N O V E M B E R 2 0 1 9

S K Y S W O O D P R I M A R Y & N U R S E R Y

S C H O O L N E W S L E T T E R

I N S I D E T H I S I S S U E :

C H I L D R E N I N N E E D

P H O T O G A L L E R Y 2

N E T B A L L U P D A T E S 3

S T A N L E Y S M A R T P A N T S

A N D T H E D I S A P P E A R I N G

D I A M O N D S

3

S H O W C H O I R A N D

W I N D D A Y 3

K I D Z C O R N E R 4 & 5

F O O T B A L L U P D A T E S 6

M A T H S C H A L L E N G E 6

A D V E N T C A L E N D A R 6

F R E N C H H O R N

A S S E M B L Y 7

S W I M M I N G G A L A 7

D U X F O R D T R I P 7

F L O R E N C E N I G H T I N G A L E

D A Y 8

Over £1,000 Raised for Children in Need!

A big thank you to our children and families for your fantastic efforts for

Children in Need on Friday 15th November. The school raised just over

£1,000 and the children had great fun with making their clay Pudsey Bears

(or Blush Bears), performing at our Busk for the Bear Show, and the after

school Pudsey Market, which included a cake sale and a book sale. Six of

our children were also invited up to the Live London Broadcast at the Postal

Theatre. The six girls had a great time and it was a lovely way to recognise

their initiative in presenting, promoting and organising many of the activities

for the day. The children also enjoyed the opportunity to bring in their cuddly

toys for the day, many of which joined our children at our amazing Busk for

the Bear Concert in the afternoon. A rich variety of acts included songs,

dances, musical performances on the piano and the violin, a wonderful

puppet show and a beautifully choreographed roller-skating routine. The

children were also very proud of their clay models and we would like to

thank FOSS for funding the presentation boxes. Our Children in Need Pic-

ture Gallery (Page 2) captures some of the activities that we enjoyed on the

day!

Page 2

Children in Need Photo Gallery

Footage of our children at the Children in Need Live London Broadcast can be found on: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpbP30EuFnA

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Show Choir and Wind Days

'Recently some of our young musicians enjoyed day workshops organised by the Herts Music Service. At the Show Choir Day a group of our Year 4, 5 and 6 children joined children from across St Albans to learn songs from the musicals Annie and Matilda. Then our four Year 5 clarinetists took part in the Wind Day where they played in a massed ensemble of woodwind and brass players. Parents were invited to watch performances at the end of each day and were amazed by what they had achieved in such a short time!

The Music Service also offers weekly ensembles for these and other instruments; for more information head to their website http://www.hertsmusicservice.org.uk/st-albans-music-school/'

Stanley Smartpants and the Disappearing Diamonds

Congratulations to four of our children, who successfully entered Stanley

Smartpants competitions when the author, Alexander Martin, visited a

couple of years ago!

Erin and Isla (Year 5), along with Eddie (Year 6) all entered a competition

to design colourful outfits for Stanley Smartpants and their designs have

all been included in the latest book ‘Stanley Smartpants and the

Disappearing Diamonds.’ William (Year 5) also has a special credit as it

was William who came up with the idea for the book title.

Isla is pictured with author, Alexander Martin,

at the Aldenham Country Park Frost Fair.

Netball Updates

Our netball team followed up their determined effort against Bernard’s Heath

with an outstanding team performance at home to St John Fisher, winning by

nine goals to one. The team got off to a great start, scoring three really good

goals. Tilly and Becca were our goal shooter and goal attack. Katie then had a

turn as goal shooter in the second quarter, again scoring three goals to take us

into a 6-1 lead. In the third quarter we added another three goals. Mrs Lewis

then changed things around and, although we continued to play well together as

a team, we didn’t add further to our tally and completed the match with a strong

9-1 victory. Many thanks to Mrs Lewis for organising our netball coaching and

fixtures for the season.

Report written by Erin (Year 5)

Page 4 S K Y S W O O D P R I M A R Y & N U R S E R Y S C H O O L N E W S L E T T E R

Pastel Snowmen

Our Year 5 class have been learning about shades, tones and tints in their art, and they developed

the theme further through looking at pastel colours. The children used Raymond Briggs’ Snowman

illustrations as their stimulus and then used pastels to blend and produce their own snowman

pictures. The nine examples shown below were created by Emma, Sam, Willow, Hina, Millie, Leo,

Tabitha, Erin and Lilly.

Page 5 S K Y S W O O D P R I M A R Y & N U R S E R Y S C H O O L N E W S L E T T E R

Year 1– Autumn in Clay

Our Year 1 children have created the most amazing

‘autumn clay’ artwork through leaf slabwork and

the modelling of simple conkers and their more

complex shells. The children used an autumn

palette of natural colours and some of their clay

conkers could genuinely be mistaken for the real

thing! Mrs Fox kindly varnished their finished

pieces to make them look particularly special. The

eight examples on this page were created by Rosie,

Emmanuel, Sophie, Kenan, Emily, Lila, Kingsley

and Sophia. Well done to all of the children, your

artwork is fantastic and we are particularly

impressed by the way that you creatively curled

your leaves and captured the spiky texture on the

conker shells.

Roman Mosaic Tiles

Year 3 have been making some colourful

Roman mosaic tiles following their trip to the

Verulamium Museum as part of their history

project on the Romans. The children have

used symmetry very effectively within their

patterns. The six examples shown here were

made by Hamish, Eesah, Claire, Tulip, Rosie

and Lara.

Page 6 S K Y S W O O D P R I M A R Y & N U R S E R Y S C H O O L N E W S L E T T E R

Football Updates

Our school ‘B’ team are improving with every

performance. The team played well against

strong opponents in Samuel Ryder , deserving

greater reward than the 4-0 score-line might

suggest. In their following match, at home to How

Wood, the team enjoyed a 5-1 victory with

excellent passing and finishing, alongside some

superb goalkeeping from Toby. Finn opened the

scoring and Samuel and James both scored twice,

including a penalty from James and a strong

header from Samuel following a corner. All of the

team played well and the victory against How

Wood will be a big boost for confidence as the

team progress through the season.

Advent Calendar

We are looking forward to our build up to

Christmas and the children are particularly

excited about our giant Advent calendar. Each

day will reveal how Christmas is celebrated in

a different country, and we’ll then be linking

a flag and an object to our world map.

Saturday’s doors will be opened every Friday

and Sunday’s will be opened each Monday! Year 5 Maths Challenge

Congratulations to our ‘fab four’ of Sebi, Charlie,

Finley and Oscar, who represented the school at

the finals of the Year 5 Maths Challenge

competition at Aldwickbury. Sebi partnered

Charlie, whilst Oscar partnered Finley. There were

60 pairings in the Hertfordshire final and we’re

extremely proud to have two pairs who reached

the final, with Sebi and Charlie making the top

25. Well done to all four of our boys!

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French Horn Assembly

Year 2 had a special treat in music earlier this month when Grace's mum Aisha brought her French horn in to show us! Year 2 have been studying Peter and the Wolf and each week we have listened to a different instrument featured in the story. Aisha played us the music that represents the wolf character and the children thought up some impressive questions to ask her about playing the French horn. Thank you very much Aisha.

Annual Swimming Gala

Our swimming teams performed superbly at the Annual Swimming

Gala, which was held at the Herts University, Hatfield, on Saturday

23rd November. Our ‘A’ team swimmers finished in the top four

during each of the six individual races, with Alex claiming second

place in the boys’ breaststroke and Alizah claiming second spot in

the girls’ freestyle. Skyswood also finished in second place for both

the girls’ and boys’ medley relays, with Alizah, Isla and Tabitha

competing for our girls and Alex, Samuel and Jacob competing for

the boys. A special mention must also be given to the school ‘B’

team, who entered following an extremely late withdrawal by

another school on the Friday afternoon. All of our ‘B’ team

swimmers did themselves

proud whilst representing the

school. It was very much a

Skyswood team act with

regard to organising the

competition, with Mr Jones

organising the event itself and

being assisted on the evening

by Mr Oswin, Miss McAlister

and Mr Bridle.

Duxford Trip

Year 6 enjoyed their trip to Duxford

Museum last Thursday, visiting the

hangers and building upon their

knowledge of planes, tanks, the Battle

of Britain and landing craft from D-Day.

The class also looked at displays on the

parachute regiment, the home front

and modern military machinery. The

children also had the opportunity to go

inside one of the first Concorde

aeroplanes ever made, as well as trying

out the interactive exhibits linked to

modern air, sea and land combat.

Everybody had a fantastic day and it

was a wonderful way to round off this

term’s history project on World War II.

Florence Nightingale Day On Monday 18th November, Year 2 had their Florence Nightingale Day, run through History Off the Page. The

children were amazing as always and completed a number of creative tasks, inference workshops and role-play

activities. The children enjoyed the opportunity to show off their extensive learning and Miss Harvey could not be

prouder.

Miss Harvey has made a class book using some of the photos taken and parents are welcome to come into the

classroom and have a look.

Thank you as well to all the parent/grandparent helpers throughout the day. You were amazing and the day would

not have been as special without you!