As we celebrate Roald Dahl today in school, I open my weekly newsletter with an ode to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Are you looking for a Golden Ticket to success? The answer is pretty straightforward – read.
Reading at ISB 📚
There couldn’t be a better time than on Roald Dahl Day to talk about reading at ISB. Studies show that reading for pleasure makes a big difference to children’s educational performance. If you want to know how you can get your child off to a great start, please click on the ‘Reading at ISB’ link now!
Evidence suggests that children who read for enjoyment every day not only perform better ‘in tests’ than those who don’t, but also develop a broader vocabulary, increased general knowledge and a better understanding of other cultures. In fact, reading for pleasure is more likely to determine whether a child does well at school than their social or economic background.
When I see our children engage in and celebrate literacy with such joy as they did today parading around our playground, I cannot help but be overwhelmed with pride. What makes ISB Seria so special is how we all come together as one community, for learning. Once again, I thank our entire community for the support offered to make this event a success.
We know when there is a strong connection between home and school- everything is better for the child. It was a pleasure connecting with so many parents this week at the Parents and Leadership Coffee morning. When we are united in compassion and are resolutely focused on the quality of education for each child together- everyone excels.
I look forward to hosting more parent-leadership coffee mornings. I hope to see you there.
Reminders/Special Mentions
Please respect drop off and pick up times
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PRE-KG – by Teacher Julia
This week Pre-Kindy pupils did posters of faces using different materials. There were discussions about the parts of our faces and what they are used for. We learned new vocabulary and were confident responding to questions. We also sang, 'Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes' reiterating our learning. On Friday the Pre-Kindy children led the opening of the Roald Dahl parade where they came dressed as one of their favourite characters. The students were so proud of their costumes. Thank you for taking part children and parents!
Kindy – by Teacher Chio
Kindy students celebrated Roald Dahl day by reading ‘The Enormous Crocodile’. They learnt lots of interesting new words from the story and during the week, made crocodile craft. In math, students learnt to represent numerals with the correct number of objects. In Phonics, they enjoyed playing with musical instruments and creating their own sequence of sounds. In addition, the students really enjoyed wearing a costume based on a character from a Roald Dahl book on Friday. It was so magical and helped bring all of our learning to life.
Reception – by Mrs Davies
What a phizz-whizzing week reception class has had. As we celebrated Roald Dahl's Day, the children in reception class had the opportunity to listen to one of his stories,' The Enormous Crocodile." As our class name is Crocodiles, the story fits in quite nicely. The children made crocodiles in art class. In phonics, they continued with their phonics phase 2 sounds. In math, they sorted shapes by names or colours. Also, they sorted the characters from 'The Enormous Crocodile' by their size and habitat. In drawing club, the children listened to the 'SuperWorm', by Julia Donaldson. Later, they drew a Superworm!
Year 1 - by Ms MJ
Year 1 have continued to learn and write words with digraphs in phonics this week. Sun bears are surely gaining more confidence in listening to the letter sounds and writing the words down by themselves. Children had the opportunity to read ‘The Enormous Crocodile’ by Roald Dahl and created their own crocodile by sequencing the number of its teeth in order. In math, they learnt to find a number one more using the number track. Lastly, the children spent some time learning about Kelso’s choices. They learnt what small and big problems are and how to make good choices when conflicts occur!
Year 2 – by Ms Lisa
Year 2 continued with the Oliver Jeffers book Lost and Found. Together as a class they created their own version with a crocodile returning to the Amazon River. They enjoyed using their knowledge of the book and their imagination to recreate the story. In math they showed their prior knowledge of skip counting 2’s, 5’s, and 10’s. In topic they learnt about Antarctica and wrote postcards as if they had traveled there, using their imagination. They wrote what they saw, how the weather was, and the exciting things they did. To celebrate Roald Dahl day they created their own chocolate and candy creations, including their own wrapper, from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
Year 3 – by Mrs McCready
A fun and active week in year 3, the children have been learning the story of Jack and the Beanstalk to explore the structure of rags to riches tales. They have continued to learn about human and animal skeletons in topic and science and have created eye catching artwork based on their knowledge of where our bones are! In math they have moved onto addition and subtraction using base ten, number lines and bar models to support their understanding.
Year 4 – by Mr Davies
Year 4 have been studying an ancient civilization as part of their topic work. The students have researched topics such as housing jobs and food. In art cobra class have created pinch pots in the style of an Ancient Civilization. In math they have ordered numbers up to 10,000. In science they have grouped animals based on a classification system.
Year 5 – by Mr Russel
This week Year 5 pupils have compared and rounded numbers to the nearest 10, 100, 1,000 or,10,000. In English, they have analysed further pieces of Science Fiction writing to see how the writer creates tension and suspense. Pupils also recreated the book cover from a Roald Dahl story which will brighten the walls of the library. For topic, Year 5 have looked at objects in our solar system, including asteroids, meteorites, comets and a lot of space dust.
Year 6 – by Mr Ramsden
We've had a satisfying week of learning Year 6. In English they've been building on their previous sentence knowledge to investigate adverbs and adverbials. They completed their math unit on place value and showed great knowledge in their end of unit assessments. In Topic they've been continuing to look at the important area of online safety and the role technology plays in their lives. Well done everyone!
Year 7 – By Ms Rebekah
The highlight of our week has been our hands on activities in Math, Art and English as well as extending our engagement of science through our at-home research questions (which I received some amazing responses to!). In math we have been building diagrammatical sequences with blocks and counters in order to show further understanding through graphs, tables and numerical representations. An activity that built class morale and group mentality in Art was making our plant pots from recycled materials and planting seeds. In English the whole group were so excited to work together to make their news report for Roald Dahl week. It has been a busy week full of fun and learning!
Dariush Saheli
Head of Seria Campus