This Term’s Virtues
This term we are trying hard to be
Curious & Active
From Our Headteacher
Dear Parents & Carers,
As we come to the end of another busy half term, we have been celebrating learning and attitudes across the school. It has been lovely to hear about how our children are being ‘curious and active’ and assemblies over past few weeks have focussed on these two virtues, the Gospel readings at Mass each Sunday, and for our Year 4, 5 and 6 pupils about the Catholic Social Values of ‘Human Dignity’ and ‘Solidarity’.
We are pleased that we have been able to resume some of our extra-curricular activities this half term and we are looking to further broaden these opportunities in the coming months. During the school day, we are grateful to St. Edwards School for outreach opportunities including providing specialist hockey coaching as part of PE lessons and we had two members of their Science team in school today, delivering workshops to Year 5 pupils. We are also grateful to the Oxfordshire Museum, who have lent resource boxes to a number of our classes this half term to enhance the History provision that we provide as part of topic lessons. The children have loved handling the artefacts and using these resources to find out more about the past and develop their skills as historians.
This week there has also been creativity around the school as pupils have been working on their entries for the Young Art Oxford competition. I have been extremely impressed at the talent of our pupils.
Bishop William Kenny confirmed 13 of our Year 6 pupils on Saturday 5th February, please continue to keep these children in prayers. After half-term, Fr Benedict will begin catechesis for our Year 3 pupils preparing to make their First Reconciliation and First Holy Communion during the Summer Term.
On a personal note, thank you for all of the congratulations and well wishes for my appointment as substantive headteacher – I am very much looking forward to leading the school in its next chapter.
Wishing you all a restful half-term and we look forward to welcoming the children back to school on Monday 28th February.
Kind regards, Hannah Duncan (Headteacher)
We have a Twitter presence and would love to boost our followers! Fly on over and have a look … @AloysiusSchool
Muddy puddles, sticks, mud mountains and worms! What more could Year 1 want on their weekly Forest School outing! 🪱🐛🪵🍃💦@ForestSchools #outdoorlearning #nature #ks1 pic.twitter.com/ITZql1rQ94
— St Aloysius’ Catholic Primary School (@AloysiusSchool) February 17, 2022
Keeping Everyone Safe
We want to KEEP EVERYONE SAFE. Parents can help with this by
- not cycling through and around the school grounds
- leaving bicycles in car parks or on the road then walking around the school premises
- not parking cars on pavements, in/across our neighbour’s drives, on double yellow lines, on zig zag lines, in either of the school car parks, etc.
- not parking dangerously or performing U-turns in the road
- parking safely in Polstead Road and not across the rear car park entrance
By being more considerate, we can keep everyone safe. Thank you!
General Information
Data Collection Forms – please can you return your child’s data collection form as quickly as possible. Thank you.
Aria’s Fundraising – last year Aria in Oak Class raised money for The Gatehouse charity. This year she wants to raise funds for Cancer Research UK. She will be swimming 100 lengths (2.5km) on the morning of Saturday 26th February. Aria would like to raise as much money as possible for a great cause. If you would like to donate, please click on the following link https://fundraise.cancerresearchuk.org/page/arias-swim
Class Topic Overview and Knowledge Organiser – the Spring Term Class Topic Overview and Knowledge Organisers can be found under the CLASSES tab where you can easily click on your child’s class. Acorn Class Curriculum Information can also be found there.
Swimming – we are hopeful that swimming lessons will resume next term – we will keep parents informed.
School Meals – if you have any queries regarding school dinner money or require a statement, please email Mrs. McIntyre HERE.
Payments to The School Office – PLEASE NOTE we can no longer accept cash or cheques as payment and have moved to a CASHLESS system. All payments should be made via the Schoolgateway (click HERE for further information). Permission slips can be either emailed or bought into school with your child and handed to the school office.
Online Safety Newsletter
SCOMIS, the school provider for management systems, have published their latest Online Safety Newsletter for parents. It contains some really good advice about online gaming, the draft online safety bill and Roblox!
Breakfast and After School Club
Breakfast Club is open every morning from 7.45am until start of school. Booking is essential and should be made online via the Schoolgateway (bookings can be made up until the day of the session). This is important to ensure the right staffing, bubble planning, etc.
After School Club is open Monday to Friday until 5.00pm. Again, booking is essential, online via the Schoolgateway, to ensure correct staffing, bubble planning, etc. Bookings close at 2.00pm on the day of the session. PLEASE COLLECT YOUR CHILDREN ON TIME – staff finish at 5.00pm.
Thank you for supporting our After School and Breakfast Clubs!
Oxfordshire Museum
This Term’s House Point Totals
Ashmolean
Bodleian
Radcliffe
Sheldonian
Radcliffe were the Autumn Term House Point winners!
Prayer
May the God of love surround you, those loving arms embrace you, bring you comfort, hope and light. And as the day draws to a close …
God’s peace permeate your heart and bring healing through the night;
God’s wisdom be the store from where our daily thoughts are gathered;
God’s love be a flowing river bringing peace to heart and soul;
God’s whisper be a word in time breaking through this world’s clamour;
God’s faithfulness be our strength and hope within the storms we face. Amen.
Oxford Clinical Commissioning Group
Following the Government’s announcement that all children aged 5 to 11 will be offered the COVID-19 vaccination, NHS partners across Oxfordshire are now planning the best way to deliver the vaccine to this age group. Please note that in line with government timelines this service may not be available until April 2022. We ask you to please refrain from contacting the NHS during this time and thank you for your patience. Further information will be available in due course.
Oxfordshire Clinical Commissioning Group
Dates For Your Diary
Spring Term
Spring Term Ends – Friday 8th April @ 1.00pm*
Summer Term
Summer Term Starts – Monday 25th April @ 8.35am
Bank Holiday – Monday 2nd June
Summer Half Term – Monday 30th May to (and including) Tuesday 7th June
Summer Term Ends – Thursday 21st July @ 1.00pm*
* No Afterschool Club on these days
Some Future Dates
Additional Holiday – Monday 6th June followed by INSET day Tuesday 7th June 2022
OFSTED & Section 48 Reports
- Please click to read our recent Good OFSTED report.
- Please click to read our recent Section 48 report.
Safeguarding
Our Child Protection and Safeguarding Policy and Safeguarding Statement can be found on our website under information or by clicking
Punctuality
If you arrive late to school every day, your learning begins to suffer. Above is a graph showing how being late to school every day over an academic year adds up to lost learning time.
Doors Open At 8.35am
Registration At 8.50am
Gates Locked At 8.50am
Music Lessons
Saxophone, violin, guitar, etc. – Oxfordshire County Music Service – https://www.oxfordshire.gov.uk/residents/music-service
Piano – Michael J. Davies – mjmusicservices@aol.com
Guitar & dumming – DrumBeats – nigel@drum-beats.co.uk
Governor News
If you would like to see who our governors are and that they do, click HERE.
ChatHealth Has Launched!
ChatHealth is a safe and secure text messaging service between healthcare professionals and service users that provides confidential help, advice and signposting support.
Art & Ceramic Clubs
Beautiful bowls created with love by the Ceramic Club.
Art Club pet pictures by Carla, Brock and Luna.
CORONAVIRUS INFORMATION
CLASS NEWS
Acorn Nursery Class
Acorns very much enjoyed having a Superhero week last week! The children thought about what qualities make a superhero and looked at real life superheroes around us such as police officers and doctors as well as designing their own superheroes and thinking about what special powers they would have! This week we have travelled back in time to when dinosaurs roamed the earth and we have been fact finding to answer the many questions the children had, as well as enjoying a special dinosaur wake up shake up!
In phonics we have been learning about syllables and finding out how many syllables are in each of our names as well as alliteration, thinking of words to match the children’s’ names at register time! We have continued to look at letter sounds as well and our new sound is ‘t’ to add to our existing sounds m, a, d and s. I was particularly impressed with William’s extensive knowledge of ‘t’ words such as ‘turtle’ and ‘tar’!
In Maths we have continued up our number line to number 8, learning the different ways in which we can represent it. In group time we have been focusing on shape and pattern, looking at different patterns in the environment and even on our clothing and learning how to make repeating patterns using two different coloured counters or objects.
Well done Acorns for continuing to amaze all the nursery staff with your increased attention, listening and thoughtfulness!
Tigger Reception Class
The Tigger’s have now started to look closely at transport. We started by receiving a post card from Cecil (Mrs Hendry’s teddy) who had been to visit his grandma. The children thought of several ways that Cecil could have travelled to grandmas. They sent postcards from Cecil telling us what he had been doing. The classroom now has a train station complete with platform and ticket office and the children constructed a train using the large wooden blocks. The children loved playing with the small train, building the tracks and making signs, bridges and roads.
The children used their knowledge of trains from their learning to make fact books and models of trains. We have looked closely at how we travel to and from school and made a bar graph together. The children have sorted modes of transport depending on where it is used, on land, in the sky, in the water etc.
The children have looked closely at the book “The Train Ride”, observing the rhyming and repetitive text. The children thought carefully about what they could see from the window of the train and drew some great pictures and wrote some great descriptions.
In Art the children have looked closely at paintings of steam trains on tracks and used the medium of pastels to draw them. They compared them to the charcoal from previous lessons in that you can smudge them also. The children have been using sponges and corks etc to print pictures of trains based on the book “The Train Ride”.
Throughout the last two weeks the focus in class has been on the children’s motor skills and strengthening them to enable them to be better writers . The children have had great fun using tweezers to pick up frozen peas, using whisks for soap flakes, mashers for potatoes, soapy mops, scrubbing brushes, paint brushes, weaving and collecting natural items . The children have continued to use the work bench and have focussed on safety and how to use the hammer and nails. They have continued to practise their cutting skills and using them to cut shapes, lines, and pictures.
The children have continued to learn about baptism and took a trip to the Oratory to meet with Fr Benedict who showed us around the church and role played a baptism.Tthe children made excellent God parents and parents. The children walked beautifully to the church and were impeccably behaved and listened well to FR Benedict. We have learned about the presentation of Jesus at the temple.
In Maths the children have been looking closely at the composition of 5 and we have used the songs five speckled frogs and five little men in a flying saucer to illustrate this for the children. The children have looked at the different parts of five and learnt that the whole is still five. The children have learnt how to construct a number sentence, translating what they can see into a sentence.
The children have continued to use the different equipment in Maths, a five frame and dice pattern and Numicon to illustrate the parts of five.
In Phonics we have learnt new red words ‘put’ and ‘he’. We have learnt new sounds, ch, z, x, and qu.
The children have been practising reading and spelling words with these sounds and continued to read and write sentences.
The children have continued to explore the instruments in music lessons and learn their names and how to use them.
In class the children have been thinking about their emotions and looked at the story of the colour monster help them to think about their emotions and to decide how they are feeling. The children are now able to move their mini me to the monster who is the colour of their emotion at that time.
Mrs Hendry and Mrs Feller
Fir Year 1 Class
In Fir Class we have been continuing with place value. We have started addition within 20 which is tricky. We have practised using a number line to work out difficult number sentences and drawing bar and part-whole models too.
In English we read ‘Four in the Bed’ from the Old Bear stories. We talked about how Old Bear might be feeling after bumping his head and created a bank of words to describe his thoughts and feelings. We wrote sentences in thought bubbles and stuck them around a picture of Old Bear.
We also looked at pictures of the characters and wrote sentences about what might be happening in the pictures.
In Topic we have been talking about different ways we find out about history. We discussed lots of ways we learn about people and events that happened in the past.
In Art we looked at old and modern-day cameras. We compared the two and had a think what a camera from the future might look like. We then made our own cameras either from the past, present or future out of the junk modelling materials.
In Science we predicted which objects might float and which might sink. We did an experiment to see if we were right with our predictions!
Fig Year 2 Class
The boys and girls in Fig Class have been exploring the life of children in the Victorian times as we learn about the developments in transport during this time. We have learned about the challenging lives of the children working and living on the Canal boats and the revolution of the Railways with the invention of Stephenson’s Locomotive Engine Number 1. In Maths we are now developing our understanding of fractions and shapes. Mrs Kempton and I would ask that you use any opportunity to talk about halves, quarters and thirds and shapes in the child’s everyday life, whether it’s cutting Pizza or looking at road signs. We have written some excellent interpretations of the Little Red Riding Hood story and have focussed on powerful vocabulary and grammar in our writing. An additional focus in all our activities has been reflecting on loving ourselves and appreciating the great gift we are to those around us and the talents we have to share. We have talked about our thinking voice and using songs, exercise and breathing to change how we feel. Every child in Fig Class should know how important and special they are.
Oak Year 3 Class
The children show great enthusiasm and creativity in our Topic on the Stone Age, enjoying finding out about Neolithic Hunter gatherers and designing their own tool or weapon. In Maths the children are currently focussed on solving division problems using different written methods and equipment. The children continue to enjoy our class book The Wild Way Home exploring the characters and making predictions on what might happen next. In Science the children have been investigating soil, finding out about what it is made from and the different layers. In RE we have been looking at Parables in the Bible, where the children have created storyboards based on the parable of the prodigal son. We have had some lovely student led collective worships in class this week based on Creation, Rosary beads and the Annunciation. The children are looking forward to using clay to create Stone Age artefacts next week.
Ash Year 4 Class
This week Ash class have been enjoying learning about another Anglo-Saxon legend – the tale of Saint Frideswide. We have begun to plan our own legends using either Beowulf or Frideswide as our main characters. In Maths we have completed our unit of work on area and have moved on to learning about fractions – if you can do any sharing into halves, quarters and thirds over half term it would be great practice! In RE, the children have been learning about the baptism of Jesus and have created some beautiful artwork for their RE books. In Science we enjoyed exploring the impact that different drinks have on our tooth enamel – some of the children were surprised to see the damage that fruit juice can cause after a few days of exposure to enamel.
Bay Year 5 Class
This week’s newsletter is reported by Alvaro and Emilia.
During the past few weeks, we have learned lots of fun, new things in our lessons.
In RE, we have learned about the journey the Holy Family took. They travelled from Nazareth to Bethlehem, Bethlehem to Egypt and Egypt to Nazareth. We also located this journey on a map using laptops. As well as that, we wrote a news report about John the Baptist baptising Jesus in the River Jordan. God’s voice came from the heavens and said, “This is my son and I am very pleased with him!”
In amazing Art, we have learned to create our own Greek theatre mask and to make and decorate them. We used: sequins, newspaper, card, paint, scissors and Modroc. We had to use an idea or an emotion for example: a happy mask or sad mask. Our theme was either comedy (happy and fun) or tragedy (sad and miserable).
In our lovely lessons in Maths, we have learned ways to check and work-out multiplication and division problems. For example: the Miss Joyce method (We call it the Miss Joyce method as she taught us it). This is mainly used to check answers when we need to. Also, we had another method which was the partition (split method) method to simplify the process of multiplying larger numbers. Now, in division, we learnt and used the bus stop method which is a good strategy to solve tricky division problems when dividing 4-digits by 1-digit with exchange, as well as, with remainders. We also learnt how to do division using part-whole models and place value tables with counters.
In our sporty P.E. lessons, we went outside one afternoon and played dodgeball and for our warm-up we played bulldog. Many of us were very tired and out-of-breathe from exercising so much but this was great fun! We have also had the opportunity to up-level our movement and dance skills using the apparatus which everyone enjoyed.
In our super Science lessons, we brought in milk bottles and water bottles to carry out an experiment to investigate which of our hand-made paper mice could fly the highest or not. We then had a big discussion about our observations! Following this, we did an air resistance experiment to test which parachute material helps to slow down the fall of an egg. We made three parachutes: newspaper, fabric and plastic. To keep it a fair-test we dropped the parachute from the same height from the balcony and size of the parachute. The only variable we changed was the material of the parachute. Only one parachute stopped the egg from cracking. Ask your child which parachute was best.
In our exciting English lessons, we have been learning lots of vocabulary and other Y5 targets. In our writing we have been learning about oxymorons (deafening silence, sad smile, awfully nice), parenthesis for added information, modal verbs (might, can, should, could), your emotions using pathetic fallacy – the rain followed him home, he is sad. We have also been reading and acting out our class book Percy Jackson followed by a reading comprehension to check our understanding of the chapter.
Thank you for reading. Have a lovely weekend.
Willow Year 6 Class
The children have been improving on their narrative skills over the last week (based on the Disney short film: Paperman). We have focussed on using effective verbs, adverbs and direct speech as well as looking at how we can link our sentences to make our writing flow. In Maths, we have now finished our unit on decimals, where they have been converting to and from fractions as well as multiplying the decimals by 10,100 and 1,000. In Science we are finishing off our projects on electricity, designing a festive light. The children are showing real focus and have thought about how circuits work to complete their design. Finally, the children are doing their second mock SATS of the year and I have given them their first mock SATS for them to take home so it would be good for them to go through these tests to work on those areas that they are not so secure on yet. I hope that you have a great half term.