Some of the Reception staff had a fantastic morning on Friday, meeting lots of the children from Little Owls, who will be starting in our Reception classes in September.
The session gave the children the opportunity to check out their new outdoor area, called ‘Ted’s Den.’ They had a lovely morning and spent time exploring the mud kitchen, water area, digging pit and climbing equipment.
We are so pleased to be able to offer some transition sessions for the children this year. It is lovely to see how confident they are in their new environment. If your child does not attend the Little Owls or William Cowper pre schools, please contact us so they can join us for these additional visits.
The children were in awe and fits of giggles with the visitor that came to year 2 at Toftwood Federation this week! On Wednesday 14th April, Ben Langley, star of the Great Yarmouth Hippodrome circus and participant of Britain’s Got Talent, entertained each of the year 2 classes with jokes, tricks and also misheard song lyrics!
One of the children said ‘he was so funny that it made my cheeks hurt!’ Another remarked, “he was the funniest man on the planet!”
It is safe to say that this really added an extra smiley boost to our week as well as watching a live performance and understanding how to be a wonderful audience.
His performances took place on the school playground to ensure that all our COVID safe guidelines were followed and it was amazing to have a visitor finally enter our school again! Mrs Pedlow, Head teacher said “It was such a pleasure to have a live performance in the school for the children. They responded so well and felt they had seen a star in their school.”
To celebrate ‘Red Nose Day’ this year the children across the Federation enjoyed taking part in a range of activities and represented their personality or how they felt by wearing an array of bright colours.
During the day they also reflected on what super power they may have that they could put to good use and make someone else happier. We have seen extra positivity, kindness and thoughtfulness which has resulted in much happiness on this bright and sunny day.
The children in the infant classes created masks and profiles to complete their new superhero identities!
“I am called Rainbow Girl. I help people when they feel sad and I make them feel happy again” – Year 1
“My superpower is making people smile” – Year 1
“My superpower is asking mummy if I can pick up litter” – Year 1
Altogether, we have managed to raise a massive £577.70 for Comic Relief! Well done everyone.
Safer Internet day is taking place on 9th February 2021. The theme for this year is: An internet we trust: exploring reliability in the online world
This year in the UK, Safer Internet Day is focusing on the reliability of the internet. When you go online you can visit and find an amazing range of information and opportunities online, but how do we know what is fact and what is fiction.
Use the link to explore the resources that the Safer Internet Website has to offer, even a certificate that you can print off and share with your class teacher to say that support Safer Internet Day.
This term, the children have taken part in a competition to design a poster all about protecting the environment and the different pollution that the planet faces. This was for global Pollution Prevention Week, which also coincided with U.K. Recycling Week. The children watched an assembly with videos and shared their ideas about the effects of pollution and how to recycle. They were then given the task to design a poster with an oak tree as the ‘prize’ for doing so. Almost 40 children across Infants and Juniors submitted amazing posters – have a look at Olivia from CP3’s poster and Katherine from RL5 with her tree! Those children who entered received an oak tree for their garden! The posters were thoughtful, imaginative and well presented, as you can see, and they really show what an amazing bunch of thoughtful and environmentally-conscious children we have across the Toftwood Federation. Planting trees is a major way we can tackle pollution and climate change and the children who received one made a promise to look after it, with instructions on how to care for their tree.
On Friday 11th December, Year 1 and Year 5 classes joined a virtual presentation from Libby Jackson, who is part of British Astronaut Tim Peake’s team. It was all about life at Christmas on the International Space Station (ISS). We learned about Christmas traditions – and why Christmas Day is in fact Celebrated twice – and how Santa delivers presents out in space! At the end of the presentation, which included videos of life on the ISS and how Libby works in Mission Control – schools who had joined from across the country got to submit questions via the ‘chat’ link in the video. One of our questions, ‘What do you like about your job?’ was even seen and answered by Libby Jackson herself!
It has been a different kind of term without visitors and the usual science events in school, so it was really nice to be able to be a part of something as engaging and interactive as the Libby Jackson talk and to be able to do something for the environment by giving away oak trees. We look forward to more exciting events next term!
The federation supported Anti Bullying week this year by taking part in the ‘Odd Sock’ assembly created online by the Anti-Bullying Alliance. Throughout the week the children took part in discussions within their bubbles about friendship and the importance of kindness to others. Lots of children came in with their odd socks on at the beginning of the week to celebrate their uniqueness and chatted about their individual talents and strengths. We discussed with the children what to do if they felt someone was being unkind to them, and recapped the importance of our Golden Rules, PATHS rule and speaking to a trusted adult.
To support ‘Children in Need’ this year the children were invited to send in photographs via Dojo and Tapestry of themselves dressed up in spots, Pudsey outfits and as key workers. We had so many fantastic photos to look through. Well done to everybody for supporting such a great cause. As well as a special assembly to discuss the day, the school council voted on a wellbeing theme for the afternoon. Year groups took part in mindfulness colouring, yoga and relaxation activities. A fun time was had by all! Thank you to everyone who sent in donations to the Children In Need charity.
Remembrance Day was marked within the federation this year with the selling of poppies and individual class assemblies. In each class the children also took part in a silence at 11am. The children discussed with their classes the importance of the day. They learnt a little bit about the history of selling poppies, looked at photographs related to Remembrance day, and discussed why we come together every year to mark this event. The Reception children spent time during the day creating and making their own poppies to take home. During the infant assemblies, the children were shown a short animation designed to explain Remembrance Day to younger children.
Children from the Federation came together for a second year
running, to join in with national Sign2Sing day. Over the last few weeks
children have been learning the words and signs for a specially written song (‘Get
Up and Sign!’), and on Thursday 6th Feb the whole federation filled
the halls to perform.
The event, which was organised at Toftwood by Reception
Teacher and KS1 Music coordinator, Hannah Tataryn, is to raise awareness of
deaf health and promote sign language. It is the only mass participation
signing event in the UK with thousands of children in schools across the
country taking part.
There are several children at our school who are deaf or
have hearing impairment and many others who have deaf friends or relatives.
This was an amazing opportunity to celebrate the beauty of sign language and
the importance of being able to communicate with everyone in our community to
learn about one another.
(SignHealth was founded in 1986 as the Anastasia Trust, and relaunched as Sign in 1991. In 2005, the charity was renamed SignHealth, and offers a range of services, projects and support to improve the health and wellbeing of Deaf people.)
Fe,
Fi, Fo, Fum, prepare yourselves for lots of fun!
What
an entertaining start to the Federation New Year thanks to the amazingly
talented actors of M&M Theatrical Productions. The children had been
waiting in anticipation for this exciting day to arrive and they were certainly
not left disappointed with the colourful pantomime which was packed full of
fun, adventure and age appropriate humour.
The
children were thoroughly engaged by the hilarious antics from the characters:
Jack, Jill, Jack’s Mum, Buttercup the Cow, The Scary Giant, Squire Bogey (Booo…)
and not forgetting the Giant’s 7 foot baby! Their adventures took them to the
dizzy heights of Nursery Rhyme Land where they met even more interesting
characters along the way, including the infamous Humpty Dumpty. The climb was well
worth the effort as they found a sparkling, golden egg which paid off their
rent debt to the dastardly Squire Bogey (Booo…)
The enthusiasm
from the audience was a wonderful sight to see, the broad smiles on the
children’s faces were contagious as they laughed, booed, cheered and clapped
along. They especially loved singing and reciting their multiplication
knowledge to the times tables song!
Jack and the Beanstalk was a great hit with its wonderful costumes, superb scenery and magical special effects all combined to deliver an electric atmosphere and guarantee our young audience a truly imaginative, enthralling journey into the world that is Pantomime. Every year group engaged well with this live theatrical performance.
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