Newsletters

Newsletter 2nd October 2020

Dear Parents,

In this morning's assembly, on the Feast Day of Guardian Angels, I spoke to the children about always listening to their Guardian Angel, who will guide them throughout the day. It's a comforting thought to know that each and everyone of us has our own Guardian Angel who is looking over us. The children enjoyed the assembly and we all sang Robbie William's 'Angels' at the end, in our respective classrooms, which could be heard throughout the corridors.

It has been a busy week in school this week, not least for our Year 5 pupils who have done a brilliant job of moving seamlessly from class teaching to remote learning this week. It is great to know that all the provisions that were put in place for such an eventuality work well and that we can continue to deliver an uninterrupted curriculum. I want to send a special thanks to our teachers too, who are having to adapt to the ever-changing circumstances. Thank you for all your hard work.

Future coders

Our Early Years 2 class always look forward to their ICT lesson on Friday mornings. They use a number of programmes including Maths City, Simple City and Purple Mash. They're making great progress this term - perhaps we have a future Bill Gates amongst them!

Black History Month

October is Black History Month and while it is always valuable to have a month when we remember the contribution made by people of BAME origin, within St Bernard's Prep BAME figures are an integral part of our curriculum, not just a month long focus.

We celebrate all faiths within KS1, and from Year 3 – Year 6 we focus on Sikhism, Islam, Hinduism and Judaism respectively.

As part of our whole school Art curriculum we are focusing on BAME artists and are creating our own version of the National Gallery in the Hall.

Many of our library books and class readers are chosen to support our broad curriculum and our Year 4 children are currently reading Amazing Grace by Mary Hoffman, which raises important questions.

Year 5 Remote Working

As you know, our Year 5 bubble has been working remotely since Tuesday, and we've been keeping them busy!

In Geography, they have have been learning about tropical rainforests, specifically the Amazon, to consolidate the vocabulary and themes in this term's class reader, Journey to the River Sea.

This beautiful novel by Eva Ibbotson is set in the Caribbean and is another approach to incorporating Black History into our teaching throughout the year.

Guardian Angel's Feast Day

Happy Guardian Angel's Day!

Today is the Catholic Feast Day of Guardian Angels. Catholics believe that each soul, including Christians and non-Christians, has an angel assigned to it to give guidance throughout its life on earth.

French and other languages

At the beginning of this academic year we welcomed a new French teacher, Mademoiselle Millar. Mlle Millar teaches French throughout the school, from nursery to Year 6, and over the last week has asked pupils to share other languages they may speak. It has been wonderful to discover how many different languages are spoken by the community of St Bernard's Prep and a great way to celebrate our diversity. We hope to put together a short film of the children speaking their various languages, which we will share with you.

Have a restful weekend and Happy Guardian Angels Day.

Yours Sincerely

Mr N Cheesman