Dear Parents,
This week Art Day on Monday was a fabulous celebration of work by the children. Mrs Newman visited every class and the children produced excellent examples which I know will be enjoyed at the Art Exhibition in coming weeks. Thank you to Mrs Newman for all her hard work and for making the day so special.
I was also very impressed this week with the Year 2 assembly, where the children shared their learning about their most recent topic ‘The Great Fire of London’. The children spoke with confidence on the stage and I would like to thank the parents for joining the school for this event.
One final highlight this week, was the U11 Girls’ Dynamo Cricket Tournament. I was thrilled to see the team return on Thursday afternoon with the trophy for winning the tournament. Mr Salt explained to the children in assembly how well the team played and we would like to wish them luck in the County Final next week.
Art Day
This week, we held an ‘Art Day’ to celebrate planet Earth. I worked with each class from Reception to Year 6 and all children created a piece of art, to remind us of our responsibility to protect our wonderful planet.
Reception tried their hand at sewing with wool onto hessian to produce these beautiful meadows of long grass and wild flowers. By the end of the lesson, some children were able to thread their own needles!
Years 1 and 2 used foam board, wire and feathering techniques to create a range of garden birds. I was impressed by their observational studies in terms of colour and detail.
Years 3 and 4 sculpted wire and added nylon, then mixed shades of greens and blues to paint these majestic waves. Together, they created an ocean!
Years 5 and 6 used different thicknesses and colours of wire to model a variety of insects. They paid close attention to the body parts, whilst manipulating and fixing the wire in place.
I am extremely proud of all the children’s enthusiasm to art and to using new materials. They learned that sometimes art can be tricky and that with perseverance, they can be successful. These creations will be assembled as an installation displayed at our art exhibition, in the last week of term. Well done everyone!
Drama
Sport
It was an exciting and busy week of cricket at Fairstead. Seven Fairstead girls started the week representing Chippenham in a series of fixtures V Worlington. It was amazing to see so many of our girls playing cricket outside of school, the more children we can get playing and loving the game the better. The music and bbq made it even better!
On Wednesday all our Year 5&6 girls represented the school in matches V Kings Ely. The two games were closely contested with team 1 losing by 20 runs and team 2 losing by 25. It proved to be an excellent warm up for the Forest Heath School Sports Partnership Dynamo Cricket competition on Thursday. Our U11 girls played two matches in the group stages, winning both convincingly, before progressing to the semi final V Lakenheath. Some outstanding bowling and incredible hitting saw us through to the final- a Fordham Road derby with our neighbours St Louis. More excellent bowling, and consistent strong hitting saw the girls take home the cup and progress through to the county finals on Tuesday. Good luck girls!
The week finished with one of our U9’s teams getting in on the action with a fixture V Downham Prep. Batting first we set a credible 289-6. In the field we took wickets early with some strong bowling, restricting Downham to 254-7.
Date for the diary: House cricket 28th June @ Chippenham Cricket Club. Come along to watch an afternoon of cricket and support your house.
Informal Tea Time Concert
This week, we had our fourth Informal Tea Time Concert of the summer term. Well done to everyone who performed but I must make a special mention to Mrs Rogers (violin) and Mrs Nathusius (piano) for accompanying their girls in the lovely jazz piece Shortnin’ Bread, to create a piano quintet. For me, that was one of my favourite performances in the concert. Our final Informal Tea Time Concert will be on Tuesday 20th June.
Reception
This week has been all about sharing and teamwork in Reception, and the story of ‘The Rainbow Fish’ has been the theme. The children have enjoyed completing a variety of different challenges and had great fun choosing different characters to play, as they retold the story. In addition to this, they spent time considering and writing about what makes them a special friend. Their ideas were a pleasure to hear and read.
In maths, the children worked with a friend to share different numbers of scales between different numbers of fish, and in the forest, they put their creative skills to the test and created their own rainbow fish using natural resources.
The class also said goodbye to their froggy friends this week, as they left with Edward for their new home. Thank you, Edward, and well done to everyone for taking such super care of them over the past few weeks.
A big thank you to Mrs Newman too, for coming to work with the children during ‘Art Day’. The children were able to extend their previous knowledge of sea pollution to consider how to take care of the land too. They followed instructions brilliantly to weave some beautiful meadows. They enjoyed this so much, they decided to weave some rainbow fish too! Well done to you all for another super week! Have a wonderful weekend.
Year 1
We enjoyed the most wonderful trip to Great Yarmouth’s Tide and Time Museum and the ‘Golden Mile’ beach on Wednesday. Lots of us said that it was the best day ever!
In our first activity we learned all about the Mods and Rockers from the 1960’s. We learned their catchphrases and really enjoyed shouting them at the opposing group. The Mods cried, ‘We are ace face,’ and the Rockers shouted, ‘We are the boss!’ We learned how the Mods and Rockers dressed before having our very own ‘dance-off’ in the ‘Battle of the Beach.’
Then we met a Victorian lady who was shocked to learn that it was 2023 and not 1860 She taught us all about what a beach trip looked like 160 years ago. Some of us got to try on some Victorian swimwear and we soon found that swimming would be incredibly difficult wearing the full-length costumes! We also found out about the ‘penny lick’ ice cream (not as nice as it sounds) and how ‘taking the water’ was believed to have various health benefits.
The traditional seaside Punch and Judy show was a particular highlight and had us all roaring with laughter!
Playing on the beach and having a delicious ice cream was a great way to end a wonderful day!
Year 2
Year 2 have been working so hard to polish and perfect our class assembly this week. Thursday’s performance was outstanding! The children shared their learning about the Great Fire of London with skill and enthusiasm, speaking clearly and using their lovely drama skills. We hope you enjoyed it!
On Monday we celebrated Art Day with a special lesson about birds with Mrs Newman. The children created 3D birds with foam board and wire, decorating the feathers with a special ripping and layering technique. We continue to work on time and have extended our learning to quarter past and quarter to. This was a tricky one, keep up the hard work! In science we have been learning about ‘Fair Testing’ and have created an experiment to see what plants need to stay healthy. Watch this space for the results!
Years 3 and 4
Years 3 and 4 visited the Museum of Classical Archaeology in Cambridge. In groups, the children completed a museum trail by studying the Ancient Greek statues and carefully considered what they could learn from them about Ancient Greek lives. The children applied all their knowledge to the activity and raised some thoughtful questions. They were amazed by the size of some of the statues and this helped them to imagine even more details of this historical period. This visit enhanced their topic learning and created memories for all. Years 3 and 4 were a credit to Fairstead and their knowledge, understanding, manners and behaviour impressed the museum staff. Well done!
Class Drama
This week in the Year 3&4 Class Drama lesson, pupils explored the physicalisation of animal characters from The Lion King. Using their improvisation skills, pupils had to experiment with the movement of the character and imagine they were crossing the Savanna as if their character was 100% human then 50% human and 50% animal and lastly 100% animal. Looking at the photos below, you maybe able to recognise some of the animals from The Lion King.
Have a lovely weekend!
Michael Radford