Auckland College Newsletter April 2018
I have taken time throughout the Easter Holidays to reflect on all the wonderful activities I have seen throughout every aspect of the school during the Spring Term.
We began with our parent assemblies. It was so great to see all pupils demonstrate their learning to so many parents and family members. The growth in confidence of our Pre-Prep pupils was fantastic to witness. I am so pleased so many of you were able to join us.
We celebrated World Book Day on 1st March and the effort put in to costumes for pupils and staff was again amazing to see. The Prep classes participated in various workshops for reading, writing and drama throughout the day.
We had a great level of attendance at all our parents’ evenings and it was great to chat to parents I don’t normally see on a day-to-day basis.
We supported the charity Sport Relief this term
through various activities such as: a dance-a-thon, a skip-a-thon, a non-uniform day and badminton tournament. Although I haven’t yet received the grand total we raised, Mr Wellington was delighted to tell me we had raised over £1000 before the holidays! A few more sponsor forms have come in during holiday club and if anyone else has any more sponsorship to return, then please do so on Tuesday 10th April when we return.
I must give a very special mention to the pupils in Miss Croft’s Year 5 class, as they alone raised over £500! Well done!
Our PTA offered prizes for our Easter Bonnet Parade. The creations were fantastic and a few are featured in our pictures section overleaf. The PTA also organised for a very special guest to visit our Pre-Prep and Reception classes. We all agree that the Easter Bunny can come again, as each child received a special chocolate treat and it was wonderful to see the excitement in their faces!
Look out for more activities this term from our PTA.
As we move into the Summer term, hopefully we will enjoy some better weather and see our pupils take advantage of Sefton Park on our doorstep for some of their lessons.
Exam season will be upon us in just 5 weeks and our pupils have been working hard over the holidays, attending booster sessions with staff. We would like to wish them all the best of luck and hope they continue to work hard until all are completed on 12th June.
I must congratulate my Deputy Head, Mr Ramsden and his wife, on the birth of their second child. William Mark was born on Wednesday 14th March weighing a very healthy 10lbs 11oz. Mum and baby are doing very well and big sister Penelope is very proud.
I look forward to another successful term.
Miss Boyd
A Message from Miss Boyd, Head Teacher
Contents:
☺ Welcome
☺ Important information
☺ Achievements
☺ School performances
☺ Pre-Prep and Prep Class information
☺ Secondary News
☺ Photographs this term
Every Pupil Matters, Every Moment Counts
All pupils from Reception to Year 11 should be in class by 8.30am for Registration each day.
Summer uniforms can now be worn from Tuesday 10th April.
1st May will be ‘Class Photo’ day. Pupils should
attend in full school uniform and bring PE kits with them if they have PE on a Tuesday.
We kindly ask all families to refrain from bringing nuts and nut products into school for snack. We have now moved to be a ‘Nut Free’ school.
Impo
rtant
Mess
age
s
Auckland College Newsletter April 2018
Page 2 Auckland College Newsletter April 2018
Achievements
What has Pre-Prep 2 been up to? - Miss Smith
Pre-Prep 2 has really enjoyed the Topic of “Superheroes” this term; they have put their writing skills to good use labelling their superhero pictures and thinking of words to write that a superhero might use. We also had lots of fun making our own ‘Supertatos’ after reading the story book.
We had lots of little superheroes in class too for World Book Day and children had a wonderful time dressing up. It was wonderful to see the effort that everybody put in to the costumes. The children also enjoyed the
book swap and talking about their favourite characters and books.
In Phonics we have continued to learn tricky words by sight and the children have worked very hard practising recognition and letter formation.
In numeracy we have looked at ‘one more’ and ‘one less’ and have begun to learn how to use a number line to help with this.
In PE we have been using our feet
to push footballs in and out of
designated areas without using
our hands and working in teams
to compete and try to score the
most goals.
What has Pre-Prep 1 been up to? - Mrs Collins
The children have been working very hard this half term, in Pre Prep 1.
In Literacy the children have been learning how to retell stories in their own words, as well as create their own stories in small groups. They have been looking at different types of characters, and how certain characters help others, in the stories.
They have met and learnt new characters and their sounds in Letterland, as well as identifying objects that begin with them sounds.
During PSED, the children have been looking at helping others, as well as
talking positively about themselves. They have talked about their talents and shared their talents with their peers.
During Numeracy, we have been focussing on how to measure objects in the classroom, using cubes. The children have been counting how many cubes tall an object is, and describing if it is taller or shorter than another object. The children have been continuing to practice counting objects and recognising numerals to match. They are currently working very hard, doing
this.
Pre Prep 1 has had an excellent half
term, well done!
Secondary Merits Secondary Attendance Prep Merits Prep Attendance
Gold
Hariksan Pusbagar
Gold
Lana Alwehaibi
Gold
Cara Higgins
Gold
Joshua Atkinson
Silver
Lana Alwehaibi
Silver
Fuad Nassir
Silver
Amelia Appleton
Silver
Amy Berry
Bronze
Jacob Chan Hassall
Bronze
Jaden Cole
Bronze
Jori Soliman
Bronze
Daisy Dodgson
This term we have enjoyed our topic about dinosaurs, we talked about when dinosaurs existed and talked about differ-ent species of dinosaurs too. We have even welcomed our own dinosaur egg which hatched into a triceratops! The children have enjoyed learning about fairy tales in literacy, they have acted out the stories as role play and developed their own ideas of ‘what happens next’. The children have also enjoyed looking into the characters and created character profiles and speech for what they could say. The children have also begun to demonstrate their wonderful writing skills and have been writing their news for us to read out each Monday.
For numeracy the children have been enjoying counting as far as they can to 100; they have been enjoying counting in 10s too. The children have been practising using several methods of addition and subtraction; we have looked at using our fingers, number lines, 100 squares and practical methods of cubes and counting bears etc. Through these methods the children have really begun to understand making a number more or less. They can all understand and write number sentences to reflect practical work.
Towards the end of term all of our
Reception Class have caught ‘The Kindness
Bug’. We have captured special kindness
bugs and spread them all around the
room. They have been advising us how to
be kind and whispering kindness to each
other all day. The children enjoyed
capturing the kindness bugs inside of a jar
and writing down what they said. They
have been spreading the kindness bug ever
since!
What has Reception been up to? - Miss Schofield
Easter Activities
What has year 2 been up to? Miss Bainbridge + Miss Quinn
What has year 1 been up to?- Miss Kelly and Miss Crowley
What has Year 3 been up to? - Miss Lyons
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Year 1 has been working hard this term and continue to produce wonderful work in all subjects.
In Literacy this term, pupils have completed the unit ‘Playing with Language within Poetry’. Pupils have read several ‘Tongue Twister’ poems and studied ‘Nonsense Poems’. They have thoroughly enjoyed creating their own poems, like the ones read in class.
In Numeracy, Year 1 has been focussing on numbers in relation to other numbers and where they belong on a 100 square. Pupils have worked on rounding numbers to the nearest tens number. As
well as, using the ‘more than’ and ‘less than’ symbols (> <).
This term, pupils have thoroughly enjoyed learning about ‘The Great Fire of London’ in their history lessons. Pupils have retained lots of facts and information about the events of the fire and I am very pleased with the diaries the children wrote in the style of Samuel Pepys’ diary.
This term, Year 1 pupils spent an afternoon with the author, Jude Lennon. The children took part in a question and answer session after listening to her read the book ‘Super Bob’. Jude talked about
her reasons for writing this book and her role in the ‘Slow down for Bobby’ campaign. This was a wonderful oppor-tunity for Year 1 to understand the importance of road safety and revisit rules for helping us keep safe on the roads.
Year 1 look forward to the challenges of
next term and I am sure all pupils will
continue to make excellent progress
across the Year 1 curriculum.
This term in Literacy, year 3 has been
studying Greek mythology and
developing their own Greek myths. They
have successfully applied their
understanding of descriptive language to
create a clear image in the reader's
mind. All of the children have thoroughly
enjoyed learning about Greek mythology
and particularly loved participating in a
'Conscience Alley' activity on World Book
day, allowing them to empathise with
the well-known character, Perseus. It
was wonderful to see that each child
could justify their decisions with
their excellent reasoning skills.
In Numeracy, year 3 have been working
extremely hard to tell and compare
intervals of time. They have also used
their understanding of addition and
subtraction to convert 12-hour analogue
time to 24-hour digital time. Recently,
year 3 have been focusing on the range
of methods used to multiply and divide
using the inverse operation to check
their working. The class love to apply
their understanding in their Friday
challenge sessions too, applying their
understanding gained from that week to
solve problems.
In the foundation subjects such
as Geography, year 3 has been
investigating the extreme events that
occur around the world. The whole class
can confidently describe and understand
key aspects of physical geography in the
context of volcanoes, earthquakes and
tsunamis. Furthermore, year 3 has
created some fantastic posters, providing
guidance on the safety procedures that
must be followed during such
extreme events.
Year 2 have thoroughly enjoyed this half- term and have produced some wonderful work across the curriculum.
In Numeracy, this term the children have covered many topics. They have explored solving word problems using multiplica-tion and division and started to look at dividing with a remainder. They also have been adding and subtracting using the column method and using carrying.
This term in Literacy, Year 2 pupils have been planning and writing their own poems. The children read poems featuring different examples of rhyming couplets. The children then went on to invent their own poems including rhyming couplets.
In Geography we have been looking at life in a city. We have discussed capital cities and compared the human and physical features of two cities
before discussing our local area.
We look forward to the challenges
of next term and are sure all
pupils will continue to make
excellent progress across the Year
2 curriculum.
Auckland College Newsletter April 2018
This half term in year 4 has flown by in the blink of an eye!
It has been a fun filled half term where we have been learning lots of new and exciting things!
In topic this half term we have been looking at the Tudors and Henry VIII. This is something we have particularly enjoyed and have found very interesting.
A particular highlight this half term was world book day. It was great to see all of the amazing costumes in our class, with all of our favourite characters on
show.
Within our Literacy we have focused upon poetry and play scripts, with many children showcasing their creativity throughout.
Our Numeracy lessons have helped us to improve our multiplication and division with many of us now able to recite most of our times tables.
I have been very proud to award another pen licence this half term and hope to see the rest of the class work towards this goal
during the next half term. It has been great to see so many children improve their handwriting so much over the past few months.
account of events.
In Mathematics, Year 6 children
have worked on understanding and
using simple formulae. They have
learned how to express missing
number problems algebraically, to
find pairs of numbers that satisfy an
equation with two unknowns and
generate and describe linear num-
ber sequences. Year 6 used long
multiplication to multiply 3-digit
In Literacy Year 6 children explored newspaper writing, roleplay interviews with their peers, and considered accuracy in news reporting. They revised: dialogue and reported speech; colons, semi colons and commas; and punctuating lists with bullet points. The children then wrote a report of a car crash where they were a wit-ness and police officer and dis-cussed about a balanced or biased
numbers, then 4-digit numbers by
2-digit numbers. They used
rounding to approximate and also
used long division to divide 3-digit
numbers, then 4-digit numbers by
2-digit numbers.
Page 5
What has Year 6 - Mrs Mukankusi
Auckland College Newsletter April 2018
What has Year 4 been up to? - Mr Hare
such as Ali Baba and Aladdin and the Enchanted Lamp, and have been looking in more detail at the culture behind them and characters. For play scripts, the children got really involved with the performing and thinking carefully about stage directions - I loved watching the different performances and their confidence grow! This half term, we have been looking at music evolution throughout the 20th century and the children have enjoyed listening (and dancing) to
different genres that they have never heard of before. We thoroughly enjoyed World Book Day and seeing everybody’s different outfits and all of the effort and thought put into it! Year 5 took part in a few workshops during the day with various teachers, and discussed what they dressed up as and what book it was from.
This half term, Year 5 has been working hard. In Numeracy, we have been recapping and developing our knowledge in measurement, area and perimeter. The children have tried to challenge themselves and have worked extremely hard on mastery questions to deepen their learning. In Literacy, we have been focusing on play scripts and stories from other cultures; the story that we have been looking at has been Arabian Nights (a frame story). The children have delved into the stories
What has Year 5 been up to? - Miss Croft
Year 7/8
This term Y7/8 has been studying the different types of reactions including: acid/base; combustion; reduction. Year 7/8 also researched the process of metal extraction, including iron and aluminium, as well as phytomining and bioleaching.
Year 9/10
Year 9/10 has been learning about
the wonders and mysteries of
magnetism and electricity. They
have: investigated the magnetic
fields of bar magnets; drawn circuit
diagrams; calculated resistance;
discussed evidence for the Earth’s
magnetic core. Year 9/10 have
certainly seen the attraction of the
topic!
Year 11
Year 11 has been working hard this term to learn about Fleming’s left hand rule and the application of it
by: describing how motors work; explaining the ‘jumping wire’ experiment; applying the right-hand grip rule; drawing magnetic fields. I think Year 11 would agree that this topic has gotten a bit out of hand! Well done for your hard work Y11.
History
Secondary pupils have explored a
variety of topics: Year 7/8 pupils have
been studying aspects of the Industrial
Revolution, while Years 9/10/11 have
recently visited St George’s Hall as part
of their study of a local historical site.
Our Year 11 pupils are currently
working towards the completion of
their syllabus in each subject prior to
their summer examinations. All of our
teachers continue to offer pupils their
full support and provide extra booster
sessions as they revise for their
forthcoming examinations.
English
During the term pupils have enjoyed a
range of topics: Year 7/8 have been
studying the main features of drama
texts and have participated in a range of
drama activities, Year 9/10 have been
exploring different ways writers present
extreme topics such as sport and
weather conditions, while Year 11 have
been exploring different forms of
narrative.
Enhanced Curriculum - Mrs Savage
Science - Mr Kelly
English - Mr Davies History
Firstly, we need to know which topics
pupils have enjoyed the most over the
last couple of years, so that we can
include the best of those again.
Then we’d like ideas for new topics.
These must be topics that can be
taught to a group of at least 15
children; they need to be age
appropriate and they need to be
something that we can achieve a
result in within a 5-7 week timeframe.
This is your chance to get involved
Our 2017 – 2018 Enhanced
Curriculum has been filled with a
wonderful range of interesting topics
to suit all tastes.
Now we have come to the time of
year when we need to start
considering what our pupils will study
in Enhanced Curriculum in the next
academic year and we would like
parents, teachers and pupils to be
involved!
and have your say, so please e-mail your ideas to me, Mrs Savage, at [email protected] I shall gather all ideas together and present them to the Senior Management Team. Then, when the decisions have been made, I will create options leaflets so that everyone can choose what they most want to study in the Enhanced Curriculum next year. I look forward to hearing from you.
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April 2018
Page 7 Auckland College Newsletter
April 2018
Our Gallery of Stars
Blue Planet Aquarium
Amazing Authors!
Enhanced Curriculum Baking!
Enhanced Curriculum Robotics!
Enhanced Curriculum Fashion & Textiles!