Kamyk Newsletter [04/10/2019]

Calling all Parents with young babies! Come and join our baby playgroup every Wednesday from 8:45 until 9:30 in the Early Years Multifunctional room. The playgroup follows the philosophies of Maria Montessori and Magda Gerber who both encouraged children's natural development. Join other parents in discovering the beauty of independent play. Watch your babies explore various resources, follow their curiosity and discover new friendships.

The playgroup is led by Aisha Nayyar and Kim Ashton who are both PBIS employees currently on maternity leave.

If you have a baby aged between 6-18 months get in touch to book your place. Email trustingchildren@gmail.com

EXTERNAL CLUB PAYMENTS

Please be aware that over the coming weeks fees relating to externally provided activities will be deducted from your child's PBIS account. Please can you ensure that the relevant amount is credited to your child's account, to maintain a positive balance. If you have any query relating to fees for an externally led activity, the termly fees and provider contact information are displayed for each activity in the MyPBIS club enrolment platform. For full information relating to enrolment and payment of external activities please visit the following VLE page:

https://pbis.fireflycloud.net/extra-curricular-clubs/externally-provided-extracurricular-activities

HALF TERM SPORTS CAMP IS BACK!!!

The half term is just three weeks away and registration is now open for our Half Term Sports Camp. Our four day, action packed sports themed programme is open to all children aged 4 - 13 years. Each day will run from 08:30 - 17:00, and the programme will include training in gymnastics, tennis, floorball and wall climbing!

The programme will be based at our campus in Kamýk, with a complimentary daily bus service available from our Vlastina site. For full details and access to the online registration form please visit the following VLE page:

https://pbis.fireflycloud.net/extra-time/holiday-programmes/half-term-sports-camp-2019

Early Years

Just a quick plea to start with! We are looking for 'new' materials for equipping our outdoors pretend 'mud' kitchen. Any old kitchenware such as pans, beakers, utensils would be appreciated. We would especially like an old microwave! Bring in your old items that you don't use any more and we can reurpose them. Please: no glass or sharp objects, thanks.

Pre-Nursery

Another busy and fun week for the Pre-Nursery class, also known as
the cubs! We are the babies of all the big cats and this week we have worked on
creating cubs of our choice and handprints for our class display. Keep a watch
on the display board outside our classroom!

We were also learning about autumn and made fingerprint autumn
trees. We had a lot of fun enjoying the autumn weather and some of us loved
jumping in puddles! In order to make sure everyone can have the opportunity to
enjoy our brilliant outdoor space to its fullest, we would like to ask the
parents to provide their child with waterproof trousers and wellington boots as
these are part of our essential kit list.

Next week we will start going to the library. Our visiting time is
on Mondays and the children will be choosing a book to take home. We can’t send
a new book home until the previous book gets returned so please make sure you
return the library book before, or on, Monday (there will be a box outside the
classroom) so your child can choose a new book to take home. Unfortunately we can’t send a book home if the
previous book borrowed hasn’t been returned

Thank you for your cooperation and have a lovely weekend.

Nursery

The weather has turned cooler this week, and
the children have a lot more clothes to put on when we go outdoors, so we have
been developing our self-help skills in the cloakroom. We talked about
different clothes and which body parts we put them on and the children learnt a
new trick for how to put their coat on easily and independently: ask your child
to show you! We’re impressed with the improvement in the cloakroom
already as the children are trying hard to change independently (but sometimes
needing a bit of help, of course). They
are making sure their spot is nice and tidy by hanging their coat up and
putting their shoes under the bench. Could you please make sure your child has
weather appropriate clothes in school. Now that autumn is here it’s very often
wet when we go outside to play and wearing waterproof trousers and boots means
their play isn’t restricted and the children stay nice and dry. A reminder that
our kit list is here.

This week in class we have had a lot of fun
with the story ‘The Gingerbread Man’, We read the story and made our own
gingerbread men with the children making the dough together. Baking provides
many learning opportunities for young children: pouring, mixing, taking turns
and measuring the ingredients, using mathematical language, such as "is
the cup full?" or "how many more spoonfuls do we need?” The
children made gingerbread men puppets and re-told the story using story cards
and their puppets, repeating the refrain “run, run, as fast as you can, you
can’t catch me; I’m the gingerbread man!”

We now have our library times scheduled and
Nursery A Lions will be going to the library on Monday mornings and Nursery B
Tigers on Thursday mornings. During our library sessions the teacher will read
a story and the children will spend time choosing and looking at books
independently. The children will be able to choose one book to take home each
week. Could you please return the book (by Monday for Lions and by
Thursday for Tigers) in order for your child to choose a different book to take
home. Unfortunately we can’t send a book
home if the previous book borrowed hasn’t been returned. We thank you in
advance for your understanding and wish you a lovely weekend.

Reception

Ni Hao! This week the children in Reception have been thinking all
about China. We took a trip on Google Earth to see how far away it is from
where we live and from that starting point we thought about the people and the
animals that live there. Did you know that Pandas come from China and their
favourite food is bamboo? We have also been using our creative skills to make
lanterns, chinese drums and dragons. Our classrooms are looking very lucky with
lots of red artwork and objects. We also thought about the food in China and
how it is different to ours, we were lucky enough to make and taste some
Chinese dumplings...delicious!

Our focus sounds in phonics this week were: ‘o’ ‘c’ and ‘k’. We
wonder if you can find any objects around your house starting with these
sounds?

Have a lovely weekend!

Year 1

Another interesting week in Year 1 with lots of fun learning. We
have learned so much this week in creative curriculum about our world. We have
been learning the names of the continents, looking at climates in different
countries and continents as well as beginning to learn the names of the oceans.
Do you know that there are seven continents and that Asia is the biggest
continent of all?

We have continued with our number work in maths and we have been
making sensible guesses of sets of objects then we checked by counting to see
if our estimates were close to the actual number. As well as estimating, we
have been practising reading and writing numbers as figures and words to
twenty, comparing and ordering numbers to twenty and even identifying one more
and one less of a given number. What a busy number week!!

We linked English with our creative curriculum this week and as we
have been talking a lot about the weather, different climates, different
continents and holidays, we started learning about writing postcards. We now
understand that postcards need many features such as a greeting and address. We
loved the story ‘Meerkat Mail’ which helped us with our postcard writing. As
computer scientists, we have been learning all about ‘Coding’ by practising
giving instructions, making objects move and learning to add images.

Please note: Next
week, please come to our parents’ Year 1 phonics and maths workshop in 1A
classroom at 8:30 on Tuesday. This session will help you to help your child at
home. We look forward to seeing you there.

Have a super weekend.

The Year 1 Team.

Year 2

Autumn is showing her colours this week, with the leaves on the
trees near the classroom beginning to turn yellow. We had a very windy
start to the week and a wet ending. Even
though many children are delivered safely to the school door by car, please
remember they are outside for up to 30 minutes twice a day and need coats and
suitable shoes. If children fall over outside they can become wet or
muddy and it would be nice for them to be able to change into fresh, clean
clothing (especially socks). Please keep
in school the basic change of clothing they may need that can be worn whilst
other clothing dries.

In English the week, Year 2 have started a new genre about
non-fiction fact files. We have been identifying key features such as
title, headings, subheadings, captions, labels, diagrams, introduction.
Try to find some of these features in non-fiction books at home. In maths, our topic this week has been
symmetry, shapes and identifying right angles. Clay work has been the
highlight for most children, as they made a clay tile of a building in a
specific architectural style.

Year 3

Our year 3 students are almost experts in Maya culture now, and
have continued their research and organisational skill development in their
history lessons. They know where they lived, what they ate, how they
communicated, the jobs they had and some of the Gods that they worshipped. In
science, they have been exploring states of matter, seeing how heating and
cooling chocolate, butter, or water can change its state (solids, liquids,
gasses).

In maths, we have been using two different strategies to solve
subtraction problems. Either by counting backwards, or counting up to find the
difference, both using blank number lines. Also, the children have been
deepening their understanding of number value through rounding up and down to
the nearest 10s or 100s number.

English lessons have continued with story structures. 3A have been
rewriting stories by Burningham, Donaldson and Jeffers, 3D have been writing a
new ending to an Anthony Browne story and 3B have rewritten and dramatised a
short story in preparation for assembly on Monday morning.

Next week we are going on a trip to Chocotopia. Check the Year 3
VLE page and sign your child up. Please remember to send 120kc in advance to
the class teacher, and on that day your child will need a packed lunch and a
warm jacket in case it is cold.

Year 4

Maths

This week in maths we have been learning about how to tell the
time using both analogue and digital clocks. This has linked well with our work
on diary writing in English. Additionally, the children have been learning
about different units of measurement of length (mm, cm and m), and how to
convert from one unit to another.

English

During our English work, the children have been working hard on
different drafts of a rainforest diary. They have been successful in improving
their writing by adding details, such as the names of rainforest animals, types
of food eaten by the tribes and some actual words from the Yanomami vocabulary.
To make their writing come alive they have been adding adjectives and powerful
verbs. Lastly, the pupils used good handwriting to write their diaries.

Next week, the children will have the opportunity to share their
writing with Year 6 students, and in return, the Year 4 pupils will act as the
audience for a debate about the current Amazonian rainforest fires.

Guided Reading has focused on improving general comprehension
skills; the text we have been using is an imaginary child’s journal called
‘Rainforest Calling’.

Creative Curriculum

Our work in Creative Curriculum has been very ‘hands-on’ this
week. In our science lessons, the students have continued to monitor the growth
of our broad beans, recording careful observations in a chart and also posting
comments on Seesaw. The children were very excited to be able to dissect a
flower and identify the various reproductive parts in order to help them
understand the process of pollination.

Some classes began creating a rainforest infographic in small
groups with each member taking a different layer of the forest, researching
facts about the organisms living there and writing and drawing these on
eye-catching posters.

The teachers have seen some wonderful examples of creativity for
the rainforest project homework, including models of animals, videos and
posters. Please keep these coming in. We look forward to sharing all this
amazing work in a few weeks.

On Monday 7^th, classes 4A and 4D will visit a botanical gardens as part of
their work in art. 4B and 4C will visit the following week on Monday 14^th. Thank you to those of you who have brought in the entrance fee
money of 55 kc. If you have not yet done so, please could you give it to your
child’s class teacher as soon as you can?

Year 5

The weather is getting cooler but the Year 5 brains are getting
warmer!

Some reminders:

• ·
  Please encourage the children to check our Year 5 VLE regularly as
  homework and class reminders will be set here.
• ·
  Please ensure that the children bring their (named) jumpers and
  coats with them every day as the weather becomes cooler.

In English, we have completed our research on extreme weather
events and the children are writing their newspaper articles. It is great when
year 5 can keep track of what is going on in the world around them. Newsround
is a great resource for this as it delivers information about world events in a
child friendly way. Here is the website link. Next week we will be wandering into the realms of fiction for
something completely different. We will be using the famous alien Doctor Who to
inspire some short stories.

In Maths, we have been reminding ourselves how to use formal
written methods to add and subtract large numbers. We have been applying this
skill to solve word problems. Some of the children have investigated the Bar
Model method to make word problems more visual. Next week we will reviewing and
assessing what we have learned so far in year 5.

In our Creative Curriculum, we had so much fun making space art in
the style of Peter Thorpe! We also did an investigation into each planet and
made our own class Solar System Encyclopedia! In groups we had a planet to
research and we created a poster page with lots of interesting facts. We then
presented to our peers what we had learned.

In 5A and 5B, we have been learning to edit photos in our
computing lessons. We added extra layers to photos, superimposing images of
UFO's over the top of our original image to bring our UFO stories to life!

To see our photos, look at these links:

5A: https://pbis.fireflycloud.net/year-5-3/kamyk/k5a-miss-smith/computing

5B: https://pbis.fireflycloud.net/year-5-3/kamyk/k5b-mrs-malins/computing

Year 6

It has been an eventful and exciting week in Year 6 with a few
surprise visitors and lots of hands on learning.

In math we have been revising both mental and written strategies
for subtraction including subtraction of decimal numbers.

We started the week with a visitor who is from Brazil, who gave a
very interesting and informative presentation to the students about the
country and an insider viewpoint on the Amazon fires. The students had plenty
of questions ready and prepared to ask. During the rest of the week, we have
reviewed our character description writing and improved on it and then we
revisited the features of letter writing as we wrote letters of appreciation to
our visitor for her input on Monday.

Tuesday saw the arrival of our second visitor; ‘Sir Richard
Branson’ (Mr Bottomley in a mask), who in a fleeting visit set the students a
business challenge that we are calling ‘The Island Project’. The students in
groups have been approached by 'Richard Branson' who want them to design a 'new
island' business development plan. The students in groups will spend the next 2
weeks developing a business proposal for Richard Branson's new island. They
will present at Kamyk and then the shortlisted groups to present again for
winning the tender.

This week in art we have started making paper mache fruit bowls.
This week has seen the messy part being conducted. Next week we will start
painting our bowls to represent fruit halves.

Science has also been very hands on this week as we have conducted
our first scientific experiment of the year. After exploring microorganisms,
both help and harmful ones, we are investigating what the conditions for mould
to grow on bread. We are observing of slices of bread in various environments
over the week. Next week we hope to conclude our investigation and learn how to
preserve bread for longer.

Kamyk Modern Foreign Languages

GERMAN NEWS

Year 3s started a colourful and musical start into German,
learning about colours, numbers, greeting and the days of the week. Year 4s are
confident speakers, who can share in German with their parents what they like
and not like to do. Year 5s revised and extended what Year 4s are learning, but
Year 5s can now not only talk about themselves but also about their friends. An
array of new adjectives and verbs helped our eager pupils to come up with some
longer and original sentences, which they can both speak and write.

Our Year 5 and 6 classes just began to learn an Austrian song from
the 80s about Amadeus. As always, practice makes perfect, and parents
will very soon be able to hear their children singing heartedly.

https://youtu.be/zaEqlg2dGhQ

https://youtu.be/13989SXkaxo

And here the original:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cVikZ8Oe_XA

Year 6 pupils are discovering different activities associated with
seasons and can say what they and others like to do no matter if the sun is
shining, raining or snowing. Here a glimpse into our popular game called Sentence Stealers:

https://youtu.be/nnz8JqNbZ1o

Traditional celebrations and holidays in the German-speaking
countries are part of the discovery.

Year 7 classes are experimenting with some new sentence structures
to express personal preferences and are discovering the games available on
Quizlet. Year 8 pupils have figured out some very difficult grammar aspects of
separable verbs, which allow them to make invitations and appointments in
German. Year 9 pupils can by now easily talk about a past event and
describe the home of their friends. Whoever did not understand the German Akkusativ
shall ask a German Year 9 student, total
simpel!

National Poetry day in the library

On Thursday 3.10 2019 there was a National Poetry day.

Our students took part in a poem competition.

I have received 45 beautiful poems from all different age groups
around the Primary school.

The theme this year was “Truth”.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank Primary Teachers
for encouraging students in Poetry writing. The quality of poems is high and I
am very pleased with it.

Thank you to all students for their hard work. Well done.

The winners are as follows:

1^st place - Seyeon year 7

2^nd place- Beatrice and Sam from year 5

3^rd place- Aurelia and Zoe from year 5 and 2

Congratulations!!!

Have a great weekend.

Miss Lucia

Reading Buddies

We are very excited to announce that ‘Reading Buddies’ will be

starting next week!

Reading Buddies gives the opportunity for year 5 and 6 children to
go and read with children from Early Years through to Year 4, during their
break or lunch time. The children in Year 5 and 6 have been told about this
wonderful opportunity by their teacher this week and if they expressed an
interest it has been passed on to Miss Smith. Miss Smith will meet with the
interested children on Monday next week to work out which day works best for
them. During the Reading Buddies time, all children involved will get the
opportunity to read together, learn from each other and make new friends. We
are all very excited for this to start!

Lower Secondary Assembly

In our Key Stage Three assembly this morning we were visited by
students from Libus. They were speaking to the students about the Global
Goals and Model United Nations event they participated in last summer in New
York. I really hope that the amazing events that these students experienced
last year and what they gained from them can really inspire our students. They
were encouraged to make changes no matter how small and I look forward to
seeing which of our students will use the opportunities presented to them in
school to make a difference.

Lower Secondary Juggling Club

A great moment in the week is Friday afternoon, after school?
Parents collecting their children will certainly have noticed the group of
students playing with different juggling items: this is Mr Armstrong and his
club. Take the time to observe them and see how happy they look.

Lower Secondary English News

The Year 7s have just completed their diary entries as the main
character of the novel, Paravana. Walking through the streets of Kabul,
they have to describe what they can see, hear, smell or taste. In
preparation they were exposed to freshly warmed pitta bread, spices and teas to
awaken their senses and then shown drone footage of Kabul after the
bombings. Additionally, they had to consider what it was like to be
dressed as a boy in a male dominated world and recognise all the difficulties
that it may raise. I’m very much looking
forward to reading their work and if you have a moment, maybe get your son or
daughter to read their work to you; I have no doubt you’ll be impressed!

The Year 8s have just completed a speaking and listening
assessment on Black history research. They have had to investigate
different events, mainly in the United Kingdom, America and South Africa where
Black people have been exposed to prejudice and discrimination. I have
just witnessed some very interesting and informative presentations on Stephen
Lawrence, Nelson Mandela, Malcom X and Martin Luther King. An added reward, was that the children were
able to very quickly relate the historical events to the novel we’re reading
and see how certain characters reflect real life events.

The Year 9 are just about to start a reading assessment on, Of
Mice and Men. We have been looking closely at how people in the novel are
discriminated against. Candy is an old man with an old dog that serves as
a symbol of old age and the harsh reality of life for poor people during The
Great Depression. Curley’s wife is a very young woman who is
discriminated against as she is treated as a possession and has no power or
control over her own life. She is seen as a temptress. Such characters
enable the students to reflect on the treatment of different groups in society
and choose how they wish to behave toward these groups in the future.

Year 9 students enjoying their break

Since they got back from their residential trip, Year 9 students
have got into the habit of playing kubb with Mr Quesnell during break and lunch.

Year 7 art

Students in year 7 art have recently been developing their
observational drawing skills and understanding of colour. Working from a
self-portrait by Frida Khalo, the classes have been employing the upside-down
drawing technique in order to see shape more objectively. Following that,
students have been interpreting the image in grayscale, original colour, complementary
colours, and in freestyle colouring. This demanding technical task is aimed at
not only developing students’ ability to see objectively, but also at
cultivating their appreciation for nuances in colour, and their ability to
handle a variety of materials. Both Mr Buckley and Mr Armstrong have been
impressed by the the classes determination and skill in this pursuit.