This has been a crazy first week back. Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday focused on the diversity of languages and culture within our school. In year 6 we have children born in Dubai, Romania, Uganda and Cameroon and a staff member born in South Africa. The year group also has relatives from Bangladesh, South Africa, Poland, India, Canada, Malaysia and Norway. It has been a wonderful celebration of differences and how they add to all of our lives.
Victorian Day was extraordinarily harrowing for the teachers! It was so boring being boring and Miss Fuller and I are so grateful that we teach in the modern times when children are encouraged to think and be curious. The children got to try back straighteners and slates with chalk. A couple wore the Dunce cap and some were 'caned!' The immersion into a day in the life of a Victorian was fantastic and everyone left having learnt something about themselves and about a historical period.
We made it! In some ways it feels like the time has flown but these have also been two long terms so we are extremely proud of how well the children have kept up their energy levels and concentration. Thank you so much for all your help and support over Terms 1 and 2, and for the wonderful presents - we really do appreciate it!
A particular well done and thank you to everyone who made it along to the KS2 Carol Service on Tuesday evening - it really was magical for the Year 6s to be able to start the service by processing in, singing the beautiful carol "Once in Royal David's City" and achieving this whilst carrying candles!
The children have worked so hard these past two terms so we hope they (and you) have a wonderful rest and joyful time over the holidays and we look forward to seeing them all for our next adventures when Term 3 starts on Monday 6th January 2025.
Best wishes and Happy Christmas from everyone in the Year 6 team!
It's almost Christmas! Year 6 is looking beautiful with Christmas trees, lights and decorations and the children are buzzing with excitement. Four of our year sixes performed at Glyndebourne on Tuesday evening and Miss Fuller and I were lucky enough to attend. They were amazing and hearing them sing with opera singers was surreal.
It has been so lovely to see the array of Christmas jumpers that the children have worn for the last few days. Christmas lunch was crazy and delicious - thank you to Amber, Suzy and Shannon in the kitchen. Father Christmas (the real one OBVIOUSLY) plied the children with reindeer food, marshmallows and chocolate and was a lovely Fermor touch that I always look forward to.
Looking forward to next week, please let the office know if you are concerned about your child watching a PG rated version of 'A Christmas Carol' so that teachers can make other arrangements.
After a week of assessments our brains are frazzled, but boy are we pleased with the results. Every single child improved their arithmetic scores and the reading paper, although pretty tricky, saw lots of the children scoring really high marks.
Spelling, punctuation and grammar really needs to be our focus. If your children are struggling with specific areas(like apostrophes, speech punctuation or tenses), please can you encourage them to find educational games to play to consolidate their skills in a fun way. BBC Bitesize is a really good place to start.
Carol service rehearsals are well under way and we can't wait to wow you at the KS2 Carol Service on Tuesday the 17th at 18:00.
Please remember that the children are allowed to wear Christmas jumpers on Thursday and Friday next week. Thursday is also Christmas lunch and Friday, Father Christmas in the forest.
Monday was a special day for us in Year 6 attending the remembrance service on Chapel Green. The cannon was SO loud but we all managed to remain silent.
Today was the day - the ‘Roll On’ Children in Need Event at Sir Henry Fermor School. Two staff teams raced head to head for the coveted tea pot trophy! It was extraordinarily competitive….poor Mrs Burton was being pushed by a very ferocious shark while Miss Newman wrapped up warm in her wagon and was towed ceremoniously by a T-Rex. All I can say is never employ two dinosaurs to operate a wheelbarrow.
Please donate whatever you can (even a single pound will make a difference) to the link below:
https://www.justgiving.com/page/sirhenryfermor-1729602430124
Look at this beautiful offering created by your children!
No shop bought wreath for Sir Henry Fermor School; we went one better! We cannot wait to lay it on Monday at the Remembrance service on Chapel Green.
We hope your enjoyed the church service. I have had a number of parents mention how lovely the song was so please go to the video resources page on this website, to Year 6 and the song is saved there.
https://henryfermor.primarysite.media/
Today we started thinking about the DT project for this term, the steady hand game for the Christmas fair so we will be making those in the weeks to come.
Well what a long term this has been and what a lot we have crammed in!
Thank you to those parents who came along to parents evening. It was lovely to see you all and lovely to share the progress the children have made in their SATS preparations and the targets we have set to ensure further success.
The school photos went well and some children chose to 'test drive' the special Year 6 tie. On that note, don't forget that the tie ceremony church service is the first Wednesday of term 2.
The last day finally came and we wore pyjamas, made poppies for the remembrance service and wrote stories.......the end of term 1!
Have a fantastic half term break.
Oh my goodness parents, get your tissues ready - we have started practicing our Year 6 church service where the ties are presented and it is great. The song is SO beautiful and moving that I got goose bumps.
We have also started to prepare for the remembrance day service where we will be laying a wreath (handmade by the children) at the Crowborough town service on the green, led by the mayor. Watch this space for a picture.
And drum roll please..... our long awaited CGP homework books have arrived and should be in the children's bags. These have been bought by the school, so thank you to Mr Ley for finding the budget! Homework will be set as usual on the website but the work should be done in these books and brought back into school to be marked on the following Friday. The red book stays at home all year (it is a manual to help when the children have forgotten how to do something thing mathematical!) and then needs to be returned to school at the end of the year for the next lot of Year 6.
This week the children have all given their best to the 'mock,' mock SATS! The teachers have been feverishly marking and there are improvements. YAY! Some children that didn't complete much in the last tests, completed more; and some were able to answer questions accurately that they found tricky before. We are in the process of going through the papers which is an important part of the learning too.
When I asked the children what their favourite parts of the week were they said, Science (witnessing refraction of light in water causing a pen to appear broken), PE (tag rugby games) and Art (designing our Xmas prints ready to be created into tea towels and mugs and cards!).
Don't forget that we have parents evenings on the 22nd and 24th of October. An email regarding bookings will come out soon.
We have been busy bees! We have attended not one, but two Harvest services. Thank you so much for all the donations. The display was impressive indeed!
Our health has been a focus too - both physical health and mental health - the nurses came in to measure our height and weight, the ladies from the NSPCC came in to do a workshop and then some of us had the nasal flu spray.... and that is all before we have done some amazing year 6 learning!
We are really enjoying our creative writing at the moment. If you can share some fantastic new vocabulary, descriptive phrases or similes with your children that they can use in their writing that would be great.
Next Monday we start a set of mock SATS, please don't be alarmed or let your children stress about them, we are merely trying to get them used to the processes and format so nothing comes as a surprise for the real ones!
Homework club for the rest of this term will be on Thursdays rather than the usual Tuesdays, due to prior commitments to meetings and parents evening! Miss Fuller is very sorry for any inconvenience and would like to reassure you that the normal day of Tuesday will be resumed next term.
This week has been a lot less frantic but really productive. Most of the children are really engaged and working hard. We have noticed a significant improvement in their creative writing in terms of amount and enjoyment. Poor things with a bunch of writing fanatics for teachers!
Miss Jarvis was appalled to be beaten by the children at TTRS (not really, she loved it) and now Miss Fuller has challenged the children too. Please encourage your children to revise their times tables as often as possible. We need them to have rapid recall.
Next week we look forward to both of our Harvest festival services. Please remember to drop the children to church on Wednesday and Thursday morning.
Oh my goodness we have had a crazy week! We started and ended the week with much excitement about the famous poet, Brian Moses' visit. We were not disappointed. He was really entertaining and inspiring! (The teachers were a little star struck!) During celebration worship 6F performed his poem 'Still to Do' and 6JP performed 'Walking my Iguana.'
Friday was full of surprises - we met our buddies which was wonderful and then were amazed at the flash flood that happened after the mega thunderstorm!
Don't forget to book your tours of secondary schools as the deadline for applications is the end of October.
Also, homework club begins next Tuesday if you would like to attend to ensure that homework gets done!
The hard work has begun in earnest in year 6. This week has culminated in an excellent review of poems that we have been studying and the teachers have been really impressed by the children's focus and independence. This is in preparation for our famous visitor who comes on Tuesday afternoon, the poet Brian Moses. Please remember to pop onto Parent Pay to pay and give consent for your child to attend. We will post photos afterward of his visit and the classes performing one of his poems to the school in Celebration worship.
On a more boring note for the children, (because teachers are weird and love marking assessments!) we have completed our baseline assessments for English and Maths. This means that the staff can understand where there are gaps in the children's knowledge and can endeavour to plug these in lessons and interventions. We mentioned these, and the necessity for the children to complete their homework this year as it is directly related to the content of the SATS tests, in the meet the teacher meeting on Wednesday. If you were unable to attend, please look at the PowerPoint slides in the presentations folder.
What a wonderful first week back we have had! It has been so lovely to see the children and for us all to get stuck into our new topics.
We have given the children new contact books and reading records. Please remember to use your child's contact book if you have any queries this year and encourage them to read at least three times a week. Homework will be set every Friday (usually from the CGP books that the children will be given as soon as they arrive) to be in by the following Friday. The children will mark their homework with their teacher on the Friday during lessons.
We are looking forward to seeing you at the Meet the Parents morning on Wednesday the 11th of September. Please enter the school through the Yr 5/6 exit door. A member of staff will be there to open the door at 9:00.