There has been lots going on at Atwood this week.
The children in Reception have been learning all about healthy eating and the children in Nursery have continued there learning about bees and pollination. For more news and pictures visit the website.
https://www.pegasusacademytrust.org/news/eyfs/atw-eyfs-news-bees-supertato-and-5-a-day
This week, Year 1 continued looking at the poem ‘The Sound Collector’ by Roger McGough. The children came up with their own verse of the poem by thinking of four things and the sounds they made. They wrote a new verse and then published it by writing their new poem on special paper, using their best handwriting. The children then performed the poems using expression and rhythm. In maths, the children started looking at numbers up to 50 thinking carefully about how many tens and ones each number has and making groups of ten and ones. In science, the childen tested different materials for their ability to float and used the results of these tests to design a boat that should be able to float for one minute with two lego figures inside. Then these designs were carefully labelled so they can be built them in the future.
The children in Year 2 have been exploring the story of ‘Traction Man meets Turbo Dog’ by embodying the emotions of Traction Man and writing an emotive letter to their lost friend ‘Scrubbing Brush’! The children have really enjoyed getting into character and immersing themselves in the world of Traction Man. In Science the children completed another experiment to test the properties of materials and used ‘forces’ against solid objects. Also the children moulded playdough into different shapes using forces ‘twisting’ ‘rolling’ etc. The children have enjoyed learning more poems this week in their whole class poetry book ‘How to Be a Tiger’.
The children in Year 3 have had fun this week creating poetry inspired by the poet Joshua Seigal who they met online today. It has been a chance for them to learn about poetic devices using the poem ‘I don’t Like Poetry!’. It was tricky to think of metaphors and appropriate alliteration but they persevered and created some wonderful poems. Some of the poems can be seen on the website.
In our thematic learning this week, the children ventured outside to create a timeline in the playground to get a real sense of how long ago the stone age actually was. They tied a label saying ‘beginning of Stone Age’ and some wool (the time line) to a lamp post near the back gate of the school and decided that one footstep would be the equivalent of 100 years. 35,000 years later, the children had travelled across both the infant and junior playground and over the school field to reach modern day. They then referred back to periods of history that they have learned about since being in school and tied pictures of those on the timeline dating back to the birth of Christ. It was good fun and really gave the children an idea of just how much time in human history was pre-history.
In Year 4, the children have been investigating how to change the volume and pitch and now know that to increase the volume you increase the force with which you hit the drum or pluck the string. To create a high pitch, the string or drum skin has to be tight and to create a low pitch, you loosen the string/drum skin. In writing, using The Barnabus Project book as a stimulus, the children have been deciding how the story might continue. Everyone chose to focus on four characters and imagined where they might go and what they might say to one another on their next adventure. The stories have been incredibly imaginative and the children will be compiling a collection of our class stories in readiness for World Book Day on Thursday. In maths, Year 4 have been using known facts to calculate the perimeter of rectangles – knowing that opposite sides are the same. Next week, the children will be moving on to calculating the perimeter of rectilinear shapes.
In Year 5, the children have continued their work on fractions and been engrossed in the book Robot Girl by Malorie Blackman. It is a short form science fiction novel with an incredible twist at the end. The children have also explored Aboriginal Art and started their work on human life cycles as part of their science topic: Animals including Humans.
This week, Year 6 have been investigating the existence of helpful and harmful microorganisms in science. They have set up an experiment by collecting left over food from their lunches, put it in a plastic containers and sealed it. The children have made a hypothesis as to what might happen to the food after a week? After two weeks? and why?
As part of their Ancient Greek topic the children have read the story of Theseus and the Minotaur and have enjoyed creating perspective drawings of the minotaur in the labyrinth. These are a work in progress and the children look forward to sharing the completed artwork next week. The children have also have completed practice SATS papers in preparation for SATS next term.
SPORTS NEWS
On Wednesday, the netballers welcomed Selsdon Primary school for two matches. Both matches were end to end and lots of physical play! We had a large squad which included three Year 5 players. Everyone worked hard and there was some excellent play across the entire court. We lost the first game 8-2 but went on to win the second 4-2! Selsdon voted Nabilah (year 6) and Amber (year 5) as their players of the match. Well done to the entire squad – Sofiah, Holly, Ami, Juliette, Nabilah, Eloise, Jess, Brooke, Robyn, Amber, Alicia and Autumn.
On the 17th February Eloise (Magenta class) competed for Atwood in the Surrey Primary Schools cross country championships in Reigate, running a 2km hilly course against girls from schools all over Surrey and South London. She ran a brilliant race, coming in 6th place (1st out of the Croydon schools). As one of the top 20 runners, she has been invited to train with the Surrey Schools AA cross country squad for next year’s season. Well done, Eloise!
The boys’ football team had a match last week against Gresham running out 3-1 winners. Goals came from Kai and Hamish along with a great header from Jacob.
BOOK WEEK
We kicked off our book week celebrations today with a virtual visit from the author and poet Joshua Siegal. The poet shared a selection of his funny poems in a series of assemblies. After the assembly some of the children went back to class and performed some of his poems.
POETRY
On the subject of poems and poetry, Atwood sent six pupils today to Whitehorse Juniors to take part in the Pegasus Spring Poetry competition with all the other Pegasus schools. Despite it not feeling as a very spring-like day the children managed to make everyone feel full of sunshine with some lovely performances. It was a lovely opportunity for the children to mingle with pupils from the other schools and for the children to share their poems in front of an audience. Everyone did an excellent job with lovely clear recitals. Well done to Kieran, Daud, Mary, Frank, Ben and Harriet. You were all spring superstars!.
And finally…
Happy Birthday Mr Beaumont.
I wouldn’t normally make a point of celebrating staff birthdays but for Mr Beaumont this was a special week as he got to celebrate his 13th birthday on Thursday. As a ‘leapling’ Mr Beaumont only gets to celebrate every four years. I’ll leave you to do the maths and work out how old he really is.
DATES FOR THE DIARY
Please check because new dates are being added below
- Week Beginning 4th March: Year 5 Whitgift Project week
- Tuesday 5th March: Year 2 Trip to London
- Thursday 7th March: World Book Day
- Thursday 7th March: Year SATs Parents’ information meeting at 3:30pm- Details to follow
- Friday 8th March: FOAP Mothers’ Day Event
- Saturday 9th March: South London Harriers Cross Country event
- Monday 11th March: Parents’ Evening
- Wednesday 13th March: Parents’ Evening
- Wednesday 13th March: School Council to The Houses of Parliament
- Thursday 4th March: FOAP Uniform and Book Sale
- Saturday 16th March: South London Harriers Cross Country event
- Monday 18th March- Wednesday 20th March: Year 5 Carroty Wood Residential
- Friday 22nd March FOAP Disco
- Tuesday 26th March: Rocksteady Concert 9:15am (Rocksteady Tuition parents only)
- Thursday 28th March: Singing Concert 4pm (Singing Tuition parents only)
- Thursday 28th March: FOAP Easter Egg Hunt
- Thursday 28th March: Last day of spring term
- 29th March – Good Friday – School Closed
- Monday 15th April: Return for summer term
- Week beginning 13th May: Year 6 SATs week
- Thursday 20th June: Atwood Sports Day
- Saturday 22nd June: FOAP Summer Fair
- Friday 12th July: FOAP Disco for Years Reception to Year 5
- Thursday 18th July: Year 6 Leavers’ event
- Friday 19th July: Last day of term
