Newsletter
November Week 1
Friday 05th November
This week in our assemblies we have been talking about Diwali and Bonfire Night. Both events involve the use of fireworks, so please remind your children of the Firework Code to ensure everyone keeps safe. We wish our Hindu families happy Diwali and for everyone to enjoy any firework displays over the weekend.
Impact Meetings
We cannot emphasize enough the importance that reading has on improving the educational outcomes of your children. For this reason every class is hosting an Impact Meeting which shows how we teach reading and how you can help your child to improve. Please ensure that you come to these workshops or send another carer such as grandparent as you will learn things that will help your child/ren.
To help parents/carers we are providing a creche for younger siblings.
School Photos
Children who had their photo taken yesterday will be bringing home a card with details to register with the Vancols Get Photos website using the unique QR code or photo code. Once registered, you will be notified when the photos are available to view and order.
PTA Events and Donation Days
Spooky Adventure
Thank you to everyone who came and helped at our Spooky Adventure. The event was a great success and the children had a Spook-tacular time
We raised over £1000 which is a fantastic amount and will be going towards the PTA helping the school to refurbish the playgrounds.
Family Quiz Night & Christmas Fair
On Friday 26th November the PTA will holding a Family Quiz Evening. Please look out for more information later this term.
In the meantime we are getting ready for our Christmas Fair and to help in the run up to this, we will be holding some non-uniform days in exchange for donations. All of the items donated help us to hold events and ensures the children have a fun time.
Non- Uniform Days:
Friday 12th November - Donation of £1
Thursday 18th - For the Kids Tombola....
Nursery and Reception - Sweets
Years 1 and Years 2 - Pens, pencils and Pads
Years 3 and Years 4 - Bubble bath and Toiletries
Years 5 and Years 6 - Chocolates
Friday 26th November - Recycled Gifts
Thursday 2nd December - Cake donations and pre- loved toys in good condition.
Thank you in advance for all your help and support in making these events possible.
If anyone knows of any people or companies that are happy to donate to the raffle or the school fair in general could you please let us know.
The PTA are happy accept any donations towards the Tombola and Christmas Raffle.
Poppy Appeal for Remembrance Day
From Monday, a selection of Poppy accessories will be on sale in aid of The Royal British Legion's Poppy Appeal. Items 50p, £1 and £1.50.
Children In Need - Friday 19th November
Every year Livingstone collect loose change for Children in Need and on Friday 19th November pupils can wear their Pudsey merchandise their bring donations.
Attendance
Please remember that you have to contact the school if your child is going to be absent. If the school is not contacted and a valid reason is not provided for absence this is recorded as an unauthorised absence. You do not want these on your child's attendance record. Unauthorised absences are those which the school does not consider essential or reasonable.
They can include:
Forgetting school term dates
Going on holiday
Arriving at school long after the register has closed.
This weeks attendance:
Reception 96%
Yr 1 94%
Yr 2 94%
Yr 3 97%
Yr 4 96%
Yr 5 90%
Yr 6 95%
*KF1, KF2 and Nightingales are included in their Mainstream Classes.
Well done to Reception, Yr 3, and Yr 4 for being over 96%!
Nursery and Kingfisher Nursery
Eva has been so busy making 'spooky potions' in the outdoor classroom. She loved stirring and pouring the liquid - and watching the potions change colour when they were mixed. Well done, Eva!
Carter has been having lots of fun dancing to 'Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes' in Music and Movement. He is fantastic at keeping in time!
Wow, Isaac! What a wonderful pumpkin! Isaac collaged all of the little square pieces of crepe paper to make this lovely pumpkin collage. "The black bits are the eyes and the teeth! Great work, Isaac!
Reception
Reception have had a very busy first week back! We have been finishing up our learning about Halloween and pumpkins... we have enjoyed having lots of pumpkins in the classroom and the outside area to inspect, observe and even carefully bang plastic nails into with a hammer! In maths we have been looking at representing the numbers 1, 2 and 3. We have played bean bag throwing games and have been counting throws, claps and sounds. We have started celebrations and learning about Divali and Bonfire Night towards the end of this week and will continue this next week with more fun activities. In phonics we have learnt the sounds 'f' 'e' and 'l' this week and we ask that you practice the sounds learnt so far at home daily. Great work this week Reception!
Nora - for a fantastic effort with phonics and reading. She is blending CVC words independently... wow!
Alex - for a great attitude towards learning this week especially in phonics. He has been bringing in his amazing work that he's been doing at home!
Year 1
The children have made a fantastic start to the second half of the Autumn Term! We are in new groups for phonics as the children continue to make speedy progress with their reading and writing skills. In Maths, we are exploring and remembering our number bonds to 10. Year 1 is especially enjoying learning about primary and secondary colours in our Art topic. We are creating our own colour wheels by carefully mixing primary colours (red, yellow and blue) to make secondary colours (orange, purple and green). We look forward to learning how to make light and dark shades of a colour next week.
Achievement awards this week go to Sienna Madle for her excellent listening, focus and attention in all of her subjects and to Jordan for his exploration of colour mixing.
Year 2
Year 2 have made a great start to the new term. In Maths, we have been working very hard on our addition of two-digit numbers. We have used concrete resources for this and we have started to use our drawings to help solve the answers. We are in new English groups this term and one group are working on firework poems. We have been looking at using contractions within our poems and we had a fun lesson learning how to spell our contractions using Lego blocks! We have been finishing our art work on sparks and flames based on the Great Fire of London and we have created some fantastic silhouette pieces that will make a beautiful display! We have also been busy perfecting our songs for the music festival that will be happening in school on Monday afternoon. We are really looking forward to this!
Our achievement awards this week go to Mikolaj for his wonderful effort in learning how to spell his contractions and to Lexi for her fantastic art work using paint sticks to create her silhouette.
Kingfisher 1
Kingfisher 1 have had a great start back to school.
This week in Maths, we have been learning about place value. Pupils have been ordering numbers, comparing quantities and counting.
In English, we explored the story 'Oi! Get off our Train'. Pupils loved the book and enjoyed the role-play activities.
This week's Kingfisher 1 achievement award goes to Dilan for being very helpful and working hard in Kingfisher and in Year 1!
Year 3
Year 3 have worked incredibly hard in Maths week as we have been learning to subtract up to 3-digit numbers involving exchanging by either drawing or using a formal method.
We have started a new book in English called, 'The Stone Age Boy.' We have made predictions and inferences about the characters in the book and took part in some role play to act out the events.
Our foundation subject this week has been R.E and the children have answered our big question, 'What did Muhammad and Jesus do that inspires Christians and Muslims today?'
Tis is the season! Let the Christmas Show commence! We have started to learn some songs for the show so please find the lyrics and music on the VLE. Head to the Year 3 community page to download the lyrics and listen to the songs in the file section.
CGP Books
Maths- pages 20 and 21.
English- pages 26 and 27.
This week's awards go to Sonny for his exceptional efforts and hard work in Maths and Nadine for her enthusiastic and dedicated work ethic in our lessons.
Year 4
REMINDER FOR PARENTS: Reading IMPACT is on Thursday 11th at 9 AM. We would love to see you (or another relative) there. Please email the office if you are coming.
Year 4 have had a brilliant first week back.
In Maths, we have continued our work on formal written methods to solve a range of addition and subtraction problems involving exchanges. In English, we have started exploring our new book 'Into the Forest' by Anthony Browne. It has captured their interest and left them with many questions.
States of Matter has been the focus of our Science work this week. Year 4 have been looking at how to describe the particle properties, arrangement and examples of each state. We have also conducted an investigation exploring how and why states of matter change.
Well done, year 4!
CGP maths - pg 18
CGP English - pg 36 to 38
This week's awards go to Ruby for her excellent use of emotive language in her writing, and to Dante for consistently challenging himself in Maths. Well done!
Year 5
REMINDER FOR PARENTS: Reading IMPACT is on Tuesday 9th at 9 AM. We would love to see you (or another relative) there. Please email the office if you are coming.
Year 5 have had an excellent first week back.
In Maths, the children interpreted data from bar graphs, pictograms and line graphs.
We finished reading our class book, 'There's a Boy in the Girls' Bathroom' by Louis Sarcar and are now using the text to write diary entries as the main characters (Bradley and Carla). The children have really enjoyed the book and I'm sure we'll get some fantastic writing from it.
Art has been the focus of the afternoons. We've started our unit on Impressionism - an art movement from the 1800s that began in France. The children have been busying learning about the techniques used, three famous artists (Monet, Seurat and Renoir) and did some colour theory work on complimentary colours.
Recommended CGP book pages: Maths pg 70-71 and English pg 36-37
This week's awards go to Evie and Alex for their excellent partner work on line graphs, and to Kaitlin for her positive attitude to learning in all subjects - well done, you three!
Year 6
REMINDER FOR PARENTS: Reading IMPACT is on Wednesday 10th at 9 AM. We would love to see you (or another relative) there. Please email the office if you are coming.
In Year 6, we are beginning our English work based upon our book Cogheart by Peter Bunzl. The children are very excited to design their own mechanimal which will lead into writing a non-chorological report about their creation. In Maths, we have been looking at the BIDMAS concept before moving on to fractions next week. Our current Science unit is Electricity, the children have really enjoyed the practical element of making the circuits.
This week's achievement awards go to Rashed and Jasmine for their outstanding attitudes towards their learning. Keep up the good work!
Kingfisher 2
KF2 have had a very busy week in Maths, using money. As well as recognising coins of different amounts, the children have also selected coins to make given amounts and explored the different ways of making the same amount.
Using Fireworks as a stimulus for our English. The children performed a Firework or Bonfire night poem aloud for their class. They needed to speak clearly and put actions to the poem as well.
We also learnt about similes and created fantastic firework pictures to display our onomatopoeia words!
Achievement awards this week go to George and Jack!!
As well as working hard, George has been full of compliments this week and been encouraging his friends to try their best. He has also been the first to congratulate his classmates for their achievements, even giving Arin a lovely head massage during playtime.
His best simile was great! 'The bright lights whizzed across the sky like angels!'
Jack (yet again) has been super fast with his calculations and always has something nice to say. He also wrote a fabulous simile on our firework theme!
'The shimmering lights exploded as thunderous as a roar!' - WOW!
Well done boys!
Nightingales
This week in English our writing topic has been fireworks. We wrote some excellent poems about fireworks using similes and personification.
In Maths, we have been focusing on place value. We have been reading and writing four digit numbers and comparing them. We have also done really well in independently remembering different methods that we have been taught.
This week our award goes to Jamie for being punctual and coming to school prepared to learn.
Diary Dates
November 2021
Monday 8th:
Year 2 Infant Music Festival 1.30 pm
Tuesday 9th:
Parent Champion Coffee Morning 8.30 - 9.30 am
Year 5 Reading Impact Meeting 9.00 am
Football Cup Fixture v Trent - Home 3.15 pm
Wednesday 10th:
Year 6 Reading Impact Meeting 9.00 am
Thursday 11th:
Year 4 Reading Impact Meeting 9.00 am
Remembrance Assembly
Flu Nasal Spray - offered to whole school
Friday 12th:
Year 3 Reading Impact Meeting 9.00 am
Non-uniform Day - Donations of £1
Monday 15th:
Friendship Week
Year 1 Reading Impact Meeting 9.00 am
Year 5 and 6 Netball Match v Danegrove - Home 3.15pm
Tuesday 16th:
Year 2 Reading Impact Meeting 9.00 am
Thursday 18th:
Reception Reading Impact Meeting 9.00 am
Year 5 and 6 Girls Football Match v St. Andrews - Home 3.15pm
Non-uniform Day - Donations for Kids Tombola
Friday 19th:
World Kindness Day
Children in Need Day
Tuesday 23rd:
Year 5 and 6 Boys Football Match v Foulds School - Home 3.15 pm
Friday 26th
Family Quiz Evening
Non-uniform Day - Donations of Recycled Gifts
Monday 29th:
INSET Day - School closed to pupils
December 2021
Wednesday 1st:
Year 5 and 6 Girls Football Match v Trent School - Home 3.15 pm
Thursday 2nd:
Year 5 and 6 Netball Match v Churchill - Home 3.15 pm
Non-uniform Day - Cakes and Pre-loved Toys
Friday 3rd:
Christmas Fair
Wednesday 8th:
Years 5 and 6 Boys Football Match v Northside - Home 3.15 pm
Friday 10th:
Activity Clubs finish for Autumn 2
Christmas Jumper Day
Monday 13th:
Activity Clubs for Spring 1 go online for booking 8.00 am
Friday 17th:
School finishes for Autumn term - No Cabin Club
School Holiday:
Monday 20th December 2021 - Monday 3rd January 2022
Pupils return to school on Tuesday 4th January 2022 for start of the Spring Term
More dates will follow...