We hope that everybody has enjoyed the weekend and, despite the social restrictions, managed to find some time in the garden to enjoy the spring sunshine.
Thank you for the fantastic home learning efforts that our children have made over the past couple of weeks. As you will see from our posts, Poetry Club will continue over the Easter ‘holiday’ period, and there will be other activities for you to enjoy during the next two weeks (our teachers will resume with their daily learning programmes from the official start of the summer term; Monday 20th April).
For junior aged children we have printed out your summer term Spell to Excel workbooks. I understand that this has already been actioned by Year 6. For children in Year 5 we will make them available for collection from the school reception area at any time between 9.00 a.m. and 3.00 p.m. on Monday 20th April. They will be laid out on tables in the reception area (in alphabetical family order) and I will do this from this Monday to ensure that all booklets will be untouched by human hands for a two week period. We want to remain as safe as possible and would also urge families to respect the ‘two metre’ social distancing rule when they come to collect their child’s workbook. The workbooks give a full term’s spelling programme in line with the expectations and specific content of the national curriculum. They also incorporate many of the grammar objectives for each particular year group. There are specific units for each week, which total around an hour’s work but are broken into shorter sessions (ideally three sessions of 20 minutes over the course of each week). I will upload the ‘Teacher’s Booklets’ onto the school website for each year group (these give some ideas to support the delivery of each unit, along with the answers sheets.) There are two levelled booklets for each year group, one is aimed at ‘national expectation’ level (pink booklet) and the other is aimed at children working at ‘greater depth’ (purple booklet)… so make sure you’re looking at the right answers when you go to ‘self-mark’ or ‘parent-mark’ at the end of each week.
We were thrilled with receiving so many entries for our fruits and vegetables cartoon competition. Later this evening (Monday 6th April) we will post the results. The winner will have their cartoon painted in acrylics onto our dining room/kitchen walls once we have re-decorated. We will also find some wall space for some of the runner-up designs. All children who have entered will receive a special certificate (via e-mail) by Wednesday 8th April at the latest.
We have received fewer entries so far for our Savoury Master Chef competition, so we have decided to extend the deadline for this week’s entries to Tuesday 7th April. Please send a picture plus your recipe to head@skyswood.herts.sch.uk. We will put your recipes together in a book, which can be used as an inspirational resource for Year 6 children when we undertake this unit of study in the summer terms of the future. We will post pictures of your cooking tomorrow in a special ‘Savoury Dishes Update’ post.
And finally, we’ve already received some amazing work based on Andy Warhol. Please look after your originals, as we will be using them for a very special Andy Warhol display (in the school hall) when it’s safe for us to return to school. There is also the ‘Design a Rocket’ competition to consider, so there’s a lot of choice if you’re looking for something creative to do over the next couple of weeks.
In the meantime, thank you for being responsible and following the government guidance on COVID-19. Stay safe, we are proud of you!