Monday February 10th
Thanksgiving Retreat Morning
This morning Issie lead the class in a retreat all about what we are thankful for. They thought about how we say thanks and who we say thank you to and they wrote thank you prayers to give to their friends. The retreat also focused on saying thank you to God and how The Eucharist actually means ‘Thanksgiving’. The story of The Last Supper was read to them and they thought about receiving the Body and Blood of Christ during Communion. 
To celebrate our passion for reading, St Mary’s invited in a children’s author, M.P Robertson, on February 13 to share his work.
Mr Robertson showcased his writing and illustration skills with the class and read from several of his books, including Dare to Care: Pet Dragon, before the children had a chance to draw a dragon of their own. They produced some amazing art work!
TO celebrate our passion for reading, St Mary’s invited in a children’s author, M.P Robertson, on February 13 to share his work.
Mr Robertson showcased his writing and illustration skills with the class and read from several of his books, including Dare to Care: Pet Dragon, before the children had a chance to draw a dragon of their own.
YEAR 4 began a weekly reading session with Year 1 on February 3 as part of a drive to encourage reading and boost their confidence levels. The children shared their respective texts before discussing what they enjoyed about them.
“I learnt that we should change our password a lot and have parental controls on our devices.” Alishba
“Do not give your personal information away to strangers. Have a password with a variety of letters, numbers and symbols.” Jamie
“You should come off devices an hour before going to sleep.” Jeremiah
“Never answer questions that involve your location.” Rhiley
“I have learnt to not meet up with people I don’t know.” Dan A
Year 6 attended WE day Nottingham at the Royal Concert Hall – the first WE day event in the UK to be held outside London! There was a star-studded line up including Bella Ramsey, Vicky McClure, Joe Dempsie and even Martin Luther King III! Each speaker had an inspirational story to tell to help show us all how we can make a change in the world.
Following the event, we will work on one local and one global issue for the year and our focus, chosen by the children, will be on ‘Reduce, reuse, recycle’.
Simon, Chris, Verna and Albert, in partnership with Belong Community Group, visited us in school to talk about the explorations of David Livingstone in Africa. They taught us about the slaves he freed and his companionship with Susi, Chuma and Jacob Wainwright.
Supported by funding from the Heritage Lottery Fund, we visited Newstead Abbey, where David Livingstone Susi and Chuma stayed during their time in England. We visited the very spot at Newstead where Susi and Chuma posed for a photograph with Livingstone’s children and friend and tried to consider what their experiences were like.
Our friends visited us back at school and brought examples of old documents, letters and diaries sent by Livingstone, his friends and slaves. We used these, and our learning about Susi and Chuma, to write our own letters as though we were them. We even tried writing with quills!
Wow! We have been absolutely blown away with all the of the effort that has gone into the Mayan homework projects. Well done Year 5 for creating such a fantastic exhibition!
In our English lesson this morning, Year 5 were learning how to make notes from paragraphs of text. We were skimming and scanning the texts. Then, using bullet points and paraphrasing to make the notes. We wrote the notes on white paper which was covering our classroom tables – very World Cafe style!
