1. St Luke’s Church of England School Newsletter 08 January 2016
Message from Mrs Tyler
A Happy New Year to you all and a special welcome to Hiba Noor, who joins Year 3 and to Mr Commodore-Mensah who joins KS1 for this half term as a student teacher. Please take a look at the new ‘Dates for Diary’ for this term below – you will see we have a fun and busy term ahead with our STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths) Week, Internet Safety Week, Book Day and International Week. Our KS2 children will also be preparing for their performance at the Camden Music Festival at the Royal Albert Hall in March.
The STEM Week starts on 18th January and will include a variety of school based Science, Maths and Engineering activities and visits from a research scientist and an owl! There also will be a whole school outing to the Science Museum and KS1 will visit the Camden Schools’ Computer Centre. We will be running a Parents’ STEM Evening on the Thursday evening (21st), where we will explain more about the new curriculum and show you ways that you can further support your children’s problem solving and reasoning skills at home.
Are you in a profession related to Science, Technology, Engineering or Maths?
If so, we would love you to come and talk to the children about your job during our STEM Week (18 to 22 January). Please speak to Mr Stephenson or Miss Milne if you are interested. Thank you.
PFA News
Meeting next Monday (11th) at 9am – all welcome.
Thank you
Mrs Pearce thanks you for all the toys – we have enough for the time being and will let you know when we need more.
PACE After School Club at Fortune Green
provides after school care until 6.30pm Monday to Friday. A member of SLS staff escorts the children to the club after school. Please speak to Miss Hardwick for more information.
Time for Sugar Swaps!
This week in PHSE the children have been discussing the effects of sugar in our diets and what we can do to reduce it. We recommend that you download the free Sugar Smart app; it will give you lots of ideas for smarter sugar choices and it can also scan bar codes telling you just how much sugar is in that product. Isabella has already told me how much sugar is in Nutella! Please let Miss Martin know of any changes that you make.
News from Reception
Welcome back! This week the children have begun learning about Space, which will be our topic this half term. They have been exploring the role-play Space Station, creating their own aliens and learning the names of the planets. They have also been sharing their news and writing sentences about their Christmas holidays. In Maths we have continued to focus on securing number formation, counting and ordering, as well as writing number sentences. Some children also took part in their own investigation to find all the different ways of grouping 4 ‘snowballs’. In RE, the children learned about the biblical version of the creation story and they drew a picture of their favourite living thing. Then we looked at the features of winter – what happens to the weather, the temperature and the trees at this time of year, and the children helped to create the seasonal display.
Please note: Reception’s class assembly is on the 27th January and I am sending home words to learn. Please help your child to read these in a loud voice over the weekend and the coming weeks.
Reception Class
Golden Book
Gabriel for learning to write his numbers.
Ervis for using phonics sounds in his writing.
Maths Monkey
Reuben for confidently counting and matching quantities and numerals.
KS1 Class
Golden Book
Mokshau for good understanding of fractions.
Zoe for her thoughtfulness towards others.
Maths Monkey
Rokaya for problem solving with fractions.
KS2 Certificate of Merit
Year 3
Zephyr for outstanding behaviour for learning.
Year 4
Isabella for amazing effort with her handwriting.

2. 2015-16 and 2016-17 term dates are on the school website.
News from KS1
The children have settled back into school quickly after the Christmas holidays. We are fortunate to have Mr Commodore-Mensah, who will be supporting teaching in KS1 this half term - the children loved participating in his football lesson at West Heath tennis courts. In class we have been learning about fractions. The children have been finding half, a quarter and three quarters of shapes, lengths and numbers. The also solved some tricky word problems. In English we started learning about features of a traditional tale. The children retold stories they had read over the holidays. Next week we will continue to focus on features of traditional tales and begin to write our own story. In Design and Technology the children have been learning about where food comes from and about healthy eating. To apply their knowledge of which foods are healthy, they designed and made their own healthy sandwich.
News from Lower KS2
Sometimes after a holiday it can take a little while for the children to settle back into their learning. However, all the children have been eager to start our new topic – The British Isles. This topic is going to be very cross-curricular – the children will be learning about the UK land features in Geography and traditional British music in Music and Dance. We will also be using the information to compile a class book for our school library. In Maths we have been using our multiplication and division skills to help with fractions. Some children are still finding fractions a little tricky, so any help at home, particularly with language and how fractions are used in real life, would be really useful.
Dates for Diary (Spring term)
and term dates are on the school website.