Weekly E-Mail Bulletin Friday 14th December 2018 Effort Cups for this week Caterpillars Dragonflies Butterflies Ladybirds Busy Bees Grasshoppers Crickets Turtles Jellyfish Sofia H Edward Max Noah W-B Dexter Luca Olly Oliver H Evie S Seahorses Dolphins Lions Leopards Tigers Jaguars Pumas Panthers India B Will T Keiran L Casey B Phoebe S Ellie H Alice A Crystal Housepoints for this week Augustine Becket Marlowe Chaucer 14 16 17 19 This Week s Attendance Data Caterpillars Dragonflies Butterflies Ladybirds Busy Bees Grasshoppers Crickets 95.7% 94.8% 95.3% 97.7% 93.8% 95.0% 94.4% Turtles 96.1% Jellyfish 93.3% Seahorses 95.5% Dolphins 97.7% Lions 99.2% NO 100% attendance this week Leopards Tigers Jaguars Pumas Panthers Whole school 95.5% 92.5% 94.2% 97.0% 96.3% 95.6% Week to date Year to date Target Whole school data 95.6% 96.6% 96.7% or more! Our Year to Date percentage is falling dangerously low at 96.6%. We know that at this time of year there are bugs around, but if your child is just feeling a little under the weather they should be attending school. If they deteriorate during the day, we will send them home.
Not only does it look like Christmas at school it really feels like Christmas too. It has been such a busy week with so many festive moments for us all to enjoy from the performances, discos and parties to the prayer day in the church. What a week! Our youngest children in the school really have worked their little socks off this week. The performances of Christmas Counts were a treat to behold and the teachers and adults are extremely proud of each and every child in Early Years. The children in KS1 have also worked tirelessly to show off their talents of singing, dancing and acting with the Wriggly Nativity. They all looked amazing dressed up in the different characters and parts that were needed to make such a wonderful performance. Thank you to parents and families for coming along to support the children and we hope that you enjoyed watching. A big WELL DONE to the all the children involved and to the teachers and adults for making it happen. The PTFA discos have been great fun and it has been absolutely lovely for the teachers to join the children after school for some Christmas dancing and games. Thank you to all the parents who also came along to help. We will let you know how much has been raised when we have the final total. Next week is a shorter week as we finish at 2.00 pm on Wednesday 19th. If you are unable to collect your child at this time please inform the school and we will make alternative arrangements. We are all looking forward to the annual Carol Service at St Barts on Monday 17th at 6.30 pm and everyone is welcome so please do join us. On Monday, Rev. Sue will be joining Year 1 and 2 to teach them all about Christingle. As well as learning about the Christingle service, they will all have the opportunity to make their own individual Christingle. Tuesday is our Christmas day at school when we come to school dressed in Christmas jumpers, have a fabulous Christmas dinner together and finish with Christmas parties in classes. We have been extremely lucky this year as the new Sainsbury's store have made a contribution towards the goodies for the class Christmas parties and we thank them for supporting their local school. As this will be our last newsletter this term I would like to take the opportunity, on behalf of all the staff and Governors at Reculver CEP School, to wish you all a very Happy Christmas and best wishes for the New Year.
The Blue Planet Project Earlier this term you will have received a letter outlining our plans for looking at the issue of plastic waste and tying it into a Blue Planet mini project, to begin Term 3. As a school we have been thinking of ways in which we can all do our bit to help and we found out about a crisp packet recycling scheme where Walkers will recycle crisp packets (that usually take 8 decades to start to degrade) if we collect them. They even provide freepost envelopes, so we would like to start this ASAP, especially with all the large bags of crisps and snacks that will be opened over Christmas. Teachers will all have a box in their classroom so that everyone can recycle their empty crisp bags. https://www.terracycle.co.uk/en-gb/brigades/crisppacket Whilst investigating this we have also come across an opportunity for us to recycle plastic pens/biros/whiteboard pens and get cash in return, which we are also going to start doing. It will help the planet and bring money into the school budget too! https://www.terracycle.co.uk/en-gb/brigades/the-writing-instruments-brigade-r Accelerated Reader and our KS1 Reading Stars This week certificates have been given for the most points earned. Caterpillars Dragonflies Butterflies Ladybirds Busy Bees Grasshoppers Crickets Turtles Jellyfish Louis Thomas Oliver Peyton Elsie Bea Bea Ewan Harry Isla S Seahorses Dolphins Lions Leopards Tigers Jaguars Pumas Panthers Thomas W Katie L Abbie B Lauren W Joshua T George Josh Mitchel Accelerated Reader Congratulations to Our Buster Book Club class trophy winners this week DRAGONFLIES KEEP READING! This week the children have read an incredible 2,566,774 words! That brings our total to 28,299,292 words since September. An incredible achievement.
Crossing Patrol Update Our crossing patrol person is completing his training with Kent at the moment and we hope to see him early in the new year. We will let you know when he is due to start so that we can all give him a very warm Reculver welcome. In the meantime if you see anyone parking dangerously it is within your duty of care to report this if you feel it is necessary. https://www.kent.gov.uk/roads-and-travel/travelling-around-kent/parking/nuisanceparking#tab-2 Please note that there was an error regarding the sponsored walk in last week s newsletter. It is actually Samuel who needs sponsorship not Rev Sue. It is all his idea to help the homeless so it is Samuel you will be sponsoring but Rev Sue is hoping to do it with him. Apologies for the misunderstanding. Dates for the Diary Term 3 Thursday 3 rd January First day of Term 3 Thursday 3 rd & Friday 4 th January Blue Planet Project Tuesday 15 th January Closing date for Primary School applications Tuesday 15 th January History Team trip to Herne Bay Museum Monday 4 th February Young Voices Choir to the O2 Tuesday 5 th February Year 3/4 Viking workshop Wednesday 6th February Year 3/4 Viking workshop Thursday 7 th February History Team trip to Whitstable Museum 11 th 15 th February Book Week Friday 15 th February End of Term 3
Prayer Day St Mary s Church On Thursday the children in KS2 were very lucky to have Rev Sue, Lise Jennings and friends leading a prayer day in St Mary s Church. There were 5 stations for the children to spend time thinking about the various questions that were being asked and giving them time to respond in their own individual way. Having time and space to reflect in a safe place, especially at this time of year, is a wonderful gift and we are really appreciative of this and value the opportunity to be able to take part in this special day. Thank you Rev Sue, Lise and friends. The church was decorated with our Christmas trees, ready for the Christmas tree festival on Saturday. We hope that you are able to visit the church to see them for yourselves.
JuniorSTEM Workshop ~ Year 6 https://www.juniorstem.co.uk/ ~ Nick Hawken On Friday 30 th November, Year 6 took part in a workshop that built upon the skills they have been learning since September. STEM means that the children had to use their scientific, technological, engineering and maths knowledge to achieve their goal! First, they had to follow instruction manuals to build moving creations from Lego bricks. They then had to learn to program these little Rovers using a picture based programming language. The Rovers were racing about across the table before long! On top of that, they learned how to use a motion sensor so that the Rover would start and stop if it detected movement. Following the manual to create the Rovers in Pumas class. Using the tablets to program the Rover in Panthers class. Making the motion sensor work! The children had a brilliant time exploring the Rovers and seeing what they could make them do. We had flashing lights, robots that learned to stop at each end of the table and even robots that spoke to us. I was really impressed with everything that was created! Lots of children were keen to explore these skills after the workshop. The link at the top of the page will show you more about this fantastic experience.
KS1 History Club During Terms 1 and 2, the young members of History Club have gone on an exciting adventure through time! Our first stop was in Ancient Egypt, where the children made papyrus and learnt how to write their name in hieroglyphics. They also discovered all about pyramids, even creating their own out of breakfast cereals and marshmallows to represent the bricks. Jumping ahead to the Middle Ages, the time travellers found out all about knights. They learnt their main jobs were to protect the castle and collect taxes. The children enjoyed creating a moving knight and beautiful coats of arms on wooden shields. Our final stop was at the Battle of Hastings in 1066. We made crowns to display the timeline of the feud between Harold and William. A particular highlight for many of the historians was building a trebuchet out a lollipop sticks and holding a very tense competition! Our winner managed to catapult their tissue paper boulder over 1m. Come and join us for more fun in Term 3!
EARLY YEARS: It has been a very busy week in Early Years this week. The children have enjoyed performing their Nativity performance to their parents and they were all fantastic! We have also had our class Christmas parties and even had breakfast with Santa! The children have also decorated Christmas trees to go on display in the Church for the Christmas tree festival. In Maths the children have been learning about one less than and have enjoyed exploring this within their play. The children have also been using their creative skills as well as their sound knowledge to make and write Christmas cards. Another Fantastic week Early Years. Well done! YEAR 2: This week Year 2 have been getting ready for Christmas, making a range of beautiful decorations. The children enjoyed making lovely cone angels out of card, pipe cleaners and wool, before producing clay snowmen with twig arms later in the week. Our Christmas bookmarks are also nearly finished and the children have really persevered with learning cross stitch. Well done! This week also saw the children complete several performances of A Wriggly Nativity to a full hall of family and friends. The children were so enthusiastic and made us very proud with their fabulous performances. Thank you for being such a wonderful audience and offering lots of support to our brilliant cast. Have a wonderful Christmas and Happy New Year! YEAR 3/4: This week in English, Year 3/4 have finished writing their chocolate factory adventure stories. They worked particularly hard to include picture sentences and relative clauses to make their writing more descriptive for the reader. In Science, the children designed their own toys with either a moving part or a component that made a noise. On Friday, the children visited St Mary s Church for Christmas Prayer Day. They spent some time thinking about people in the world who need our prayers over the Christmas period. Have a wonderful Christmas and a Happy New Year! This week in worship we have been looking at the extra-ordinary story of Joseph and thinking of small things we can do to make someone's week extra-ordinary. We have also had Rev Sue in to light the 3rd candle to remember John the Baptist at Christmas time. Next week we have our Christmas Carol Service at St Bart's church at 6.30 which everyone is welcome to attend. The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. John 1:14 YEAR 1: The children had a lovely time this week performing their songs from A Wriggly Nativity and made everyone extremely proud! Thank you all so much for not only being a fabulous audience, but also for your continued support. Within our maths we have been focusing on the 2D shapes, triangle, square, circle, rectangle, pentagon & hexagon as well as learning what the word quadrilateral means. We sorted everyday objects and continued patterns using these shapes. We have continued with our Christmas theme, making our own Christmas cards, calendars and a variety of other Christmas themed crafts. We have thoroughly enjoyed our Christmas disco, breakfast with Santa, making Christingles and our school party day with Christmas dinner and jumpers! Wishing you all a wonderful Christmas & New Year. YEAR 5: Term is coming to end and the children have impressed us so much with their perseverance over the last few months; there has been so much to learn and so many new skills to master. They truly deserve their two weeks off and the chance to re-charge their batteries! This week in English we have been writing some Victorian Christmas Ghost Stories in the spirit of The Christmas Carol. They have worked really hard on these so on Friday enjoyed some relaxation time watching: The Man Who Invented Christmas about Charles Dickens. They should be really proud of their stories - they made a gripping read! We have also completed our Trojan Horses - we look forwards to more D&T next term when we begin to learn about Explorers of the 20th and 21st centuries. In maths we have been tackling some festive code-breaking, word problems and co-ordinates and on Thursday enjoyed a trip to the church to take part in some gentle reflection activities about Christmas. We feel the children would benefit from a weekend off homework but if you find they are eager to work, they can enjoy some Times Table Rockstar practise. Have a lovely weekend! YEAR 6: This week, as we get closer to Christmas, and as this year is the centenary of the end of the First World War, we thought it would be fitting to explore the events of the Christmas Day Truce which happened in 1914. It was, as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wrote, "one human episode amid the atrocities which have stained the memory of war" The children have shown maturity and compassion as we have explored what it would have been like for the soldiers away from home in a war which was promised to have ended by Christmas. We are looking forward to a craft filled week next week where we will be making lots of Christmas themed crafts. If you haven t sent in a white sock and a packet of dried rice, please can you send this in on Monday. Thank you in advance.