Nursery to Year Six Highlights

Kindergarten and Nursery pupils have embraced the first ‘Sound of the Week’ of the new academic year!  This week, our youngest learners have been exploring the ‘s’ sound through a variety of exciting activities. Kindergarten pupils have been practising their letter formation using the Essential Letters and Sounds rhyme for ‘s’, repeating the rhyme as they carefully write the letter. They have also enjoyed discovering more about Sid the Silly Snake, who has helped bring our new sound to life! Kindergarten pupils have also developed their mathematical skills, using Numicon pieces to create a colourful scarecrow picture and working carefully to ensure the pieces match. All of the Kindergarten and Nursery pupils have had great fun exploring sand filled with items beginning with ‘s’ and moulding playdough on fantastic sea-themed boards. Our Traditional Tale of the Week, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs’ has been enjoyed in the Reading Corner. A huge thank you to our Kindergarten and Nursery families for sending in such a wonderful collection of objects beginning with ‘s’ for our ‘Sound of the Week’ table. The pupils have loved sharing and talking about their special objects.

Last week in Reception, our theme was all about fruit and healthy eating! The girls enjoyed exploring a range of different fruits, thinking about where they grow and using lots of describing words to talk about how they looked, felt, smelt and tasted. We also had fun tasting different fruits and sharing our favourites. In Art, the girls created their own fantastic fruit faces, using different fruits to inspire their designs. We also used our fruit theme in Mathematics, developing our sorting skills by looking carefully at different objects and thinking about the different ways they could be grouped. It was lovely to see the girls being curious, creative and confident in sharing their ideas with each other!

Year One girls have been busy becoming Super Scientists as they explore the exciting world of Materials this term, both in the classroom and at Forest School! While 1B headed outside to investigate and discover different materials in their Forest School surroundings, 1H became scientific detectives in the classroom! They explored lots of everyday objects, using scientific vocabulary to describe how different materials felt. The girls then had great fun sorting and grouping their materials, deciding whether they were made from wood, metal, paper, fabric or plastic. They did such a fantastic job that their super science work was proudly displayed for everyone to admire at our next Year One Open House.  Well done, Super Scientists – you really know your materials!  

Year Two have made a fantastic start to their new Art topic this half term. To get started, the girls put their cutting skills to the test with a rather unusual challenge — creating a self-portrait jigsaw! They carefully cut up a photograph of themselves before attempting to piece it back together. This gave the girls an opportunity to practise their precision and control, while also reflecting on their own skills and considering what they could improve. The girls then moved on to creating a collage of an eye, which links with our Science topic on senses. They carefully labelled their work, helping to reinforce the names of the different parts of the eye. Next week, the girls will be putting their skills into action as they create a collage of a burning building, linking their Art lesson with our History topic, The Great Fire of London.

This week, Year Four have stepped into the exciting world of museum curation as we prepare for the opening of Birmingham’s museum! In English, we have been helping to create clear and informative labels for a range of fascinating exhibits. Working in groups, we have explored singular and plural possessive apostrophes while showcasing our expanded noun phrases and developing our descriptive skills. There has been plenty of discussion, teamwork and careful editing as we selected precise and ambitious vocabulary to make our labels engaging. Year Four have shown that even a small museum label requires lots of thought! We cannot wait to see our work come to life when the museum opens soon. 

This week, Year Five have been busy exploring where the food we eat really comes from as part of their Geography learning about farming in Britain. The girls began by looking at a range of familiar everyday food products and examining their packaging carefully. Rather than simply thinking about the finished product we might find on a supermarket shelf, they became food detectives, investigating the different ingredients hidden inside! Using ingredient lists from a variety of products, the girls identified some of the key ingredients before considering where each one originally came from. They used their growing knowledge of arable and pastoral farming to decide whether ingredients could be traced back to crops grown on an arable farm or animals reared on a pastoral farm. This led to some excellent discussions, particularly when products contained ingredients from more than one type of farming. The girls also explored the difference between food being processed and packaged. They discovered that packaging is used to contain, protect and present food, while processing involves changing ingredients in some way to create a food product. They enjoyed considering how something grown or produced on a farm can go through several different stages before eventually reaching our plates. There was lots of thoughtful discussion as the girls examined the different products, shared their ideas and justified their choices. They were particularly interested to discover just how many of the ingredients in everyday foods can ultimately be traced back to British farms. It has been another fantastic week of learning in Year Five, with the girls demonstrating plenty of curiosity, enthusiasm and some excellent investigative skills! 

Year Five and Six pupils became roving reporters this week as the Junior Journalists Club got off to an exciting start! The girls were thrown straight into the world of journalism when they were given a breaking news story: a mystery celebrity had been spotted visiting EHS! Working in small news teams, the girls first had to decide who would take on each important role. They selected news anchors, reporters, eyewitnesses and photographers, discovering how different members of a news team work together to bring a story to life. With roles assigned, it was time to investigate! The Junior Journalists discussed the key questions every good reporter needs to answer – Who? What? Where? When? Why? and How? – before preparing their own breaking news reports. Finally, each team presented their story to the rest of the club, with confident news anchors introducing the headlines, reporters delivering the latest information and eyewitnesses providing those all-important quotes. It was a fantastic first session filled with teamwork, creativity, quick thinking and confident speaking. We certainly have some budding journalists in Years Five and Six – so watch this space for their next scoop!