 

We are looking forward to a visit from a dentist to learn all about how to keep our teeth clean and we are hoping to have a visit from Good Lookin Cookin to learn about how our meals are made. 

What a lot of fun we are looking forward to this term!

Spring Term 1 2023

Happy New Year to all of our lovely Beetles and their families!

Our topic this term is 'Our Special World'. We will be exploring our amazing world, particularly snowy wintery weather, as well as finding out more about those animals that live in the coldest places on Earth, penguins! We will be investigating freezing and melting, along with floating and sinking... does size really matter?

We will also be doing lots of work based on our new special story of The Sleepy Penguin, as part of our Talk for Writing learning. The Sleepy Penguin has a magical surprise for the children on their first day back at school...!

We'll be celebrating and finding out all about the wonderful story behind the Chinese New Year and creating a dragon or too! We will be making musical instruments from recycling materials in order to create music for our Dragon Dance. 

As part of our topic this term, we will be visiting our local church and finding ways of representing the route to church from our school on a map, as well as exploring what is inside our beautiful St Faith's church. 

We will be continuing with our daily Maths learning which is practical, fun and games-based. The children are continuing to love learning all about numbers, shapes and measures such as length, weight and capacity. 

We will be also be following our daily 'Little Wandle' phonics learning... the children are moving onto Phase 3 now, which includes learning digraphs such as ai, ee, oa, oo, ar, or, ur, oi and ow, as well as the trigraphs igh, air and ear.

We will be continuing with our regular 'circle times' in which we talk about personal, emotional and social aspects of life, which builds the children's confidence in talking and listening to each other and within a group.

We will continue to endeavor to provide lots of learning opportunities for the children to explore during the day both inside and outside, during their 'choosing time'.  Please do let us know if your child has a particular passion, and we will try our best to ensure we reflect their interest in our classroom and outdoor provision.

We hope the children have another exciting term! Please feel free to chat to Mrs Talbot or Mrs Spratt or if you have any questions, or if you'd like to share and celebrate some of the amazing work your child does! Miss Barkes has a placement at another school this term, and we have Miss Mason, another trainee teacher, who will be with us instead. 

Autumn term 2

This is such an exciting term. Our topic is called, 'Bright Lights and Dark Nights'. We are learning about different celebrations such as Divali, Bonfire Night and Christmas. We will be taking part in lots of hands-on experiences, such as Divali dancing, exploring sparklers and our Christmas play. 

Our Talk for Writing text is 'The Sleepy Hedgehog' and we will be going on some wonderful adventures with him.

We can't wait for such a wonderful term!

Autumn 1 Term 2022

We are delighted with how well the new Beetles have settled into their new class! We are very excited about getting to know one another this term, and have got all sorts of fun activities planned as part of our 'Me, Myself and I' topic.

We'll be learning about how we've changed since we were babies, and will be talking about our families, and how families can be different from one another. We will also be learning about our local community, which will include a wonderful autumn walk on the West Common! 

Our school is very special, as we have a plesiosaur as our school logo!  We'll be learning all about why the plesiosaur is on our school jumpers, and will be celebrating the work and discoveries of Mary Anning.

The children will be developing their creative skills this term by exploring different artistic techniques - drawing, printmaking, painting and collage.  We'll be looking at self portraits be famous artists, and see if we can create some masterpieces of our own!

We will be having regular 'circle times' to talk about personal, emotional and social aspects of life, and to build the children's confidence in talking within a group. We will also use these times to introduce and reinforce our school rules of being 'Ready' (to listen and learn), 'Respectful' (towards adults, other children and the environment) and 'Safe' (both in and out of school). Children demonstrating these rules, as well as this term's value of Friendship, will receive a Shooting Star sticker plus a certificate in our Celebration assembly at the end of each week.

Our term will culminate with a Harvest Festival, which will involve stories, singing and a celebration of nature in autumn.

We will be starting to learn phonics, and will be following the 'Little Wandle' programme in order to teach this in a systematic way, on a daily basis.  We will also be doing lots of work based on the story of the Gingerbread Man, as part of out Talk for Writing initiative. We will be taking part in maths activities every day, most of which will be practical and games-based, which we hope the children will find exciting and stimulating!

We endeavour to provide lots of interesting activities for the children to explore during the day, during their 'choosing time'.  Please let us know if your child has a particular passion, and we will try our best to ensure we reflect their interest in our classroom and outside provision.

We hope the children have a wonderful and exciting term! Please feel free to chat to Mrs Talbot or Mrs Spratt if you have any concerns, or if you'd like to celebrate some of the amazing work your child does!

*Our Half Termly Newsletters*

Keep updated with our learning and our news!