News
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Monday 17 March 2025 The Importance of Flowers Have you ever thought about how important seeds are and what would happen if they didn't exist? Have you ever wondered where seeds some from?
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Friday 14 March 2025 Trees on Parade
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Friday 14 March 2025 British Science Week This week the children have been celebrating British Science Week by focusing on the topic of, 'Change and Adapt'. This has encompassed several areas of our Science curriculum and prompted some wonderful questions from the children in Year 2.
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Friday 14 March 2025 British Science Week During British Science Week, we have been considering the concept of 'Change and Adapt'. In Year 6, we have been looking at selective plant breeding which is a fantastic example of human-influenced plant adaption. Over the next few weeks, we will be choosing the best of a crop to help improve the next harvest. We started this project by collecting our own seeds from a variety of different tomatoes. A fun, but messy, activity! We will work over time to observe changes and record the results. Hopefully, we will also end up with some tasty produce.
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Friday 14 March 2025 Spring has Sprung! Reception have been busy outside looking for signs of spring. We have noticed buds appearing on plants, birds singing in trees and lots of minibeasts in the soil! We have learnt the names of some spring flowers: snowdrops, crocuses, daffodils and primroses.
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Sunday 9 March 2025 World Book Day in Year 5 St. Andrew's World Book Day theme this year was - The Books We Love.
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Sunday 9 March 2025 The cycle of life During this term's science, we are thinking about the importance of living things and their methods of reproduction.
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Friday 7 March 2025 Just Dance Have you ever wondered what else Year 6 do in class apart from learning? Just Dance! It's such a fantastic way to get those little legs moving and energise their minds! A few minutes of dancing not only lifts Year 6 children's spirits but also helps with concentration afterwards. Plus, who doesn't love a bit of a boogie? It’s a brilliant way to combine physical activity with learning, keeping everyone engaged and happy!
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Thursday 6 March 2025 Where does our Food come from? As we welcomed Year 2 to another half term we have moved on to looking at where our food comes from in our Geography Unit.
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Sunday 2 March 2025 The World of Dragons We went on a dragon hunt. No, we didn't catch a big one but yes, we were a little bit scared.
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Friday 28 February 2025 Dinosaur hunt To launch our new topic of 'Dinosaurs' the children when on an artefacts hunt, where they searched for different clues which helped them identify the correct topic.
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Friday 28 February 2025 Counting fun! This term we will be focussing on developing our counting skills. We will be practising 1:1 counting a group of objects, ensuring that we count very slowly and use our pointing finger to touch an object while we say a number (and not saying the number before our finger has reached the object!).
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Friday 28 February 2025 STEM Discovery Centre
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Tuesday 18 February 2025 Thermal insulation and dissolving To complete our materials topic, we carried out investigations around thermal insulation and solubility.
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Friday 14 February 2025 Going to the volcano This week, we explore one of our No Outsiders books 'Going to the volcano', the children loved the repeating pattern and rhyme with this story. We enjoyed acting out the story and understanding the message that everyone was welcome to join us on our trip to the volcano.
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Friday 14 February 2025 Safer Internet Day Safer Internet Day is celebrated globally in February each year to promote the safe and positive use of digital technology for children and young people. This week, Year 6 explored what is meant by the word scam and looked at simple steps to protect themselves and others from online scams. They also considered the dangers of social media and how to stay safe.
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Friday 14 February 2025 Goodbye chicks! We have absolutely loved having chicks in our Early Years for the last few weeks. We watched them hatch from eggs and grow each day- we can't believe how much they've grown!
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Sunday 9 February 2025 How do Sikh followers show the value of equality? Year 5 had had a very busy R.E. finding out about the values of Sikh followers and how they show these values in their day to day lives.
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Sunday 9 February 2025 The art of freedom As we come to the end of our English topic on the Starbird, we have been thinking about what freedom meant to the Starbird.
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Friday 7 February 2025 Perseverance During our PSHE unit of Dream and Goals, we looked at how important it is to show perseverance and resilience when trying to reach our goals. We demonstrated resilience by making their hand flowers, they were difficult because we have to carefully draw and cut around our hands.
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Friday 7 February 2025 RE Week During RE Week, Year 6 students engaged in an enlightening exploration of Sikhism, centring their discussions around the Big Question of 'How do Sikhs put their belief about equality into practice?' Through various activities, including group discussions and creative projects, the children deepened their understanding of Sikh teachings on equality, fostering respect and appreciation for diverse beliefs within our school community. To finalise the RE Week, we considered how we could show equality and self-service to others, in the same way as the Sikhs would do. As a result, we worked on a 'Selfless' project in small groups. Finally, with the help of the Year 5 children, we voted for the favourite project which we hope to deliver in the summer term!
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Friday 7 February 2025 Exploring traditional tales Our topic for this term is traditional tales, so we have been exploring stories like ‘The Three Billy Goats Gruff’ last week and ‘Goldilocks and the Three Bears’ this week. We found 3 different sized bears with 3 different sized chairs and bowls in our home corner, and our sensory tray had oats in it! We have also enjoyed retelling the stories with puppets.
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Friday 31 January 2025 Happy Lunar New Year!
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Friday 31 January 2025 Happy Spring Festival
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Friday 31 January 2025 How Our Bodies Work We’ve been having a fantastic time in our Science lessons, exploring the wonders of the circulatory system and the heart. The children really embraced the topic and each wrote delightful stories about a little red blood cell on its journey through the body. It’s amazing to see their imaginations at work!
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Thursday 30 January 2025 The White Continent The children had a special visit from Dr. Susie Grant, a marine biologist who works for the British Antarctic Survey. She shared fascinating insights with the class about what it's really like to visit Antarctica. The children were captivated by the vast number of different creatures living in the oceans beneath the ice, with the slimy sea pig being the class favourite! To conclude the fantastic visit, the children had the exciting opportunity to try on the thick coats, huge boots, and specialist equipment needed to survive in Antarctica.
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Thursday 30 January 2025 A Trip to the Greengrocers Reception children went on a walk to JS Webb Greengrocers in town today. We walked past Walsworth Road Baptist Church, the Queen Mother Theatre, Windmill Hill and the River Hiz. We spotted the first signs of spring: squirrels, daffodils and birds’ nests. We spent time looking for shapes in the grounds of St Mary’s Church and visited the lovely greengrocer nearby to buy all the fruit and vegetables on our shopping list. What a wonderful morning out! Back at school we got busy making turnip soup and are really looking forward to using pastels to sketch the fruit and vegetables (and to giving them a taste too!)
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Thursday 30 January 2025 Science Experiments This Week The children in year 2 have been investigating which materials are most absorbent. They worked methodically recording their results as they went
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Wednesday 29 January 2025 Starbird art
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Saturday 25 January 2025 Painting pictures with words For the first three weeks on term, Year 5 have been developing their descriptive writing skills.
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Friday 24 January 2025 A lot of writing! Your children have been busy bees this week writing up their story influenced by Starbird...and we're nearly finished! Three winners will be chosen next week but I am incredibly proud of the effort and thought that all children have put into their writing. They certainly deserve a good rest this weekend!
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Friday 24 January 2025 Responsibility and Kindness This week, Year 6 have been demonstrating responsibility and kindness, particularly towards the younger members of our school community. On Wednesday, they escorted their Reception class buddies to our whole school service at Holy Saviour Church, ensuring that they walked safely and sensibly on the way there and back. Over half of the class have volunteered to give up some of their free time to help out in the dining room. Their duties include serving puddings, sweeping up, wiping tables etc. The staff supervising lunchtime are very grateful for their support. As usual, Year 6 have also enjoyed spending time this week reading to their Reception buddies.
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Wednesday 22 January 2025 Comparing Height Reception have had lots of fun learning about height. We researched the different heights of penguins living in the Antarctic using the Internet. We found that the tallest penguin was the Emperor, and the shortest was the Adelie penguin.
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Wednesday 22 January 2025 Comparing Height Reception have had lots of fun learning about height. We researched the different heights of penguins living in the Antarctic using the Internet. We found that the tallest penguin was the Emperor, and the shortest was the Adelie penguin.
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Friday 17 January 2025 Winter We have been exploring the signs of winter outside this week. We've looked at ice, talked about the trees and their leaves, and we've made snowflake/snowman pictures with paint and chalk. We have also started thinking about where different animals live and making homes for our toy animals in preparation for our exploration of hibernation next week.
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Friday 17 January 2025 Starbird This week, we have started planning our narrative around the story of Starbird, focusing on considering the background story of the Moon King character! The children ‘interviewed’ the Moon King to try and find out what led to him being so mean…and what made him change his mind. Watch this space!
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Friday 17 January 2025 Starbird This week the children have been enjoying the whole school text that we are following as part of the Herts Writing competition. The children have focused on looking at description and how they can describe the characters using noun phrases.
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Friday 17 January 2025 North Herts Writing Project Once again, St Andrew's School is taking part in the North Herts Writing Project. This year's book is called 'Starbird', a story about a caged bird, a powerful Moon King and a young princess who will never stop fighting for freedom. Year 6 have been thinking about the concept of freedom. The children considered how an author portrays characters. They used the subjunctive mood to express the language of possibility and modal verbs to write advice for a character in the form of a song. Next week, we will be writing the final competition piece.
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Thursday 16 January 2025 Blue Penguin Poetry Reception have really enjoyed listening to and discussing the text, 'Blue Penguin by Petr Horacek. We have developed our vocabulary through listening to and discussing the story and have explored the story setting by thinking about our five senses. We have written our own poem inspired by the illustrations.
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Wednesday 15 January 2025 Our vision of the Starbird Along with other classes in our school, we have been basing our literacy work around the story of the Starbird this week.
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Friday 10 January 2025 New year brings new topics! The children have written some fabulous poetry this week about freedom inspired by our new Story Starbird, around which we will be producing some writing for a competition.
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Friday 10 January 2025 Penguins Reception have had a wonderful week learning all about penguins. We have been comparing our height to the height of penguins, learning about different types of penguin and collaging our own penguins to create a classroom display. We even froze some toy penguins and used our scientific skills to melt the ice and free the penguins!
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Friday 10 January 2025 Our Christian Vision At the start of the new term, we have been thinking about the school's Christian Vision: 'Let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth.' Year 6 considered what this vision means for us at school, at home and in the wider community. We have also been considering this month's values of Perseverance and Courage. The children wrote acrostic poems about Perseverance.
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Thursday 9 January 2025 Starbird As part of the North Herts Writing Project, we have been exploring the story of Starbird.
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Wednesday 8 January 2025 Proving Fractions Are Equal Today in maths we have been learning about equivalant fraction. We have used a range of different methods to prove that two fractions are equal.
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Friday 20 December 2024 Wishing you a merry Christmas! We have enjoyed a wonderful last week at St Andrew's - the highlight of which was the carol concert on Wednesday (and pantomime today)! If you were able to attend, I/m sure you will agree the children were outstanding.
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Friday 20 December 2024 Happy Christmas After a very busy term, we would like to wish everyone a very Happy Christmas and a Happy New Year!
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Thursday 19 December 2024 Advent in Reception Having learnt all about Advent at St Albans Cathedral last week, children in Reception have continued their learning about how Christians around the world prepare for Christmas. We learnt that in Ireland, candles are placed on windowsills, in Australia people have barbecues on the beach(!) and in India colourful paper stars are hung.
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Monday 16 December 2024 A Crafty Christmas Over the last couple of weeks, year 5 have been developing their craft skills and making some very festive decorations to bring home to share.
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Friday 13 December 2024 Christmas Games This week we have been designing and creating our Scratch games. The challenge was to include a timer and a scoring system. Some of us even designed games for two players! There are certainly future game designers in Year 6 class!
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Thursday 12 December 2024 Performing and problem-solving
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Thursday 12 December 2024 Christmas time in Nursery! After performing beautifully at our Nativity last week, we have started thinking about the story of Christmas and doing lots of activities linked to this time of year. We have been busy wrapping presents in our new gift wrapping station and making Christmas cards and decorations in the atelier. Here we are making snowflakes!
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Thursday 12 December 2024 Reception's First School Trip Today was a very special day as we went on our very first school trip. We travelled on a coach to visit St Alban's Cathedral. We visited different parts of the cathedral learning all about Advent and Christmas and how it is celebrated in the cathedral. We made advent wreaths, smelt myrrh and frankincense and listened to the story of Christmas. We behaved beautifully and represented St Andrew's exceptionally. What a super first visit!
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Monday 9 December 2024 Cycling Squares In maths this week we have been learning about square and cubed numbers.
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Friday 6 December 2024 Fun with Fractions This week we have been learning to add, subtract and multiply fractions. Although it all may sound complicated, we realised that there are various strategies to solve each calculations. That is why we have been testing and trying different methods to choose the one that suits each child best.
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Friday 6 December 2024 The Christmas Story On Thursday, we went to St Paul's Church in Letchworth to learn about and experience the first ever Christmas. The children went on journey learning about the message sent to Mary, the journey to Bethlehem, the gifts given by the wise men and finally ending with the birth of baby Jesus in the stable.
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Friday 6 December 2024 Christmas is Coming! Reception has been full of festive cheer this week. We began our week by performing our Nativity to the rest of school and our families. We all shone on stage, singing, acting and remembering all our moves fantastically. We made our families and teachers very proud.
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Tuesday 3 December 2024 STEMPOINT Materials Last week we welcomed STEMPOINT East to the school to run a Materials workshop for our Year 2 children.
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Monday 2 December 2024 A Fishy Week This week, along with other classes in the school, we have been developing a new art installation .
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Friday 29 November 2024 Family Learning Week A big thank you to all the families that just us for family learning week. The children have all thoroughly enjoyed designing, making and painting their clay fish. It was so lovely to have families join us in our classroom to help create our whole school art project. We can't wait to see the final results!
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Friday 29 November 2024 Electrical switches and hoplite recounts!
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Friday 29 November 2024 Magnetism Investigation We have been exploring magnets in the investigation area this week. Some children decided to go on a hunt around the classroom to see which objects and surfaces were magnetic, and many recognised that things would "stick" to the magnets if they were made of metal.
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Friday 22 November 2024 Our own toys workshop This week, the children all brought in their favourite toys. We created our own toys workshop where we shared and enjoyed playing with each others toys. It was great to see such a range of toys. The toys workshop will help us to answer our History big question: "Do we have better toys than our grandparents?"
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Friday 22 November 2024 Family Learning Week Thank you to all the parents/grandparents that have come in this week to make clay fish with their children. We loved making them and welcoming you into our classroom!
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Wednesday 20 November 2024 Family Learning Week! Thank you to the parents who have attended Family Learning Week so far this week. The children have been engaged with the learning and, as you can see, have begun to create wonderful designs ready to be painted later in the week.
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Tuesday 19 November 2024 Beginning our new science topic Today, year 5 had a very exciting start to our new science topic on materials - a visit from the STEM Discovery Centre.
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Tuesday 19 November 2024 Planning for our whole school project Year 3 were very excited to embark on a St Andrew's school project this morning. First we found out that each child in the school was going to create a clay fish as part of a whole school art installation. Then we looked at different examples to inspire our own designs, and the colours of slip (clay paint) available for our fish. We discussed the size the fish needed to be and different techniques for adding texture. Finally we started on our individual planning sheets.
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Sunday 17 November 2024 The World From Above This week we have been looking at how we use a map from an aerial view. The children spent some time exploring google maps, discussing how we use these maps to create or follow directions.
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Friday 15 November 2024 Reception Remember Reception talked about the significance of Remembrance Day. We worked together to collage, paint and colour poppies to create our own wreath and class display.
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Friday 15 November 2024 Anti-bullying Week - Odd Socks Day To celebrate anti-bullying week 2024, year 1 have completed a variety of activities from exploring adults they trust, to designing their own odd socks. The class were challenged to see if they could represent themselves within their odd socks design.
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Friday 15 November 2024 No Outsiders
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Thursday 14 November 2024 Remembrance Day
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Wednesday 13 November 2024 Anti-bullying Week in Year 5 This years anti-bullying week theme is around respect.
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