Livingstone Newsletter
January Week 3
Friday 20th January
To all our families celebrating this weekend, we wish you a Happy Chinese New Year!
Strike Action Wednesday 1st February 2023
As you will have seen on the news, the teachers in the National Education Union have voted to go on strike on Wednesday 1st February, with more strikes to follow later in the academic year. Not all of the NEU members voted to go on strike and other teaching unions such as NASWUT and NAHT are not involved, so for the moment I can inform you that the school may only partially close depending on which class teachers strike.
At the moment we are waiting to hear more information from the Local Authority and the Unions on how this is likely to impact schools.
Although not all teachers have voted yes on industrial action, as a staff, we are all in support of the principles behind the strikes.
In the past teachers have had minimal pay increases and the most recent pay award has been made at the expense of school budgets, which have not significantly increased. This impacts on the quality of pupils' education.
More information will follow nearer the time when we hope to know more.
Years 5 and 6 Football Tournament
Yesterday, we took two teams to attend a Barnet Football Tournament at Mill Hill Powerleague. Both teams played multiple games each. The children showed such enthusiasm and it was lovely to see how engaged they were. These tournaments are a great opportunity to get the children participating in sport and it was fantastic to see them getting stuck in! Both teams played brilliantly well and we have to congratulate one team as they made it into the afternoon league final. Another congratulations is needed because they won! It was a very exciting final as it all came down to penalties. Because of this, we will playing against Foulds Primary School in the Barnet Regional Final. Well done, girls!
Healthy Eating
Please try to keep packed lunches as healthy as possible and please do not send in any soft drinks instead of water bottles. It is not good for the health of children's teeth to be sipping these drinks throughout the day.
Nursery
This week in the Nursery, we have started our mini topic all about Chinese New Year! We have started to make some Chinese lanterns. The children are enjoying making them and exploring the lovely colours.
Kingfisher Nursery
Another busy week in Kingfisher Nursery. We observed the changes in the weather with interest and explored the frosty outside area. We learnt about Chinese New Year traditions and did some lovely artwork based on that.
Reception
Reception have continued to enjoy learning all about snails. Sadly, we are saying goodbye to Thunder, Bolt and Lightning today. We have been so lucky to have them in our classroom, we even got to hold them!
Thank you adults, for coming to our Phonics Impact meeting today. The power point presentation will be sent out by email. If you have any questions please do not hesitate to ask.
Achievement Awards!
Our blue certificates this week go to Mason, for always making beautiful drawings and trying really hard with his writing and phonics, and to Naz for always being well behaved, tidying up and being a good, supportive friend.
Year 1
Year 1 continue to enjoy our Bold, Bright and Beautiful topic in Art. We focused on the artists Britto and Kusama this week, and the children really enjoyed looking closely at their art work, reproducing drawings in their styles as well as discussing what they see and like about the paintings and sculptures. We continue to focus on the place value of numbers to 20, so please ask your child to tell you how many tens and ones in the numbers from 0-20. In addition to our phonics lessons where we are focusing on Set 2 and 3 sounds, we also wrote our own fantastic animal riddles in English. Please continue to read with your children at home every day and practise their Set 2 and 3 sounds.
Achievement Awards!
Achievement awards this week go to Enzo for his excellent Britto drawing and Ali for his superb mathematical reasoning!
Year 2
In English, we retold the story 'The Snail and the Whale'. Everyone wrote fantastic stories including adjectives, conjunctions and adverbs.
In Maths, we have been continuing to learn to multiply numbers by 2, 5 and 10 and looked at reading word problems to understand the key vocabulary.
We have now finished science where we have explored our local habitat and found living things.
Homework
Arithmetic- pages 22, 26 and 30. Just those 3 pages please :)
Achievement Awards!
This week's awards go to Andreas for settling in Year 2 and participating well in our foundation lessons and Ryan for his good multiplication work.
Kingfisher 1
This week in Kingfisher 1 we have continued with our traditional tales, this week's cautionary tale was that of 'Goldilocks and the three bears.' They were able to give thoughtful comments and recalled the text well.
In maths we have been adding and subtracting. The children have all shown a good improvement in their calculations and are now confident choosing their preferred methods and apparatus to support them.
Achievement Awards!
This week's achievement award goes to Deni for his improvement and continued effort in reading, well done!
Year 3
We have had a very busy week in Year 3! In Maths, we have been using the formal written methods for multiplication and we have also been learning to divide 2-digit numbers by 1-digit numbers. In English, we have finished writing our letters and will be moving onto instruction writing next week. In Art, we have been learning all about abstract art and created our own artwork based on Sonia Delaunay. We also had a very special workshop from 'The Man on the Moon' opera project where we learnt songs and prepared some art and crafts for our trip on the 31st January.
Achievement Awards!
The first achievement award this week goes to Sufyan. He has worked so hard in all of his lessons this week and demonstrated excellent independence and focus.
The second achievement award goes to Amelia for her fantastic abstract art and her amazing letter in English. She also always shows excellent behaviour.
Year 4
This week in Year 4, we went to the Natural History Museum to continue our learning on volcanoes. Whilst we were there, we also found out about other natural disasters such as earthquakes. A massive thank you to the parent volunteers and staff who came along and made the trip possible.
In class, we have continued with our learning of multiplication and division in maths. In English, we been exploring more metaphorical poems, looking at how we can compare volcanoes to other things.
CGP
Maths: Written Multiplication - page 25
SPaG: Inverted Commas - pages 60 to 63
TTRS: 6s, 7s, 8s and 9s
Achievement Awards!
This week the achievement awards go to Lewis for helping other in class and to Evgenia for challenging herself in maths. Well done!
Year 5
This week in Maths, the children learned how to divide 3 and 4- digit numbers and then showed their understanding of multiplication and division by solving word problems. Some of them were very challenging, but the children persevered!
In English, they drafted, edited and published their Beowulf narratives. They chose a key scene from the story and wrote it. They all did a fantastic job!
In PSHE, they learned all about democracy. They pitched their ideas on how to improve Livingstone and had a vote on the one they thought was best. I'll be talking to Mrs Phelan about their ideas.
Below are some of their pop art-inspired portraits that they finished last week. I think you'll agree that the Ben Day dots look very effective.
CGP Books
Maths: page 24 (multiplication) and page 26 (solving problems)
English: pages 58 and 59 (plural possession, its and it's)
Achievement Awards!
This week's awards go to Emily for her excellent Beowulf narrative, and to Jaime for always being sensible, responsible and trying her best - well done, girls!
Year 6
Year 6 have had a very busy week. The children represented Livingstone impeccably on Monday at the RAF museum and I think we have some budding pilots amongst us. On Tuesday, a representative from TFL came to talk to them about travelling safely on the tubes and buses; the children a showed a good understanding of the dangers that may be involved and they will have found this beneficial as they transition to Year 7.
In Maths, we have been looking at fractions, decimals and percentages and in English, they have been completing their long write which have been very impressive. They continue to show and incorporate their learning throughout their work and we are very proud of them.
In Art, the children are almost ready to create their own London landscapes in the style of the artists they have been studying. I look forward to sharing them with you next week.
CGP Homework Pages
Maths - pages 28 and 29
English - pages 46 and 47
Achievement Awards!
This week the achievement award goes to everyone in Year 6 for such a great week!
Kingfisher 2
Over this week we have been working on writing character descriptions based on the text ‘Little Red Riding Hood’, using adjectives and expanded noun phrases to add detail.
Our Maths focus has been using formal column methods for addition and subtraction with the added challenge of decomposition.
Achievement Awards!
This week’s award goes to Jaydon for his descriptive work in English. He has worked very hard, describing the wolf as ‘having sharp claws, like knives’ during the class discussion.
Lovely ideas Jaydon!
Parent Champions Coffee Mornings
We are very excited to announce that every second Friday of each month, our Parent Champions will be holding a coffee morning in the Cabin from 9:00 - 9:45am. Please come along for a chat, coffee and biscuits and find out what is happening in our local area and what services are available for you and your family.
Next Coffee Morning is on Friday 10th February.
We would like to thank all the parents and Parent Champions who attended our Coffee Morning last Friday. Many of our parents were interested in one of the services provided by Home Start so we will be running a FREE workshop called 'Money Smart' in March. This workshop will provide you with the necessary skills to manage money well, improve your knowledge of financial products, make plans to deal with debt and save for the future and improve your relationship with money.
If you are interested in attending, please complete the form by clicking on the link below.
JANUARY 2023
Monday 23rd:
- Pupil Voice Week
Wednesday 25th:
- Netball Match vs St. Andrews - 3:30 pm (HOME)
Thursday 26th:
- Paris Trip Meeting for parent/carers of Y5 and Y6 pupils who are signed-up - 3:15 pm in Y5 classroom
Friday 27th:
- Parent Rep Meeting 9:00 am - Head Teacher's office
Monday 30th:
- Year 3 begin Swimming at New Barnet Leisure Centre for two weeks (except Tues 31st)
- Year 5 School Journey to PGL Meeting for parents/carers in Year 6 classroom - 3:15 pm
FEBRUARY 2023
Thursday 2nd:
- Mixed League Football Match vs All Saints - 3:30 pm (HOME)
Monday 6th:
- Activity Clubs for Spring Term 2 go online for booking.
Tuesday 7th:
- Safer Internet Day
Wednesday 8th:
- Girls Football Match vs Woodridge - 3:30 pm (HOME)
Friday 10th:
- Activity Clubs for Spring Term 1 finish
- School finishes for Half Term at 3:15 pm (Cabin Club open)
HALF TERM: Monday 13th - Friday 17th February 2023 (School Closed)
Monday 20th:
- Start of Spring Term 2 - pupils return to school.
- Activity Clubs begin for Spring 2