Term 1

 We hope you have a lovely half term and recharge for term two! 

As you can see the first term was a busy one. The children in Years one to six enjoyed their visits to the Bath Literature Festival and were inspired by the authors they saw. The KS2 children were excited to receive a book by the author they visited and are enjoying reading them.

 The Year 6 children’s term got off to a flying start with their week’s residential at Plas Pencelli which is always a highlight of my year, seeing the children grow in confidence, resilience and perseverance.

It has been lovely to see how quickly the reception children have settled into school and are already making great progress with their learning.

Wagtail Class

It certainly has been a very busy term in Wagtail class.  Our new reception children have settled in well and the Year 1s have been excellent role models. Our class book ‘All About Friends’ has given children lots of ideas of how to support each other and how to sort out problems when things go wrong.  The Year 1 children wrote instructions on ‘How to be a Good Friend’ and they came up with lots of great ideas about what qualities they would want in a friend.  In Maths the Year 1 children have been consolidating their understanding of the 100 square and have been practising counting on and back from any number.  In History the children have learnt about holidays in the past and how they compare to the holidays they go on.  The reception children have been learning all about the numbers to three including using the story of the Three Billy Goats Gruff to subitise numbers to 3 on a dice. They have learnt so much in phonics and are beginning to read simple words.  We hope everyone has had a restful half term.

Swift Class

Congratulations to all the children for completing their first term at Fitzmaurice. It has been amazing to see how well the children have settled into school life. We have learnt about our feelings and how to help ourselves calm down. We know the school rules of Ready, Respectful and Safe and have mastered many of the routines we need to support our learning. We are playing games to help us look and listen for information and finding our voices in circle times. We have been learning all about the numbers to three including using the story of the Three Billy Goats Gruff to subitise numbers to 3 on a dice. We have learnt so much in phonics and are beginning to read simple words. What a lot of brain power we have used! Here’s wishing you all had a very restful half term holiday!

Falcon & Blackbird Classes

It has been lovely to welcome your children back into their new classes. As we kicked off another exciting school year, we’ve been revisiting our school rules: being ready, respectful, and safe.In Science, we will be exploring the fascinating world of materials, learning about their properties and their everyday uses. Our English lessons featured the story "How to Babysit a Grandma." We immersed the children in the language through games, drama and story mapping.In Art, the children had the opportunity to bring their imaginations to life by drawing a story. Thank you for your continued support as we foster a positive and enriching environment for our students!

What a busy start to the new school year! This term year 3 and 4 have being investigating skeletons of humans and animals, many children were inspired by this and chose to make working models for their creative homework. Some children decided to look into their family tree and made some great discoveries about their family back stories. In writing, we have written fantasy stories based on the book ‘Charlie changes into a chicken’, the children wrote about them transforming into an array of animals and the problems that they might encounter along the way. We were also fortunate to go on a trip to the Bath literature festival and meet the author and illustrator of ‘Dexter Procter’, the children came away feeling inspired to read their own copy of the book, all 304 pages! In Art, we have been focusing on creating 3D sculptures from 2D ideas, we have worked with clay and wire. We learnt the rules of netball and have enjoyed playing small games and shooting for goal, also in gym we have created our own routines that have incorporated; shapes, positions, jumps, rolls and balances. Mammia Mia was our song stimulus for Music this term, which was performed by Doves class to their parents in assembly accompanied by glockenspiels. We are looking forward to see what next term brings!

Owl, Red Kite & Merlin Classes

Term 1 has been a busy but fantastic term for the children. We were lucky enough to see the wonderful Katherine Rundell, who shared her latest book ‘Impossible Creatures’. Did you know she ate a real tarantula, as one of the characters in her book The Explorers did this? At the beginning of this term, the year 6’s went on their residential to Plas Pencelli – a truly amazing experience for the children! Our history topic this term was all about the Vikings, unpicking the question, were the Vikings traders, raiders or something else? Year 5 and 6 learnt about the different trading routes and the impact Viking raids had on villages. They created some lovely Viking art to go alongside this. Our class book this term has been ‘The Viking Boy’, which is what we focused on for our English lessons. The children wrote brilliant informal letters, that included great detailed descriptions. In science, we had a focus of forces. The children designed their own parachutes to test air resistance and gravity. They designed streamlined boats to test water resistance. The children have really enjoyed their art lessons this term, which was based around space. The used different textures to paint their space themed backgrounds and then came up with futuristic ideas.