Birstwith CE Primary School

In Class 1 this week the children have been learning about making sets of objects in Reception as part of their maths learning. They have had great fun in the garden enjoying the autumn sunshine and they have been impressing us all with their great mathematical vocabulary. 

The Year 1's have been working on place value to 10 and using lots of practical skills and resources to explain their knowledge. They have started to use stem sentences and pictures to show their understanding of 1 more. They were very proud of their First, Then and Now stories about frogs in a pond. They were all fantastic Maths Partners and explained their learning confidently. 

The children in Reception have settled so brilliantly this week. We are all so proud of them here at Birstwith Primary.

They have shown such confidence, resilience, kindness and friendship to each other and all the other pupils and adults in school.

The stage area in our beautiful garden and the dressing up box has been very popular and we have all enjoyed their shows this week. You are all amazing.

We have been very lucky to be invited to join Sporting Influence and other local schools to take part in their competitons for EYFS and KS1 this half term! Our KS1 children learnt a routine to 'Try Everything' which links to our Christian Vision 'make full use of the gift God gave you' encouraging us to try new things and be resilient, then performed this in front of lots of children with so much confidence and expression! We then attended the multi-skills competiton on a beautifully sunny spring day to take part in a range of mini-games to work collaboratively to earn points, encourage one another and be determined when things were tricky. 

We love reading in Class 1 and to celebrate books all day is a delight for us! We loved making our own bookmarks, sharing stories with friends in our class and other year groups, completed some special activities about our focus text 'The Matchbox Diary' and thought about some of our own special memories. We dressed in our cosiest pyjamas to enjoy this super special day together! 

Our KS1 children have excelled in their Art and DT projects this half term! We have studied mechanisms in DT which has involved learning about wheels and axels, how these can make a design move and ways we can make our own. The children created their own pull-along toy for a child and made some brilliant creations! In Art, we looked at 'Playful Making' where the children studied different sculptors including Faith Bebbington. They loved exploring how sculpture can look different depending on what materials are used to make it and whether it is realistic or abstract. They used their knowledge to create a clay sculpture of a sea creature. We painted these and made an ocean background to display our cereations on! 

Class One have loved meeting the Fire Service! They learnt about how to be safe at home by creating a family fire plan, testing their smoke alarms and knowing to call 999 in an emergency. As a special surprise, the children got to see a real fire engine and learn about lots of the equipment on it! They were so fascinated by how firefighters help people and animals. They loved taking part in some lovely imaginative role-playing outdoors pretending to be firefighters! 

As it was Bonfire Night and Diwali, the children have been exploring fireworks and have loved making large-scale artwork outdoors using different colours and shapes to create them.