St Pius X Catholic Primary School

 Year 2 have continued learning about how to keep their bodies and minds healthy. In preparation for their upcoming Design & Technology (Cooking and Nutrition) project, during which they will be making healthy smoothies, they have been discussing what makes a healthy, balanced diet. They learnt about the food wheel, or healthy food plate, considering what different nutrients we need. Then they thought about which food groups we needed more of. Harley said "we shouldn't eat sugar" which sparked a discussion about eating things in moderation, as well as looking after our teeth! We agreed that it was OK to eat fatty, sugary and salty foods in moderation. To consolidate their learning, they made and decorated their own healthy plate, including food items for each food group: Fruit and vegetables, carbohydrates, protein, dairy and oils.

 In year 3 we got the concrete resources out and worked with our partners on some addition with exchanging! We are now working with hundreds and beginning our journey on column addition and subtraction too!

  This week, Year 4 has moved onto subtraction. To start off our exchanging lessons, we used counters to show what happens when we exchange numbers during subtraction. We worked through sums, exchanging one counter for ten of the next place value down. "We exchanged one thousand for ten hundreds because ten hundreds is the same as one thousand." - Kachi

In Reception this week we have been enjoying learning about Autumn as it finally feels like it is here!  The weather has changed which has caused our children to make observations about their environment.  We have enjoyed looked closely at Autumn objects such as colourful leaves, pine cones, conkers, acorns and seasonal squashes.  The children have enjoyed leaf printing and mixing colours together to make the effect of an Autumn leaf. We have also explored some Autumn stories such as ‘Don’t hog the hedge’ and ‘Alfie in the woods’.  The highlight of our week has been our Autumn walk. We explored our forest school area for signs of Autumn that we had learned about in the classroom. The children found:  'A yellow leaf - it's yellow.' - Ruby  'A red leaf - it's sort of red, sort of orange.' - David 'I'm not sure we will find a squirrel, I think we are too loud.' - Eva They are developing their observation skills and discussing what they have seen with th...

  Year 2 - Black History Month - 16th October 2023 ART & HISTORY We used Lubaina Himid ’s famous ‘ Naming the Money ’ installation as inspiration for our own class piece of art. We learnt about the artist, who was born in Zanzibar and inspired by her mother's work as a textile designer. Her artwork is usually bright and colourful. We discussed our opinions and noticed that this particular piece of art seemed to 'come alive' with the colours and drums. Soriyah said it was a 'noisy' picture and James noticed the wooden boards at their feet. This was important because we realised this was not a flat picture, but in fact a large, life-size art installation! After experimenting with primary and secondary colours, we created our own version... NC Art Objectives : Be able to create an original artwork to serve a given purpose using given media To use drawing, painting and sculpture to develop and share their ideas, experiences and imagination Know that there are differ...

  In year 3 we have been learning all about how light and sound travel. In the lesson above we investigated into what happens when you shine a light on an opaque object.. it creates a shadow! We discovered that the shadow becomes smaller as the light source moves further away!

  Recently several Year 5 pupils took part in a STEM competition against other schools within our trust. We travelled by train to the event at St Thomas More's School. The children had a fantastic day using VR headsets- teaching them lots of interesting things about different styles of aircraft. The children worked as a great team whilst exploring and experimenting with different materials to plan their model aircraft entry. We also had the opportunity to meet numerous adults with STEM-related jobs and science enthusiasts who volunteered their time to support children at the event.  The children thoroughly enjoyed the day out and are looking forward to the second part of the event (hoped to be held at a real airfield!) whereby they will be making their final aircraft entry. The children will then teach the rest of their class what they have learnt from the experience. 'This trip made me more interested in Science. I learned all about aeroplanes and flight.'     Costa...

The BBC have launched the 500word writing challenge again this year. We think our pupils would be fantastic at this and could show their learning powers of resourcefulness and resilience while writing. This will be a fun challenge for them! You can either submit through the website or provide Mrs Scott with all the details needed (please check the website) and your story and she will submit it for you.  The entry details are below:  500 Words, the UK’s most successful children’s writing competition has now opened for submissions and will run till Friday 10 November. Since the competition was first launched in 2011 by Chris Evans on the Radio 2 Breakfast Show, it has received over one million stories from children throughout the UK.  This year, the two age categories will be  5-7 year-olds  and  8-11 year-olds .  Children of all abilities are encouraged to use their creativity and imagination to  write a story they would love to read  without ...

  As part of our IPC topic, the children have been considering the different roles that adults have within our school.  Yesterday afternoon we were very lucky to be visited by Mrs Maloney (School office Administrator), Mrs Hughes (Kitchen Manager), Mrs Lowrey (HLTA/leads Hymm Practice Assemblies/supervises Breakfast Club) and Mr Taylor-Draycott (Site Supervisor). Each adult kindly offered their time to explain the different jobs that they do around school. The children then had the opportunity to ask each adult some of the questions they had written down in their English books this morning; such as asking what their favourite part of their job was or what previous jobs they had prior to working in our school. The children thought carefully about their questions for each adult and thoroughly enjoyed learning new things about each staff member.  A very big thank you to Mrs Maloney, Mrs Hughes, Mrs Lowrey and Mr Taylor-Draycott for taking the time out of their busy schedule...

  Year 1 have had a very busy day today! As part of our IPC topic, we have been thinking about the different jobs that adults do in our school. This morning, we shared our ideas for what tasks each adult may be responsible for in school and discussed questions that we may like to ask our staff visitors this afternoon. We practised using ? at the end of a question and then all of the children had a go at writing their own questions for each visitor in their English books. The whole class worked extremely hard and the writing the children produced was very impressive! We were all very proud of them. Well done Year 1! :) 

 On Tuesday 10th October, 'Mental Health' was a priority for many children across many schools. Our assembly reminded us of the importance of talking about our feelings instead of bottling things up. We then had a relaxing Mindful Movement session in the hall. Miss Lowrey and Mrs Crabb led the relaxation session using calm music as we stretched our bodies and focused on our breathing.  We also started our 'Worry Jar' in class. Sometimes just writing our worries down and letting them go is a good way of releasing feelings of sadness and anxiety. We know that the Zones Of Regulation help us to identify our feelings and regulate them. Our afternoon Brain Breaks are also a chance to move our bodies or relax whilst reading, drawing or colouring. It is important to keep our minds healthy as well as our bodies! We all wore yellow clothing - yellow is a 'feel-good' colour!

We have continued our Superhumans topic by investigating our senses. Did you know that brail is sometimes used to help people who cannot see fully? We felt the brail alphabet and used the patterns to write our names. Our ears are very complex! We have learnt about the outer and inner ear. Did you know that sound travels in waves? Phoebe said 'vibration' is linked to sound and James knew that there were tiny bones inside our ears. Some people communicate using sign language, so we had a go at using British Sign Language (BSL). Here we are signing our initials: Have a try here ! There's also some BSL songs here . Enjoy!

 Year 1 headed outside earlier this week to practise drawing their number lines!  We recapped ordinal numbers 0-10 and made sure to be careful when writing and forming our digits correctly.  We also recapped the skills of 'one more' and 'one less' with our number lines to practise the skills that we had learnt in previous lessons this half term.  We really enjoyed using the chalk and working together with our friends. Well done, Year 1. Excellent Maths work! 

This week, Year 1 began a new RE topic ' Baptism - Belonging '.  We listened to the story about Jesus welcoming the children, based on Mark 10: 13-16 from the Good News Bible.  We had lots of fun role playing the story as a class, before creating paper puppets to reenact the story in small groups.  " The word 'scolded' means 'telling off '" - Irene (when discussing the actions from the disciples). " Jesus was angry with his disciples and he blessed the children" - Amelia-Grace " Jesus always welcomes children to his church " - Cassius  Well done, Year 1. You all worked really hard and showed excellent team working skills, as well as communication and sharing, which reflect our school values of 'fairness' and 'kindness'. 

This week we have been introduced to 'Mikey Maths' our maths puppet who helps us learn in our whole class maths sessions.  We have helped Mikey Maths to count objects this week. He kept making mistakes when counting like counting the same object more than once, missing out objects as he counted and not using his final number as his total.  The children came up with the following tips for Mikey Maths to help him count:  'Count slowly so you don't miss any.' - Qmari  'Move them as you do it so you know you are only counting them once.' - Isla  'The last number is the one it is.' -Logan  We then had a go during our whole class maths session at counting our own objects using our tips, everyone was counting accurately and carefully! Some of us found this hard but showed Resilience and carried on trying!  We then practised this in our focus activity for the week to see if we could carry over our learning to our independent work. The children loved remember...

  Year 4 have started their new IPC topic: Bright Sparks! To start our topic off Year 4 covered our topic board with pictures of what they though electricity was which included static electricity from balloons and lightning. Next lesson, the class investigated how to make a simple circuit using a light bulb, two wires and a battery. We discovered what the light bulb needs to light up and looked at circuit symbols. "The symbols make it so much clearer to see what's happening," Aurora. "You can't just attach the wires anywhere. They have to connect to the metal parts and we need to use two wires to go to the bulb and back again."

  In year 3 we have moved onto our new topic of poetry. We had so much fun using different actions to bring poems to life with a partner. See Janelle feeding Geoff some cream as they perform theirs, in the picture above!

We LOVED our 'Reading Stay and Learn' this week. It was fantastic to see so many families joining together to read - for fun ! We were delighted to see brothers and sisters coming together with mums, dads, grandparents and family friends!  The older children were fantastic at helping adults around the school and reading to some of our younger children as well. It was great to see them acting out our school value of Service.  We spend a great deal of time teaching reading and focusing on our reading skills and it is incredibly important for our pupils to have the opportunity to see that reading is fun and that sharing stories together, brings people together. We are grateful to all who were able to join us for this event and hope to see you at our next 'Stay and Learn' event soon! 

Today, Year 6 enjoyed their second workshop from the Wilderness Foundation. During the workshop the instructor covered a range of interesting topic including: Climates around the world What climate change is Natural and human influenced causes of climate change (fossil fuels and greenhouse gases) Natural Greenhouse effect vs human enhanced greenhouse effect Global effects of climate change (Climate causes match game) Biodiversity loss due to climate change (Wild Silence Game) Climate linked success stories For more information click on the link below... Wilderness Foundation | Transforming lives through nature |

This week we have focused our learning around 'Superheroes' and enjoyed reading the book 'Supertato' by Sue Hendra. We have thought about what superpowers are and how superheroes are always trying to help people. This links well to our school value  kindness. The children will be continuing to think about what superpower they could use to help people throughout the week such as being helpful, being a good listener and so on.  The children have enjoyed roleplaying the story of Supertato in our small world area developing their story language and communication skills.  'I will get you Evil Pea.'  ' You can try...'  'Supertato to the rescue'  (Role play between David and Benjamin)  We have also used our imaginations to create our own 'Super Vegetables' based on Supertato. The children chose from a range of materials to make capes and masks for their 'Super Vegetable'. They worked hard to place items carefully and then used their crea...

 Following on from Mrs Derbyshire's Liturgy today about the importance of the Rosary, Year 2 have made Rosary prayer booklets. We have displayed them in our special RE corner. Some children told the class about where they keep their rosary beads as they are very special! 

  A massive well done to St Pius X girls football team who battled brilliantly at the recent tournament held at Great Baddow High School. Six games played with the team only losing once. Seven goals scored and only two conceded! A big shout out to Ariana who scored five and Anu with a fantastic penalty save at 0-0!

  Can the invisible be visible? In PHSE we put a coin under a piece of paper and could not see it. However, when we rubbed it lightly with a crayon we began to see it more clearly.   God is invisible to our eyes but visible in our hearts and minds.  

The 'Entry Point' for our new IPC topic, Superhumans, involved a carousel of activities about our amazing bodies! We made teeth and toothbrushes out of play-dough, role-played being opticians, played shopping games, made shopping lists and drew healthy meals and thought about our 5 senses and the main external parts of our bodies. I wonder what we will find out about our amazing bodies!