Rufford Park Primary School and Nursery

Week 2, ending 1 May

Mrs Amos (a.amos) on: Oak Tree Class Blog

Reader: Labiba

Special Mention: Harper

A special well done to these children!

We have all really enjoyed listening to ‘funk’ music at the start of our day – Play that Funky Music, by Wild Cherry definitely got the best reaction!

As you know, we start our week in Oak Tree Class with a ukulele lesson. This half term we are being composers, which is turning out to be quite a challenge but a really fun unit. Mr Jennings has encouraged the children to find 4 chords that they can play and put some simple lyrics and a melody to it. It is early days so far, but the children’s enthusiasm has been through the roof! We hope to perform some of our compositions at our uke gig later this term.

In Maths, we have been continuing a unit on percentages (homework this w/end) and area. We have also completed another arithmetic test.  I am hoping that your child is keeping you up to date with their recent arithmetic scores – each time we take a new test, we aim to improve our score by at least 1 more! All tests (at present) are out of 32 and it is pleasing how many children are reaching the late-twenties or early-thirties in their scores.

In English, we have begun a brand new theme of leaflets. To give the children a different ‘audience’, they are writing persuasive leaflets about Yeadon Tarn. It is likely to take a couple more weeks, but we hope to share some fabulous writing with you (*and our Y2 children too!) at the end of it.

Aim, Strike and Catch continues in PE(Mondays and Thursdays), our Science unit is learning about Space and in PSHE, we have been looking at Stereotyping.

I hope you have a lovely looooong weekend – homework this weekend is Spellings and percentages. Do encourage your child to read for a couple of half hour sessions, too.

Yours,

Mrs Adrienne Amos

Week 1, ending 24 April

Mrs Amos (a.amos) on: Oak Tree Class Blog

Reader: Layton

Special Mention: Luna

A fantastic start for these children!

Welcome back to school for Summer 1 – the countdown to your children moving up to Year 6! Every morning, the children have been listening to a little snippet of opera as they entered the classroom. (The song from Mr Bean most certainly gained the biggest reaction – O Mio Babbino Caro!)

 In Maths, we have been completing a unit on Statistics– the children have done very well with this unit; homework this week reflects this new learning – tables, charts and timetables.

Thursday morning was another time when all of UKS2 worked together – we launched our new topic of Ancient Greece. Time was spent in each of the three classrooms, delving into art, literacy and geography and the enthusiasm was very evident. We are all looking forward to further work on this exciting period of history.

This term’s class novel is by Maz Evans and is called ‘Who Let the Gods out?’ The children have looked at the cover, made predictions and read/ listened to the first four chapters. It is a fantastic book – full of humour and adventure and everyone seems to be enjoying it so far.

PE this term is Athletics and Striking Games– two fun lessons have happened already this week. We have been practising basic skills so to start off with, but we will soon move onto small games of Rounders or cricket. 

PE sessions for Oak Tree Class this term revert back to Mondays and Thursdays.

As you can tell, it has been a busy start – and I haven’t even mentioned the fabulous songwriting project in our ukulele session with Mr Jennings – more about that next week!

Have a super weekend.

Yours,

Mrs Adrienne Amos

Week 6, ending 2 April

Mrs Amos (a.amos) on: Oak Tree Class Blog

No Reader of the Week /Special mention, due to Good Friday holiday

Phew! We made it – and in one piece!! Psychedelic Music has formed the backdrop of our morning tasks – only a few children had heard of any of the bands!  But we ended with Grateful Dead today!

Our school visit to St John’s Church was an adventure for RE this week. Rev Richard explained the Easter story very well and the children were engrossed throughout! Excellent behaviour from all involved too. The children put their learning into action by retelling the Easter Week story in RE.

In Maths, we have started a unit on Statistics – it seems to be the actual language around graph reading that lets many down. They are struggling to understand phrases like ‘What is the difference between’ and ‘How many in total’. We will work more on this area when we return later this month.

We spent some time in English lessons discussing the ending of King of the Cloud Forests, but then spent the rest of the week editing and publishing the children’s yeti adventure stories – it is really good to see the progress many have made since their last piece of long writing.

I'm sure your child has told you about the April Fools' joke we played on them all! Hopefully, there's a post explaining it a little more on Facebook by now....go to the Rufford Park Primary School and Nursery and find out!   

All Y5s thoroughly enjoyed the ‘It’s a Wrap’ Party on Wednesday and we loved watching Mr Hand’s recording of our super show. Thank you so much for all your donations of crisps and sweet things – we have enough left over for another treat next term! By now, you should have received a link for the recording of the Wizard of Oz - as always, Mr Hand has done a great job!

I hope the Easter Bunny is good to you all – and you have lots of goodies to feast on!

Have a super Easter,

Yours,

Mrs Adrienne Amos

Week 5, ending 27 March

Mrs Amos (a.amos) on: Oak Tree Class Blog

Reader: Savannah

Special Mention: Louise

Jazz music has ended the term for us in Oak Tree Class – Nina Simone’s ‘Feelin’ Good’ seemed to be the most preferred performance, I think.

The three performances of the Wizard of Oz this week have been incredible! I was so proud of each child and the important role they played – it seemed that everyone had a chance to shine. Many thanks, again, for your support with this show this term – from line learning and costume buying! From raffle ticket buying to attending the show – some of you even helping out with the FORP support. Wow! So amazing! I feel so lucky to be working with your children (and some of you, too!) – and many thanks for the flowers, fizz and gifts; I felt quite overwhelmed on Wednesday night. Mr Jennings was also chuffed! I know Mr Cooke has mentioned the show in his newsletter and that some pics have been uploaded onto the RPPS and Nursery Facebook page.

Just one more week to go until Easter – and in this week, we have the Scholastic Book Fair each evening, a trip to the local church and a ‘Wrap Party’ following the show.

In maths, we continue to work hard on percentages and once this work is completed, it is hoped that all the children’s arithmetic test scores will improve – I spoke to many of you at the last Parents’ Evening about this.

In English, we are continuing to write adventure stories about a yeti and we finished reading our class novel, King of the Cloud Forests too. Please do continue with home reading with your child. Even in Y5, this is so essential to the progress each child makes.

I hope you all have a restful weekend – just spellings and maths homework this week.

Yours,

Mrs Adrienne Amos

Week 4, ending 20 March

Mrs Amos (a.amos) on: Oak Tree Class Blog

Reader: Elijah

Special Mention: Harry

Well done to these children!

House music has accompanied all our Early Bird Maths work each morning – Basement Jaxx seemed to get most heads bobbing in time to the beat!

Although The Wizard of Oz has certainly dominated our week, we have also managed to learn more about decimal numbers and percentages in maths, continued to write adventure stories and the children have learned even more about mountains and Western USA.

It was lovely to see so many of you at one of our Parents’ Evenings and I look forward to seeing you again next week at one of our performances of The Wizard of Oz.

(Tuesday at 1.30 and 6pm/Wednesday at 6pm)

Our PSHE sessions this week were quite significant for the children – hopefully your child has spoken to you about some of what they learned about puberty. Miss Atkinson also came along and did some team teaching with me. She was so positive about the children’s attitudes and behaviours.

No homework for the children this week as they have worked so hard at learning lines, dance steps and cues for the show! I've asked them to spend some time just refreshing their memories about their role for next week.

Don’t forget: We are already planning next year's trip for the current Year 5 - the dates are Wednesday 31st March - Friday 2nd April 2027. Further information about the trip will be sent to parents/carers in the Summer Term.

Have a super weekend,

Yours,

Mrs Adrienne Amos