Incorporating Caterham Children’s Centre

Issue 06 24th February 2017

Dear Parents and Carer’s,

Thank you to everyone that has attended parents evening this week. We appreciate

your support in ensuring that we work together to provide your child with the best

education we can. if you have not yet met with your child’s class teacher—please

arrange to meet them over the next week. I will be in contact with any parent who

doesn't make time to discuss their child learning and progress with us.

During the two evenings we carried out our annual parents questionnaire. The results

of this will be shared over the coming weeks and discussed at an upcoming parents

forum.

Thank You for your continued support—Mrs Storey

Who’s who at Marden Lodge?

The school has over 40 members of staff, including those that work in the Children’s Centre.

The following key staff are those with whom parents may have some contact. Each week we will feature

different members of staff to enable you to meet the team!

Mrs El-Farzazi is our year 1 teacher. She has taught in EYFS and KS1 for the past six years. She joined Marden-Lodge in January

and is

looking forward to the year ahead! Mrs El-Farzazi has 1 daughter and 2 dogs called Deja and Diana. She loves spending time with

her

family, going on long walks with her dogs and having pyjama days.

Miss Kinsella had been an LSA for six and a half years working with years 2,3,4,5 and 6. She has also been a one to one LSA.

I'm a mum of two a Girl and boy who have attended Marden

Lodge. I'm interested in Music, big Bon Jovi fan. My favourite colours are

Black, white, silver and purple. I also have a goldfish called Shimmer who enjoys swimming around in circles all day.

Last term in Oak class we have been learning about the fantastic world of

Predators.

We have focused primarily on how to use ICT to research and create fantastic mini projects. We

researched the habitat, diet, appearance and history and adaptations of many apex predators and wrote some interesting and informative reports on them. We analysed various forms of poetry; including the

ancient Japanese haiku poetry, then wrote our own. We learnt all about the Everglades National Park in

Florida, USA and wrote fictional narratives that included heart-breaking dilemma decisions in them.

In numeracy, we discovered the joys of fractions; adding them and finding fractions of hole numbers.

We also learnt about the various forms of measurement and how to apply those important skills into everyday life problems. Inspired by the Australian Open tennis tournament, we practised

our tennis skills in P.E. Look out everyone, the 2030 Wimbledon champion is currently in Oak class!

In Computing, we also learnt how to use Photoshop programs to blend pictures together. We creatively blended a famous celebrity with our favourite apex predator; creating some truly terrific new species. We are looking forward to this next term with the

new focus being: Scrumdiddlyumptious!!

Attendance

Class Attendance

Hedeghogs—N 87%

Rabbits—Y R 91%

Squirrels—Y R 95% Foxes— Y 1 90%

Owls— Y 2 93%

Oak—Y 3 96%

Pine—Y 4 94%

Cedar—Y 5 95%

Willow— Y 6 97%

Eco Committee

The Eco committee have decided that

the focus for this term will be ‘Waste’.

We will be encouraging everyone to

try to reduce their waste by recycling

or upcycling and the children have

lots of exciting ideas for recycling and

upcycling projects.

Marden Lodge will be participating in

‘Waste Week’ from 6th

– 10th

March

and as part of this we will be entering

an upcycling competition run by ‘The

Pod’ – more

details to

follow.

Diary Dates

Tues 28th Feb Pancake Races—Shrove Tuesday

Tues 28th Feb Governors Meeting 6:30 pm

Tues 7th March KS2 SATs information session 9 AM

Tues 14th March KS1 SATs information Session 9

AM

Tues 14th March Year 5 to de Stafford—Annie

Production

Weds 22nd March Year 5 & 6 Level 1 Cycle Training

Thurs 23rd March Year 1 & 2 Pedals Training

Fri 24th March Friends Mothers Day Sale

Fri 24th March Mothers Day Lunch

School Dinners

If for any reason you would like to change your

child's current school lunch option (i.e. packed

lunch to school dinners or vice versa) please

notify the school office in writing. A weeks notice

is required. If your child is entitled to free school

meals, the above procedure will still apply. Once

you have decided on your child’s lunch option,

we ask that you keep to it unless you have

notified the school office in writing. Thank you

for your co-operation.

D. Stapleton

Office Manager

Year 2

Year 2 started Last term with a real Royal affair!

We have been incredibly busy transforming the classroom into our very own castle for the lost

princess who visited us. We have since made our own towers out of natural materials, made biscuits fit for a queen and made our own

shields to defend us from the enemy. It has been a lot of fun researching different towers and

castles around the world.

We were also very busy during our Creative Arts Week and have created our very own beautiful

class mosaic. See if you can spot it hanging around the school!

Year 4 became Native Americans for the day and created their own Totem Poles, in addition

to traditional head-dresses, to bring pride to their tribes.

Totem poles are sculptures carved from large trees, such as the Western Red Cedar. In North America, totem poles are part of the cultures of many indigenous peoples of Alaska, British

Columbia and the Pacific Northwest.

Whilst we didn’t have access to the traditional materials, as you can see this didn’t hold us

back!

Lost property.

Please make sure all your child’s items are clearly labelled. We have a lost property chest by the door

next to Yr. 1 outside play area.

At the end of each term this will be emptied and items not named will be donated. Please note our staff do make every effort to help find lost items but the school will not held responsible if items

cannot be found.

Year Six

Our topic has been ‘Revolution’ and

through this topic we have learnt about

the ‘Industrial Revolution’ during

Victorian times.

We have learnt about the development

of the railways and we have found out

that many useful everyday objects were

invented during Victorian times. We

have learnt about Victorian schools and

what life was like in a Victorian

workhouse. We have also learnt about

the early beginnings of the police force

and about Victorian prisons. We have

been reading a book called Street Child

which is about a poor child living in

Victorian times. We have then written

short narratives, character descriptions

and diary entries using our knowledge of

the Victorian times.

Last half

term

Reception asked “Will you read me a

story?” We have been focusing on fairy

tales, we have spent a week learning a

different story, retelling them with

drama, cooking food, writing letters,

making masks and writing our own fairy

tales! During our story telling journey

we have met so many characters on the

way, Goldilocks and her three bears, the

little pigs and the big bad wolf and Jack

and his pet cow Daisy!

Someone sent us an anonymous letter

asking us to look after their magic

beans! We have been writing and

creating potions and spells to cast on

the beans, we can’t wait to watch them

magically transform on Friday during

our Storytelling tea party!

Reception

Last half term Hedgehog’s have been on

an exploring adventure! We have been

reading the story ‘We’re going on a bear

hunt’ and have been hunting bears

around the school, in the playground and

our woodland area. We have been

exploring the outside area using the bikes

and tricycles to help us on our missions!

During this half term Hedgehogs have

been learning about Chinese New Year

creating animal collages and playdough

decorations. This week we have been

making Valentine’s Day cards to send

home to the people we love!

Nursery

Science Club

Last term we kicked off our very own Marden Science Club run by our newly appointed ‘Science Experts’ in Year 5.

Key Stage 1 have had lots of fun participating in a range of different Sci-entific Experiments, including making our own foaming volcanoes, erupting

rockets as well as making and eating our own ice-cream!

End of School Day

The school day ends at 3.10pm. Please can parents and carers pick up promptly.

We regularly have a number of children picked up late.

During Art Week Year 5 were given the task of making felt

from scratch!

First we took a fistful of white wool and pulled it apart so we could see the individual

fibres, and no clumps were visible. We then placed them in layers to build up a mesh

of material. Next, we chose our colours and repeated the process of separating the

fibres and layering them to create a pattern. Next came the messy part! Using soap

flakes dissolved in warm water, we soaked our material and rolled it up in bubble

wrap, then used all our strength to squeeze all the water out. We repeated this over

and over until the material had compressed, then we left them overnight to dry.

In the morning, hey presto! We had created felt!

In Year one we have been having a great time with our ‘Moon

Zoom’ topic.

We’ve had an alien space rocket crash in our year 1 area. We’ve been busy making our own rockets and learning all about astronauts, space and Beegu the lost alien.

We know that World Book

day is next Thursday.

We have decided to hold our

very own ‘Book Week’ in the

Summer Term—children will

be invited to dress up as a

book character then. Theme

for dressing up and more

details to follow soon.