Key Stage 1 Nativity

Year 1 and 2 put on a fantastic Christmas Nativity at St Marks Church. All of the children spoke and sang beautifully and looked amazing in their costumes.

Thank you to all parents for supplying such wonderful costumes and supporting the children with such enthusiasm.

The Land of Fire and Ice

This half term Year 3 have been learning all about Iceland.

We have studied folklore, and in particular, elves.  We have also learnt about folk dancing, volcanoes, Icelandic art and the type of clothing needed for the Icelandic climate.

In class we tried Icelandic folk dancing and designed our own Icelandic jumpers. This was great fun and allowed us to get really creative.

Here are Woodpecker class rehearsing our folk dance...

Some of our jumper designs...

We also looked at Icelandic art and were lucky enough to be visited by artist, Anna Dora. Anna originates from Iceland and showed us some of her amazing paintings. She taught us some interesting techniques and we used our new skills to create our own fantastic paintings. It was really good fun and very messy!!

We had some very exciting news recently, Anna's painting, that we were so lucky enough to see in class, is now being displayed in a gallery in New York!!

Towards the end of our topic we learnt about volcanoes and were able to watch some fascinating videos of volcanoes erupting. We then used our newly learned painting techniques again to create our own interpretation of an erupting volcano.

As part of our topic evaluation Woodpecker class had the following to say:-

Dan said "I enjoyed learning lots of Icelandic words, such as mummy, daddy, yes, no, please and thank you."

Alec said "I enjoyed Anna Dora coming in, it was spectacular that she brought in a great big painting and the time with Anna was fun."

Alice said "I liked it when we did our painting with Anna, it was so fun. Anna is the best painter ever.  She painted the Northern Lights and the Blue Lagoon Spa in one picture!"

Freddy said "I liked the Icelandic folk dance because I had a very nice partner and I liked it when we went up and down the line!"

George said "I liked learning about volcanoes because we got to create a volcano out of paint and we also got to watch videos of volcanoes erupting. We had to label a diagram of a volcano too."

Winona said "My favourite part was creating our Icelandic jumpers because I like drawing and being creative."

Val said "I liked it when Anna Dora came in because she helped us with speaking Icelandic and she did art with us."

For our finale we invited our parents into school to share what we had learned. We exhibited our beautiful paintings and demonstrated an Icelandic folk dance.

Hopefully we have convinced a few families to visit Iceland in the future!

Year 6 - Charles Darwin and Evolution

This term in Year 6 we have been learning about Charles Darwin and Evolution.

We carried out research to find out everything we could about his life, his theories and why his work is still relevant and influential today. We applied this understanding in our English lessons to write a biography of Charles Darwin covering all aspects of his early life, his voyages and discoveries and what motivated him throughout his life.

We especially enjoyed presenting and publishing our finished pieces of writing and we now have a clear understanding of all the different features of a good biography.

Year 5 - Design and Technology

In Year 5 we have been studying resistant materials in our Design and Technology lessons.

We started by thinking about what are the benefits and drawbacks of using different types of materials in a construction. We were then given a design brief that we had to follow which was to construct a type of shelter that would be waterproof. We also learnt about how to construct different joins with wood to make our structures strong and sturdy.

All of Year 5 really enjoyed this project and as you can see from the pictures we came up with some creative and original designs!

Amazing Landscapes

This term Year 4 have been learning about Landscape. We have compared the landscape of Winchester with that of The Lake District. The children have painted in watercolour, views from Winchester Cathedral and of the landscape in The Lakes.

Mr Oras, our Finnish student, has shown us lots of pictures of Finland, and explained that there is also a Lake District in the southern area of Finland. Mr Oras told us about ice skating on the lakes during the winter months.

Year 1 - Dinosaur Fun!

This half term, we have been learning about dinosaurs. A lot of our work was based on the story ‘Saturday Night at the Dinosaur Stomp’. In PE we made up a dance using some of the dance moves from the story, including the Brontosaurus Bump, the Triassic Twist, the Raptor Rap and the Jurassic Jump.

We even hosted our own Dinosaur Stomp Party and wrote invitations for Hedgehog class who joined us! In the story, the dinosaurs drank ‘sweet swamp water punch’, so we had a go at making our own using lemonade and lime squash, to make it green and bubbly, and blueberries and grapes to make it lumpy. We even used strawberry laces for the wiggly worms! If you go to the KS1 library, you will see our display of artwork based on the story.

We also made our own class non-fiction book about dinosaurs. It is filled with facts and pictures about dinosaurs, and even has its own front cover, contents page, glossary and blurb.  We are very proud of all the hard work we put into the book, so if you would like to come and have a look at it, you can see it in the school office.

A Visit from the School Nurse

The school nurse visited Squirrels to talk to us about handwashing. She showed us how germs get on our hands and how they spread using a glitter bug. Next she showed us how to wash our hands so that we could all be germinators!

We were lucky to have real bandages and a stethoscope donated by Joshua’s Grandma, who is a real nurse. She also came to tell us about her job as a children’s nurse.

She showed us how to put on a sling if you have hurt your arm. Squirrels set up a role play hospital for everyone to practise being doctors, nurses and patients.

Rose trying on the special gloves

Dr. Harrison

Dr. Logan bandaging Mrs Homewood's arm

Dr. Seb treating Leo

Freya writing down appointments and the medicine for Robbie and Edward.

Year 1 - Awesome Art!

This term the children in Year 1 have been learning about different artists and their unique styles. They have then created their own artwork in that style.

The children used thin brushes and water colours to create the sunset scene behind the Birch trees.

The children were inspired by the paintings of Vincent Van Gogh and Wassily Kandinsky. They particularly liked the style of Van Gogh and could talk about the way in which he put paint on the paper.

The children painted wheat fields and their interpretations of space in the style of Van Gogh.

Year 1 - Gurdwara Visit

Year 1 pupils visited the Gurdwara in Southampton as part of their Religious Education topic on special places.

In the Gurdwara they gave free food to all the visitors.

Year 5 - French Lesson

On 18th July 2017 year 5 had a french lesson on directions.

The task was to hide a rubber ring and then write a set of instructions in french for another group to find it. All four house groups worked co-operatively and all managed to eventually find a ring. The vocabulary was all new but they worked well to create a set of instructions and then to decipher them. Some rings were relatively easy to find but others were extremely well hidden!

Well done Year 5!

Year 5 - Planning a Sports Festival

As part of our “Shaping Up” topic this half term, Year 5 have been busy planning a sports festival based around some of the sports that feature at the Olympic Games.  Year 5 researched the history and the rules of different sports and wrote persuasive brochures and detailed sets of instructions to encourage others to try new sports that they might be less familiar with like Handball. They designed demonstration stations to model how to practice the techniques of the sport.

Year 5 invited Year 4 to the festival where they got to play the sports together and take part in small sided games. Everyone enjoyed themselves, learnt a lot and showed super co-operation skills!

Year 5 - Pupil Librarian Award

SLS Highly Commended Pupil Librarian of the Year

Jacob Battison was voted by his fellow librarians to be entered into the SLS Pupil Librarian of the Year award. After completing an in depth application form, Jacob was shortlisted and a member of staff from the library service came to visit him. She interviewed Jacob and asked him to carry out a series of timed tasks, including putting books into alphabetical order by the author’s surname, locating books on shelves using the Dewey system and searching for books on our electronic system. He did exceptionally well and demonstrated his passion for reading and showed great professionalism.

Jacob was awarded a certificate of ‘Highly Commended’. Very well deserved - Well done, Jacob!