Class Blogs
Class-Blogs-25/26 (ID 1118)
-
St Ceilia (Nursery)
St Ceilia (Nursery)
We had a very special celebration for St. Cecilia’s Day because she is the patron of our classroom! To mark the occasion, we threw a big party where we played games, danced, and had lots of fun celebrating together.
The classroom is beginning to sound a lot like Christmas! We have started our Nativity rehearsals, practicing our singing voices and learning our parts to get ready for the big show.
We ended the month by celebrating St. Andrew's Day! We learned that St. Andrew is the patron saint of Scotland. We explored the colors blue and white to match the Saltire flag and got creative by weaving paper to make our own tartan patterns. We listened to the sound of bagpipes and tried our best to do a Scottish jig.
We tied our shoelaces tight and headed outside for some fresh air! We had so much fun with our "Race Across the Park," where we cheered on our friends and used up lots of energy running in the autumn breeze.
We put on our astronaut helmets and zoomed off into the galaxy! We discovered that there are many different planets in our solar system, each with its own special features. We loved learning that the stars we see at night are actually giant balls of gas far, far away!
We took a moment to be calm and reflective. We learned about the importance of the red poppy and how it helps us say "thank you" to the brave people who have kept us safe. We practiced being very quiet for our two-minute silence and used different materials like tissue paper and paint to create our own beautiful poppy wreaths to hang in the classroom.
We started the month with a bang! We learned all about the history of Guy Fawkes and why we light bonfires on the 5th of November. We talked about how to stay safe around fire and sparklers, which is very important. To celebrate, we got messy making "exploding" firework paintings using bright neon colors and glitter, and we even made delicious chocolate apples to enjoy as a treat!
We had a wonderful time exploring all the different shapes and colors of harvest vegetables. We got creative by using them to print and paint, and we put on our scientist hats to test our ideas and discover whether pumpkins float or sink in water!
We learned all about the amazing Aretha Franklin, the Queen of Soul! We discovered how she started singing in a church choir and used her powerful voice to become a legend. Her songs, like "Respect," gave people hope and helped change the world: we listened to some of her most famous songs and danced along, we bravely took the stage to sing some of our favorite tunes in front of our friends and we got creative and designed our own sparkling microphones. Like Aretha, we learned that a powerful voice, no matter how small, can make a BIG difference!
We became busy little gardeners! We learned all about how plants need soil, water, and sunshine to grow. We got our hands messy and helped plant some bulbs and seeds in our outdoor area. We are excited to watch them peek out of the ground when spring arrives! We learned that taking care of something small, like a seed, takes patience and love.
We took our mark making outside! Using chunky chalk, we drew huge, colorful pictures all over the ground—bigger than our tables! We used wet brushes and water to paint on the fence and explored making lines and shapes with sticks in the mud. It was messy fun, and we practiced making our scribbles and early letters in a new, exciting way!
We had so much fun exploring our fantastic outdoor space! We practiced our running and hopping skills, built tall towers with big blocks, and even went on a mini-beast hunt. We are learning how to share the big toys and take turns on the slide. Outdoor time helps us get our wiggles out and build strong bodies!
We worked hard as a class to make a big, bright, colorful banner to help tell everyone about our cake sale. We used paints, glitter, and big bold letters to make sure the sign was impossible to miss! We learned that by making a beautiful sign, we were helping to support people who are poorly. It felt great to work together as a team and share our kindness with others!
-
St Rose (Reception)
St Rose (Reception)
//www.youtube.com/embed/Q8MgYrtSNwM#t=0.5
We brought the great outdoors right into our classroom! Armed with our best detective
skills, we went on an exciting minibeast hunt, thinking carefully about where spiders and
worms might be hiding in our outdoor space. The good news? Our search was a
success! Using magnifying glasses, we observed their unique features up close and
used our observational skills to draw exactly what we saw. For some of the children, it
was an extra special day, as they bravely held a worm for the very first time! What a
WOW moment.The children in St Rose class have been absolutely loving our new classroom role-play salon. It
is wonderful to see them having so much fun while naturally developing key skills across the
curriculum!
Here is a glimpse of the fantastic learning taking place:
● Writing Skills: The children are eagerly practicing their writing by filling out appointment
cards for their "clients."
● Everyday Maths: Mathematical concepts come alive as the children read the clock, use
the till to tally up bills, and compare different hair lengths.
● Speaking & Listening: Brilliant communication skills are on display as the children chat
with customers in the chair and practice taking bookings over the phone.
● Personal & Social Education (PSE): We are seeing wonderful discussions around
personal hygiene and how to properly care for our hair.
● Art & Design: Creativity is flowing as the children design and create exciting new
hairstyles for each other!Our class wondered: Why didn’t the Gingerbread Man just swim across the river? To find out, we put his swimming skills to the test! We placed a gingerbread man in a pot of water and observed the results. It didn't take long for him to lose his crunch—he quickly became soft, squishy, and started to fall apart.
We’ve had a fantastic time exploring weight and balance. The children became "mini-mathematicians" as they investigated which objects were light and which were heavy. To take our learning a step further, we used cubes to measure mass, challenged ourselves to see exactly how many cubes it would take to make the scales balance perfectly.
We have also spent time exploring Capacity. Using a range of different sized containers we made predictions about how many objects we could fit into each one.
There have been so many opportunities for writing linked to the story of the Gingerbread Man. Here you can see the children thinking carefully about the story sequence and recording the main characters and events on their story maps.
To help the Gingerbread Man cross the river safely, we designed and made a bridge using junk modelling materials. We had to know what shapes to use and how we were going to fix the shapes together to make the best bridge.
During our early morning work, we are actively strengthening our fine motor skills through a variety of engaging activities. These included:
Using scissors
Handwriting practise
Using tweezer
Threading
Working with dabbers
This half term, our core book was 'The Little Red Hen,' and we thoroughly enjoyed bringing the story to life! We loved using puppets to put on a show and retell the narrative. The highlight of our learning was getting to bake our own bread—just like the Hen did—which turned out to be absolutely delicious!
Did we tell you how much we love learning phonics? We are doing super well in learning our graphemes and phonemes. One of our fun activities is to say the sounds and build the cvc words.
We’ve made great progress learning about 2d shapes! The class can now confidently identify different shapes and discuss their key features (like sides and corners). We’ve also enjoyed sorting shapes in a variety of challenging ways.
Despite the cold and wet weather, we successfully planted our daffodil bulbs in the school playground! We worked hard to prepare the soil and get the bulbs tucked in safely. Now comes the hard part: being patient until SPRING, when we hope to see our beautiful flowers bloom!
Our BIG SCIENCE QUESTION this week was, "What should you wear during winter?" The children actively engaged with a selection of clothing representing different seasons. They participated in lively discussions as they determined which outfits were the best fit for cold and rainy weather.
We're so proud of the children in St. Rose; they've had a wonderful start to their school journey! Below is a quick snapshot of the amazing work they've been busy with.
We kicked off the term by learning all about Pattern in Maths! The children were busy spotting patterns in our environment and mastering key vocabulary like check, zigzag, wavy, and stripy.
We even explored different patterns using shaving foam for a sensory experience! We've also enjoyed creating our own patter
-
St Anne (Year 1)
St Anne (Year 1)
Step into the St Anne Class classroom this week, and you will be greeted by a breathtaking explosion of colour! We are absolutely thrilled to share the spectacular clay tiles our Year One artists have been working so hard on.
This term, our cross-curricular learning brought together the analytical minds of scientists and the boundless creativity of artists. In Science, we have been fascinated by our changing world, diving deep into the study of seasons and weather. When it came time to begin our Sculpture unit in Art, we knew exactly where to look for inspiration: the wonderful world of weather symbols!
Our artistic journey wasn't just about painting; it was a hands-on masterclass in pottery:
- Designing and Shaping: First, we put our ideas on paper and then got our hands messy, working and kneading the raw clay to sculpt the perfect tile shapes.
- The Technical Touch: To add depth and detail, we practised a very fancy art technique called incising—which means we carefully scratched intricate lines, textures, and weather patterns directly into the clay.
- Adding the Magic: Once our tiles were perfectly air-dried, we applied a crisp white base coat. Then came the best part: layering vibrant, joyful colours to bring our rainy clouds, bright suns, and stormy skies to life.
With a final touch of glaze and a trip to dry... hey presto! Look at how these beautiful masterpieces absolutely pop with colour!
We are so incredibly proud of our young creators in St Anne Class. They didn't just learn about the weather this year—they shaped it into something beautiful. Be sure to check out the gorgeous photographs below to see their hard work shining bright!
Antarctica, Penguins, and No Ants! 🐧
What a fantastic way to head into the summer half-term! On our very last day before the holiday, St. Anne Class took to the stage to perform our big Antarctica presentation and our brilliant penguin poem in front of the whole school.
The children performed with absolute confidence and had the best time sharing all the wonderful things we’ve learned about life in the coldest, windiest place on the planet.
To leave you with a little bit of St. Anne trivia: Who knew that ANTarctica is the only continent that has no ants?!
As part of the knowledge rich, year one curriculum, St Anne class invited Ellie Reeves, MP for Lewisham West and East Dulwich, to visit for a presentation on the history of Parliament. Ellie gave a short talk on who she is and what she does in the House of Commons. After that, some of the children read their parts of the PPT presentation ranging from the Magna Carta (studied in Spring), Simon de Montford, The Bill of Rights and Robert Walpole to the present day democratic system.
After the presentation, we had a special ‘Member of Parliament Question Time’.
St Anne Class had been busy writing questions they wanted to ask Ellie. They ranged from the challenging, ‘What will you be doing for the children in the borough?’ to ‘What did you want to be when you were six years old?’ The children were most surprised when Ellie said that both her mum and dad were teachers and she had wanted to be a teacher too.
Later on, three children in the class gave Ellie a tour around the school.
It was such a special event for all. MPs get hundreds of letters and emails every day. We felt very privileged that Ellie chose to respond to ours.
St Anne class have been busy exploring their ability to weight bear using different body parts. We used all sorts of apparatus to test our balance and strength. Look at us go!
St Anne class have been busy exploring their ability to weight bear using different body parts. We used all sorts of apparatus to test our balance and strength. Look at us go!
St Anne Class performed their assembly in front of family, friends and the whole school on Friday 19th June. The children were amazing! Everyone commented on how clear and confident their presentations were, especially their retelling of Chicken Licken, performed as a whole class. They really are ready for Year 2 now 🙂
What a wonderful afternoon we had in KS1. Coach took us out for a cricket tournament with year two and we thoroughly enjoyed sport in the lovely spring sunshine.
St Anne class have been busy this term with their art project. We have created designs based on weather symbols studied in Science lessons. The aim is to practice using play dough then use clay for the finished clay tile sculptures. We have another week of practise and experimentation before working with clay. Watch this space!
St Anne Class have been having a go at designing and making tote bags as gifts for someone special of their choice. First, we learnt how to create pocket bags to hold circular magnets. We watched with great attention, the demonstrations of how stitching can join two pieces of material together.
We then designed our bags and practised simple stitching on both felt and cotton fabrics using needles and coloured thread. After that we made our choices of fabric paying special attention to designs and contrasting coloured threads. We had to concentrate hard to get the hand of simple stitching!
Watch out for our final products and follow the work in progress as we create our learning journey in the KS1 corridor.
On Tuesday 3rd February, St Anne Class attended a National Year of Reading live event. The workshop was part of National Story Telling Week. Our special author (and musician!) Annemarie Anang inspired us with her tale of pride and confidence. I AM NEFERTITI is a heartwarming story about identity, belonging and friendship. This rhythmical read aloud is perfect for every classroom and we certainly enjoyed ourselves. The story is filled with rich and colourful images. When Nefertiti plays the drums, the band plays as one. 'I am Nefertiti' she says, and she feels ten feet tall. Listen for yourselves and feel the beat!
Storytime: I Am Nefertiti with Annemarie Anang
Fireworks
//www.youtube.com/embed/hivhZiEiV-E#t=0.5
//www.youtube.com/embed/cH46v2KUigU#t=0.5
We have been busy learning all about weaving this half term. First we created our weaving pattern by using alternate colours. After that, we practised using different coloured card strips on some card we cut vertical slices into. It was fun to see the different colours complementing each other and making patterns similar to our designs.Watch this space as next time we will be using simple stitching to make similar ‘in / out’ patterns using thread and felt. We are hoping to be more ecologically aware by using recycled materials too!We have been learning how to digitally paint in our ICT lessons. First we tried a Mondrian master piece and then we had a go at recreating a a classic Kandinsky piece.
-
St Blaise (Year 2)
St Blaise (Year 2)
St Blaise enjoyed their Autumnal walk in God’s world. We mapped the physical features in class then compared them to what we can see in real life. Our planned route was quick and straightforward. We loved being in the playground and the weather was kind enough to allow us a picnic style snack time. It was such fun!
We have been busy designing and creating our own Pizzas. From working the dough to adding healthy toppings that have been designed to appeal to younger children. We certainly enjoyed taste testing these.
Why not try to make some at home!
www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/collection/kids-pizza-recipes
-
St Martin de Porres (Year 3)
St Martin de Porres (Year 3)
Recently, the children have been learning about light. We used concave and convex mirrors to explore what happens to our images. We found out that concave mirrors made our images bigger and convex mirrors made our images smaller. We had a lot of fun in this lesson!
We learnt about the different rivers of the world and why they are important. We found out that rivers have played an important role in civilisation for thousands of years providing drinking water, a way to travel and trade goods and support farming. The children in Year 3 chose a river they had learnt about and prepared a 1 minute speech. They did an amazing job and showed great confidence talking in front of their classmates.
Throughout the Spring term we celebrated World Book Day and British Science Week. The children in Year 3 dressed up in some fantastic costumes and we even had a winner with his fantastic Stick Man costume. What a fantastic effort Mikolaj.
Our class experiment and investigation had us exploring germs and growing mould on bread. We chose some pretty disgusting places, but our results were surprising!
We had a special visitor- DJ AG, who came and performed for the whole school. He made a special appearance in our class, reading some of George’s Marvellous Medicine to us. We also got to show him how amazing we are reading too! This was the best start to a Monday morning we’ve ever had.
We have been learning about Line in our art topic. Our final piece of work was to create a leaf print on a foam tile. We started by tracing the leaf design onto the tile and then we spent 2 lessons creating the line template. This was a lot of work! We loved the painting and printing process and we’re thrilled with our finished artwork.
Over the past few weeks, we have been learning to add and subtract using the column method. We have enjoyed learning this new skill and have been eager to show our new found understanding. We think we are really confident adding and subtracting, even when we need to make and exchange.
On Thursday 6th November the children ran in the school cross country. The energy was high and their resilience and determination was phenomenal. All of the children completed their 2 laps of the course. We were all incredibly proud of their efforts. Well done to all the children, especially our place holders.
On their return to school after half term, the children in Year 3 celebrated the Feast Day of St Martin de Porres. Year 3 is named after St Martin. He is the patron saint of mixed heritage, barbers, Public Health Workers and innkeepers.
The children really enjoyed their treats! It was a great way to start the new term.
Now that the children have entered KS2, they are able to nominate themselves for the various roles around the school.
One of these jobs is being a library monitor. We are very proud of our library and appreciate being able to read so many wonderful books.
Our library monitors have a very important role, ensuring that the books are signed out and returned using our book borrowing system, putting the books back in the correct location and keeping our library tidy.
Well done Orshena, Frederick, Shaneja and Joshua. You are all going to make fantastic library monitors this year.
In phonics we have been practising our syllabification skills and we have become quite good at it!
In this lesson, we looked at the word germination from our science vocabulary.
We found out that it is a noun and comes from the latin word germinationem, which means to sprout, put forth shoots.
The children looked at the various sound/ spellings in the word and identified which ones they might need help remembering. Once we had identified those sounds, we came up with a list of other words that contain the same sound/ spelling.
We came up with a great list and could have kept going!
This half term the children in St Martin class have been learning about plants. We conducted an experiment to look at water transportation.
Using sticks of celery and water coloured with black and pink food colouring, we left the sticks in there over a period of 6 days.We made predictions about what we thought would happen and then we wrote down our observations every couple of days.
On the sixth day, we cut the celery open to see if the coloured water had been absorbed and we discussed our predictions. I think we have some budding botanists in Year 3!
It was a very exciting few days waiting to see if our celery was going to change colour.
-
St Joan (Year 4)
St Joan (Year 4)
In Science our topic is Living Thing including Humans. We have been looking at classification and why we classify things.
In RE we used drama to retell the story of Joseph from the Old Testament.
-
St Bernadette (Year 5)
St Bernadette (Year 5)
The children enjoyed acting out a scene of their choice from Street Child, our class text for Literacy. The took on the role of one of three characters and created a tableau with a caption explaining what was happening in the scene.
Cam Toys
In English,St Bernadette Class have been reading ‘Tales from the Caribbean’. One story we particularly enjoyed was the Tale of Brer Anansi and Brer Snake. Here is a video of us acting out the story in class.
//www.youtube.com/embed/nldVcJ32Vss#t=0.5
St Bernadette Class worked very hard to learn their lines for their Class Assembly. They spoke clearly as they shared their learning with the rest of the school and parents.
St Bernadette class has been using manipulatives to get a better understanding of factors and multiples in maths. Our current topic is: Multiplication and Division and the children are using known facts (times tables) to help them to solve problems.
In St Bernadette Class, our writing focus is on Fables. The children created their own role play scenarios from the Story of Anansi and the Two Dinners and then used this to help write a retelling of the story.
-
St Francis of Assisi (Year 5)
St Francis of Assisi (Year 5)
In music lessons, they have been showing how amazing they are at composing their own music.
Watch St Francis class as they share information about their class saint in a poetic style.
He is the patron saint of animals, the environment, and ecology (which is the study of living things and their environment. He is loved for his deep respect for All of God’s creation and his feast day is on the 4th October.
//www.youtube.com/embed/_TKYM_9VfN0#t=0.5
We have been busy making honey cakes
In science, St Francis class have been testing different materials to see if they are rigid, transparent, magnetic or conduct electricity.
//www.youtube.com/embed/m90rE2xKxoc#t=0.5
These are their finished toys
St Francis is in the early stages of exploring, designing, and making cam toys suitable for younger children. Over the coming weeks, they will also evaluate the structures they create. They are learning to select and use a wide range of tools and equipment to carry out practical tasks; such as cutting, shaping, joining, and finishing and to choose from a variety of materials and components, including construction materials, based on their functional properties and aesthetic qualities.
-
St Thomas Aquinas (Year 6)
St Thomas Aquinas (Year 6)
Year 6 had a fantastic day in central London visiting the Victoria and Albert Museum. The children had an opportunity to explore Art across the world including: Japan, Korea, South Asia and Europe. We focused on Italian Renaissance Art and also sketched our own drawings of the museums's replicas of Michelangelo and the 'School of Athens' painting. A lovely day, especially after 2 different members of the public commented on how well the children behaved and how pleased they were to see young children enjoying Art. Well done Year 6!
