“Shaping bright futures together”

Spring Term, 29th January 2021 in Lockdown

News from Mrs. Peacey As we reach the end of what seems like a very long January, despite the snow last

weekend, there are definite signs that Spring is on the way. The primroses in the bank

opposite the school are starting to flower and the bulbs planted around the school are

pushing through and we look forward to them brightening up the school grounds.

COVID update

Should your child

receive a positive test

at a weekend or

during the holidays –

please ring or text

07709987018 and

leave a message.

This week’s Science Challenge in Class Hawthorn was to investigate whether

materials can change shape. The children found everyday items from around

the house – or classroom – and had great fun carrying out their experiments.

Well done to all – we have lots of super scientists in class.

Child Mental Health Week is taking place on 1-7 February 2021 with a theme of ‘Express Yourself’. Teachers have

changed some of the activities to take account

of this. On Wednesday we are encouraging all our pupils - both those at home and those in

school - to take part in 'Inside out day' by dressing up for the day with at least one item

of clothing inside out.

Mrs Peacey’s Google Classroom Next week Mrs Peacey will be opening the doors to her online

Classroom…join in when you see the link pop up in your Google Classroom.

One exciting bit of news is that Mrs Clements is due to return from her maternity leave after half term and will be job sharing with Mrs Tulley. To start with they will both work together and once Mrs Clements has got the hang of the Home-Schooling routine, or we are back in school again then Mrs Clements will be in class for the first three days and Mrs Tulley will be in on Thursday and Friday. Mrs Tulley is also going to work with groups of children from all classes to give them additional support.

At this juncture I would like to thank Mrs Tulley for doing an amazing job, she has worked so hard and always retains her positivity and fantastic sense of humour. She is a real asset to Ashton and I couldn’t be happier that she will be working with us for the foreseeable future.

Thank you to all the teachers and

particularly to Mrs Brown for working so

hard to get Google Meet up and running,

this will continue to develop next week. We

know that many of you who met with your

teachers and class mates today really

enjoyed the experience and that more of

you have a meet scheduled for early next

week. Please let your class teacher know if

you have not received the invitation or

permission forms.

“Shaping bright futures together”

This week many of us have been on adventures to the

moon – some flying in our home-made space rockets,

others travelling in carboard boxes and

even the bathtub – many of us packed

picnics and write lists of what we

needed to take with us.

For more photos of our Acorn adventures, please look at our class blog at

https://www.ashton.worcs.sch.uk/news/acorns-news/

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We have enjoyed some lovely story books, written our own

storyboards and retold and re-enacted stories. We have found

out about the first moon landing and looked out for this week’s

full moon. We have designed and built model rockets and lunar

buggies, explored phases of the moon and heard about the

moon’s effect on the tides. We have discovered how moon

craters were made and investigated fizzing moonrocks, created

some aliens and designed parachutes to bring our teddies back

down to earth again.

We have all been working hard

with our letters and sounds

and our reading is coming on

well whether we are learning at

home or at school.

In maths we

have been

investigating

different

combinations of

the numbers 6,

7 and 8.

https://www.ashton.worcs.sch.uk/news/acorns-news/

“Shaping bright futures together”

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After a gloriously snowy weekend, there’s been lots of learning for Hawthorn children again this week.

In English, we have been finding out about George Stephenson who is generally known as ‘the father of the railways’. The children began by making their own fact files and storyboards, and are now writing his life story. In the process, they were challenged to find out a fascinating fact. Did you know that in addition to inventing ’The Rocket’ and setting up the early railways, he also invented a cucumber straightener! Who knew that we needed such a thing!

In maths, Year 1s have been

working on addition and

subtraction up to 20 and we’re

so proud of all the work they’ve

been doing. Families have been

very resourceful in finding

items at home to support

learning – Ethan used mini

marshmallows and pasta shapes

in his ten frames! Year 2s have

moved on to division and are

exploring the links with

multiplication and times tables.

Our topic work was directly

linked to English as the

children found out about the

history of trains and the

railways.

In RE, we read the story of the lost

coin and afterwards the children got

all arty and creative. Their challenge

was to design and make ten coins

then turn them into a piece of

jewellery, a mobile or an item of

their choice. The results were really

impressive, with some of their

creations shown here.

“Shaping bright futures together”

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We have seen some fantastic work this week and have been really impressed

with all the effort that has been put into the tasks we have been setting.

We know how much effort is going into the tasks and really appreciate all

the time and effort from the parents who are supporting too. We are

however, concerned by all the screen time you are having so please make sure

you do take regular breaks. You could try to follow the 20-20-20 rule:

When following the rule, you take a 20-second break from looking at a screen

every 20 minutes and during the break, focus on an object 20 feet (about 6

meters) away. This relaxes your eye muscles and stops them from getting

tired.

There is also a free Google Chrome extension called Screen Shader, which

allows you to tint your screen and will reduce glare from the screen. There

are lots of colours to choose from, you could have a different one every day!

Maths this week has had a division

focus for Year 3, Year 4 have learnt

about area Year 5 have investigated

square and cube numbers. You are

doing a great job learning some tricky

concepts. Next week Year 3 and 4 are

looking at measuring length. If you

don’t have a ruler at home there will be

some in the entrance at school for you

to borrow.

Francesca’s maths poster

Bethany’s volcano Top

Trump card

“Shaping bright futures together”

Our English work has continued,

for part of this week, being

inspired by David Walliams

characters. The work has really

developed your creativity and got

your imaginations working over-

time. Well done for entertaining us

both with your instructions, recipe

ideas and introducing some

potential new characters to rival

the ones created by David

Walliams himself!

Topic has continued to focus on volcanoes and earthquakes

and the children have learnt about different volcanoes

around the world creating Top Trump cards for them. They

discovered that Mount Fuji had a post office on its summit!

They also designed safety advice for people in earthquakes

zones and building designs to prevent damage in the event

of a quake. The week after next we will be asking the

children to create a model of a volcano so start saving

newspapers or scrap paper for some papier mache, a small

plastic bottle and a shallow box (a cereal box would be

ideal)!!

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George’s earthquake

safety poster