Dear Parents and Students,

Everywhere I looked yesterday, I was jumping out of my skin meeting a spider creeping along the corridor or a witch peaking around a door. What a fabulous time Primary has had this week with celebrations of Halloween. The students have been treated to special events in class and around the

school building up to our Halloween Dress Down Day on Thursday. We hope all the students have delighted in the opportunity to celebrate as a class and school, bringing the community together.

Congratulations to the winners of the Best Halloween Costume. This was judged by our Primary Student Council. Each winner gained two house points. Well done!

• EY: Maya
• Y1: Cohen
• Y2A: Attila
• Y2B: Ariane
• Y3A: Mart
• Y3B: Tristan
• Y4: Nina
• Y5: Kara
• Y6: Bartlomiej

Along with all the excitement of Halloween, our Humanities Block has continued. The conclusion of the Flag Competition happened this week with winners from classes battling against each other to show their knowledge of flags from around the world. Read more in the Other News section.

Throughout this Block, Ms Harris has been working with Primary to encourage students to take part in the COBIS Poetry Competition. Students have been working hard in class and at home to create wonderful poems around the theme ‘Who am I?'. Ms Harris is looking forward to reading all the entries to pick a winner from each Key Stage.

With the forthcoming long weekend and block break coming up, a reminder that attendance during term time is important to support children’s learning throughout the academic year. A kind reminder that leaves of absence requests during term time are not automatically authorised but are granted only in special circumstances.

For the latest Update from the Principal and other events, please see the News section on our website.

Wishing all our families a lovely long weekend.

Kind regards,

Isla Gillespie

Head of Early Years

Early Years

What a spooky week! The children were super excited when they saw the Halloween decorations in Early Years. Thank you to the parents for organizing that!

The spooky little creatures were not the only ones flying around the classroom this week. The children had fun learning and sequencing the nursery rhyme Humpty Dumpty, an egg that fell off the wall. The children were building walls and experimenting by dropping different objects from them. Kings horses and kings man might not put Humpty together again, but our Early Years students can.

Ms Gillespie and Ms Kukovica

Year 1

What an exciting week it has been!

From various Halloween crafts and activities to a dance party with Year 2 students and a best Halloween costume competition! We have also been very busy in our English lessons, familiarizing ourselves with poems that talk about our senses. We even started writing poems about the autumn leaves by going outside and using all our senses to inspire us by going outside and using all our senses to inspire us.

In Maths, we practised subtraction through practical and word problems. Unfortunately, the Toymaker has not been sending so many letters this week, he must know we have been busy with Halloween celebrations.

Ms Miklavec

Year 2

What a wonderful week with all the preparation and celebrations for Halloween! The children came to school with wonderful costumes to scare and delight their friends on Thursday.

An extra special thank you to the parent volunteers who helped with the Halloween celebrations for Halloween afternoon. The children loved every minute of the activities and parties we had together.

Mrs Fordham and Ms Torrington

Year 3

This week Year 3A enjoyed Halloween-related activities in our classroom! Parent volunteers came into the school and talked about how Halloween is celebrated in the US, students created trick or treat bags, made jazzy, sparkly pumpkins for the competition, and helped to prepare the classroom with lots of amazing decorations.

They also learned about the meaning of All Saints day and discussed the importance of remembering loved ones who have passed on. After an action-packed time, Year 3 deserves a wonderful, well-earned, long weekend with loved ones!

Ms Blundell and Ms Spangl

Year 4

Year 4 loved the Halloween celebrations this week and really enjoyed getting dressed up. In English this week, we have continued to explore our class text Runaways and on Thursday we created our very own spooky stories.

Year 4 wrote some fantastic pieces and they fit the theme perfectly. Next week, we are excited to write our own stories about Victorian England.

Ms Harris

Year 5

The children have had a spooky week and enjoyed all of the Halloween activities they participated in. All of the children had fabulous costumes and decorated their own pumpkins meticulously. The children wrote some amazing poetry using personification and worked well as a pair to present them.

In Maths, the children learnt how to multiply using a range of methods and the children also went outside to collect real data and then presented it in a bar graph. A big thank you to the parent reps for making our Halloween celebrations one to remember.

Mrs Thomas-Hayes

Year 6

Exercise is important for students of all ages, and taking breaks to exercise during the school day can have numerous benefits. Taking regular exercise breaks can help students stay physically and mentally healthy, and may even improve academic performance. The Year 6 favourite way to relax after an intense lesson is to dance, sing and laugh together as a team.

There's something about pumpkin decoration that just feels fun. Maybe it's the way that pumpkins can be transformed into so many different things - from scary faces to cute animals. Or maybe it's the fact that no matter how you do it, pumpkin decoration is always a bit messy. Whatever the reason, the Year 6 just couldn't help but enjoy getting their hands dirty while creating their pumpkin masterpieces.

Mr Kokalj

PE

Throughout primary PE this week we have been focusing on developing our hand-eye coordination skills when playing tennis. Students looked at the key movement patterns when playing singles and the importance of working together when playing doubles. Students also learnt how to develop the underarm and overarm serve, in order to start off some competitive gameplay.

PE Department

Slovene

The last two days of the week were all about Halloween! Year 3 and 4 students at Slovene Foundation have been very creative with making and colouring the pumpkins. They wrote words related to Halloween in Slovene: buča, noč čarovnic, čarovnica, pajek...

Look at their wonderful piece of art!

Ms Drofenik

Our Y5 and Y6 in the Slovene Intermediate group showed a lot of creativity this week. They wrapped up the topic "V mestu" by designing their own cities and came up with a brilliant idea of connecting all the posters and making a board game ... stay tuned to see how it will turn out!

Ms Jakop

EAL

Year 3&4 EAL group started learning the story about Pete the Cat and his brand-new shoes. A story with a positive message and a catchy rhythm. Pete's shoes change colour all the time because he can't resist stepping into some messy stuff. Watch the story on youtube.

Just like Pete, our students loved stepping into red strawberries, blueberries, a large pile of mud and a bucket of water. Doing this in costumes, just heightened the experience.

Mr Siter

Other News

Flag naming competition

On Friday, the students took part in the final of the BISL flag naming competition. It was a very close final that came down to the very last flag- nail-biting stuff.

The joint winners were Bartek (Year 6) and Mike (Year 5) and just 2 points behind was Stanislaw (Year 4). These children have outstanding knowledge of flags and we are all very proud of them.

Mrs Thomas-Hayes