Stroud Valley Community School

A has been busy and has really enjoyed the science experiments we put on the home learning last week. He also told me that as well as a Dumbo Octopus, there is also a Flapjack Octopus – how sweet is that!

E has been busy having a lovely time with her family. As well as bike rides, craft projects and baking a blackberry and apple crumble she has managed to do a SATs maths paper and did really well (I love the fact you have marked it with green & orange!). It was lovely to get her email and see what she had been up to. If anyone else would like to email me, please do. stroudvalley@stroudvalley.gloucs.sch.uk

Hey lovely children, as Year 6 can’t be on their residential I thought you would like to see the camp photos from last year. You look so young!

I was so impressed when I opened up I’s email and saw these photos. They have built their own suspension bridge and it can even hold daddy!It is lovely to see the whole family involved in a project.

T has been busy making a clay cat & her real cat even took a selfie! She really loved her spelling test & I loved her answers!

Walks, cycling, growing vegetables and reading in the sunshine, bliss.

In our first week together Emerald Class made their very own Quiet Critters. Quiet Critters like to sit on our desk and watch us working, but if it gets too noisy they can’t stay, they can’t stand loud noises! So they all live on a shelf and when we need to work quietly they come to our desks.

The children came dressed as evacuees, complete with a gas mask box and a small suitcase/pillowcase filled with items they would pack. They listened to Mrs Jefferies talk about her experiences of life as an WWII evacuee and seeing the bombed remains of a neighbour’s house. ‘Sergeant Nicholls-Grey’ from the Parachute Regiment came in to look for potential future recruits. The children sewed toys out of scraps of material, knitted and made models of Anderson Shelters and sung war time songs. In the afternoon they had their rations of bread, butter, jam and spam.

This term one of our PE topics is dance and the children have been learning the Charleston. They have thrown themselves into the dance and are all eager to perform in front of the class. Sorry about the blurry photos, they couldn’t keep still. Next we will be ‘doing the Lamberth Walk – Oi!’.

Aventurine and Emerald Classes had the most wonderful, atmospheric school trip. They dressed as evacuees and were sent off on a steam train. They also learnt about being a fire warden, had to spend time in an air raid shelter and much, much more (ask your child what they did).

We were lucky enough to have a genuine uniform from World War Two brought in by Daisy, thank you. The children all tried it on.

We were proud to invite parents and carers in to school to show them the wide variety of work we have done with Hedgehog Republic (HR). We displayed leaflets, our mural in reception, our amazing ‘Scratch’ games. Over the last term the children have worked with HR to create a coding game which shows the hazards hedgehogs face and what will help them to thrive and not decline in numbers further.

This term in science we have been learning about classifying animals and plants by their features and characteristics. We looked at classification keys for animals and then used the knowledge to make our own classification key for liquorice allsorts! Tomorrow we will be learning about classifying plants.

We are now halfway through our PawsB mindfulness course with Miss Lowrie. The children have been getting better and better at mindfulness activities such as FOFBOC (feet on floor, bottom on chair), five finger breathing, tummy & chest breathing and the ‘mindful mouthful’ – ask your child all about them. They have been learning all about the brain: the prefrontal cortex is the ‘team leader’ and makes decisions; the hippocampus links old experiences with new ones and helps our memory and the insula helps notice how we and others are feeling: emotions and moods.

This afternoon in DT we started to our bridge topic. We investigated different types of beams and tested them to see which was the strongest.

Don’t forget to scroll down and check out the class blog, it’s updated regularly.

Hello from V who has kept busy making herself some new toys out of old clothes (pants), she’s also doing her bridge homework here and learning all about the Sydney Harbour Bridge today.

Here is the start of an album that I have put together of what you have been up to. I will keep adding to it, so PLEASE email me. Also, I’m having fun adding speech/thought bubbles! Mrs N-G

Here are this month’s birds, butterflies, tress and plants to look for as part of wildclassrooms.org
Search for Stroud Valley forest and click if you spot anything on the list.
When you spot any of them it will add a leaf to the tree that is your class one.
If you can’t add to your tree send you spot to your class teacher via the email. You add photos too

These photographs and A’s message really brightened my day. It was lovely to see what A had been up to. His cake looked so delicious I had to rummage through Archie’s Easter eggs and just check his mini eggs tasted ok (note to readers: they did taste ok, delicious in fact!). Here is A’s message:

Dear Mrs Nicholls-Grey, I made an Easter cake but it was an absolute disaster because we put too much salt in it and no sugar. It tasted disgusting, we will try again.

Round 2 Easter Cake. I wish you all a happy Easter and I tasted this one and it tasted amazing. I wish you a happy day and I hope you like this message. From A

Here is an album of what you have been up to over the Easter break. Please keep sending me photographs so I can add to this.

Dear Parents,
We will be ringing you this week to ask you what size your child is so we can order their Leaver’s hoodies as soon as possible. Please look at the size chart and if you are able to please email us your child’s size to stroudvalley@stroudvalley.gloucs.sch.uk or we can ring you. You also need to let us know how you want your child’s name to appear. The sooner we have everyone’s sizes the sooner we can order as there will a wait of a few weeks. Many thanks Mrs N-G & Miss Kelly

Teachers love receiving your work, it reminds us how hard you children work and how creative you are. Here is a poem Arthur wrote, it’s beautiful. Hope you like the background I added Arthur?

Look at her new kitten – Jasper, he is so cute. I has been busy baking, meditating and playing with her new pet.

…look at her amazing aerial skills!

Mrs Gardiner has decided to run a picture book competition. Here is hers that she and Mr Gardiner made. Once you’ve read the blurb and feel motivated, what you write and exactly how or where the story takes your reader, well, that’s up to you. But you might want to think about what happens to Dennis. How does he get out of trouble? Who does he meet? Many picture books have a moral within them: something the character and the reader learns along the way. Does your story teach, inspire or have a positive message?

One last tip, we are of course looking for stories with beautiful and fun illustrations, we want to be dazzled with words, uplifted and taken on a journey full of emotion and drama, but don’t forget your stories should always have a beginning, middle and end!

Please send your finished story in a Word document, or if it’s a hand drawn creation then simply take a photo of each page and sent them to Mrs Gardiner at creativewriting@stroudvalley.gloucs.sch.uk. We will review every entry and publish our favourite on the school blog. When we return to school, there will be prizes for the top three stories.

Happy writing!

Some lovely photographs sent in by E, she has been very busy.

Here are some of your pets helping you with your home learning! Please keep emailing them in (or your cuddly toys).

Thank you E for sending in your lovely photos and your work, I really enjoyed reading it. As well as her school work she has been learning German, baking, mindfulness and lots more. Well done for keeping busy.

Here’s a blast from the past! Can you remember what we were learning? I do!

Here she is baking muffins, canoeing and picking vegetables she has grown during lock down, wow!