January 2023 Newsletter
Dear families,
We have reached the end of January. For some this apparently feels like the longest month of the year and I think it certainly gets a bad press with days labelled like “Blue Monday”, which actually originated as a PR stunt by a travel company in 2004! I suppose after the excitement and lights of Christmas celebrations, January can feel a bit low key. Driving to school the other day, I heard this poem on the radio and thought, as we’ve reached the 6,184th day, I’d share it here.
Thirty days has September,
April, June and November.
Unless a leap year is its fate,
February has twenty-eight.
All the rest have three days more,
Excepting January, which has six thousand, one hundred and eighty-four.
By Brian Bilston (the “Poet Laureate of Twitter”)
It made me chuckle anyway! I, personally, have a soft spot for January as there are 6 family birthdays for me to enjoy and January feels like it carries on the celebrations of December! I am well aware it is not the same for everyone and today is its final day.
In school, the children have been busy as ever starting their new topics across school as per the topic webs on the website.
Class 1 have been learning all about Ernest Shackleton and his exploration on the Endurance to the South Pole.
They have re-enacted his journey on a boat and traced his journey on a globe.
Class 2 have been using historical skills to investigate the history of flight. They have been learning about the Wright Brothers and how we know about them, using primary and secondary historical resources.
Class 3 have been investigating the Ancient Egyptians including their art and creating some amazing dances of their own which they had to notate using hieroglyphs.
Class 4 have been learning all about GIS (Geographical Information Systems) and understanding how these systems help countries investigate, plan and recover from events and occurrences.
We have finally managed to send off our old reading books to Naguru Infant School in Uganda who will return from their school break to enjoy them.
A few of the Y6 children wrote letters to be sent and I know that Street Child (the charity I went out to work with) are going to pass those onto the school and see if we can get some responses.
Thank you to all of you who bought raffle tickets, donated prizes and generously donated funds so that these books can be used and loved by the children over there.
Finally, we have been learning about the British Values in our assemblies – particularly this month the values of mutual respect and the rule of law alongside individual liberty and tolerance. It feels like we have crammed a lot into the month and February is looking just as busy!
Thank you for your continued support of the school, staff and the children’s learning.
With best wishes,
Mrs Silk