We had a wonderful Easter activity session in church with all our friends and families. The children made magnificent Easter bonnets, decorated eggs, made an Easter garden and took part in Flowering the Cross. It is always special to come together in St Andrews Church. Thankyou to Stephen and Rev. Chi for making us feel so welcome. Happy Easter everyone.

The children had an amazing time at Warwick Castle on Tuesday. The trip brought to life learning across the curriculum. They identified the castle features on the ramparts, climbed the steep, spiral staircase to the tower, stood where the original Motte Castle was, watched a spectacular bird show and explored inside the magnificent castle. The children enjoyed sharing the experience with children from across the federation.

Conkers class enjoyed a special Early Years Day with the children from Sherrington school while the rest of the school were on their visit to Warwick Castle. Our book for the day was The Very Hungry Caterpillar and was the springboard for our learning. They made the different stages of a caterpillar’s life cycle and put them together to see how one stage moves into the next. They explored different fruits and thought about where they grew and looked for their seeds before making fruit skewers. They went on a caterpillar hunt in the garden and worked in pairs to find and record how many they spotted. The children really enjoyed sharing their learning with their new friends.

What a fabulous Medieval day we had last Friday. We explored the of roles of those who would work in a castle. We were bakers and baked bread to share, weavers and wove place mats, goblet makers decorating our cups with jewels, we were scribes and used goose feathers and ink to write, armorers designing our own shields and some of us worked on building our castle models. We ate our lunch banquet style and learned to do a medieval dance together. Horse chestnuts are all set now for their visit to Warwick Castle this week.

The children were spellbound on Friday with an inspirational visit from Toscana Strings. This quintet of stringed instruments and a solo ballet dancer retold the tale of The Nutcracker. The children enjoyed joining in with some of the moves and after the event were keen to share their thoughts on this magical experience.

As part of this terms learning about portraiture, we had a visit from a the local portrait artist, David Newans. David is an accomplished artist with a wealth of experience spanning 30 years and has featured in many major exhibitions in London.

He showed the children some of his oil paintings and drawings and talked to the them about his life as an artist. David did a 10 minute sketch of Mrs Pritchard, in front of the children and talked about the use of tone to create form. The children then had a go at making their own speedy portraits of each other while David made a longer study of one of our other visitors. The children stopped to see his drawing at different stages and were surprised by how life like his drawings were.

We had a lovely service in church to celebrate the achievements of our year two leavers. All our friends and families came to say goodbye.

Canal Trip

What a fabulous morning the children of St Andrews had with a trip on ‘Electra’ the community canal boat. We made so many connections with our learning about habitats, environmental pollution caused by plastic waste, and identifying human and natural features in the urban landscape. We also did an eye spy walk along the tow path and noticed how many plants were starting to fruit – from tiny cockers to brambles and wild rose.

Exploring an ocean theme in art

In art the children at St Andrews have really enjoyed exploring watery worlds as part of our oceans and sea topic. KS1 made their own sketchbooks from old envelopes and created mixed media artwork in response to listening to soundscapes of the ocean and watching images of tropical underwater scenes. The reception children started their big painting of the ocean using brooms and cardboard scrapers to create texture and movement. They then used collage, making fish and sea creatures to swim in their ocean. We have looked closely at shells and made observational drawings in our sketchbooks using drawing pencils and worked on a larger scale in charcoal. This week we have been exploring different printing techniques - drawing into an inked surface and making mono prints and then making push prints with tiles that we drew into. We have a school full of budding artists!

Outdoor Learning Week

What an amazing outdoor learning week we have had at St Andrews. Taking our inspiration from the beautiful book by Laura Brand – Slow down and be here, we have looked closely at our local environment and discovered plants and mini beasts that live in a variety of different habitats. We have also explored making mini beasts in art and moving like them with Layla the drama teacher.  Exciting visitors such as Cave Man (physical fitness) and The Great Gappo (circus skills) came to school and got us using our bodies in new ways. We also made our own paintbrushes using naturally found materials and explored mark making with them. What a fabulous week of learning we had.

We were blessed to be visited this week by a group of volunteers from the National House Building Council who gave up their time to help tidy the garden, a job that was in great need of doing! They worked tirelessly - cutting the grass, weeding the garden and helping to clear an area for us to turn into a quiet reflection corner. During our collective worship the group spoke to the children about what it means to give up their time and energy and how it makes them feel good, doing something for others, without expecting anything in return. This linked beautifully to our value of service that we are focusing on this term. From us to them …THANK YOU!

It was wonderful to gather with friends and family in the village church for our Easter activity session. The children loved The Flowering of the Cross and along with the Easter garden they made, decorated the church during Holy week.

The children really enjoyed our trips to Kingston Gym and it was fantastic to use the equipment and have specialist teachers on hand.

The children have loved learning all about the Great Fire of London and building their models of Tudor houses.