Christmas 2015 - Bennerley Fields

Newsletter Christmas 2015
Bennerley Fields School
Tel: 0115 932 6374 email: info@bennerleyfields.co.uk
Website: www.bennerleyfields.derbyshire.sch.uk
Our new school council has been elected
and they meet regularly with Sue Firth.
So far they have talked about and bought
some new playground equipment and at the
moment are talking with their classes
about which charities to support.
Congratulations to:
Charlie Shaw- Head Girl
Jenson Dolman- Fantom – Head Boy
Rose Syson – Deputy Head Girl
Luke Whysall – Deputy Head Boy
Excitement is mounting as Christmas is
getting closer. Lots of fun activities have
been planned and pupils are practising hard
for their performances. We certainly have
some budding stars!
As usual it has been a busy term with lots of
learning going on in and out of school and I
hope that you enjoy reading about it over
the next few pages. Our students continue
to work incredibly hard and make fantastic
progress. Everyone in school feels privileged
to work with such amazing students.
Over the Summer holidays we have
continued to develop the KS2 playground and
there are now 2 trampolines as well as the
eagle nest swing. They are proving very
popular with the pupils. There are still plans
afoot to further develop the playground and
Ruth in the office is working hard to secure
even more funds towards this.
I would like to take this opportunity to
wish you all a very merry Christmas and a
happy new year.
Ann Harrison
Acting Head Teacher
Congratulations to all our pupils who have
had 100% attendance this term:
Lewis Nicholls
Peter Thorpe
Lewis Walker
Abbie Whitehead
Caleb Baldwin
Max Shaw
Jake Timms
Zara Weller
Luke Whysall
Tayla Dakin
Dates for your Diary
Last day of term – Fri 18th Dec
Pupils return to school – Mon 4thth Jan
INSET day – Fri 12th Feb
Half Term – 15th Feb to 19th Feb
Last day of term – Thurs 24th Mar
INSET day – Mon 11th April
Pupils return to school-Tues 12th April
INSET days are on the school website.
Ladybirds Nursery
Butterflies Nursery
The Ladybird Class have all settled into a new
school year and as we head towards the end of
the year we think about all the things we have
done this term. We have enjoyed learning
about wild animals with a trip to the zoo
before half term and we are still singing, “The
Animals Boogie” on a regular basis!
This term we have been learning about “Light
& Dark” and “Day and Night.” We started
with lots of fun around fireworks and bonfire
night and worked hard together to make a
brilliant firework and bonfire painting. We
have learnt about daytime and night-time
routines and enjoyed practising putting on
pyjamas and pretending to go to sleep. We
liked playing alongside and making dens
together. Chris did lots of “snoring” so we
had to keep waking her up!
Stanley at
the zoo
This term we have enjoyed discovering about
light and dark. We have made dens and used
torches, sung songs about space, thought about
day and night routines and have a new
favourite story, “The Owl Babies.” We even
had a visit from the firemen!
Callum and Amy
in the fire
engine
We have been working hard; painting, baking
and learning new skills as well as swimming
regularly and now we are busy preparing for
Christmas, learning new songs and preparing
for our Christmas Party.
James and William
in the den
pretending to go
to bed
We have made some lovely paintings using
“light and dark” colours and learnt about all
the nocturnal animals that come out at night.
Our favourite story has been “Owl Babies”
and Ruben can re-tell this to himself.
For Children in Need we loved dressing up
together and thank you for all your support.
We are happy that some new children have
joined us this term and say welcome to
Brianna, David and William.
James and William
doing firework
splatter painting
We really thank our parents for their support
and we wish you and your children a wonderful
Christmas.
With Love
Lydia, Kay, Sally, Debbie and Amy.
David exploring
colours and shapes
Busy Bees – Key Stage 1
We have been working hard in Busy Bees
so far this year. We have been getting to
know each other through our Autumn
topic and have been investigating our
environment using scientific concepts to
look at animals and natural items.
Tigers – Key Stage 2
Tiger class and Eagles class have merged this
term for Art sessions. They have been doing
activities based around the topics of Autumn
and Space.
Maya painting
her space helmet.
Jase in the
woods
We are enjoying our space topic and have
been investigating shape by making
models and pictures of rockets. We are
really excited about our trip to the space
centre. We will be having a wide variety
of Christmas craft activities in the week
leading up to Christmas and will be
investigating advent calendars to help us
countdown to Christmas!
Brogan as a
spaceman
Arris and Kallum
exploring Space
One group has been working with clay to
create leaf mobiles, fabric printing with
leaves, making laminated leaf windows and
leaf collages. This term they have been
creating hand-print aliens, paper plate flying
saucers, paper bag space helmets and melted
wax crayon sun catcher suns. They have loved
working with the different mediums, the
sensory aspect of art and have produced some
immediate and effective results.
The other group has been using different
mediums to learn skills related to the above
topics. For four sessions they studied the art
of Leonid Afremov, practised different
techniques such as stippling and blending and
recreated one of his works in paint. They
produced some fantastic pieces of work!
Hugh Wolverson’s
interpretation of
one of Leonid Afremov’s
paintings
’Sun of January’
by Leonid Afremov.
3M – Key Stage 3
Eagles – Key Stage 2
3M have all been working hard learning
about War and Remembrance this term.
We visited the Army Cadet Drill Hall in
Albert Street in October.
Eagles have been learning about space in
topic this term. Space is very exciting. We
have learnt all the names of the planets in
the solar system, lots of interesting facts
about the moon and made planet sculptures.
We have also made rockets and set them
off to see how high they can go! Eagles have
also made space portholes for the space
display in the chill out zone.
We discovered a lot of our pupils had
relatives who served in the 5th Battalion of
the Sherwood Foresters and this building
was their meeting place. Undoubtedly
Bennerley Fields pupils’ relatives would
have passed through this place on their
way to active service in different parts of
the world. We brought two ex KS3 pupils,
William Clapp and Jack Parry, with us on
our trip. They both had relatives who
served with the 5th battalion and they
presented signed photos which were taken
on a battlefield tour of Belgium and
France undertaken by Mick, Christine, Billy
Flett and Luke Butler in September. The
class have responded really well to
discussing the complex issues of war and
the reasons why countries fight. You can
see pictures of what we’ve been doing on
our blog on the school website.
As part of our topic we are going to the
National Space Centre in Leicester on the
10th December; all the pupils are very
excited about this!
William and Jack presenting framed photos
of Sherwood Foresters soldiers’ graves in
Belgium and the battalion memorial at
Tyne Cot cemetery in Passchendaele
3K – Key Stage 3
3F – Key Stage 3
We welcomed our new teacher Katherine this
term, she works with us half a week and Kay
works with us the other half. Also Sammy
joined our class this term.
We are learning about WW1 and WW2. We
visited the National Memorial Arboretum to
remember people who have died in wars. We
kept 2 minutes silence at 11 o’clock in the
chapel. We made poppies and laid them on a
memorial. We saw lots of poppies that other
people had put there too.
3F have really enjoyed finding out about the
past this term; especially about what life was
like for people during wartime. One of our
favourite days was the day we dressed up in
different clothes from the past and
pretended to be different people like soldiers,
nurses and evacuees.
Max dressed as
a soldier
Peter putting
poppies on the
memorial
The first half of this term we all enjoyed
horse riding at Keyworth. Charlotte liked
riding on Candy and Jacob liked Barney. We
also tried drumming with Robin learning
rhythms and beats; it was good fun.
We are now cooking. We go out and buy the
ingredients in the morning then cook in the
afternoon. We have made scones, apple
pudding and soda bread.
Activities in and
out of school
Abbie dressed as
a nurse
We have visited some interesting places this
term too. In late October, we visited the
National Memorial Arboretum in
Staffordshire and chose where to place the
special poppies we had made. More recently,
we took part in WW1 and WW2 workshops at
Erewash Museum, where we 'experienced' an
air raid and all had to hide out in the shelter!
3F at the National Memorial Arboretum
3/4 A
Wow! What a great term. 3/4A have been involved in a variety of experiences and enrichment
activities.
With KS3 children enjoying the challenges of bush craft and horse-riding and learning the
technicalities of cookery, gardening and drumming. Our KS4 students have settled into their
chosen subjects with enthusiasm and maturity enjoying animal care, gardening and cooking.
As a whole group we have visited Heanor where we have chosen books
in the library, shopped in Home Bargains and chilled out with a snack
and drink in Tesco.
It’s great to see how confident and independent everyone is becoming, well done everyone for a
SUPER term.
Key Stage 4 – Animal Care
This year’s animal care is delivered at Broomfield college. Key Stage 4 attend every
Friday afternoon.
We have been learning about how to care for a variety of animals including an unusual
resident called 'Albert the Albino Skunk'.
Here you can see the students grooming a rabbit called 'Snowy'
Key Stage 4
KS4 recently visited a mosque in the Normanton area of Derby. We were welcomed by a
friendly man called Ashfaq, who took us into the building itself and told us about some of the
tenets (important beliefs) of Islam.
Ashfaq told us that 'Islam' means peace, and that the people who come to worship at the
mosque have nothing to do with the terrible things that some people do in the name of Islam.
Ashfaq said that students from Bennerley Fields are very welcome to visit the mosque again.
After our visit to the mosque, we came back to school and enjoyed learning a little bit more
about some of the many wonderful aspects of Islamic culture, such as its food, music and art.
Our Fundraiser, Ruth, has been busily looking for further sources of funding
again this year and has so far raised £4,180.
Our main focus is the ‘Better Together’ Project which is looking to transform
the Key Stage 2 Playground into a fun place that will be used during school time
and for After School, Weekend and Holiday Clubs.
Many funders will not fund to a school directly but are happy to donate to a
PTA. This has led us to revitalise the Friends of Bennerley Fields and anyone
wishing to be involved will be most welcome. The first meeting will be Thursday
January 14th 2016 at 2:00pm – please come along for the Tea and Cake!
PARKING OUTSIDE SCHOOL
We would like to remind parents and carers about the parking arrangements for school.
We are asking parents and carers to use the free public car park on Stratford Street
rather than coming onto school premises or parking on the street directly outside the
school gates. This is primarily to protect the safety of all; adults and children, visitors
to school and local residents.
Christmas Cards
Thank you to all the parents and carers who ordered Christmas cards,
tags and mugs. School made a profit of £108 which is going towards the cost of the
Christmas Panto – something all the children really enjoy.