Message from Mrs Barton……… The Spring term has come to an end with a wonderful Easter celebration at St Barnabas Church.

Assessment Week Pride Well done to all pupils for showing confidence and a Growth Mindset during assessment week.

There was no need for ‘test stress’, just an opportunity to ‘show what you know’ so your teachers can help you take your next steps. You all deserve to be very proud of the progress you have been ‘showing off’ in the last week.

Science week Midfield celebrated an awesome science week; this spellbinding week was filled with mesmerising activities, buddy science experiments, under the microscope competitions and a fun filled science assembly all arranged by Mrs Spicer. Well done to Team Midfield (Sami G, Alley A, Holly S, Samuel R, Justin C and Bradley P), from Years 3- 5 for coming second in our first ever Tri Science quiz with Leesons Primary and St Mary Cray Primary School.

Congratulations to Leesons for winning the first prize. The children all had fun showcasing their science knowledge in three rounds and making new friends.

Spring bulb competition A judge from The London Children's Flower Society, visited Midfield last week. During the autumn term children from Hedgehog class planted bulbs around the log seating area and

now they look amazing even in the rain. The judge agreed and awarded the Gold Award to Hedgehog class. Well done Hedgehogs class, Mrs Kimber and Miss Simmons!

Comic Relief The school was ablaze in a sea of red in support of Comic Relief and I am pleased to report that Midfield raised £212.50 towards Comic Relief. Thank you for your support.

Defibrillator at Midfield Mrs Cafferkey has ordered our defibrillator with the charity Carly Heart trust. I will keep you updated. Many thanks for your generous support.

Wedding Congratulations! Miss Beckingham is celebrating her marriage during the holidays. We wish her every happiness and look forward to welcoming her back as Mrs Phillips after the break.

We wish all families A Happy Easter and look forward to seeing you on Tuesday 23 rd April.

Classroom News

Grasshoppers and Bluebirds

We’ve been learning about recycling and protecting our environment with our book focus ‘Awesome Dawson’. We learned about what happens to our waste and wrote recycling posters and leaflets to share our understanding. Children made creative homework projects from their waste packaging. In maths, we focussed on identifying and ordering teen numbers. Children learned what the 1 stood for in a teen number, i.e. 1 set of 10. We made paper chains to explore place value in a fun, hands-on way.

We really enjoyed making our own recycling centre — we had a paper recycling area, a plastic area and bottles area. We even had our own dumper trucks collecting and dropping off the recycling.

On our creative table we used egg cartons to explore how many different crafts we could make by reusing one waste product. The children came up with lots of creative and imaginative makes.

Beetles and Squirrels class:

Beetles class have enjoyed an immersion day on all things Mayan. We wove our own baskets, made masks and learnt the Mayan alphabet and numbers. The day finished with a trip to the library who had even more exciting activities for us.

Buttterflies

This week we have been celebrating Easter!

We had a special surprise from the Easter bunny at forest school, the children enjoyed search-

ing for treats on their Easter egg hunt. We also made some Easter cakes and have been busy

preparing our garden for Spring. As part of our topic ‘Roots, Shoots and Muddy Boots’ we

have been learning about Minibeasts’ and went on a bug hunt around the school.

Badgers and Ravens

Badgers and Ravens took a step back in time last week, as they experienced what it would be like as a prisoner in a Victorian gaol. For offences of petty theft, pick-pocketing, garrotting and drunkenness, people would be sentenced to a term in prison, which was intended to help them see the error of their ways. In an attempt to recreate what this was like, the children participat-ed in activities designed to replicate some of the gruelling punishments.

These punishments included picking oakum, the treadwheel, the canon ball and silent isola-tion. To begin with, the chil-dren were quite lively, but after the repetition of only 10 minutes per task, they soon realised how difficult it must have been for the prisoners, who would have to complete the task thousands of times a day—on just gruel and water!

Back in class, inspired by the drama, the children wrote, in character, reflective diaries.

Ladybirds

As part of Geography learning, we explored our local area and visited Sidcup Pizza Express. In class we also spoke about European countries including the United Kingdom and Italy, comparing and contrasting the two

countries. Finally we visited Pizza Express and spoke about the ingredients of pizza. Did you know that oregano means ‘Joy of the Mountain?’ and that basil and tomato goes very well together? Neither did we, but we do

now! Finally we made our own pizza and ate it at home.

Robins and Woodpeckers

The last few weeks have seen both Robins and Woodpeckers classes working hard in geography. They have participated in some enriching classes, from familiarising themselves with the multiple languages present in Switzerland to conducting online research into the physical and cultural aspects of the country. This week ended excitingly with a sampling session of Swiss cuisine. The children got to experience a real cheese fondue as well as potato rosti and authentic Swiss chocolate! They have also learnt how to write persuasively by creating wonderful travel advertisements on why you should visit the amazing country of Switzerland.

Foxes

During our Geography lessons we have been learning about the countries that make up the United Kingdom along with their associated cultures and food.

The children tasted typical foods such as haggis, Welsh cakes, colcannon and chicken tikka masala. They then critiqued each sample using a range of descriptive and very expressive language! This hands on experience led beautifully on to the production of some fantastically written descriptive food reviews.

We may have some budding food critics in the making! Move over ‘Master Chef!’

Acorns

Acorn’s have been enjoying “Stanley Stick’s”. They have been finding a variety of ways to play with their sticks. They have done ‘stick tricks’, made fishing rods, used sticks as instruments and even painted with their sticks.

Dragonflies

As part of our Science topic ‘rocks’, we have been learning about

volcanoes. We are linking this with our DT project, to design and

build our own volcanoes , that we will erupt on Friday. We can’t wait

to see the results!

We had a

fantastic time at the Easter service at St Barnabas

Church, singing the songs and listening to the

readings by Year 6.

Oaks

Oaks have had a great time on two mini trips this week.

They walked to the shops and bought ingredi-ents for cornflake cakes on Wednesday and are looking forward to baking them on Friday.

On Thursday, they walked to St Barnabas church with most of the school and took part in the special Easter service.

Rabbits

To support out geography topic of the UK, Rabbits were given the oppor-tunity to try traditional foods from around the British Isles. They sampled haggis (from Scotland), Welsh cakes (from Wales), Irish colcannon, and the good old English turnip. The children then wrote some wonderful food reviews, some of which were rather scathing!

To carry on the foodie theme, the children also completed a DT project, in which they created their own fruit smoothies. They were delightfully delicious and very healthy too!

Owls

Owl’s class have been

enjoying learning about our

new topic- The Bronze Age.

As part of this we made

models of Stone Henge and

created beautiful Stone

Henge silhouette paintings in

art.

We’ve also loved having forest school this half term! We made our own

huge birds’ nests when learning about insulation and made houses for the characters in the Gruffalo. Of

course, we also enjoyed sipping on yummy hot chocolate and eating biscuits!

Hedgehogs

Hedgehogs have had a very exciting few weeks! We have come to the end of our topic of measurement in Maths! We can now read different measuring instruments accurately!

In English, we have just finished The Iron Man! We have loved the storyline, and we were very sad for it to end. Last week we created some imaginative poems around the Iron Man and his love for eating met-al!

In Science we have made some fantastic fossils, as our topic is Rocks. We also had a very interesting les-son on Volcanoes, and today we are making some explosive Volcanoes as part of our DT project!

Merit Awards

Congratulations to Jack Ross on achieving his Gold Merit award.

Well done Jack!

NEWS

Date for your diary!

We will be holding a table top sale on Friday 17 May directly after school. This will be held on the stall by the Eco Garden. We will be selling unclaimed Lost Property along with other bits and pieces the school has no current use for. Some donations to OPAL may be sold as we haven't be able to put them to good use, but by selling them we are able to raise valuable funds to plough back into the initiative.

Thank you for your continued support.

Packed Lunches

Can we remind you that children bringing in a packed lunch must not bring sandwiches containing Peanut Butter.

We have a number of children with severe nut allergies and peanut butter puts these children at risk.

Thank you for your cooperation

PTA—Glow Disco

The PTA would like to thank everyone for their support with the glow disco. It made a fantastic £470 profit which will go towards different supplies and resources for the school.

Your support for the PTA events is appreciated.

The National School Breakfast Programme

Full launch Tuesday 23rd April

Our school has joined the governments National School Breakfast Programme (NSBP), which is being delivered by the charities Family Action and Magic Breakfast. This is in addition to the care provided in the Rise and Shine Breakfast Club.

As a NSBP school we are pleased to offer a free healthy Bagel, available to all, and enjoy the benefits that brings, with children settled and ready to learn at the start of the day.

The Bagels will be available every morning in the school hall and children have the option of having them toasted and buttered. KS2 children will be offered a whole bagel and KS1 children will be offered half a bagel.

Children can collect their bagel from the school hall on the way to class. However if children present their reading book at the gate they will be allowed in from 8.30am to sit and relax in the hall and eat their bagel whilst reading their book.

Children in reception will also be offered a quarter of a bagel which will be offered to them as part of their morning snack.

As with all initiatives parental support would be very much welcome. Please let us know if you would be available for a short period in the morning to assist.

Important Dates for Your Diary

Tuesday 23rd April—Magic Breakfast starts

Thursday 25th April—Class photographs

Tuesday 30th April 11:30— Opal family meeting

Year 2 Sats during May

Wednesday 1st May—Year 5 trip to Kent Life

Thursday 2nd May—Year 5 trip to Kent Life

Thursday 2nd May—Ladybirds Class Assembly

Wednesday 8th May– Owls class trip to Pizza Express

Thursday 9th May— Owls class assembly

Friday 10th May—Year 3 trip to Kent Life

Monday 13th May—KS2 Sats Grammar, Punctuation and Spelling

Tuesday 14th May—KS2 Sats Reading

Wednesday 15th May—KS2 Sats Maths paper 1 & 2

Thursday 16th May—KS2 Sats Maths paper 3

Friday 17th May—Table top sale on market stall after school (lost property)

Thursday 23rd May—Year 2 trip to Museum of London

Whole School Attendance 28th August—3rd April

BLUEBIRDS 95.3% GRASSHOPPERS 92.6%

OWLS 95.7% LADYBIRDS 94.5%

FOXES 97.2% RABBITS 91.9%

HEDGEHOGS 96.2% DRAGONFLIES 97.2%

SQUIRRELS 93.1% BEETLES 92.4%

WOODPECKERS 93.6% ROBINS 94.7%

RAVENS 95.9% BADGERS 95.1%

ACORNS 93.7% OAKS 92.5%

OVERALL 95.0%

Kids and Crew

Easter Fun Sessions

At the Phoenix Children's Resource Centre - Classrooms

40 Masons Hill Bromley BR2 9JG

Tuesday 9th and Wednesday 10th April 2018

For children age 3-8yrs who have an Additional Need and/or a disability? Siblings aged 3-8yrs are also welcome.

Children are welcome to attend 2 x sessions (1 x per day)

Sessions: Morning 9.30–12noon or Afternoon 1–3.30pm

Book Early as places are limited and will be allocated on a first come basis via a completed appli-cation only. Applications must be received by 31st March.

Parent/Carers are not required to stay at these sessions

A SNACK AND DRINK WILL BE PROVIDED FOR EACH OF THE CHILDREN

COST: £10 per child per session

AN EASTER EGG and treat bag FOR EVERY CHILD

The Fun will include a visit from the Easter Bunny, Easter crafts, icing cakes and biscuits, soft play, sensory room and lots more.

Kids and Crew offer high adult to child ratios of 1:1.5 for all SEN Children and 1:4 for siblings. Experienced staff who have up to date DBS checks.

Unfortunately we are unable to offer any 1:1 support at these sessions.

For more details or an APPLICATION FORM please contact Lynne Fletcher - at Kid-sandCrew@hotmail.co.uk phone 01689 810717 – 07999 487674 All our children’s event are subsidised by Kids and Crew through Fundraising Events and Kind Donations