The Russell

School Newsletter

Friday 7th December 2018

Christmas has most definitely arrived at The Russell this week. The tree is up, the carols are being practised and we are eagerly awaiting the arrival of the man in the red suit… Last Friday saw us working closely together in our House families celebrating everything that is light. We learnt about Hanukkah, Diwali, St Martin’s Day and Christmas. We also learnt about the science behind how light and colour work together, culminating in a rainbow of children. A true Celebration of Light. This week, Christmas has certainly begun in earnest. On Tuesday we recorded our own professional CD of Christmas songs. This was hard work let me tell you – certainly not as easy as you might think – but the children and the wonderful Mrs Thomas did a fabulous job. Make sure you grab your own copy – available soon and a great accompaniment to Christmas morning present opening! Next week sees our Christmas Celebrations for Year One to Year Six taking place. The children would love you to come along and watch their performances. They will take place in the main hall, entry via the Petersham Road. We ask that parents come along to just one of the performances to allow plenty of space for all families to attend comfortably.

You can see your little perform on…

Years Four, Five and Six Tuesday 11th December 5.30pm

Wednesday 12th December 5.30pm

Years One, Two and Three Thursday 13th December 2.00pm Friday 14th December 10.00am

Nursery and Reception

Tuesday 18th December 9.30am We will also be holding our annual Christmas Concert at St Peter’s Church in Petersham on Tuesday 18th December at 11.00am. The children in Key Stage Two will be singing at the church, however, parents from all year groups are welcome to join us for a great community Christmas singalong. The final week of term will be party time. We have our whole school Christmas lunch on Wednesday 19th December. This information has already come home – please contact the school office if you would like your child to take part. We also have our class Christmas parties on the afternoon of Thursday 20th December. On this day, the kitchen will be serving a packed

lunch instead of a hot dinner to give us plenty of room for our party food. If you are able to offer help to your class teacher, please catch them next week. The Year Six ‘Bubbles for Troubles’ Team on Monday with Mrs Povey and the judges at

the City Hall Pitch

Read more about it in Year Six’s ‘Look What We Have Been Learning…’

Have a great weekend. Mrs Leir

Christmas has arrived!

Some lovely Headteachers’ Awards given this week… I have had a visit from a gentleman in Year Five who impressed his teacher so much with his improvement in his reading assessment. This was followed by a visit from a group of Year Four writers who had amazed their teacher with their hard work in producing their brilliant non-chronological reports. Finally, Year Three have been very busy this week! I have given Headteacher’s Awards for outstanding Big Question homework and for being original and informative Tour Guides. I am very proud of them all. Keep up the good work.

Headteacher’s

Awards

Elephant Class (Nursery) In the nursery, we have been learning about the importance of light in preparation for our Celebration of Light House Day. The children took great delight in making their own Christingles. We have been exploring the changes which happen in our environment during the winter time. Our learning has moved onto “Where does the snow go?” We have been scientists this week, investigating which bouncy ball travels the furthest and came up with some wonderful ideas – “it’s fast because it is yellow!” The challenge was not picking the balls up before we could measure the distance. Great fun was had by all! We have also been focused on our scissor cutting skills as we have been busy making snowflakes using a variety of materials. We are getting excited about Christmas and have begun practising the songs for our Christmas performance. This will take place on Tuesday 18th December at 9.30am. We hope to see as many of you as possible then. Before then, we look forward to seeing you at the Christmas Crocodile on Wednesday 12th December 2018. A note to parents that the last wraparound session for this year will finish at 3.15pm on Thursday 20th December. School for all Nursery children will finish at 11.45am on Friday 21st December 2018.

Zebra Class (Reception) It has been all about the gingerbread man this week; we read the story, re-told the story, acted the story, made story maps and then we even wrote our own stories. This has helped our listening and communication skills as well as our phonic skills; we need to keep practising these skills to ensure we become great writers. We have been thinking about what it means to learn and practise new skills in our homework. We all read Zog, who is a dragon learning dragon things. He is not always the best and he cannot always do the right thing so he doesn't get the gold star but he always tries hard, doesn't give up and keeps practising. We have been developing a growth

mind-set about this and shared some of the things we have been learning to do outside of school like riding our bikes (even up big hills) and swimming.

Hummingbird Class (Year 1) In English, Year One have designed and made their own space inventions and written advertisements to see if we can sell them to NASA. The inventions themselves were very creative, I particularly liked James’ special radar that had suction cups to keep it attached to the inside of the rocket! In mathematics we have continued with our work on teen numbers and have been working with subtracting by regrouping ten. We have also been working on our number bonds to ten and twenty. The children are really enjoying a number bonds to ten game called Maths Lines on the Top Marks website although it does get very tense near the end! In our phonics sessions we have been working on perfecting the ‘air’ sound and trying lots of different strategies to help us remember it. The children sang beautifully for the recording of our Christmas CD and we are all really excited to hear the results. If you would like your own copy they will be on sale next week! In RE, the children have been learning all about Hanukkah and printed beautiful menorahs with their hands. The children enjoyed separating into their houses to take part in the Celebration of Light on Friday and enjoyed taking home their lovely divas and lanterns! Thanks to all of the parents that have sent in Christmas jumpers or white tops for our Christmas plays on 13th and 14th December.

Arctic Tern Class (Year 2) It has been a very exciting few weeks and we are now well into our project Muck, Mess and Mixtures. Over the last few weeks, the children have read the stories The Twits and George’s Marvellous Medicine and have

noticed the similarities between them. We have also written an alternative ending for George’s Marvellous Medicine – what a great job the children did thinking about using a range of conjunctions and adverbs. In maths, we have been learning to add and subtract 2 two-digit numbers. The children were able to add and subtract 2 two-digit numbers when the ones were smaller than 10; we also learnt how to add and subtract 2 two-digit numbers when we either had more than 10 ones (called bridging) or when we didn’t have enough ones (called regrouping). To support the children’s understanding we drew a ‘tens and ones’ frame. We then moved on to learning to read and measure using a metre stick and a centimetre ruler. By now we are completely in the Christmassy mood and have been learning our dances for the upcoming Christmas production – you are in for a real treat! If there are any issues with the children’s costumes, then please do come and speak to me.

Turtle Class (Year 3) Last week we went on a fabulous trip to Butser Ancient Farm. We are part way through our Tribal Tales project, Butser really brought this to life. We took part in four different workshops, we wattled a fence, created bronze age jewellery, carved chalk pictures with flint and did an archaeological dig. We also spent time in houses from the different eras, each with their own style of open fire, so we did come back smelling of smoke! We used our trip to write some fabulous re-counts which showed just how much we all enjoyed it. Now is also the time when we start to launch into Christmas. We have been practising songs for our Christmas CD recording this week and we have started working on our Christmas play with Years 1 and 2. Things are getting very exciting!

Look What We Have Been Learning…

Polar Bear Class (Year 3) Year Three had a fantastic time last Monday at Butser Ancient Farm. We really felt what life was like in Ancient Britain. We experienced sitting in an Iron Age round house around the fire. We then took part in weaving wood to make fences, digging for artefacts, making copper jewellery and doing chalk carving with flint. We all learned so much from first-hand experience and we were lucky with the weather too. After our trip we wrote a recount and this week we have been writing instructions of how to do one of the activities from our trip. In maths we have been learning the column method for addition and subtraction of two digit numbers. In project work this week we have been making comparisons between the different periods of history that we have learned about and have been making Iron Age Hill Forts. Christmas has begun as we have been busy singing and recording songs for the School Christmas CD as well as practising dances for our play which we will be performing at the end of next week!

Whale Class (Year 4) What an interesting couple of weeks we have had in Year Four! The ‘Celebration of Light’ House Day was spectacular, with children learning all about different festivals and customs involving light, culminating in a procession of light assembly at the end of the day. It was lovely to see the children place their individual hand on the ‘prism of colour’, representing how we all came together as one. As part of our project on Potions, we have been learning all about the history of anaesthesia. Mrs Porcher very kindly used her previous experience to demonstrate anaesthetic on Teddy, which the children watched in wonder. They were then able to use the experience to write a letter to ‘fellow doctors’ explaining what they had witnessed. Following that, the children have used their new found expertise to write a non-chronological report about anaesthesia, using adverbs, words with prefixes and conjunctions. In maths we have been learning

to multiply 3 one-digit numbers and learning to multiply using the short multiplication written method. Please ensure your children are practising their times tables at home. Along with Mathletics, they should be able to use Times Tables Rockstars too! As you will know we have been recording our Christmas CD. The children sound delightful so please make ensure you place your order to obtain your copy.

Iguana Class (Year 4) What a busy few weeks it has been! We have wrapped up our Music Ops lessons and recorded an original song entitled ‘Autumn’ that we collaboratively wrote as a class. We have continued to use the skills that Ms. Gardner taught us to perform during our school wide Christmas recording. In science, we had a fascinating STEM ambassador in to teach us all about space, a project that we will learn even more about in Year Five. In maths, we have continued to work on mastering various forms of multiplication. In English, we have used a range of resources to learn all about the history of anaesthetic. We were shocked to find out that patients were often wide awake during arduous surgeries. Some patients even died of shock! We were able to share personal experiences of going to the doctor and better understand what an important role the discovery of anaesthetic has played. We also had a go at green screening our final rewritten endings for Romeo and Juliet. We had a blast transporting ourselves to another world with the click of a button!

Finally, we were thrilled to celebrate our first house day of the year with a Celebration of Light! We were able to work collaboratively

with students across EYFS, KS1 and KS2 while learning about various cultures, languages and religions.

Lemming Class (Year 5) Year Five have been busy designing their own aliens which have adapted to survive the conditions of Io, one of Jupiter's moons. We have been imagining what special features they might have which enable them to survive the harsh volcanic conditions as well as the clouds of sulphur that fill its atmosphere. We have been keeping a close eye on the InSight module which landed on Mars. We created our own stories based on this historical event, imagining if the mission had been secretly manned what would they find... As part of their homework we discussed the existence of aliens, holding a debate in class to explain our thoughts and reasons as to why we thought one side or the other. In maths we have been investigating prime numbers and factors and have moved on to using short division methods, finding whole and decimal remainders. In science we have been experimenting with pendulums, looking at how historically, and even now, they are used to measure time. We have also been learning our various songs/dances/sketches for the impending Christmas production...watch this space!

Emperor Penguin Class (Year 6) WE Charity, Young London Ambassadors and

Year 6

On Monday, a team of six children from Emperor Penguin Class went up to the offices of the Mayor of London by Tower Bridge to pitch to four judges for a grant to help London citizens with mental health issues. The pitch for money went very well and we are really hoping that we will be given £1000 to bring our idea to reality. We are focused on three main areas: we hope to create one hundred ‘Happiness Bags’ to help people focus on the positive areas of life, to sing at the Woodville Centre, Ham and use some money to introduce some new bands for music therapy in school. Our teachers, Mrs Baker and Mrs Povey also went up to London this Thursday evening as the judges liked our idea so much. They met all the London charity team from WE who were very inspired about ways young people can alter their communities. We are really proud to be told we are the Primary School in London to have had the most creative ideas two years running with Magic in the Bag and now Bubbles for Troubles - Go Russell! We hope we get the money… By Victor and Maia, part of our WE Team

DATES FOR YOUR DIARY

Sat 8 Dec Christmas Fair 3pm – 6pm

Mon 10 Dec Y3 – Tate Photographer Visit

11/12 Dec Y4-Y6 – Christmas Celebrations 5.30pm start

Wed 12 Dec Nursery/Reception Christmas Crocodile Trip

13/14 Dec Y1-Y3 Christmas Celebrations 2pm/ 10am

Tues 18 Dec EYFS – Christmas Celebration 9.30 / Carol Concert 11.00

Tues 18 Dec Y6 – Carol Singing at Ham Day Centre

Wed 19 Dec Whole School Christmas Lunch

Thurs 20 Dec Whole School Christmas Parties

Fri 21 Dec Last Day of Term – School Re-opens Mon 7th Jan 2019

ACTIVE CLUB

HAM & PETERSHAM ASSOCIATION

AFTER SCHOOL TENNIS

After School Tennis on Tuesdays

Kober 10S Tennis Academy is proud to present another Spring Term of "After School" Tennis at the Russell School. Tennis will run on Tuesdays from January 15th - March 26th 2019 and will be run by James Kober, USPTA International Elite Professional with over 25 years of teaching experience and Mark Fynn, PTR Licensed Professional and former top 500 player on the men’s ATP Tour along with Kober 10S Academy’s expert LTA Accredited staff.

It will be a 10 week session which excludes Tuesday, February 19th due to half term.

The sessions will consist of fun warm ups, technical training, speed training and of course a whole lot of fun and games while learning in an exciting environment! We will cater to Years 1-6 and the cost will be £100 for the 10 week session.

For more info and forms to sign up please contact James on 07466-808515 or by e-mail at james36k@gmail.com. We look forward to seeing you on the courts!!!

Events and Notices