December 2016 Autumn 2 Newsletter
We have had a wonderfully busy time this half term. We began by finding out about Diwali and tasted some food traditionally eaten to celebrate the Festival of Light. This led onto us looking at all the different colours and patterns that are made by fireworks and we made our own firework patterns on the interactive whiteboard.
Dates for your diary… School opens for the Spring Term Wednesday 4th January
For Children in Need we had a Teddy Bear’s party and made labels for our bears, decorated the nursery and had great fun making sandwiches and cakes. The children made some wonderful cards for their families. We tried hard to write our names and then went over to the post office to post them. We received lots of comments about how well behaved the children were! ‘Our First Nativity’ was the name of our Christmas Play and all the children tried really hard to learn all the songs and performed them brilliantly! If your child is due to start school in September 2017 you must apply for their school place by 3pm on January 16th 2017. PLEASE DO NOT FORGET!
December 2016
School closes for half term Friday 10th February
Autumn 2 Newsletter Well we have come to the end of the Autumn Term in fine style, with super performances from the children in Nursery, Early Years and Key Stage One. Furthermore, the choir sang beautifully for ‘Carols in the Courtyard’ and dancers from 3ST wowed at the Waterside. As always, both the children (and teachers!) have worked extremely hard throughout the term, resulting in some fantastic work being produced across all areas of the curriculum. From Alice in Wonderland, James and the Giant Peach, The Nutcracker and The Little Red Hen, the children have been immersed in a wealth of experiences and really enjoyed their learning. A special mention has to go to the children in Reception as they have all settled in really well and are thoroughly enjoying being at ‘Big School’. We hope you have a lovely break and look forward to welcoming the children back to school on Wednesday 4th January.
40 Years of Ashmead! February 2017 will see Ashmead Combined School reach the grand age of 40 years! A week of celebrations are being planned, which will take place in the week following February half term (20-24th February). During this very special week, we will be holding an exhibition of Ashmead’s past– where we hope to display a whole range of photographs and artefacts to help tell the school’s unique story. During 2016, we have worked very hard to source photographs of the school’s past as there were very few that had survived from the first 20 years of the school’s existence. With the kind support of many ex-members of staff, pupils and friends of the school we have now collected over 400 images– but we are still on the lookout for more! Many of you have been kind enough to lend photographs already, but we would like to ask again to anyone who has not had the chance to hunt through their old albums– especially if you were at the school between 1981 and 1994. We have fewer photos for these years and would dearly love to have more to display. So, if you think you may have anything of interest to us, please let us know as soon as possible.
School Council The School Council have had a busy term, organising no less than four different charity events!
WoW Thanks to all of you who are walking, scooting, cycling, skating, park and striding to
November saw Remembrance
school! Remember you need to
Day where the School Council
record you trips to get your
collected donations for
badges!
Remembrance poppies. Then, on 18th November, we held a very successful ‘Spotacular Day’ for Children in Need where we raised
should now have received a badge for October and November.
In December, the School Council
‘Be Bright Day’ was a great
raised money for Florence
success. Remember to keep
Nightingale Hospice Charity by
staying bright, when you are
selling Christmas pencils and
out and about this winter.
three days and we had to contact the charity for more! Finally, on the last day of term, we will be holding a Christmas Jumper Day, the proceeds from which will go to Save the Children charity.
Yet again Jack has done himself and Ashmead proud for being Runner Up in a recent Active Gamerz Championship—Go Jack!
Everyone who was due one,
a whopping £592.41.
flumpets—these sold out in only
Congratulations
We had a huge response for the travel questionnaire — thank you. We hope to use some of the pictures on a school mapping project so will choose some winners soon.
Congratulations
Around Ashmead
News From Ashmead Nursery
Mmm can you smell gingerbread baking? Over this half of the term
Years 3 and 4 have thoroughly enjoyed a busy and rewarding term. The children have
we have been retelling the story of the Gingerbread Man and adding
continued to find out more and more about the James and the Giant Peach story and
our own twists by exploring how we can change the characters and
have followed James and his friends on their fantastic journey across the Atlantic
combination of actions, words and story mapping. This half of the term we have been writing in a range of contexts. Before baking our gingerbread, we wrote recipes and equipment lists, we turned new and novel characters into books of our own, and we have been using marks in maths for recording in tally and bar charts. As the weather turned frosty, we discovered dinosaurs and ducks trapped in the ice. How did they get there? How will they get out? More importantly, what is that naughty Elf doing playing with all of our toys and making a mess in the role play corner? We wrote letters to the Elf on the Shelf to ask him. As the term draws to an end, we continue to work hard on our dances for our Christmas production of the Little
Years 3 & 4 News
Early Years News
the ending. We are developing into expert storytellers by using a
Ocean in the giant peach. There has been a strong scientific focus this term too, with the children working as insect investigators. Each class has been busy finding out about the characteristics of different insects and minibeasts, helping explain to James (of the giant peach!) about all of the weird and wonderful creatures he has been travelling with. The children have continued to work hard at producing exceptional art work this term, with each class having created a hardback book containing work from throughout the term. The classrooms have literally been bursting with wonderful examples of work. In the run up to the festive season, the children have been enjoying learning a host of Christmas songs and carols and these were performed, with great gusto, at a very festive assembly during the last week of term.
Owl and the Star and we look forward to hearing back
Approximately 40 year 3 and 4 children also performed
from Santa as he reads our Christmas letters.
at Carols in the Courtyard with the school choir.
It’s been a busy term. We started off finding our classrooms
Years 5 and 6 have continued to travel through Wonderland this term but with an
in total disarray. There had been a break in! All the chairs and
added time-travelling twist. We have been focusing on the Victorians and their impact
tables were overturned and there was hair and footprints
on our lives. This culminated in a fascinating visit to Milton Keynes Museum where the
carry out an investigation and to write up a report for them. It was the fur and footprints that led us to conclude that the Mouse King and his army from the Nutcracker were to blame! It has been great learning about The Nutcracker, a story we
didn’t really know before. We have really enjoyed designing dens for Franz. He wanted help in finding the best materials to use. We have been busy rehearsing for our KS1 Christmas production. This year we are performing Aladdin. We love the theme tune ‘A Whole New World’ and have been practising the words for the song. I expect you might have heard us singing at home! It’s quite tricky, but we’ve put some actions to it to help us remember the words. We hope you are able to come and watch us and enjoy the show, especially our dances. Merry Christmas from KS1!
Years 5 & 6 News
Years 1 & 2 News
everywhere. Mrs Govier called the police and they told us to
children experienced life in a Victorian classroom. Those that fidgeted had the finger stocks; those that slouched found the back support very uncomfortable and those that talked heard the cane! All this fed into some fantastic diary entries about life as a Victorian child or teacher. Let’s just say that we’re all very glad that times have changed! While exploring wonderland through Lewis Carroll's famous book, the children have described their own wondrous wonderlands, taught us all about the fearsome and elusive Jabberwocky and written newspaper articles heralding famous inventions. In science, we have explored electricity and sound through experiments that will make your hair stand on end (not literally!) We hope that the children have enjoyed our trip back in time this term. Merry Christmas from Years 5 and 6!
Dates for your diary… School opens for the Spring Term Wednesday 4th January
For Children in Need we had a Teddy Bear’s party and made labels for our bears, decorated the nursery and had great fun making sandwiches and cakes. The children made some wonderful cards for their families. We tried hard to write our names and then went over to the post office to post them. We received lots of comments about how well behaved the children were! ‘Our First Nativity’ was the name of our Christmas Play and all the children tried really hard to learn all the songs and performed them brilliantly! If your child is due to start school in September 2017 you must apply for their school place by 3pm on January 16th 2017. PLEASE DO NOT FORGET!
December 2016
School closes for half term Friday 10th February
Autumn 2 Newsletter Well we have come to the end of the Autumn Term in fine style, with super performances from the children in Nursery, Early Years and Key Stage One. Furthermore, the choir sang beautifully for ‘Carols in the Courtyard’ and dancers from 3ST wowed at the Waterside. As always, both the children (and teachers!) have worked extremely hard throughout the term, resulting in some fantastic work being produced across all areas of the curriculum. From Alice in Wonderland, James and the Giant Peach, The Nutcracker and The Little Red Hen, the children have been immersed in a wealth of experiences and really enjoyed their learning. A special mention has to go to the children in Reception as they have all settled in really well and are thoroughly enjoying being at ‘Big School’. We hope you have a lovely break and look forward to welcoming the children back to school on Wednesday 4th January.
40 Years of Ashmead! February 2017 will see Ashmead Combined School reach the grand age of 40 years! A week of celebrations are being planned, which will take place in the week following February half term (20-24th February). During this very special week, we will be holding an exhibition of Ashmead’s past– where we hope to display a whole range of photographs and artefacts to help tell the school’s unique story. During 2016, we have worked very hard to source photographs of the school’s past as there were very few that had survived from the first 20 years of the school’s existence. With the kind support of many ex-members of staff, pupils and friends of the school we have now collected over 400 images– but we are still on the lookout for more! Many of you have been kind enough to lend photographs already, but we would like to ask again to anyone who has not had the chance to hunt through their old albums– especially if you were at the school between 1981 and 1994. We have fewer photos for these years and would dearly love to have more to display. So, if you think you may have anything of interest to us, please let us know as soon as possible.
School Council The School Council have had a busy term, organising no less than four different charity events!
WoW Thanks to all of you who are walking, scooting, cycling, skating, park and striding to
November saw Remembrance
school! Remember you need to
Day where the School Council
record you trips to get your
collected donations for
badges!
Remembrance poppies. Then, on 18th November, we held a very successful ‘Spotacular Day’ for Children in Need where we raised
should now have received a badge for October and November.
In December, the School Council
‘Be Bright Day’ was a great
raised money for Florence
success. Remember to keep
Nightingale Hospice Charity by
staying bright, when you are
selling Christmas pencils and
out and about this winter.
three days and we had to contact the charity for more! Finally, on the last day of term, we will be holding a Christmas Jumper Day, the proceeds from which will go to Save the Children charity.
Yet again Jack has done himself and Ashmead proud for being Runner Up in a recent Active Gamerz Championship—Go Jack!
Everyone who was due one,
a whopping £592.41.
flumpets—these sold out in only
Congratulations
We had a huge response for the travel questionnaire — thank you. We hope to use some of the pictures on a school mapping project so will choose some winners soon.
Congratulations
Around Ashmead
News From Ashmead Nursery
Mmm can you smell gingerbread baking? Over this half of the term
Years 3 and 4 have thoroughly enjoyed a busy and rewarding term. The children have
we have been retelling the story of the Gingerbread Man and adding
continued to find out more and more about the James and the Giant Peach story and
our own twists by exploring how we can change the characters and
have followed James and his friends on their fantastic journey across the Atlantic
combination of actions, words and story mapping. This half of the term we have been writing in a range of contexts. Before baking our gingerbread, we wrote recipes and equipment lists, we turned new and novel characters into books of our own, and we have been using marks in maths for recording in tally and bar charts. As the weather turned frosty, we discovered dinosaurs and ducks trapped in the ice. How did they get there? How will they get out? More importantly, what is that naughty Elf doing playing with all of our toys and making a mess in the role play corner? We wrote letters to the Elf on the Shelf to ask him. As the term draws to an end, we continue to work hard on our dances for our Christmas production of the Little
Years 3 & 4 News
Early Years News
the ending. We are developing into expert storytellers by using a
Ocean in the giant peach. There has been a strong scientific focus this term too, with the children working as insect investigators. Each class has been busy finding out about the characteristics of different insects and minibeasts, helping explain to James (of the giant peach!) about all of the weird and wonderful creatures he has been travelling with. The children have continued to work hard at producing exceptional art work this term, with each class having created a hardback book containing work from throughout the term. The classrooms have literally been bursting with wonderful examples of work. In the run up to the festive season, the children have been enjoying learning a host of Christmas songs and carols and these were performed, with great gusto, at a very festive assembly during the last week of term.
Owl and the Star and we look forward to hearing back
Approximately 40 year 3 and 4 children also performed
from Santa as he reads our Christmas letters.
at Carols in the Courtyard with the school choir.
It’s been a busy term. We started off finding our classrooms
Years 5 and 6 have continued to travel through Wonderland this term but with an
in total disarray. There had been a break in! All the chairs and
added time-travelling twist. We have been focusing on the Victorians and their impact
tables were overturned and there was hair and footprints
on our lives. This culminated in a fascinating visit to Milton Keynes Museum where the
carry out an investigation and to write up a report for them. It was the fur and footprints that led us to conclude that the Mouse King and his army from the Nutcracker were to blame! It has been great learning about The Nutcracker, a story we
didn’t really know before. We have really enjoyed designing dens for Franz. He wanted help in finding the best materials to use. We have been busy rehearsing for our KS1 Christmas production. This year we are performing Aladdin. We love the theme tune ‘A Whole New World’ and have been practising the words for the song. I expect you might have heard us singing at home! It’s quite tricky, but we’ve put some actions to it to help us remember the words. We hope you are able to come and watch us and enjoy the show, especially our dances. Merry Christmas from KS1!
Years 5 & 6 News
Years 1 & 2 News
everywhere. Mrs Govier called the police and they told us to
children experienced life in a Victorian classroom. Those that fidgeted had the finger stocks; those that slouched found the back support very uncomfortable and those that talked heard the cane! All this fed into some fantastic diary entries about life as a Victorian child or teacher. Let’s just say that we’re all very glad that times have changed! While exploring wonderland through Lewis Carroll's famous book, the children have described their own wondrous wonderlands, taught us all about the fearsome and elusive Jabberwocky and written newspaper articles heralding famous inventions. In science, we have explored electricity and sound through experiments that will make your hair stand on end (not literally!) We hope that the children have enjoyed our trip back in time this term. Merry Christmas from Years 5 and 6!
