This Sunday, 26th November, marks the feast day of Christ the King. This represents the end of the church’s year. Christ the King is one of the most important titles of Jesus. Even though Jesus Christ was not a king in the earthly sense, He is the divine King of the Universe, who unites all of creation with the Father.

English - we have continued on with our RWI lessons. During these sessions we all focus on phonics, reading, spelling and sentence development. We have also been working on our pre-cursive handwriting in which we focus on how to write our letters, starting on the line. We have also been learning how to spelling because suing the rhyme….big elephants can always understand small elephants. As well as that we are focusing on the tricky words of ’said and ‘you’ - how to recognise them, read them and spell them.

Maths - this week we have continued to work on parts and wholes as our introduction to addition and subtraction. We have been using counters to support our work as well as our ten frames to show how a number can be represented and the different ways we can make a number. We call these facts Number Bonds. We have investigated how to form number bonds and worked in a systematical way to record all the number bonds for a set number - ie 8. We keep reminding ourselves that the numbers we add together are called PARTS and the total is called the WHOLE.

RE - this half term is all about Mary. We are continuing to to learn the hail Mary prayer, along with thinking about the meeting of the prayer and why we pray to Our Lady. We have also learnt about Mary’s trip to visit her cousin Elizabeth.

Science - our topic this half term is all about animals. We have been observing animals carefully and looking at their features, such as feather, beaks or paws. This week was all about fish, reptiles and amphibians.

Geography - our focus for this half term is all about the world around us, with a focus on continents. We continued this week with looking at the seven continents of the world and then focusing in on Australia.

ICT - this have term it is all about algorithms - we have started by looking at algorithms as simply a set of instructions.

Design - this week the children have taken a break from their sewing to create a winter season through painting for our winter board.

Many congratulations to this week’s winners….

Golden Award - Amelia a super piece of Geography work about Australia AND for showing a good, developing knowledge of the continents of the world.

Writing Award - Freddie for his super writing in RWI, developing his own ideas for sentence writing AND for his beautiful pre-cursive handwriting.

Maths Award - Loki for his super, systematical recording of number bonds this week AND showing his knowledge of the numbers through his ten frame.

PE will be on Monday and Friday so please send the children into class in the PE kits on those days. No earrings can be worn for PE so please ensure that they are taken out at home.

Water bottles - all the children were given a new school bottle this week. This will come home each night to be cleaned and re-filled. Please only use the school bottles and ensure your child brings theirs each day. Lost water bottles can be replaced at the school office, but I am afraid you will have to pay for those. Year 1 have white tops.

I will not be in class on a Thursday afternoon, as it is my release time. This will be covered by Mrs Veasey and Mrs Connolly and is also when the children will have Music with Mrs Watson

Party Invitations - I am afraid that Mrs Veasey and I will not be able to give out party invitations in class. Please do not send your child into class with them for them to give out - it creates upset and fuss about something that takes place outside of school.Thank-you for your understanding with this matter.

Key Rings - please do not put key rings onto your child’s school bag, it create fuss in class and then upset if they are lost.

School bag - please continue to use the red book bag that your child was given in Reception, we don’t not have the room to store large bags. Many thanks for your help with this matter.

Homework Expectations - please see the Homework page for what I expect the children to do at home…..don’t worry, it’s mainly just reading!! Yr1 Homework — Our Lady of the Assumption Catholic Primary School (squarespace.com)

29.11.23 - School Nurse drop ins in the school hall. The drop in is for any parent who might have an issue they wish to discuss, no appointment is necessary and they will be in the hall from 9am to 10am.

8.12.23 - follow up from the successful SEND afternoon and will focus on deciding what professional parents would like to hear from and areas that they need support in. Mrs Ormerod will speak about how to navigate the FYI directory and how APDR/ graduated response works in school. There will also be members of the Blackpool parent forum in attendance. We will also look at support around the cost of living. Church hall 2-3.10pm

18.12.23 Year 1 and 2 Nativity! There will be two performances at 10am and 2pm. (Keep an eye out for any slight time changes.) Each child will be sent two tickets for each performance. These are free but we have to limit numbers as it is for two classes and we can only physically fit so many people safely in the hall at once. Many thanks for your understanding.

At Our Lady's we like to support our parents/carers in Online Safety matters.

Keeping children and young people safe online is one of the biggest challenges facing society today and it is all of our responsibility to ensure that children are educated to make positive, informed choices when they are online.

This month’s online safety guide gives helpful advice about…

Smart TVs As these internet-enabled entertainment systems rapidly become standard, find out how to guide children in using such devices safely.

We hope you find these guides informative and helpful in promoting the positive use of technology to make the online world a better and safer place for us all.

Catholic Life of our school..

The following resources are a great way of keeping you all informed of our current liturgy themes and of the weekly Gospel scripture, with some activities that the children can complete at home. We hope you find these resources useful and that they help you to support prayer and worship in your own homes.

https://www.paperturn-view.com/uk/wednesday-word/faithfulness?pid=MTA101634&v=74.6

http://www.tentenresources.co.uk/prayers-for-home/parent-newsletter/