Stroud Valley Community School

During the last week of term, we all enjoyed a range of activities with a theme of the ‘Queen’s Jubilee’. The children learnt all about our longest reigning monarch and the key events in her life. We also took time to learn the national anthem; bake cookies that the Queen herself would love to eat; test our stitching skills creating our own bunting and make union jack pompoms. It was a great week that ended with a whole school ‘Jubilee picnic’.

Have you ever wondered what physical and human features you can see in Norway’s landscape? And what about how our environment compares to the fjords of Scandinavia?

Using paper, modroc, paint and clay, we created landscape sculptures that explore the 2 landscapes. It was great to see the children working collaboratively and bringing their work to life with miniature buildings and other human features.

Just before the Christmas holidays, we met some amazing animals in our school. Some where furry and cuddly whilst others took a bit of getting used to with their slimy or spikey bodies! Well done to all of the Quartz children who overcame their fears and stroked or held these beautiful creatures for the first time.

On Thursday, Quartz and Diamond had a great Dodgeball competition to raise money for sports relief. It was great to see all the parents and children having fun regardless of the amber warning wind! We played lots of games! Well done to all the teams and especially Team 2, winning the final match for Quartz class!!

On a wet, chilly morning in January, we visited Capel’s Mill. Whilst there, we identified the different wildlife habitats as well as the dangers that manmade changes pose to these creatures. We has a great time drawing maps and learning about some of the flora and fauna of our local environment.

Today, we took part in a range of ‘Children in Need’ themed activities. We spent the morning learning all about Children in Need and why we support it each year. The children took part in Joe Wicks’ live PE lesson. After this, we spent some time learning some mindfulness techniques from Dr Ranj and talked about what we are grateful for. In maths, we had lots of Pudsey themed code breaking maths to work through using our knowledge of addition, subtraction and multiplication.

We are really looking forward to seeing you all in September and getting to know each other. In Quartz class your teachers are Mrs Jowers (who will teach you on Mondays and Tuesdays) and Mrs Barrett (who will teach you on Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays). We are very lucky that we also have Mrs Ward who will help us in class every morning as well as Mrs Gardiner.

We had an amazing trip to the Cotswold Wildlife Park last week. Whilst there, we looked closely at a group of animals to learn about their habitats and how they have adapted to survive. As a class, we also spent lots of time walking around, visiting as many of the animals as we could. It was a lovely trip enjoyed by all.

We had lots of fun on our trip yesterday and learnt lots of new facts. Some new facts included: When the Romans invaded Britannia they built a fort which later developed into the forum; they really enjoyed playing games – especially counting games and their game ‘knucklebones’ used real animal bones from sheep and goats. Make sure you ask your children what other facts they learnt!

We have been inspired by Roman mosaics and have made our own summer leaf designs. We used the authentic method of tiles, adhesive and grout which got quite fiddly and sticky! We are really proud of the results.

What a lot of fun we had today meeting Ava the Osprey and following her trail around Slimbridge. As well as learning about some of the creatures who live and migrate there, we also got plenty of time to play and enjoy a picnic lunch.

What a misty morning we had up at Coaley Peak today!
Our first stop was Nympsfield Long Barrow where we asked lots of questions about who built it, why it was constructed there and how it was used for ceremonies.
Then we started our sponsored ramble whilst looking out for items on our Nature Checklist. Do you know what red campion, sloe bushes and hart’s tongue ferns look like?
We took our topic books so that we could sketch the world around us ready to inspire our next piece of story writing.

On Thursday, we enjoyed experiencing ‘the planetarium’. We learnt lots about star constellations as well as volcanoes! At the end, we were very lucky to hold a ‘real’ piece of meteorite from outer space!!!