Dear Parents

Well it is quite unbelievable that we are already a third of the way through the academic year!

This week has been the usual mix of joy and groans! From the children I hasten to add  J . I have had many accusing stares as I have laid out final lessons from our topics or told them we WILL finish our English writing or RHE topics. ‘But it is Christmas’ they would cry!’ We have played a few games though as well as created some excellent futuristic art from our art topics. I was thinking of watching my favourite Christmas movie – ‘The Muppets Christmas Carol’. I decided against it though because I know that as soon as watch Ebenezer Scrooge at work I will get a few suspicious looks in my direction as they began to compare us. Although I would like to think they have all had a Christmassy week as we have been practising our song, had a few run throughs for the carol service, a couple of Christmas themed Maths quizzes along with a few rounds of a growing favourite game – kidnappers.

I have thoroughly enjoyed teaching your children this term. They are a fantastic and lively class and I’m loving getting to know them. We have worked hard, but we have also had a lot of fun. They have an amazing sense of humour, being able to put up with me at my (nicely I assure you) sarcastic best and have been brilliant at taking jokes- although there have been a few tumbleweed moments where my jokes fell on uncomprehending ears. They are a supremely talented bunch and I have been truly impressed with them. I promise you they all have a bright future. A few highlights which stand out for me are the amazing art pieces they have produced, some fantastic pieces of writing, and of course just the sheer energy they produce. One which stands out for me though is our wonderful assembly. The children were just brilliant! The songs they sung literally brought a tear to my eye as they exceeded my expectations for how I wanted it to go and the children were at their comedic best throughout the performance. Fantastic effort to all!

I was also immensely proud of the singing last night, they sounded wonderful. Our readers too were brilliant and I hope you enjoyed it too. For me, with all the business of the lead up to the Christmas holidays including wrapping up the topics, practising for the concert and me assessing the children’s progress, this event is the one that tells me that Christmas is finally here.

Equally I hope you enjoyed our Christmas servicer this morning. Lovely hearing the choir singing ‘Carol of the Bells’ again with some wonderful readers, congregation carols and of course our school classic – ‘I Give Thanks’. Thank you again to all who attended.

As much as I have come to care about them I am VERY glad to pass them back to you in the afternoon and – as my weekly updates suggest – go home and collapse!

At this Christmas tide I do wish you a peaceful Christmas, no matter what you have been through these past few years with stress of daily life, worries about the state of this world and of course the rising cost of bills and day to day living. We have also been hit with a lot of very weird weather as well. With a very wet summer followed by a very wet autumn and now an extremely cold winter. Please dress up warm and look after yourself this coming Christmas.

I would like finish by coming back to Advent. The four candles represented in this season are especially poignant for us as a school as each of the words are associated with a year group’s spiritual identity.

HOPE – May all of us have hope in Christ’s coming and hope that 2024 will be a good year

PEACE – May all of you find the peace of Christmas with your loved ones

LOVE – I pray we all experience the love of God this Christmas and the love of our family around us

Joy- I wish you all a joyful and special Christmas as we celebrate the birth of God’s son and time with our family.

Oh and if you have not guessed – NO HOMEWORK. Ebenezer Scrooge indeed!  Merry Christmas to you all J.

Thank you so much for all the Christmas gifts, you have all been so generous and it is hugely appreciated. Miss Cummins and Miss Isabel have also asked me to thank you on their behalf.

May I take this opportunity to wish you all a very happy Christmas and fruitful New Year. I hope you all have a lovely and restful break and- virus willing- I look forward to seeing you in January.

God Bless you all this Christmas time

Kind Regards

Alex Perry

Carols by Candlelight is rapidly approaching, and if you could all please play your part with our rehearsals by having your child/ren practise their songs, that would be greatly appreciated. PDFs of the lyrics can be found below, alongside their accompanying mp3s:

5 Blackman Song – Mary Did You Know?

5 Silverstein Song – Have You Heard the Sounds of the Angel Voices?

Finale – Silent Night

Finale – Traditional Carol Medley

Finale – Popular Medley

Dear Parents,

Going to keep it short and sweet today…I know I have said that before but I truly mean it!

Part of the reason is that after serving drinks at the Parents party last night I am feeling a little peaky and so do not have the wit or the brainpower for my usual witty entries this morning. Seriously though it was lovely seeing some of you this week and I enjoyed the chats, although I am not so good at that part as Mr Schumm or Mr Gane. They both really know how to mingle well at a party!

Anyway moving on from that I shall give you a brief rundown of our week. In a weird way, barring last night’s event, it has been a relatively quiet week from our perspective in Year 5. Of course the school had the wonderful Reception class Nativity and the Ks1 performances this week but aside from a few singing rehearsals it has been business as usual.

We have wrapped up a number of our term topics in subjects including life circles in Science, music and art at Christmas in RE and the breakdown of land, coasts and rivers in the UK in Geography. On top of that we have continued our ongoing topics of fractions in Maths and report writing in English. The children have enjoyed the work we have done in English on the short film ‘The Lighthouse‘ and have planned a newspaper report on the story which we will complete next Monday. They have also really enjoyed a couple of lessons this week in art and using a variety skills to create a futuristic backdrop p We looked at three carols which were ‘O Little Town Of Bethlehem’, Silent Night’ and ‘The Twelve days of Christmas’. We looks at the words and the children then wrote their own verses to these carols with some excellent results. There were some great examples of where the children swapped out items from the traditional version and replaced them with ‘sacred’ items. So instead of sing ’10 lords a leaping’ we might get ’10 angels singing’.

Back to the subject of peace, the children also saw that wonderful Sainsbury’s advent based on the true event during WWI where the German and English soldiers came out of their trenches to share gifts and play football together to celebrate Christmas. A little peace in the heart of a terrible war. Another link as well to our history topic after Christmas – World War 1. I hope we can all find a level of peace no matter what is going on in our lives.

Our RE topic about art and music linked well with the Year group spiritual word ‘Peace’ especially at Christmas’. That is also the Second Advent candle – Peace.  This week we looked at Christmas carols and why they have been around so long. We discussed what they mean to us as individuals and there were some wonderful replies including; having joy with family, traditional Christmas food/drinks/decorations and of course feelings of peace.

They have still been badgering about when the fun starts in class, once again making me channel my Ebenezer Scrooge and I have promised them if they work hard and stay on task then we will play a few games of ‘Kidnapper’, complete a fun maths quiz pack and possibly watch The Muppets Christmas Carol, but only if they stay calm and listen. Yes I know I am unashamedly blackmailing them, but Christmas at school can be very distracting.

Please do not forget to let us know if the children cannot make the Carol Service on Thursday and encourage the children to continue to practice their songs in them.  I also hope to see you all at Christmas end of term service next Friday.

Have a great weekend and as always homework will be on the right and on google classroom.

Kind Regards Mr Perry

PS Well it was a relatively short one as promised!

Dear Parents,

Been another busy week. To be fair I could start all my blogs this way, but I am not complaining.

Christmas has hit us well and truly now. Well done to the amazing choir who left a bit early today to go with Miss Rachel to Westfield to sing a few Christmas songs. I heard you were great! On that note (great links here by me I hasten to add) as I am sure you know, we have our upcoming Carols by Candlelight in a few Thursdays time (Dec 19^th) . To be fair this was one event I regretted losing during Covid a few years ago. Our children really are a talented bunch and it is wonderful hearing them sing the beautiful carols prepared by our music team and the readings on the an aspect of the Christmas story. I hope as many of you as possible are able to make it next week.  On that note please take note of Miss Rachel’s email regarding the class songs and we have put them on google classroom and in this blog as well. I have created an entry above this blog with the class song music and lyrics and the finale music Please practice and learn the words over the next few weeks.

We have been recalling topics in maths with a particular focus on fractions and times tables and, like last week, showing our knowledge through how we can explain, explore and show our knowledge. The children are recognising the importance of key skills such as using bar models to show their knowledge and to break down their learning. We have also resurrected our times tables challenge from last year, a task the children particularly love and each week they are keen to beat their opponent and progress to the next round to claim the coveted Angry Bird trophy! There will be a new champion this term and we will have the grand final over the next few weeks.

Other learning this week has included learning how to write a ‘report’ in English, using as a focus a lovely short video called ‘The Lighthouse’. Ask the children about it. We have looked at how reports should be in past tense, types of headlines, how to record a quote from the eye witnesses (had a great lesson interviewing children in character) and how to use the 5ws. Geography included looking at the coasts of Britain and learning vocabulary including ‘stack’ (rock formations), erosion and peninsular. In RE we had a special guest star (Mr Schumm) who taught the class while I was practising with the carol concert readers about the art we see on Christmas cards and the difference between secular and non-secular. The children then designed their own Christmas card. RHE has continued the topic of ‘Valuing Differences’ with a focus on how people can be discriminated against for more reasons than obvious ones such as sexism and racism. That people can be left out of friendship groups or games because they are different and how discrimination can have massive long term effects emotionally as well. Sobering but very important stuff.

I hope my wish last week of a carnage free Christmas preparation is coming to pass, yet if my plans are anything to go by I suspect not. As well as there being wither teeming rain or truly baltic conditions, there are also a lot of bugs around including flu, stomach bugs and of course our old friend Covid still raises its head from time to time, but I am still hopeful of a family orientated Christmas. Having the challenge every year of thinking what to get my legion of nieces , nephews and God children is causing my usual levels of high blood pressure , extra challenging as they get older , and I have sent my imploring texts to their parents to get me a few hints. Who is still into unicorns or Minecraft? Who is beginning to focus on clothes, makeup and other such items? Still I do love Christmas.

Kind Regards

Mr Perry

Dear Parents,

Subjects have been motoring on, as us teachers are thinking about just how we could fit everything in from the curriculum before the bells toll 12 and the ghosts of Christmas come calling…or maybe that is just for me. I have been telling the children that our school days are going to extend over Christmas just to complete all our subjects. I think some of them believe me!

So what have my class of little Bob Cratchit’s been up to? This week along with the typical madness of our school have been the questions like …Are we having PE and gymnastics (and when)? When will we stop working for Christmas?  What day is home clothes day? Are we doing anything extra for the Fete? It definitely pays to be on top of the class ‘Whats Apps’ and parentmail that is for sure. We have been continuing our topics of The UK in Geography, Art at Christmas in RE, The seven elements of art in art and Life Cycles in science.

Maths lessons for my group have been all about expressing knowledge, using Bar Models to show fractions and recognising how to change mixed numbers to improper fractions and our homework on Mathletics will be around this topic. We are acknowledging that sometimes actual methods are straightforward and we are comfortable with them, but what can we do with that knowledge? They have looked at the importance of using inversing to check calculations and times table knowledge to support our fraction work. I use the example of the pyramid builders and the importance of foundations, as such times tables are on the bottom row and are the foundation of many of their topics as they move through school.

So Christmas is here, or almost. So that means in these strange times there will be no celebrations, carols, performances, Christmas cheer…Hey wait! This is St Stephens so of course there will!

It is wonderful that we in St Stephens really keep up with the Christmas spirit, never forgetting its true meaning. I have seen the wonderful FOSS advertising and preparing for our annual fete, the school halls are just echoing with the sounds of carols and nativity songs from the lower years being practised and we are starting to learn our own song for Carols by Candlelight’ which we will perform the last week of term. Trust me, it is a beautiful event and I am sure those parents who have been before will back me up. I hear those of you with children in lower years will have a chance to see their ‘Nativities’ soon as well, so that is great too.

Whether Christmas is your thing or not, or if you are not fond to the build- up to the season, with all that goes on,  it IS a special time of year. I have been telling the children in assemblies how important Advent is. Yes we are waiting for the celebration of the birth of Jesus when he came the first time, but also those of us who are Christians also believe we are looking forward to the second time he comes. This week churches up and down the country lit their first Advent candle -that of HOPE. I hope we are all feeling that first stirring of hope and joy that can be found at Christmas. Finally our Christmas topic in RE is all about peace at Christmas, it’s message from God, and how Christmas brings us peace …amid all the carnage of course!

As you think about how you will celebrate with loved ones this year I wish you as carnage free a Christmas as possible.

Homework as always is on Google Classroom, Mathletics and on the right of this message.

Kind Regards

Mr Perry

Dear Parents

Well what a quiet week it has been. What with last week having our anti bullying week, parents evenings and then not one but two trips this week so we just put our feet up, put on our onesies and chilled out …Yeah right who am I kidding ? J

Nope quiet and calm not usually a word associated with life in St Stephens. Indeed, all around us, evidence of what the few weeks ahead have in store for us is already starting to shape up! Parents are busy putting up decorations, emails are flying around about fete’s and Christmas events, teachers are working on organising the carol concert, KS1 plays and other events and we are trying to get our heads around just how quickly another year comes around.

Quiet? No definitely not. We have had a trip to Gunnersbury Park, a trip to the Lyric Theatre, a number of children out playing football and of course there was last night’s amazing FOSS event but more on that later.

We have equally been busy in the classroom. Our topic in maths next week – that of fractions – is a perfect opportunity for me to use food as a muse for my teaching. This week we have also been looking at word problems around multiplication and division, so for the next few weeks we will be just abounding in references to skittles and doughnuts being eaten, bars of chocolate being split equally or finding equal amounts of cake if one has been chopped into 8 pieces and another 32. Still, after a half term of me teaching this cohort maths, they must be used to me by now! Incidentally some of our mathletics homework will be around multiplying by 10. 100 and 1000.

In science we have continued our work on reproduction in the natural world, focusing this week on the sexual reproduction of animals and if they are internal like mammals or external like fish. We had great conversations around how salmon always go back to the pool they were hatched from to lay their own eggs, how male penguins watch their eggs for a time and about the gestation periods for various animals, which we will look at more next week. We are really focusing in all our foundation subjects in using the technical/topical vocabulary in our writing and so this week we ensured we used the words reproduction, fertilisation, external, internal, gestation and embryo in our explanations.

RE wrapped up our topic of the vocational calling of Monks and Nuns by finishing our information text and our end of unit assessment. Finally our English continued to carry on our topic of poetry and we tapped into all sorts of skills including using onomatopoeia in ‘Nonsense Poems’ , similes and metaphors in riddles and personification in haikus and poems on nature. We wrapped the week by writing our own ‘free verse ‘poem using Karl Nova’s poem ‘The City of my Birth’ as inspiration. The children chose a location or favourite place of their own and reasons why they chose it. Then using skills that included writing similes, metaphors, alliteration and emotive vocabulary the children planned and wrote their own poem.

Class Trip

Well what a way to start off our week. The day was a fun one all around (with a little bit of stress too) but we kicked the week off on a high! The children learned what it was like to have a typical lesson in a Victorian school with an old grumpy teacher – no not me – and had a session that involved humiliation, punishments , insults and no tolerance ….they loved it! To be fair I also took notes for my own development as a teacher and I may just implement a few of their rules and actionsJ. Seriously though the children continued their acting central day and really got into it. Please ask them about their experiences.

St Stephens Got Talent

Well another huge event organised and thank you so much to the amazing FOSS team for organising it. Now although I am personally not really a celebrity spotter, it was very impressive that they managed to get Alisha Dixon and Simon Cowell to our little school. The acts were all a great mixture of fun , skill, humour and …well talent! Poor Miss Whiting was of course once again cajoled into creating a dance routine for her and Mr Schumm. It was a little strange that Mr Schumm was on the judges panel to, but who am I to argue! Still it was a cracking event all around. Thank you FOSS and I look forward to hearing how much was raised!

Aladdin at the Lyric

Okay let us first deal with the elephant in the room! Today we went to the panto…oh no you didn’t…I hear you cry. Well yes did and the children really enjoyed it. Aladdin has always been a favourite for pantos around the country and the children were really keen to see me called on stage by the Dame. I have been in the past a prime target for the dame…it must be my good looks and charm!  An unfortunate reality of the last three times we have been. Thankfully no teachers were harmed in the making of this panto! As we were allocated seats in different places we were of course ensuring we had enough adults in seats and nicely spread out and I was nicelyb tucked in by the pillar. Hey Mr Gane was also there with Year 6 and he does all he can to ensure he will not be spotted. This year he hid at the back! I mean what is not to like about calling up a middle aged, awkward introvert to take him well out of his comfort zone! Honestly though children always enjoy the panto, but I have never seen a group so engaged. In a way that is every panto director’s goal I am sure. Singing, dancing, calling out, whooping, and booing in the right places. I was watching some children who are often very quiet and shy and they too were really getting involved. Great fun all around.

Phew another week done!

Kind Regards

Alex Perry

It has been a bit parky the last few days don’t you agree and the rain! I know Climate Change is not something to take lightly, but I am convinced that when I am in my dotage (not too far away I think) Britain will be rainforest, all hot weather and rapid downpours! All they will need to do is let a few anacondas, howler monkeys and alligators into the wild and we would fit right in with The Amazon! Did not know just when to bring a big coat, umbrella, fleece top or all of the above. Still not complaining, I prefer the cold to rain and hot sun. I have a cricket club and for a sport that is known for stopping in even slightly cold or rainy conditions, it felt a bit odd! Still I had my big coat on and a cup of coffee so all was okay.  Oh dear I am starting to sound like someone at a get together with nothing to say and end up talking about the weather!

Our learning this week has continued as much as possible with all the changes and all that has been going on in the life and times of St Stephens. In geography we have been looking at the UK and how it is made up. This week we looked at how we are broken down into counties and how to identify them in an atlas to then label a blank map. Useful skills all around. Maths we are wrapping up our work on multiplication and division focusing on the relationship between numbers, in recognising and finding prime numbers, factors, squared numbers and cubed numbers. Next week we will wrap this up by learning how we can use our times table knowledge to work out problems like 40 x 8000 using 4 x 8 and will finish the week off by completing an end of unit assessment before moving on to our next topic of fractions. Poetry was our topic in English (and will continue next week) and we have been looking at misconceptions (not all poems rhyme for example) and poetic skills including personification and alliteration. This week has been fun and the children have really enjoyed writing limericks, riddles, ‘nonsense’ poems and haikus. We enjoyed a little competition as I read riddles from a fantastic chapter (called Riddles in the Dark) from one of my favourite childhood books – The Hobbit. Winners getting …yes a warm glow in their heart! One child tried to stump me writing a riddle about a character from Harry Potter and then I returned the favour. Great fun learning all around.

Parents Evening

Firstly thank you for all who zoomed into the parents’ evenings. It was a pleasure talking to you and I would like to reiterate that I have really enjoyed the first term teaching your lovely children. They are a talented, bright and lively that is for sure! It is interesting hearing some of the impressions the children feed back to you after getting to know me. Great titbits have included my coffee habit, my enthusiasm for history (where I have deduced I may talk too much), my drawer that will have the odd kitkat lurking and my sense of humour – or lack of!  It has been fun getting to know your children’s own unique characteristics too.

Class Trip

As always life sprints along at a fair old pace at St Stephens with another busy week ahead of us. It is hard to keep up with who is going to a sports trip, to a high school for an outreach opportunity in maths, languages or another subject or indeed to Westminster to go to the Houses of Parliament with the school council. Then of course we are rounding up our learning on The Victorians when we go to Gunnersbury Park Museum to experience what it may have been like in a Victorian classroom. I wonder how many children will compare me to the Victorian teachers…

Homework

As always I have put homework to your right on the webpage and on Google classroom.  

Well that is the lot I think for this week. I have decided it will be the new me. Less coffee, healthy walks (try the All Trails app) healthy eating and only a little Netflix. I am all set up to go…or maybe I will start next week and concentrate on sleeping a bit!

Kind Regards

Mr Perry

Dear Parents

It has been another wet couple of days! Is it just me or has this Autumn’s weather been wetter than normal? I seem to be collecting wet and muddy trainers and walking shoes at my front door. My mop and bucket is also seeing more use than normal, but small problems I suppose. Saying that my Netflix shows or sports podcasts can somewhat distract me a little, but it is good to make you all think I am a domestic champion.

Anyway on with my next dazzling entry. Reminds me of the old James Herriot books (the show ‘All Creatures Great and Small’ are based on these) where each chapter is another incident in the life and times of a Yorkshire vet. So what would I call my memoirs?  How about ‘All Children Great and Small’, Or The life and times of a Shepherds Bush Primary School Teacher? Hmm have to think about this one.

Today (Friday) was Hispanic day and our class represented Columbia. We had a brief lesson on Columbian geography and culture. The children used their knowledge and growing research skills to prepare a fact file advertising the merits of Columbia, looking for key facts and explaining why it would be an excellent place to visit. Our school focus was Hispanic countries habitat and natural world and we looked at the poison dart frogs. It was great to have a parent join us, able assisted by their lovely daughter to talk about life in their home country.Finally the children took part in a dance workshop which was great fun to see and experience.

We have been working at our new topics for this half term and I will give you updates in the next few blogs with a few more details on studying the UK in Geography, Poetry in English, Monastic life and Music and Art at Christmas in RE, Life cycles in Science and Valuing Differences in RHE. The children have worked really hard and a few highlight for me this week were the children studying a performing the poem ‘Facing the Truth of Haikus’ by Malorie Blackman (our class namesake) and dissecting, labelling and describing the sexual parts of a flower (a lily) in science. Lots of hard work by all.

Parents Evening

It is that time of year again and if you have not done so already, please can you remember to book a slot for next week. If this is not possible then please get in contact so we can organise another time. I look forward to hearing from you next week.

I think that is my lot for today. As much as I would love to outline the amazing activity I have planned for the weekend to enrich and inspire my life…I won’t as it involves a walk, a football podcast, a pie many coffees and probably a bit more mopping!

Homework is on the left and on Google Classroom.

Have a great weekend.

Kind Regards

Alex Perry

Dear Parents,

I will keep this one short…famous last words I know! As you may have noticed, I do tend to go on a bit, but let’s give it a go shall we!

There have been some fantastic work this week all round, but I have been especially impressed with the children’s work in English. We wrapped up our information text work where the children wrote their own text on either a fennec fox, beluga whale or grey wolf. The children broke their research into subheadings including; diet, habitat, behaviour and conservation and included within their final pieces illustrations, glossaries, captions, information boxes with special/fun facts and bullet points.  They have worked hard on their grammar focus this term (parenthesis and relative clauses) and we have all worked on our handwriting.

On that note…handwriting is a school focus and our English lead teachers (Mrs Hayes Yr3 and Mrs Allen Yr1) have introduced a new initiative where each half term the class teachers nominate a child to receive ‘The Golden Pen’ award and indeed to get a gold coloured pen as well. The children in question do not have to be the neatest in the class, but should show improvement, hard work and enthusiasm for their writing. Our winner was well deserved for all these things and will receive her gold pen after half term due to supply delays! She does however have the certificate and that greatest prize in a learning environment…the ‘warm glow’ in their hearts they have done well, although in retrospect they would probably prefer a chocolate reward. I do rather enjoy telling them they have a reward and their eyes light up and then see their poor little faces fall as I tell them they have won a ‘warm glow in their hearts’. I know I am mean.

Black Voices Week

This week we have looked at the life of Sarah Forbes Bonatta which also fits in well with our history topic – The Victorians. Sarah was born a member of an African royal family of the Yoruba people in what is now Nigeria in 1843 and after being enslaved and orphaned by a neighbouring tribe ended up in the court of Queen Victoria who became her benefactor. Her life was an interesting but tragically short one as she tragically died of tuberculosis at the age of 37- short life spans being another factor of the Victorian age. Ask your children about her.

As a school we were privileged to have a visitor from ‘Big Foot Education’ to talk to us about how we have had Black people in Britain for longer than we might assume- going back as far as nearly 2000 years. It is right we learn about individuals who fought against the slave trade and fought for rights in this country, but it is also important we know others achievements throughout history. For example not one, but four of the Roman Emperors were Black and one (Septimus Severus) was first acknowledged as emperor in what was then Britannia. One fact I learned was that one of the most popular and talented musicians in the court of Henry VIII was Black – a trumpeter by the name of John Blanke. He was so sought after, he was the highest paid musician of his time. We have learnt this term as well about how many inventions came from Black people and we should never just resign this learning to one month of the year.

Well I am going to come to a halt here with a quick roundup of the rest of the week. We have also completed our topics in RHE lessons with very important and useful learning around how to be assertive against peer pressure, how to recognise our emotional needs and to recognise what ‘discrimination’ is and how it can affect people. We have had our end of unit maths assessments on ‘addition and subtraction’ and have completed our forces lessons in science looking at levers and pulleys.

Well this has been a long half term and I wanted to say I am really enjoying teaching your children. ‘Well what else would he say?’ I hear you say, but I am being very honest…honestly! Seriously though they are kind, sweet, hardworking and well behaved…most of the time!

No homework     

Yes this is true. Now I would love to say this was because I was kind, charming and thoughtful but the rest of the school is doing it so I had no choice !

Happy Half term to you all.

Kind Regards Mr Perry

Dear Parents

With the first half of the term almost over, we can all stop and take a breath.  What an eventful few weeks it’s been: Red Card to Racism day today, Class Assembly, and our DT day. It also shows no signs of letting up with Black Voices Week next week, cross country on Wednesday and Hispanic Day also coming up. To be fair did I expect anything different?

We have been continiong to work on our information texts in English with a focus on one of my favourite topics – animals. The children had a choice of looking at fennec foxes, beluga whales or my personal favourite animal –the grey (or as said in the USA gray) wolf. On that note it is scary how phones work. We had a discussion in class on what was the correct spelling ‘grey’ or ‘gray’ and then when I went home I saw a meme on my phone about the difference between grey or gray! Scary indeed. Sorry about that diversion but as my class are starting to get I do sometimes get a little side-tracked! Anyway on with the English topic, we have been looking at what makes an effective information text and the features that they contain. The children reached their chosen animal with facts that would fit into chosen sub-headings including habitat, location, behaviour and ‘fun facts’. Next week we will be looking at putting all these facts together to write our own information report.

We have also been slowly wrapping up our half term topics and have completed work in our Science (forces) RE (Judaism) and history (Victorians) .The children have worked very hard this term and I have seen some fine efforts in their tasks. They have enjoyed practical elements including investigations around how to put together a catapult (yes indeed watch the windows) as well as what happens when you throw a toy out the window…attached to a parachute I might add. Then the children have really honed their research skills in history and computing by using chrome books and ipads to find key facts about e-safety (computing) and about the Victorian way of life, this was of course shown in their fantastic assembly yesterday. They have understood the meaning (and beliefs) behind the worship of our world faith- Judaism- and have used very creative skills in retelling creation stories and myths (like Pandora’s Box). All in all a very productive half term, and still with a week to go!

Red Card to Racism Day

Although I am so glad to live in such a multicultural society, it saddens me that racism and discrimination still abounds in our society. The children today all wore red in support of the ‘Red C Card to Racism’ movement and we had a lesson on what prejudism is and ways in which it can occur and manifest itself. The children looked at scenarios in everyday life and discussed how to deal with such situations. Mr Schumm led a fantastic assembly this morning on this and how we can deal with such issues as well as recognising that no-one deserves abuse for their culture, colour or religion.

Class Collective Worship

Well we were just abounding yesterday in orphanages, factories, workhouses, inventions, strict teachers and flushing toilets. I am of course talking about our wonderful assembly yesterday. Our assembly was a great success and I was very proud of your children who were all brilliant! What with being the first year group this year, with many disruptions these last few weeks, sports events, and special events, I was really impressed with how the children adapted to what was going on and still had the strength and will to bring our assembly to life. They spoke so clearly and sang so beautifully, their enthusiasm created a wonderful energy and I was particularly impressed with their fantastic singing. A big pat-on-the-back to those with lots of lines to learn and to those who stepped out of their comfort zone. The costumes were excellent and thank you to all who provided them as well as our wonderful class saints – Mrs Cummins and Miss Isabel. Also massive thank you to Miss Rachel for playing the piano and helping them pick up our songs so well. I can get a little carried away when writing the script and always add bits n bobs as I go and I hope you got all the in-jokes and the ‘toilet humour’. Thank you for coming and I hope you enjoyed watching it as much as we enjoyed performing it.

Homework is on your right of the screen and on google classroom. 

Have a wonderful half term.

Kind Regards

Mr Perry

Dear Parents

Hard to believe we only have two weeks to go until half term and as is the way in St Stephens it has been a truly busy one. This week was relatively quiet in comparison, but we highlighted two very important days this week with the children wearing yellow for ‘World Mental Health Day’.

In English we have moved on from our myths and legend topic and started to look at information texts. We had looked at a variety of types of text including animals, history and archaeological based information. I am looking forward to seeing where this leads. We have also started researching our own topic and we have decided to focus on looking at choosing an animal – particularly an endangered one. We have looked at what features we would find in an information text, including facts, subheadings, titles, captions, illustrations and that they would be written in the present tense.

Maths we have started our ‘addition and subtraction’ topic. Looking particularly at formal written methods (such as the column method) to solve long addition and subtraction problems. The children are encouraged to recognise not just their own potential errors they may make, but also others. These could include not lining them up correctly (such as when we are adding/subtracting a six digit number with a five digit one), forgetting to exchange or carry numbers and not subtracting columns the right way around. In my class we also looked at word problems on these subjects and that I may write that a particular child has eaten 567, 978 skittles in a day and another a different amount and they may have to add or subtract the numbers, but they should recognise the numbers in the word problem and the important mathematical words such as ‘altogether’, ‘more than’, ‘difference between’ etc. We looked at how we need to get rid of the ‘non important information’ (like eating skittles) to find those important facts. Mathletics homework around this will be focusing on using estimating and rounding to help solve these problems.

On Thursday we wore yellow to remind us it was ‘World Mental Health Day’. As I may have said in past blogs, the importance of Relationship and Health Education should not be denied. This week we looked at the importance of positive affirmation and how we should regularly tell each other and, more importantly, ourselves positive statements and truths such ‘You are loved’, ‘You are unique’, ‘ I will keep trying until I succeed’ and many more. We discussed how easy it is to look at the negative side of things and should always try to be positive. I will show my age here, but it reminds me of a great comedy film from the eighties called ‘ Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure’. I won’t bore you with the summary of the film, but ultimately two air head lads are destined to save the world and they have to pass at school to get on that track! They live by the mantra ‘ Be Excellent to Each Other and Party on Dudes!’. Future society is then built upon this belief. Not a bad bit of philosophy.

Speaking of positive…we also have ‘Red Card to Racism’ day next Friday. It is so important that we are all aware that we can all sometimes have biases and that we should always be on the lookout for how we can support those who suffer racism and how we can recognise it when we come across it. Our Black Voices Week should not just about looking to plan for lessons for one week but to help us to recognise these contributions all across the year.

Quiz Night

Thank you yet again to the magnificent FOSS team for all their hard work planning yet another brilliant event last night. I think any who went will have had all sorts of conflicting emotions including, ‘I do not want to embarrass myself’, ‘if I get one right how do I look calm while inwardly whooping and doing cart wheels?, and of course ‘I am not bothered if we lose’ , while secretly seething when we do! I know Mr Schumm would have been looking at the two teacher teams thinking ‘don’t embarrass me, don’t embarrass me’ and would have been secretly whooping when one actually did! Hmm! Overall it was a great night and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Thank you again.

Finally we have one week to go until our assembly. At writing this I am chewing my nails a little as on Friday afternoon we are having a dress rehearsal with the Year 6s watching (they will be at PGL next week) and we are hoping that it goes well. When you read this entry however we would already have had the dress rehearsal and I will either be sobbing in a corner in despair or will be contently drinking a coffee or reading a book enclosed in a wave of hope and peace! Who knows?

Homework is on your right of the screen and of course on google classroom.

Kind Regards

Mr Perry

Dear parents,

I think sometimes I should cut and paste for every blog ‘it has been a busy week in St Stephens’ but I must try and be more creative so on with this weeks blog…it has been a busy week in St Stephens!

We are well into the half-term now and it has been wonderful getting to know your children. They are getting to know me as much as I am getting to know them. Nowadays I am often greeted with comments such as, ‘How many coffee cups have you had today?’ The answer is usually followed by a stern frown and then a sheepish 3…or 4!. In a similar fashion if they win a small treat for a task such as the best presentation as a group in RHE or the winner of a times table game they really ensure I pay my debt!

I have been enjoying the teaching subjects this term and there has been some great work occurring through the class. In RE we have been looking at the Jewish faith and important elements of how practisers of Judaism live their faith. In previous weeks, we have looked at artefacts linked to their worship, including a tallit, kippah, yad and The Torah. We have compared them to artefacts in our faith and what scriptures those who are of other world faiths study and learn from. This week we looked at ‘Shabbat’ and what a practising Jewish family would do to celebrate it. It is quite refreshing actually to recognise a ‘day of rest’ and we learned how some families for Shabbat would have no electronic devices on, would prepare the food in advance, would always eat together on Shabbat (Friday evening) and have a small blessing ceremony before the dinner. They would certainly do no work of any description from Friday night to Saturday night as they believe that God commanded us not to in the Ten Commandments. Not in as extreme a manner, but it reminded me of Sundays when I was a child. Nice breakfast in the morning, go to church, a mixture of relaxing activities including playing board games, swimming, visiting friends for the afternoon or going for long walks before having a lovely roast dinner. No shops or shopping centres were open, no one had mobile phones, ipads, laptops or satellite TV, public travel was limited and hardly anyone actually worked on a Sunday. I kind of miss those days! After seeing the blank confused looks on peoples faces, I think the children are definitely convinced I began teaching in The Victorian Era! I mean really no ipads or mobiles?

It struck us how we can learn so much from other faiths, how we have special objects and ceremonies across all faiths in world religions and how holy words and teachings can teach us how to live morally. We have recognised that we do not have to be followers of these faiths to learn from them.

This week we finished our creation myths and have worked hard on studying the importance of planning, drafting, editing and publishing our final piece writing. There were some excellent examples of creativity and use of our English grammar and sentencing targets – that of relative clauses and parenthesis – and the children will hopefully look to take these skills further in their writing.

I believe our RHE (Relationship and Health Education) lessons are really important as they help us to navigate the challenges we all face in life with issues including peer pressure, friendship challenges, dealing with adversity and many many more such situations. I am sure we can all remember how we all faced difficulties as children and as we navigated our way from childhood to becoming young adults. I am sure we can all agree that these things can continue to challenge us all as adults as well through our work life, friendships and family relations and not just as children. We looked this week at ‘Unhealthy Relationships’ and what makes a good friend. I told the children I still remember my time as a Year 5/6 child in primary school ( I think they think that was 150 years ago for me) and how one person in our school made things very tricky for most of the children in my class and that I still remember his name. We looked at ways in how we can deal with these times and then wrapped up on a really positive note as the children created a ‘recipe’ in the form of a cake for the perfect friend. Like I said, a very important topic and one I think can be more important than our maths and English lessons.

Our Harvest Festival went well and it was wonderful to see us all together again in such a fashion. Thank you for so many of you coming and of course for all the Harvest donations that are quite simply stacked at the back off St Stephen’s church ready to go to those who need it through the ‘Upper Room’. I think the tears came to my eyes when we all sang ‘I Give Thanks’ and as I said yesterday in church it actually gets better every time and we never get bored of the song. Just watching all the teachers, children and parents getting stuck into the actions as well as singing their hearts out was simply heart-warming. One teacher said they felt the hairs rise up on the backs of their arms and I have to agree with them. It was special indeed.

Homework, as always, is to the right of this entry and on google classroom. So I will say goodbye now and go get a fun size bag of Maltesers to pay off my growing debts!

Kind Regards

Mr Perry

Dear Parents

It feels like deja vu but…we are all exhausted after another busy week! In English, the children have continued their work on our myths – with a focus on creation myths and they have been really getting into it. They have been learning how to use interesting vocabulary, add details with relative clauses and to begin to use ‘parentheses. They finished the week looking at how these factors can add to writing as well as spotting them in myths and writing examples of their own. We will round this work off in the next week or so beginning with planning their own and then writing and editing it by Friday. I am very much looking forward to marking their final product!

In Maths, the children in my group have been consolidating their knowledge on place value looking at partioning numbers to 1,000,000, using number lines to round off numbers and looking at strategies to order numbers over 100,000. The children did this by breaking numbers down through partitioning and then learning how to order them through our understanding of the value of the digits. We have looked as well at maths language such as ‘ascending’ and ‘descending’, which also lends toward our spellings this week, that of ‘Ous’ words.

Other subjects have included continuing our topic of forces in science, where the children have looked at, friction last week and air resistance this week.  We had fun planning how to test how the size of a parachute will affect how the air pushes against it and slows it down. As I was explaining in class and giving ideas around how they could carry on their learning at home, I think even I got excited! I mean what is not exciting about throwing a toy soldier, teddy, Barbie Doll or indeed Darth Vader off a height to test various parachute sizes or how the mass/size of the toy could equally effect the objects descent and the effects of air-resistance. I did off course express if they did do it at home the importance of safety. Would love to hear about it if anyone does it! Next week we look at water –resistance. What fun!

Being the democratic school we are, last week we had our elections, speeches and presentations prepared by the Year 6s and voted for by the house captains. As a prior Year 6 teacher I know how important these elections are and told my class just how the confidence of many house captains have risen as a result of being elected, the amazing fund raising they have been a part of and the pivotal role they have in school daily life. The children took the responsibility of voting very seriously and have made excellent choices. I am sure they will have a great year.

Speaking of special …A massive thank you to all the parents who came to the family supper – one of my favourite St Stephen’s events. I think I got to say hello to most of you and if not …well hello! Delicious food – I could not pass without taking at least one more lamb chop, scoop of rice or chicken wing!  Gives us real incentive to celebrate good bounty at our Harvest Festival next Wednesday. It is a simple event – yet one that really shows our community spirit. As I said last week,  I was really looking to it and you all did not disappoint. There is nothing better I think than to spend time together with that common denominator – food- where we can just enjoy each other’s company…and a chicken wing or three! Thank you so much for all the wonderful food brought to the event! Your children MAY have been on a sugar high running around but I was too busy stuffing my face to notice. A wonderful event all around thank you. Let me just give you a short transcript of an average conversation I had with children yesterday.

Me – “Hello are you having a good time?”

Child – “ Yes Mr P “

Me – “ What wonderful food have you been eating”

Child – “ I have had a doughnut, two cup cakes, sweets, fruit and whipped cream”

Me – “ Any savouries”

Child – “ Errrrmmmm……Oh and a slice of pizza!”

Me – “ Hmmm well I hope you sleep well tonight! “

Well at least they had a good time!

IMPORTANT- Please take note of the email sent via ParentMail about the trip next year. For your children to go, we need the important documents in by Christmas holidays and for the passports to have at least six months before expiring from our departure date. If you require any other information then please don’t hesitate to get in touch.

Class Assembly

The children have been working hard on the script and hopefully we will get a couple of practice sessions in over the next few weeks. As stated in the ParentMail we will be grateful for support helping the children to look vaguely Victorian with their costumes and supporting them in learning their lines.

Homework as always is on Google Classroom and is also listed to the right of this entry.

Have a wonderful weekend and kind regards.

Mr Perry

Dear Parents,

Is it cold? Is it warm? Is it bright? Is it cloudy? It does seem a bit of a lottery these days. I honestly am never sure what to wear in the mornings. Jacket? Fleece? Jumper? As I have said it is a bit of a lucky dip! Thank the lord for air conditioning that us all I say!

It is the end of another busy week at St Stephen’s. In Maths my group has been focusing on recognising the value of numbers up to 1,000,000 and how to use the Gattegno Chart – anther great link to ancient history. We have looked at how to split them, what happens when we times numbers by 10, 100 and 1000  placing them on number lines and we continued to look at solving problems eliminating clues. After all our work last year on our times tables, it is important the children continue to practice. As we discuss in class the old motto ‘practice makes perfect’ this is no truer than with times tables and the children should practice for ten minutes a day. We have mathletics homework based upon our work in class.

We have been enjoying our history topic on the Victorians, the children have been researching, illustrating and writing up theories on the industrial revolution and looked at the benefits and negatives it brought to our life and culture. We have looked at how a lot of our progress at this time was built on the horror of slavery and we have looked at how the speedy growth of our industry was also at the detriment of life for British citizens, especially the labourers and their families.  There have been some fantastic examples of work. When discussing how teachers and foreman would have been very harsh and strict I am sure there were a few looks in my direction! We have looked at how despite the horrific working conditions for many people and touched upon the horrors of slavery we have discussed that this age made huge leap forwards in ‘technology’ in the growth of machines, steam power and commerce for the United Kingdom. If only it was not at the cost of so many lives.

Speaking of fantastic …we are moving ahead with our English topic of Myths and Legends. As I have frequently said to my children, I just love these topics. My personal love of reading, which I strongly promote, began with fantasy such as Narnia and LOTR at their age (I would have just loved it if series like Percy Jackson and Harry Potter would have been around when I was their age) then moved onto historical fiction and non-fiction. I just love it when there is a blend of the two such as Ancient Greek myths, Norse legends and tales such as King Arthur and Robin Hood. I am looking forward to seeing their final written pieces.

Eritrea and Ethiopia Day 

We are blessed at St Stephens to be multicultural and we just love how so many cultures are represented and expressed in our school community. Today we had a veritable feast for lunch of Eritrean cuisine . Thank you so much to all the wonderful parents who cooked and prepared such a wonderful meal for us all. It was soooo good! I think many of us may skip dinner tonight as we are so full up! We are so privileged here to have had such a wonderful community of Eritrean and Ethiopian families as part of our school over many years and it was fantastic to celebrate your special day today.

Harvest Festival  – Wednesday 2^nd October 9.00 AM

As I mentioned last week, It is wonderful that we can all meet together to celebrate our church festivals. On that note, you are all invited Wednesday 4^th October 9 am to our Harvest Festival, where we come together to thank God for our harvest. This will be held in St Stephens Church. Every year we collect non-perishable goods to go towards feeding those in need at a local charity. Like last year, proceeds will go to the ‘Upper Room’. You would have all received a parentmail with the list of appropriate goods. We look forward to seeing you there.

Family  Supper – Thursday 26th September 6PM

With all the wonderful events that FOSS put on, I know this one is always one of the favourites and it was such as shame that we could not put it on last year. The children love it because –as one child stated- we can run around in the dark! I am just thankful we pass over all responsibility to you at 3.30pm J . I mean what is not to love about children who have been stuffing their faces with doughnuts, cakes and other puddings (and of course a few savouries too) running around the playground on a sugar high! Seriously though it is a wonderful evening and I am always one of the first in line with my plate to sample the wonderful variety of food that is brought to the supper. It is a simple event – yet one that really shows our community spirit.

Homework as always is on the right, with the spellings. Grammar should be completed on google classroom and maths as always is set on Mathletics. Please ensure you stay up to date with Mathletics so you do not fall behind.  Overall they have made a great start to this so please keep it up!

I am going to go home and try and procrastinate about the list of jobs I have to do. Maybe I should stay and do a bit more marking!

Kind regards

Alex Perry

Please also see below a letter from our Arts lead teacher concerning Arts opportunities for Year 5/6 children.

Dear Parents

Did we have a summer holiday? When was it? It seems so far away…cue a bit of whinging and sobbing in a corner…followed by a large glass of wine!

Well not being a believer of luck or anything personally they may have been a few feelings foreboding today as it is indeed Friday 13th…well I have to say it has been a great day and indeed a great week! I only looked over my shoulder twice today…

This past week or so (and over the coming half term)  I am getting to know the children’s learning habits through classroom activities and getting a handle on how we can work together.. Don’t be alarmed if your child moves onto different class working groups and there may be movement in the maths classes in the coming weeks as Mrs Connor and I get to know the children. They are a great bunch and I have really enjoyed teaching them, even those in Ayleward House…In class joke there !

We have started our maths and English topics in earnest. In maths, my group have looked at face value, understanding the value of parts of numbers up to 1,000,000 and how the importance of place holders. We also joined history and maths together by having lessons on Roman numerals and using them to work out dates of significance in history and the years of the reigns of assorted kings and queens of Britain, they really enjoyed it and it was fun trying to learn and understand the right sequences. They have been working hard on layout and presentation of maths problems and I have been really impressed with the effort put into this. Our homework for maths this week reflects all these points and there are also tasks on recalling times tables facts for 6 and 7.

We are so blessed to have such generous parents in this school and we are lucky to have additional avenues of support and learning opportunities for the children. With teachers for Spanish, Music , Gymnastics and PE weekly and they do not include the various other opportunities throughout the year with dance lessons, QPR football sessions and Scientist in Residence lessons to name but a few. We could not do this without you parents who raised for us in FOSS a massive £175, 000 last year. Thank you so much!

Homework – Please see opposite for the homework which will be spelling, comprehension and maths. A new process will be using Google Classroom a lot more for other homework such as comprehension or additional tasks. Spellings and sentences as always will be in the green books and mathletics will be set by class teachers. Miss Bill and I had a chat today with the year group about homework expectations so please have a chat with them about it.  

In RE we have begun our topic of Judaism as well as begun looking at our class spiritual word – Peace. Next week the children will write prayers and created a poster with their bible verse in their RE books based on their idea what ‘PEACE’ means for us as individuals. Not just wishing for PEACE in the world, but also what it means for Peace in our lives. We also have started our worldwide religious topic on understanding what it is like to live as a follower of Judaism and what items and artefacts are important to them -such as a Kippah’, Tallit and Seder dish.

It has been wonderfully democratic in school this week with class elections for school council and the children voted for who would take on that role. Well done to all those who went for it, as well as the two children nominated as our prayer group representatives.

So all in all it has been a very democratic week in class…although I still have my dictator moments J.

I am looking forward to going to France with your children next year – a trip I loved doing with Year 6 a few years ago and as emailed earlier in the week, I hope all our children can attend. On another note good luck to the Year 6 going to PGL next week and I am sure they will have a fantastic time. I will repeat this throughout the year to the children many times throughout the year, but I truly believe that they are blessed to have so many opportunities and experiences in this school, or have I said that already J

Just to round off I would like to say your children are certainly a group full of character and energy. I see myself having a long bath before sinking into my couch every Friday when the week ends with a glass of coke zero and a box set on Netflix/Amazon Prime/Disney Plus as I try to recover J . Seriously they are wonderful children and I am having great fun teaching them.   They are a credit to you!

Kind regards

Mr Perry

Welcome to Year 5 Blackman!

I hope you had a wonderful summer holiday and are ready to start the new school year. I have been really looking forward to teaching Year 5 again as last year was my first year teaching this age group in this school. I taught Year 6s for five years and Year 4 for three before going to year 5. They are at a lovely age in their development and even better they also begin to get my humour (or lack of) J  as well. It is fantastic once again to meet new families, siblings of old students and get to know children from a year group who I do not know as well. We are all in this together as we start our year 5. I look forward to getting to know your children (and you of course) in the coming weeks and months ahead.

Miss Cummins and Miss Isobel have been wonderfully helpful over the last few days and I thank them both. I have worked with Miss Cummins before and we make a great team and I know you all know them (Miss Isobel and Miss Cummins) well from last year. Miss Cummins has over twenty years’ experience as a TA and is a welcome member of the Year 5 team. Miss Williams, Miss Bill and Miss Tami have also been wonderfully supportive as we begin our new year in Year 5. As I am sure you are aware – Miss Bill and Miss Williams are working with the other Year 5 class.

The Children have been letting me know all about themselves by creating a coat of arms that represent them and have included with them topics such as family, interests and talents. They have learnt a bit more about me and my interests, hobbies and expectations and we have looked this week at our personal heritage of our families to create a display in the class. Today they created a wonderful self portrait for the wall and the class was just abounding in mirrors, pastels and chalk. I am look forward to getting to know each other well in the coming months through assemblies, playtimes and looking at being back on track with school trips and sports events. Then of course next year we have our residential. Roll on France! I know this trip really well after taking five year 6 classes here before switching France with our Spanish trip and of course we brought it back last year. I am looking forward to taking your children here.  We have looked at our expectations for the year and drawn up a charter for our class rules and the children have been listening and following the rules sensibly.

Our timetable has been put on the website and I will parent mail you as well. In Maths – as always- Year 5 will be split into two groups.  I will be teaching the independent group and Miss Bill will be teaching the other group supported by additional adults. Although the groups will start more or less the same there will be some adjustments based on Miss Bill’s and I’s judgment. We will want to support your children as best as possible. As per my parent mail on Monday, PE kits will be needed for Tuesdays (PE) and Wednesdays (gymnastics). The children should come into school in their PE clothes on these days which they will keep on for the rest of the day, unless we have sports days- I would want the children to have full school uniforms on Monday, Thursday and Friday.

Reading books will not be issued this week, but will go out every Monday and should be returned by Friday when they will be changed, these books should be read with an adult and recorded in their reading log books. We will also have a school library slot on a Friday where the children make a more personal choice.  Children will visit the school library most weeks.   Homework will be issued every Friday and should be returned by Tuesday. Mathletics tasks are part of the weekly homework and should be completed by Tuesday as well.

I have attached a link below for you to see our class timetable which we will stick as much as possible, although I am also sure that you have come to realise that we have a lot of extracurricular activities in St Stephens so the timetable may change from time to time.

Timetable – Year 5 Blackman Autumn 1

I have also attached a copy of our ‘Curriculum Map’ for the autumn term which will show you the topics we will be covering in each subject. These too may be subject to change from time to time.

Year 5 Curriculum Map 2024-2025

I am looking to meeting you all properly over the course of the coming weeks and know we will have a successful year ahead.

My email is a.perry@ststephensce.lbhf.sch.uk

Kind Regards

Mr Perry