As part of our Catholic Social teaching, we focused on taking action to nurture God's creatures by raising awareness about animal protection.  To mark World Animal Day, we read the story Somebody Swallowed Stanley , which helped us understand the dangers plastic pollution poses to sea creatures like turtles. The children shared thoughtful ideas about how we can help, such as always putting litter in the bin and recycling our rubbish to keep our oceans clean. We also explored the poem Dreamer by Brian Moses, which inspired us to think about wild animals and how we can protect them. The children created beautiful drawings of wild animals and discussed ways to care for all creatures in our world.

Reception had a wonderful time exploring Scotswood Nature Garden as part of our learning around the story Stick Man by Julia Donaldson. The children went on an exciting Stick Man hunt around the garden, discovering all sorts of natural treasures along the way. Using sticks and other natural materials, the children created their very own Stick Man characters, showing lots of creativity and imagination. We also played a fun Stick Man game in the forest, which helped us bring the story to life and enjoy the great outdoors.

This week in Nursery we have been busy learning about Autumn. We have had lots of fun doing activities based around our focus story, Stick Man. We went on a stick hunt and created our own stick men, made 2D shapes out of sticks, and we even used our investigation skills to use a range of tools to free stickman from being frozen! In RE we have been discussing our families and enjoyed observing all of our lovely families on our family tree display!

This week Miss Manning, Mrs Barber-Knight and our new panel of school councilors visited Scotswood Nature Garden for our welcome meeting. We explored the area, used map skills, made clay models and wood cookies, climbed trees and learned lots of nature facts! We talked about how we could use the skills we learned to welcome new people into our school.

This week, we were delighted to welcome Sarah Lou from Mini First Aid . We helped her clean up the cut on Teddy’s leg and put an ice pack on his head after he had banged it. Sarah then read us a story about a boy called Freddy. Freddy’s Mum had collapsed in the kitchen, so Freddy put his Mum in the recovery position and dialled 999 for an ambulance. We now know what to do in an emergency. Sarah-Lou also said it would be a good idea for us to learn where we live in case of an emergency... does your child know where they live?

Year two had the opportunity to meet and interact online with the author Ben Garrod hosted by Seven Stories. Ben Garrod is a professor of evolutionary biology as well as an author. Ben Garrod wrote a book inspired by a dog he met while filming in Africa a series called Baby Chimp Rescue. Ben fell in love with Jack-Jack the dog and was able to rescue him and bring him back to the UK. Year 2 children had the opportunity to listen to his amazing journey and learned all about how the author was inspired to write his book. They had the opportunity to learn about different animals as well as take part in animal-based quizzes. They then listened to an extract from the book read by the Author. We are looking forward to reading this story in class! A Dog with a Job ’ with Ben Garrod

Children in year 2 have been learning about the artist Turner .  He was known as 'the painter of light', because of his increasing interest in brilliant colours. The children practiced various skills such as:   •      Drawing from images •      Observational drawings •      Developed and shared their ideas •      Develop basis water colour skills   They had an amazing and creative experience using the water colours to paint a picture inspired by Turner as well as sketching a scene of one his paintings.

Our Reception children have been learning about the famous abstract artist Wassily Kandinsky . His vibrant and expressive artwork sparked our creativity and inspired us to create our own abstract masterpieces. Using loose parts such as wooden discs, bottle tops, and natural materials, the children explored shapes, colours, and patterns in imaginative ways. This hands-on experience encouraged them to express their ideas visually, just like Kandinsky did in his art.

Thank you to Sarah-Lou for providing our children with the basic first aid knowledge required to deal with bumps, burns, breaks and bleeding, carry out CPR and deal with choking.  The session was very informative and we thoroughly enjoying putting our knowledge into practice.

This week is poetry week, and our focus poem is ‘Chocolate Cake’. We have been practicing using a range of key vocabulary and have had lots of fun making our very own chocolate cakes!

This week our focus story has been ‘Funny bones’. We have been learning about our bodies and singing songs such as ‘head, shoulders, knees and toes’ to help us learn the different parts of our body. We have been busy creating our own skeleton art and retelling the story with our friends!

This week our focus story has been ‘The Noisy Paintbox’. We have been learning about abstract art and focusing on the work of Kadinsky. We have been busy creating our own abstract paintings and collages!