News
-
Sunday 9 February 2025 How do Sikh followers show the value of equality? Year 5 had had a very busy R.E. finding out about the values of Sikh followers and how they show these values in their day to day lives.
-
Sunday 9 February 2025 The art of freedom As we come to the end of our English topic on the Starbird, we have been thinking about what freedom meant to the Starbird.
-
Friday 7 February 2025 RE Week During RE Week, Year 6 students engaged in an enlightening exploration of Sikhism, centring their discussions around the Big Question of 'How do Sikhs put their belief about equality into practice?' Through various activities, including group discussions and creative projects, the children deepened their understanding of Sikh teachings on equality, fostering respect and appreciation for diverse beliefs within our school community. To finalise the RE Week, we considered how we could show equality and self-service to others, in the same way as the Sikhs would do. As a result, we worked on a 'Selfless' project in small groups. Finally, with the help of the Year 5 children, we voted for the favourite project which we hope to deliver in the summer term!
-
Friday 7 February 2025 Exploring traditional tales Our topic for this term is traditional tales, so we have been exploring stories like ‘The Three Billy Goats Gruff’ last week and ‘Goldilocks and the Three Bears’ this week. We found 3 different sized bears with 3 different sized chairs and bowls in our home corner, and our sensory tray had oats in it! We have also enjoyed retelling the stories with puppets.
-
Friday 31 January 2025 Happy Lunar New Year!
-
Friday 31 January 2025 Happy Spring Festival
-
Friday 31 January 2025 How Our Bodies Work We’ve been having a fantastic time in our Science lessons, exploring the wonders of the circulatory system and the heart. The children really embraced the topic and each wrote delightful stories about a little red blood cell on its journey through the body. It’s amazing to see their imaginations at work!
-
Thursday 30 January 2025 The White Continent The children had a special visit from Dr. Susie Grant, a marine biologist who works for the British Antarctic Survey. She shared fascinating insights with the class about what it's really like to visit Antarctica. The children were captivated by the vast number of different creatures living in the oceans beneath the ice, with the slimy sea pig being the class favourite! To conclude the fantastic visit, the children had the exciting opportunity to try on the thick coats, huge boots, and specialist equipment needed to survive in Antarctica.
-
Thursday 30 January 2025 A Trip to the Greengrocers Reception children went on a walk to JS Webb Greengrocers in town today. We walked past Walsworth Road Baptist Church, the Queen Mother Theatre, Windmill Hill and the River Hiz. We spotted the first signs of spring: squirrels, daffodils and birds’ nests. We spent time looking for shapes in the grounds of St Mary’s Church and visited the lovely greengrocer nearby to buy all the fruit and vegetables on our shopping list. What a wonderful morning out! Back at school we got busy making turnip soup and are really looking forward to using pastels to sketch the fruit and vegetables (and to giving them a taste too!)
-
Thursday 30 January 2025 Science Experiments This Week The children in year 2 have been investigating which materials are most absorbent. They worked methodically recording their results as they went
-
Wednesday 29 January 2025 Starbird art
-
Saturday 25 January 2025 Painting pictures with words For the first three weeks on term, Year 5 have been developing their descriptive writing skills.
-
Friday 24 January 2025 A lot of writing! Your children have been busy bees this week writing up their story influenced by Starbird...and we're nearly finished! Three winners will be chosen next week but I am incredibly proud of the effort and thought that all children have put into their writing. They certainly deserve a good rest this weekend!
-
Friday 24 January 2025 Responsibility and Kindness This week, Year 6 have been demonstrating responsibility and kindness, particularly towards the younger members of our school community. On Wednesday, they escorted their Reception class buddies to our whole school service at Holy Saviour Church, ensuring that they walked safely and sensibly on the way there and back. Over half of the class have volunteered to give up some of their free time to help out in the dining room. Their duties include serving puddings, sweeping up, wiping tables etc. The staff supervising lunchtime are very grateful for their support. As usual, Year 6 have also enjoyed spending time this week reading to their Reception buddies.
-
Wednesday 22 January 2025 Comparing Height Reception have had lots of fun learning about height. We researched the different heights of penguins living in the Antarctic using the Internet. We found that the tallest penguin was the Emperor, and the shortest was the Adelie penguin.
-
Wednesday 22 January 2025 Comparing Height Reception have had lots of fun learning about height. We researched the different heights of penguins living in the Antarctic using the Internet. We found that the tallest penguin was the Emperor, and the shortest was the Adelie penguin.
-
Friday 17 January 2025 Winter We have been exploring the signs of winter outside this week. We've looked at ice, talked about the trees and their leaves, and we've made snowflake/snowman pictures with paint and chalk. We have also started thinking about where different animals live and making homes for our toy animals in preparation for our exploration of hibernation next week.
-
Friday 17 January 2025 Starbird This week, we have started planning our narrative around the story of Starbird, focusing on considering the background story of the Moon King character! The children ‘interviewed’ the Moon King to try and find out what led to him being so mean…and what made him change his mind. Watch this space!
-
Friday 17 January 2025 Starbird This week the children have been enjoying the whole school text that we are following as part of the Herts Writing competition. The children have focused on looking at description and how they can describe the characters using noun phrases.
-
Friday 17 January 2025 North Herts Writing Project Once again, St Andrew's School is taking part in the North Herts Writing Project. This year's book is called 'Starbird', a story about a caged bird, a powerful Moon King and a young princess who will never stop fighting for freedom. Year 6 have been thinking about the concept of freedom. The children considered how an author portrays characters. They used the subjunctive mood to express the language of possibility and modal verbs to write advice for a character in the form of a song. Next week, we will be writing the final competition piece.
-
Thursday 16 January 2025 Blue Penguin Poetry Reception have really enjoyed listening to and discussing the text, 'Blue Penguin by Petr Horacek. We have developed our vocabulary through listening to and discussing the story and have explored the story setting by thinking about our five senses. We have written our own poem inspired by the illustrations.
-
Wednesday 15 January 2025 Our vision of the Starbird Along with other classes in our school, we have been basing our literacy work around the story of the Starbird this week.
-
Friday 10 January 2025 New year brings new topics! The children have written some fabulous poetry this week about freedom inspired by our new Story Starbird, around which we will be producing some writing for a competition.
-
Friday 10 January 2025 Penguins Reception have had a wonderful week learning all about penguins. We have been comparing our height to the height of penguins, learning about different types of penguin and collaging our own penguins to create a classroom display. We even froze some toy penguins and used our scientific skills to melt the ice and free the penguins!
-
Friday 10 January 2025 Our Christian Vision At the start of the new term, we have been thinking about the school's Christian Vision: 'Let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth.' Year 6 considered what this vision means for us at school, at home and in the wider community. We have also been considering this month's values of Perseverance and Courage. The children wrote acrostic poems about Perseverance.
-
Thursday 9 January 2025 Starbird As part of the North Herts Writing Project, we have been exploring the story of Starbird.
-
Wednesday 8 January 2025 Proving Fractions Are Equal Today in maths we have been learning about equivalant fraction. We have used a range of different methods to prove that two fractions are equal.
-
Friday 20 December 2024 Wishing you a merry Christmas! We have enjoyed a wonderful last week at St Andrew's - the highlight of which was the carol concert on Wednesday (and pantomime today)! If you were able to attend, I/m sure you will agree the children were outstanding.
-
Friday 20 December 2024 Happy Christmas After a very busy term, we would like to wish everyone a very Happy Christmas and a Happy New Year!
-
Thursday 19 December 2024 Advent in Reception Having learnt all about Advent at St Albans Cathedral last week, children in Reception have continued their learning about how Christians around the world prepare for Christmas. We learnt that in Ireland, candles are placed on windowsills, in Australia people have barbecues on the beach(!) and in India colourful paper stars are hung.
-
Monday 16 December 2024 A Crafty Christmas Over the last couple of weeks, year 5 have been developing their craft skills and making some very festive decorations to bring home to share.
-
Friday 13 December 2024 Christmas Games This week we have been designing and creating our Scratch games. The challenge was to include a timer and a scoring system. Some of us even designed games for two players! There are certainly future game designers in Year 6 class!
-
Thursday 12 December 2024 Performing and problem-solving
-
Thursday 12 December 2024 Christmas time in Nursery! After performing beautifully at our Nativity last week, we have started thinking about the story of Christmas and doing lots of activities linked to this time of year. We have been busy wrapping presents in our new gift wrapping station and making Christmas cards and decorations in the atelier. Here we are making snowflakes!
-
Thursday 12 December 2024 Reception's First School Trip Today was a very special day as we went on our very first school trip. We travelled on a coach to visit St Alban's Cathedral. We visited different parts of the cathedral learning all about Advent and Christmas and how it is celebrated in the cathedral. We made advent wreaths, smelt myrrh and frankincense and listened to the story of Christmas. We behaved beautifully and represented St Andrew's exceptionally. What a super first visit!
-
Monday 9 December 2024 Cycling Squares In maths this week we have been learning about square and cubed numbers.
-
Friday 6 December 2024 Fun with Fractions This week we have been learning to add, subtract and multiply fractions. Although it all may sound complicated, we realised that there are various strategies to solve each calculations. That is why we have been testing and trying different methods to choose the one that suits each child best.
-
Friday 6 December 2024 The Christmas Story On Thursday, we went to St Paul's Church in Letchworth to learn about and experience the first ever Christmas. The children went on journey learning about the message sent to Mary, the journey to Bethlehem, the gifts given by the wise men and finally ending with the birth of baby Jesus in the stable.
-
Friday 6 December 2024 Christmas is Coming! Reception has been full of festive cheer this week. We began our week by performing our Nativity to the rest of school and our families. We all shone on stage, singing, acting and remembering all our moves fantastically. We made our families and teachers very proud.
-
Tuesday 3 December 2024 STEMPOINT Materials Last week we welcomed STEMPOINT East to the school to run a Materials workshop for our Year 2 children.
-
Monday 2 December 2024 A Fishy Week This week, along with other classes in the school, we have been developing a new art installation .
-
Friday 29 November 2024 Family Learning Week A big thank you to all the families that just us for family learning week. The children have all thoroughly enjoyed designing, making and painting their clay fish. It was so lovely to have families join us in our classroom to help create our whole school art project. We can't wait to see the final results!
-
Friday 29 November 2024 Electrical switches and hoplite recounts!
-
Friday 29 November 2024 Magnetism Investigation We have been exploring magnets in the investigation area this week. Some children decided to go on a hunt around the classroom to see which objects and surfaces were magnetic, and many recognised that things would "stick" to the magnets if they were made of metal.
-
Friday 22 November 2024 Our own toys workshop This week, the children all brought in their favourite toys. We created our own toys workshop where we shared and enjoyed playing with each others toys. It was great to see such a range of toys. The toys workshop will help us to answer our History big question: "Do we have better toys than our grandparents?"
-
Friday 22 November 2024 Family Learning Week Thank you to all the parents/grandparents that have come in this week to make clay fish with their children. We loved making them and welcoming you into our classroom!
-
Wednesday 20 November 2024 Family Learning Week! Thank you to the parents who have attended Family Learning Week so far this week. The children have been engaged with the learning and, as you can see, have begun to create wonderful designs ready to be painted later in the week.
-
Tuesday 19 November 2024 Beginning our new science topic Today, year 5 had a very exciting start to our new science topic on materials - a visit from the STEM Discovery Centre.
-
Tuesday 19 November 2024 Planning for our whole school project Year 3 were very excited to embark on a St Andrew's school project this morning. First we found out that each child in the school was going to create a clay fish as part of a whole school art installation. Then we looked at different examples to inspire our own designs, and the colours of slip (clay paint) available for our fish. We discussed the size the fish needed to be and different techniques for adding texture. Finally we started on our individual planning sheets.
-
Sunday 17 November 2024 The World From Above This week we have been looking at how we use a map from an aerial view. The children spent some time exploring google maps, discussing how we use these maps to create or follow directions.
-
Friday 15 November 2024 Reception Remember Reception talked about the significance of Remembrance Day. We worked together to collage, paint and colour poppies to create our own wreath and class display.
-
Friday 15 November 2024 Anti-bullying Week - Odd Socks Day To celebrate anti-bullying week 2024, year 1 have completed a variety of activities from exploring adults they trust, to designing their own odd socks. The class were challenged to see if they could represent themselves within their odd socks design.
-
Friday 15 November 2024 No Outsiders
-
Thursday 14 November 2024 Remembrance Day
-
Wednesday 13 November 2024 Anti-bullying Week in Year 5 This years anti-bullying week theme is around respect.
-
Tuesday 12 November 2024 Anti Bullying Week This week we have been focussing on being unique during our Anti-bullying week and celebrating all things that make us who we are.
-
Monday 11 November 2024 Remembrance Day To reflect and remember all those who fought for our country, Year 6 children created poppies using various medium, such as oil pastels, water colours or acrylic paint. The children have used their knowledge or light and dark to create flowers with depth. Furthermore, everyone wrote a poem about the realities of war and conflict, and the hope for peace.
-
Sunday 10 November 2024 Who was James 'Scotty' Paton? This term, during our English lessons, we have been learning about the Endurance Expedition carried out by Shackleton and his crew.
-
Sunday 10 November 2024 Exploration This week, year 5 performed their class assembly around the theme of exploration. We talked about three main areas - space exploration, historical exploration that helped us to understand Mayan culture and the Endurance Expedition carried out by Shackleton and his crew.
-
Friday 8 November 2024 Why do artists use light and dark in paintings? This week the children have practiced creating depth in their sketched and paintings. They explored how to create different tints, shades and tones by mixing appropriate colours. In sketching spheres, the children looked carefully at where the shadow is created by shining a torch on the tennis ball.
-
Friday 8 November 2024 STEM Centre visit A fantastic first week back visiting the STEM Centre! The focus was learning about how sound is connected to movement, but the children also had the opportunity to take part in many hands-on activities and listen to a talk about planets…can they remember which ones are in the Goldilocks zone?
-
Friday 8 November 2024 Fireworks We have been super busy this week celebrating Diwali and Bonfire Night by making fireworks in different areas of the classroom! We used chalk and paints on black paper to make colourful fireworks in different patterns such as loops and spirals. We also put glitter in our play dough and on the table to make marks in the glitter using our fingers and cotton buds. In phonics, we made firework sounds in loud, quiet, fast and slow voices.
-
Friday 8 November 2024 All About 5! Reception have been busy learning all about the number 5 this week! We have made handprints, collected groups of 5 loose parts and looked for groups of 5 in our environment. We have become very good at subitising 5 and learning the different numbers that can make 5.
-
Friday 25 October 2024 History of Toys To launch our new History topic, we went to the British Schools Museum in Hitchin. The children had a history of toys workshop and they got to enjoy a number of activities including playing with some Victorian toys and making their own Thaumatrope (an optical illusion toy).
-
Friday 25 October 2024 The Village That Vanished
-
Friday 25 October 2024 Culture week 2024
-
Thursday 24 October 2024 What is God like?
-
Thursday 24 October 2024 Understanding the impact of belief on actions In RE this week we have been learning about the impact of belief on our actions, either as people or as an organisation. We have spent time learning about the work Christian Aid do, from the very beginning when the charity was created by Christians seeking to help the displaced and vulnerable after World War ll. Almost a hundred years later, the charity helps some of the poorest people around the globe by providing resources such as seeds or pigs and chickens, supporting people and communities to develop self-sufficiency.
-
Thursday 24 October 2024 Culture Week in Reception Reception have had a wonderful week learning about cultures from all around the world. We have been so lucky to have visits from lots of our parents who have taught us more about the world around us. We learnt to count in French, tried our hand at origami, sung songs in Ghanaian, tasted croissants and hot chocolate and learnt some words in Belgian. We also listened to stories and rhymes from many different cultures and explored making our own flags and art work which was inspired by artists from around the world.
-
Wednesday 23 October 2024 Our Fruit Solar System Today in science, we took our understanding of the solar system to a new level.
-
Wednesday 23 October 2024 Bayfordbury Observatory As part of our science topic on the Earth in Space, we had an exciting visit to Bayfordbury observatory.
-
Tuesday 22 October 2024 Next Page Books Half of Year 2 went to Next Page Books, where we listened to 3 stories and voted on which 1 we wanted to take back to our class. We chose The Snow Thief by Alice Hemming and Nicola Slater. Mrs Undrell also chose one on the Great Fire of London.
-
Friday 18 October 2024 Healthy Snacks As part of our Design and Technology unit of learning, the children have been working hard to design, make and evaluate a fruit or vegetable based snack.
-
Friday 18 October 2024 Abstract Art in Reception In Maths this week we have been shape detectives! We have learnt to describe the properties of triangles and circles.
CLOSE