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7th February 2025

Well - this was a very exciting week at school with the arrival of HMI, Cindy Impey, on Tuesday and Wednesday. We have no news to tell unfortunately as the report takes a few weeks to arrive, but once we know you will know. We want to express our heartfelt gratitude to all our wonderful parents for your incredible support. Your kind messages of encouragement meant so much to us, and the amazing treats in the staffroom—especially the delicious brownies and cinnamon buns baked by the lovely Mrs Bristow—were truly appreciated!

Buns

Monday was an exciting day, as beside the Ofsted phone call, Year 4 had History Off the Page join us for a day as a Viking. More of that below from Miss Fairweather. Year 5 visited Harpenden War Memorial as part of their history topic. Sadly, the Year 6 trip to the Oval was postponed but Mrs Watson will be on that straight away as it's one of her favourite trips for the children.

Year 5 Harpenden War Memorial

This Monday, Team Dahl spent a brilliant morning delving into the past in our locality. We visited the Harpenden War memorial, noting down the names of soldiers who gave their lives from our area. We also investigated those who had lived during or through WW2 and when we got back to school, we used the Commonwealth war graves website to research more information about the names we had discovered. A really powerful and meaningful morning well spent!

Year 4 Viking Workshop

On Monday the 3^rd of February, Year 4 became Vikings for the day! We had a fantastic day exploring the lives of Vikings and Anglo-Saxons and learning about their rich history. In the morning, we immersed ourselves in Viking’s everyday activities such as weaving, pottery and jewellery. We then learnt how the Vikings went to battle and role played being a Viking soldier. We learnt how to use a shield and how to charge in battle, just like the Vikings did. In the afternoon, we became archaeologists and dug up some Viking artefacts. We also got to create our own museum. We had such an exciting, interesting and educational day.

Reception visit from the Dentist

This week Ladybirds had an important visitor, Rachel Keir, a dentist who came to teach us how to look after our teeth. First we looked at some different foods and decided if they were good or bad for our teeth. We learnt that the yo-yo bears we like to eat trick us into thinking they are healthy yet they have just as much sugar in as a bag of Percy Pigs!

We learnt all about how sugar bugs get into our teeth and this is why we have to brush them away or they will create holes in our teeth. Rachel then taught us how to brush out teeth and we all had a go ourselves. We took home a goodie bag with a timer in to make sure we all brush our teeth for the correct amount of time.

Numbers Day – 7th February

Numbers Day today was a great success, despite poor Mrs Stanger being unwell and unable to attend all week. Hopefully, the pictures below will bring her some comfort as she recovers.

We were delighted to welcome visitors into every class. A special thank you to Mr Hambridge for speaking in our school assembly this morning about his work as a Zoologist in Florida. He talked to us about how he tracked panthers and measured their prints. He also explained that you can use GPS systems to track animals too. Whilst his day job is a science teacher, he told us that animals are still his passion and encouraged the children to follow their passions when choosing a career. All of the children also heard from Mrs Banham, who is a paediatric nurse at Luton and Dunstable hospital and kindly made videos to explain how she uses maths to help sick children. We have also had many other parents and grandparents welcomed to the school today in all of the different year groups. We were lucky to hear from accountants, psychologists, fashion designers, nurses, builders, and lawyers, showing the children just how important numbers are in everyday life.

A heartfelt thank you to all the parents for making their learning come to life and providing real-world context for their maths. Your support means the world to us!

The Ladybirds have loved celebrating Numbers Day! We had great fun dressing up as a variety of professionals who use maths in their jobs—astronauts, pirates, doctors, and even accountants. We also created our own “foot rulers” and explored measuring different objects in the classroom. It was fascinating to see how our measurements varied because everyone’s feet are different sizes! We also welcomed Berto's dad into school to talk to us about working in finance for a company that makes space shuttles! The children absolutely loved this link to our space learning this week and many Ladybirds would love to go to Space!

Elmer Class in Year 1 had a fantastic time celebrating NSPCC Number Day! We were visited by three special guests. Mrs Burton, who buys and sells companies, explained how she uses maths to make a profit. The children enjoyed learning how numbers help her in her job. We also had Mrs Gregg, who makes beautiful glass bowls and coasters. She showed us how she uses maths to measure and create her stunning pieces. Mrs Bristow, a talented baker, shared how she uses maths to weigh ingredients and follow recipes to bake delicious treats, Miss Manley spoke about her role in finance for a museum and Dr Moote as her role as a Statistician. The children were inspired to dress up as someone who uses maths in their job, like a teacher, baker, or scientist! Throughout the morning, we explored different fun maths activities, from counting and measuring to problem-solving. It was a great way to see how maths is used in the real world and made everyone excited about numbers.

In Year 2, we enjoyed learning about Mr Corbett’s job in fashion and how he uses numbers in his job. We were very lucky to have Mrs Fray and Ms Fairweather who also came in to share how maths is used in their jobs too. Throughout the day we have all shared the job that we came dressed up in and how maths is used in that job and we have discovered that maths is everywhere! We practised our numbers bonds to 10 and 20 and created a flower which showed the different ways to make number bonds to 10 and 20. As a challenge some of us created a flower with number bonds to 100. We have really enjoyed Numbers Day!

Year 3 have had a great number day! We have had three lovely visitors - Mr Hopkinson, Mrs Randall and Dr Moote. We have learnt about accountancy, being a lawyer, clinical psychology and statistics within research. The children looked fab and have represented a wide range of professions through their costumes.

Year 4 had a brilliant morning celebrating Number Day! We shared our amazing costumes and talked about how our chosen job links to using maths. Next, we got to listen to some very interesting talks about jobs related to maths from our parent volunteers. We then got the chance to challenge the teacher with a timetables speed challenge. After this, we created our own times tables flower garden by making our own flowers with our chosen times tables on the petals. It was a fantastic morning!

What an amazing number-filled day Team Dahl has had! A marvellous maths assembly with work being shared, then a fascinating talk from Zoologist, Mr Hambridge! Next we returned to class to hear from Mr Hopkinson, accountant and lawyer to the stars! Mrs McGinty was next, giving an inspiring talk on the mathematics embedded into football. Then it was the children’s turn as we heard from bird watches, footballers, photographs, teacher and so much more! Finally Dr Randall came and taught us all about clinical psychiatry and data collection! What a super day!

What a fabulous day in Year 6, full of mathematics. The parent volunteers we had in today included:

a Great Ormond Street Nurse
a Train & Air engineer
an IT engineer
a Sports Analyser
a Research and Data Analyser

Newsletter 05.02.25

AFTER SCHOOL CREATIVE ARTS CLUB

Friday Club is back after half term. The last term was fully booked and taking a waiting list, so if you’d like to join from 28th February, please book your place as soon as possible!

Club

HOLIDAY CLUBS

There are still some spaces available if you would like to join the "Lion King" themed holiday workshop week during half term! Bookings are also now open for a “Wicked” inspired holiday workshop week taking place here during the Easter holidays! For all enquires please contact Traffic Light Arts directly.

Holiday

Visitors to school next week

The learning continues on Monday with the arrival of 'Lovely Mark the Science Man' from Hands on Science. Thank you FoHA for providing the funds to make the day happen.

HOWEVER, the even bigger news is that on Wednesday we will be having a visit from “Steel” from Gladiator.

Steel will be in school all day on Wednesday meeting the children, signing anything they might want and talking to them about his role on Gladiators. As a reminder of his trip, all the children will be given a drink bottle with Steel's name on it. This will be a really exciting day for the children and the staff too I suspect. Again, I need to thank FoHA for making this possible as they have organised and funded this marvellous experience for the children.

The teachers should have spoken to all the children about next week's visitor, so they know who Steel is and we can build excitement for his visit.

Gladiator Steel

Quiz Night

On Saturday 8^th our lovely FoHA are organising a 'Quiz and Chips' quiz night which I hope many of you will be able to attend. FoHA have committed a huge amount of funding to the school over this academic year so we need to replenish their coffers. Please attend if you are able. The staff will be making up a team too despite their hectic week so I am hoping it will be a great evening for all concerned.

Upcoming events

We have some exciting events happening in school this side of the half term holidays.

Saturday 8^th February 2025- FoHA Quiz Night.

Monday 10^th February 2025- The return of lovely 'Mark the Science Man' who is always a source of knowledge and fun for the children.

Wednesday 12^th February 2025…Gladiator Steel!

Parents' Evening, 11th February and 13th February 2025

If you require the 'crèche' facility for your children between 2:30pm and 3:20pm, please sign up via your Edulink form by today - Friday, 7th February. Parents can still make teacher appts via their Edulink wheel. If you have any issues accessing the parents' evening booking system please contact the school office.

Class Newsletters

Due to this week's Ofsted inspection and the teachers' workload, the next class newsletter will be sent after half term.

Safer Internet Day, 11th February 2025

This year, Safer Internet Day is on the 11^th February and the theme is ‘Too good to be true? Protecting yourself and others from scams online'. Safer Internet Day is the UK’s biggest celebration of online safety. Each year it covers an online issue or theme that speaks about the things young people are seeing and experiencing online. Created in consultation with young people across the UK, this year Safer Internet Day will be focusing on the issue of scams online and for young people, how to protect themselves and others, as well as what support is available to them. We will be recognising this in school with an assembly and activities in class. Below is a link to social media checklists which parents may find helpful.

Social Media Checklists | SWGfL

Copy of SET Notice