F2: The Christmas Bear
Here in F2 we have had an exciting present in our classroom from Santa himself – a special book called The Christmas Bear by Ian Whybrow. In the story, The Christmas Bear gets left behind in Santa’s workshop and has to travel many miles to catch up with him in his sleigh. The children have made maps to help the Christmas Bear to find his way. We also decided to design and and make some new vehicles for the Christmas Bear so that he would never be left behind again!
We have also been learning about the journey of a letter. We learned about what happens when we post a letter or a card and have enjoyed being postal workers in our post office role play area. We decided to take a trip to our local post box to post our vehicle designs to Ian Whybrow to pass on to the Christmas Bear.
Advent in Year 4
During Advent, Year 4 have thinking about how to prepare and reflect on the true meaning of Christmas. Our class collective worships have been based around this and we have been counting down using the CAFOD calendar., thinking about how we can help others and be less selfish. In our RE work, we wrote instructions for the Year 3 children, explaining how to prepare properly. Each child has also had a turn at writing a prayer at home with our travelling crib and created Christmas cards to deliver to the locate community, spreading joy at this important time of the new liturgical year.
EYFS Nativity
We are so proud of all of our EYFS children. They put on a fantastic nativity performance: beautiful singing, actions and story telling. Most importantly all of the children enjoyed themselves and joined in with big smiles on their faces. What a beautiful way to retell the story of the first Christmas.
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F2 Delivering Christmas Cards to the Local Community
As part of our Advent preparations, the children of St Mary’s are delivering Christmas cards to our local community. After making our own beautiful pointillism Christmas card creations, the children of F2 delivered their cards to our Kynder Street neighbours. We hope that our cards spread some Christmas cheer.
Year 1 Babushka and Community Christmas Cards
Year 1 and 2 put on a fabulous of Babushka last week. The year 1 choir were an amazing support to our year 2’s, well done! This week we have also made some beautiful Christmas cards and delivered them to our neighbouring community. Merry Christmas everyone!
KS1 Book Review Competition
The school council would like to thank all KS1 children who entered the Book Review Competition. They had a hard task reading over the wonderful reviews in order to select the winners but eventually managed to choose 2 winners from each class and a further 2 runner-ups. Well done to everyone who entered and especially the winners and runners up.
Year 2 Community Christmas Cards
This week, Year Two have made Community Christmas Cards to be delivered to houses in Denton. They then went on a trip to personally post the cards to houses in the community. We hope it spreads some Christmas joy.
Year 2 Christmas Play Babushka
This week, Year Two have performed the Christmas Play Babushka. The children thoroughly enjoyed acting, singing and doing actions. They have worked very hard over the last few weeks learning their lines and perfecting their actions. Well done Year Two! What a fantastic Performance!
Community Christmas Cards
Year 5 were out in force today to deliver their community Christmas cards to streets nearby. The children had taken time and effort t carefully make their cards and enjoyed spreading a little Christmas joy around the local area.
Weekly Newsletter 13.12.19
Music Assembly
St. Mary’s were joined by members of the Tameside Music Service who showcased an array of instruments to the children. These included a whole drum kit, a flute, a clarinet and a couple of saxophones. The children were enthralled with the spectacular performances and were very enthusiastic about trying out the instruments. Information has been sent out regarding lessons on a range if instruments.
St. Mary’s Christmas Concert
Children from Years 5 and 6 were joined by children from St. Thomas More High School and St. John Fisher for the annual Christmas concert. Following performances by St. Thomas More and St. John Fisher it was the turn of St. Mary’s children and they didn’t disappoint. Following a beautifully read montage the children sang The Greatest Gift; followed by a reading from the Gospel of John before bringing their performance to a close with an outstanding performance of Mary Did You Know which they performed a cappella. The children were absolutely amazing and fully deserved the plaudits and congratulations they have received follo
wing the concert. Well done to all involved.
Weekly Newsletter
Year 2 Self Portraits
This half term Year 2 have been learning about self portraits. They have used black pens to create the outlines and were introduced to using watercolours. The children really enjoyed experimenting with the colours.
Eco-friendly bird feeders
Over the past few weeks the Eco Club have researched eco-friendly bird feeders and then made them by reusing rubbish. This week they filled them up with seeds and found suitable places in the school garden. We hope to see new wildlife in our garden soon.
School Council
A big well done to our school council who successfully organised and hosted this week’s Book Quiz. They did an incredible job at creating questions, speaking to individual houses at meetings, working together as a team and hosting on the day. They have all worked very hard this term, focusing on improving and prompting reading for pleasure, by gathering the views of their classes and coming up with new and exciting ways we can build on the love of books we already have at our school. Our younger members from Year 2 also launched a KS1 Book Review Competition this week and will be selecting winners at the end of next week when more fantastic books can be won! 
KS2 House Book Quiz
Our 4 houses at St. Mary’s battled it out to become the Book Quiz champions yesterday afternoon. It was excellent to see the pupils’ fantastic knowledge of books, characters, titles and authors so a big well done to everyone who took part. The competition was very close and in the end, all came down to a tie-breaker question between 2 of the teams. With their brilliant book knowledge and great teamwork skills, Arrowsmith pipped Ward at the post and became this year’s winners. Congratulations Arrowsmith!
Eco Club Upcycling
The Eco Club have been trying to improve the school garden. Over the past few weeks they have up-cycled old pencils, pens and bottles to make bird feeders. These will then be placed in the school garden to encourage wildlife.
Eco Team Recycling
The Eco Team have been working hard to help the school become more efficient when recycling. They have made signs for the bins so it is clear what can be recycled. Also, they have volunteered to monitor the bins and help children make the right decision when disposing of their rubbish.
F2 Exploring Light and Dark
The children of F2 have enjoyed exploring light and dark in the discovery area during this half term. We began by looking at lots of different interesting objects, describing them and sorting them into groups of “dull” and “shiny”. Next we added in some light sources such as torches and Christmas lights. The children explored the difference between shiny objects and light sources. Then we introduced our dark box – the children made predictions as to which objects that they thought that they would be able to see when placed in the dark box. The children gave their reasons for their predictions using the word “because”. Now our investigators are enjoying testing out their predictions in our discovery area.
Year 6 Science
Linked to their ‘Healthy Bodies’ science unit, Year 6 have been learning about the effects of exercise on our bodies. Checking our pulses and our heart rates when sitting, walking, jogging, doing star jumps and then sprinting, the children could see the difference in our heart rates during each activity. We also looked at the reasons, with the regards the circulatory system, for the increase when carrying out more rigorous activity.
CAFOD World Gifts
This week as a wonderful start to the Advent journey, we welcomed Briege Sivills, from CAFOD, Briege spoke to the children in an assembly about CAFOD’s ‘World Gifts’, linked to the rights of every child.
Briege reminded us that the excitement of giving and receiving gifts is all part of the celebration of God’s greatest gift to us, the birth of Jesus, His Son. This Advent assembly, looked at how some of the world’s poorest communities have been given gifts by the money raised, which have made an enormous difference to their lives. These gifts may include, seeds to grow crops, livestock (cows and goats), mosquito nets and school places to provide education.
During this time of preparation, we are reminded that we can help the people less fortunate than us and giving a gift can be as enjoyable as receiving a gift.
Travelling Crib
This week, to mark the start of Advent – each class has received a ‘Travelling Crib’, this contains a nativity scene, a candle, instructions/prayer card and a book to write a special prayer in. Each night, throughout Advent, a different child from each class will take the travelling crib home to share with their family. The travelling crib represents the journey Mary and Joseph made to Bethlehem, and as a family help us to remember the true meaning of Christmas.
Year 6 Trip to Robinwood
Y6 had a fantastic time at Robinwood. They had a go at lots of different activities (canoeing, climbing, archery, trapeze, giant swing, high ropes, zip wire). They also worked in their teams on problem solving activities (piranha pool, Knight’s Quest and nightline). All the children had a go at every activity. We are very proud of their achievements. They were a credit to their parents, our school but most of all themselves throughout the trip.
Advent in F2
As we enter this special time of year, the children in F2 will be preparing for Christmas by thinking about the story of Jesus’ birth. We have a class Advent calendar in our sacred space. For each day of Advent, we will complete a simple action such as reading a story from our class bible, or saying something kind to another member of our class. We are reflecting on the Christmas story as we rehearse our EYFS nativity play.
Each class in the school has its own “travelling crib”: a bag containing a crib scene, a candle and a book for reflections. Enjoy taking time to explore the crib and the figures with your child and talking about the Christmas story. You may light the candle to say a prayer together, then add reflections into the book to share in school – perhaps your child would like to draw a picture of the first Christmas, or you may wish to make up a prayer together. We look forward to sharing your reflections in our class.
Weekly Newsletter 29.11.19
Year 3 are learning about rocks, soils and fossils
This term Year 3 are learning about rocks, soils and fossils. This week we have started to explore different characteristics of rocks by looking closely at ‘Sweetie Rocks’. The children were all given a range of different sweets and had to classify the sweets into groups according to different criteria. The class really enjoyed the activity and used fantastic vocabulary to describe each ‘Sweetie Rock’.
Year 4: Learning about living things
This term Year 4 are learning about living things. With millions of different plant and animal species in the world, we have starting learning how to sort according to a range of criteria and ask appropriate questions to create classification keys. This week we began building our skills by classifying biscuits and thinking carefully about the question we ask.
EYFS Reading Bees
Reading Bees have arrived in EYFS! Each class has a Queen Bee and three Reading Bees. The bees love to share books with your children at home. Each Wednesday, three children will take home a reading bee bag, containing a bee and a special book. The bee will listen along to the books that you enjoy with your child at home for a week: it can be the school library book, books from home, or maybe your bee would like a trip to the local library! Please use the book to record some of the books that your child (and the bee!) have enjoyed: this could be a picture of a favourite story from your child, or a parent/carer writing about which books your child has enjoyed and recording what your child thought about them. On the following Wednesday, the bees return to school to report back to the Queen Bee and the rest of the class about the books that your child has been enjoying at home.
Happy reading!
Year 4 Stay and Learn
Year 4 had a great morning showing their parents how their maths skills have developed through the mastery programme that we use in school. Using comparative bar models, the children demonstrated how to solve some tricky problems and reason to support an answer given. It was a great turn out and we thank all parents who came along- and were brave enough to join in!
Aliens love underpants in F1
In F1 the last few weeks we have been busy focussing on the story ‘Aliens love underpants’.
We received a letter from a little boy called Ben who lives on Kynder street telling us that his favourite underpants had been stolen, he asked if we might know who’s taken that and we quickly figured out it must have been the aliens! He also told us that his mum had bought him some new underparts but that they were plain and boring. He asked if we could help design some new ones for him and of course we did!
In Literacy we have written caption to go with our pant designs and also re-told the story using a story map. We learnt a new song about the aliens and also designed a new front cover with a book title. As a class we came up with the story Alien love hats and drew a story map of the events in our story. The children did a great job recalling key events, settings and characters.
In Maths we have been designing 2D shape rockets as well as counting moon rocks and singing a song about 5 little men in a flying saucer! We have also been counting down from 10 just like a rocket launching into space- blast off!
In our creative work we designed patterned pants, made our own alien planets and even made our own play dough aliens.
We have been busy creating a new space themed role-play area- Planet Zorg! The children have loved blasting off to space in own rocket and then meeting the aliens in outer space.
The children have also been busy outside making spaceships and exploring our moon sand and space water.
We all helped to make a new pair of underpants for Ben and together we wrote him a letter which we have posted- we hope he likes them as much as we have liked learning out this story!
Watch this space for more out of this world learning in F1……
Soluble or in soluble – that is the question.
Year 5 have continued their science unit by investigating which everyday substances were soluble in water. After planning their investigation they donned their lab coats and got to work. They acquired some interesting results and came to some fantastic s using their scientific understanding.
EYFS: We are rocket builders!
In EYFS our young learners have all been very engaged by our recent “Space” theme. In F2 we have been spending time designing and making rockets in a variety of ways. We have looked at lots of photos of rockets in books and on the computer. We have taken time to design our rockets, thinking about what we want them to look like. We have used lots of different materials: using 2D shapes, junk modelling, using various construction materials indoors, plus using the tyres and crates outside. We have even used musical instruments to give our rockets some fantastic sound effects!
Year 4 learning how to cook and make Roman bread
Year 4 had a fantastic time learning how to make and cook Roman bread- and an even better time tasting their final products with traditional Roman ingredients.
After researching the types of foods that Celts already ate in England and founding out what the Romans introduced, they learnt how bread was made and how the actual process hasn’t changed too much over the years. They then used their maths skills to follow a chosen recipe, kneaded, proved and baked their bread before evaluating how it turned out. I think they did a great job!
Year 4 Gymnastics
This week in gymnastics, Year 4 have been practising different types of rolls: egg, pencil, teddy, forwards and shoulder. They supported and evaluated each others’ performance to improve their posture and each specific skill needed to develop. Next week, they will be working on sequencing a series of rolls and balances.
Space pointillism
In F2 we have been very creative with our new space theme. We have been learning about pointillism. We looked at some pointillism pictures by some famous artists, then used our computer as well as different books to look at different images of space. Then we were ready to create our own pointillism pieces using cotton buds and paint. We started by decorating stars using pointillism, then moved onto creating our own space scenes. We are very proud of our art!
Year 1 Art
In Art this week, Year 1 have been looking at starting points in their work. They talked about the foreground and background and explored using different techniques. They produced beautiful pictures showing poppy fields for remembrance day.
Weekly Newsletter 15.11.19
Year 2 Healthy Eating
Year Two have been learning all about Healthy Eating. They enjoyed designing, making and evaluating a healthy snack. They particularly liked trying the different types of fruit and yogurt
F1 Stay & Learn
In F1 this week we welcomed parents and carers to join us in our class to see some of the activities the children take part in at Nursery and also see how they have settled in and are following class rules and routines. The children loved showing off their work on ‘Aliens love underpants’ and singing their grown-ups a song. The children showed off some of their new and developing skills in the writing area and also had fun designing a new pair of underpants at the creative table. We made play dough aliens and built rockets in the construction area. Outdoor we showed our grown-ups how we can ride the bikes and scooters and also how we build using the large crates. Thank you very much to all the adults who came along, we hope you enjoyed it as much as we did
Children in Need
Today our CARITAS team were tasked with selling Pudsy Bear cookies throughout the school. After hours of long, hard work by the kitchen staff the cookies were ready to go on sale. Each child in the school received a cookie and through your very generation donations we raised £110.00. Thank you for your support and all involved.
Autumn 1 in F1
We have had a fantastic start to school life this half term in F1! The children have all settled in really well and have begun to make some lovely friendships in class.
As part of our ‘All about me topic’ we sang our favourite nursery rhymes and brought in our favourite books to read in class. We talked about how we are all special and unique and also learnt about parts of our body and read the story ‘Funnybones.’
We have also been busy learning about Autumn and children have been busy collecting Autumn objects on weekend walks. We made Autumn collages, discussed the changes that we see in the Autumn and also learnt about how some animals are getting ready to ‘hibernate’. Children have been busy making their own model hedgehogs and we even did some Autumn baking- our biscuits were very yummy!
In Maths we have been focussing on numbers 1-3 and learning how to count in different ways. We have also learnt the names of some 2D shapes, sorted objects into groups and begun to learn some positional vocabulary.
In Phonics we have been focussing on Aspects 1,2 and 3 which are general sound discrimination and children have enjoyed playing listening games with instruments and sound bingo.
In R.E we have been focussing on God’s World and have learnt a song called ‘I love the sun’ and have learnt about the things god made in the creation story. We also talked about how we can help to look after God’s world and also how God made us all special and unique.
In our Outdoor learning we have been busy designing with crates, learning to ride the bikes an scooters and also using our imaginations to cook in our Mud Kitchen. The children have loved playing in our Fruit and Veg role-play shop and also mark-making with various materials outside.
Next half term we will begin a new topic all about Space Have a lovely half term holiday and well done on a great start to life at St Mary’s.
Remembrance Day in EYFS
In EYFS the children have been learning about Remembrance Day. Several children came to school wearing poppies, so we used the computer to find out about what we are remembering. The children in F2 learned about how we remember the soldiers who fought in the war a long time ago to keep our country safe. To commemorate this special day, the children also made oil pastel pictures of poppy fields as well as making some poppy transient art.
Weekly Newsletter 08.11.19 & Ten:Ten Parents Newsletters for October & November
Bonfire Night Celebrations in EYFS
The children in F2 have had lots of fun celebrating and learning about Bonfire Night. Our literacy has been based around firework poetry. We began the week sharing our own experiences of Bonfire Night. We read the story of Guy Fawkes and talked about the different ways that we celebrate on 5th November. Then we watched different types of colourful fireworks, spinning Catherine wheels and roaring bonfires on our screen, talking about the shapes, colours and sounds and writing a list of describing words. Next we had lots of fun pretending to be fireworks, then we used these actions as part of some fantastic performance poetry. We have also written our own wonderful firework poems using the sound word vocabulary that we generated.
In maths we have been focusing on accurate counting of objects and finding the number 1 more. We have practised this by making our own firework rockets using the cubes. We have also practised writing our numbers in sparkling firework sand.
We have been very creative in our room this week, making firework art in a variety of different ways. The children have been paint rolling, using both oil and chalk pastels to create different effects and we have also made 3D firework rocket models. The children have enjoyed scrimbling different firework shapes in sand and drawing them in chalk on the ground in our outdoor area.
Poppies
On November 11th, we remember the sacrifice many soldiers made and continue to make in conflicts throughout the world. To commemorate this important date the children have had the opportunity to purchase poppies, from our Year 6 School Council members, to wear as a symbol of our recognition and thanks to our armed forces. All the money raised will go to ‘The Royal British Legion’ to support all their fantastic work.
Gift and Caritas Training
On Wednesday, our Gift team participated in a training session, with the Gift teams from St Thomas More and St John Fisher. This session was a great opportunity to meet up with and share ideas with the team members from the different schools. The children learnt some more about their role and responsibilities and looked at creating an action plan looking ahead into the rest of the school year. It was good to listen to different ideas and the children came up with a super action plan, with lots of different ways to support our pupils in their prayer and worship.
Our thanks to Mrs Moran, Mr Tanti (St John Fisher) and Mrs Hague (St Thomas More) for supporting the children with this initiative.
Material Matters
In year 5 we have started our new science unit investigating materials. The children were given their new knowledge organisers and set straight to work sorting objects
based on their properties and finding definitions for various words. Following this they then tested the objects for hardness, permeability, flexibility, transparency and magnetism before finalyy discussing if they were fit for purpose.
Craft Money Letter
Building Fund
Code Breakers
In year 5 we began our new unit in computing think about codes. To start off our unit we began sending messages using semaphores which used flags in different positions to send messages. After some practice we soon got the hang of it and were able to send each other some quite long words and sentences.
BBC Tiny Happy People
BBC Tiny Happy People has launched in Greater Manchester and we would like to parents to follow the link to their website as it has some fabulous resources for parents and carers to help you to develop the children’s communication skills.
The site has been developed with real families and quality assured by a network of early years experts, speech and language therapists, midwives and health visitors and it is full of ideas and video clips that help parents to develop their children’s skills through interaction and play. You can also subscribe to the free Tiny Happy People newsletter, by emailing tinyhappypeople@bbc.co.uk as you will receive monthly updates.
Autumn in F2
The children in F2 have had lots of fun engaging in our Autumn theme. We collected lots of Autumn artefacts on walks for our discovery table. We have looked at them carefully and made observational drawings and transient art. The children shared what they know about Autumn and we thought of some questions about Autumn to explore. In literacy, we shared the story of Owl Babies. The children loved re-enacting the story – we were even lucky enough to have Bill the owl visiting our classroom! We have been labelling characters and writing speech bubbles.
We have been a very creative class, making playdough hedgehogs, painting Autumn trees and making leaf rubbing pictures. In our outdoor space we have enjoyed conker rolling, pumpkin bashing to help our fine motor skills and making leaf collages. We have been learning about harvest time: inside our classroom we have a bakery role play and outdoors we enjoyed our fruit and vegetable stall.
In maths we have been concentrating on numbers to 5. We have been recognising numbers, comparing quantities (saying which group has more or fewer) and finding the number 1 more than an object. We have filled number bags with conkers, sang Autumn counting songs and made a huge five frame outside to fill with objects for counting.
The children have made a great start with their reading and phonics and have shown great enthusiasm for our newly stocked class library with its beautiful new selection of books. Keep enjoying reading at home and having fun with books!
Weekly Newsletter
Admission to Reception 2020
Weekly Newsletter
Moon Craters
As part of their science Year 5 investigated how craters may be created on the moon and what effect their height may have on them. They used flour and cocoa as the moon’s surface and balls as the meteors before dropping them from various heights and investigating their results.
Mayan Feast
After studying the Mayans for a number of weeks =, Year 5’s work has culminated in them getting to try out some recipes similar to those the Mayans would have eaten. This included eating totillas made from corn (as maize was a staple of the Mayan diet), making a salsa and getting to try an ancient Mayan recipe for hot chocolate which included, cinnamon, honey and chilli!
Year 6 Collective Worship
Linked to the RE unit this term the Year 6 children led the collective worship with the theme of the Kingdom of God. The children through roleplays looked at the values of the Kingdom of God, values such as hope, peace, forgiveness, love, truth, courage and faith. The children demonstrated ways to live out the values in our everyday lives. They retold the parable of ‘The master and the grand banquet’ sending the message that everyone is invited into the Kingdom of God and that we must not make excuses but accept the invitation with open arms.
Safe Squad and Sky High Adventure
On Monday, Year 6 enjoyed a great day out at firstly Safe Squad and then onto Sky High Adventure. Safe Squad was a very informative morning about things like, Internet Safety, dealing with peer pressure, first aid including CPR and fire safety, particularly spotting hazards around the home.
In the afternoon, we were really lucky to be going onto Sky High Adventure, we got to enjoy the climbing walls, the scary high ropes and the caving and bouldering. Watching Mrs Moran and Mrs Smith on the vertical drop slide was very funny, seeing their worried faces. Lots of us had to conquer our fears! We had a fantastic day and everyone loved spending the day together out of school.
Blessing of the ‘Parish Wildlife Garden’
The Year 6 Children took the brisk walk up to St John Fisher to participate in the blessing of the wildlife garden, the garden is part of the initiative from the parish ‘Global Healing Team’ to provide an area that attracts all sorts of wildlife and in particular those species that are struggling to flourish in our current climate change crises – such as the bee. The children performed a poem about creation using their choral speaking skills and then planted bulbs in the garden ready for the new growth in Spring. We then were able to share with the parishioners the work we have been doing within school to support the work of the ‘Global Healing Team’ and their drive against climate change. A great opportunity for the children to once again consider the impact of human actions on our environment.
Weekly Newsletter
Football Victory
Congratulations to our school football who ran out comfortable winners against a strong side from Yew Tree. Goals from Cody (2), Thomas and Theo ensured St. Mary’s progressed to the next round of the South Tameside Kiley Cup with a 4- 0 victory.
Year 4 Collective Worship
On Thursday, Year 4 led us in a very reflective collective worship which focused on God’s chosen people in the old testament. They took us through some of the stories in Genesis and Exodus, looking at the key figures Abraham and Moses. With their acting and singing, they also asked the school to think about how the stories can help us today by placing our trust in God. Have a listen to their song: all though history!
Roman Workshop
On Monday, Year 4 were extremely lucky to have a Roman soldier visit their class to tell them all about what life was like over 2000 years ago. With a classroom full of artefacts and many thrilling tales, the soldier had them enthralled by describing what the Romans were actually like and how they invaded and took control of over 30 countries. They learnt how the Roman empire was formed, about different types of soldiers, the jobs they did and what armour they would have worn. They had a fantastic time!
Year 2 Time Traveller Workshop
Year 2 had a fantastic time learning about Christopher Columbus and Neil Armstrong on Tuesday morning through their time travelling guide. The children particularly enjoyed acting out the port of Genoa, travelling on a ship, and exploring new lands. They were then able to apply this to what they know about Neil Armstrong and learnt how the two explorers were very similar despite being many years apart. At the end of the session the children were made honorary time travellers.
CAFOD collective worship
Year 5 led the school in their collective worship which informed everybody about this year CAFOD appeal to Brighten Up and raise money for Harvest. The focus of the assembly was water. The children expertly told us how we use water everyday and take it for granted; however, there are also children around the world who are less fortunate and have to walk up to 5km, three times a day to fetch water for their family before going to school. However, with the help of the money so generously raised by St. Mary’s these communities are supplied with water towers and pumps which gives them a regular of water so that the children are all able to attend school. Throughout the school children took part in messy hair day and there were truly terrible hairstyles (and that’s just the teachers). Thank you to everybody for your kind donations and Year 5 in leading this year’s appeal.