Haydon Abbey School and Pre School

Wishing all of our children and their families a wonderful Christmas, New Year and well deserved break 🎄

See you in January.

Last Friday, Year 4 showed off their finished ‘Seven Summits’ 🏔 to their classes and presented their research. They worked so well together and was great seeing all their hard work.

Last week, Year 4 read their finished ‘independent writes’ to Year 2. The children knew their audience would be the younger children, so made sure they tailored their ‘change story’ to suit them. It was wonderful to see and Year 2 were very complimentary about the stories. We’re looking forward to hearing some of Year 2’s stories next term 📚

When I blew the magic dust…

Finished poems by Year 3 🌟

5CP have been looking at absorbency and investigating which materials are the most absorbent by soaking the material in liquid and then measuring how much liquid comes out when squeezed.

Reception love rolling snack. They pour their own milk and cereal and even wash up afterwards!

Reception enjoyed exploring the ice and snow and even made an arctic scene ❄️☃️

Year 2 have been learning about how materials can twist, bend, stretch and pull in our science lessons. They have learned how some materials can easily change shape and others are more difficult to change shape. They have also learned that some materials can go back into their original shape.

RRD joined in with yesterday’s live session with Science Oxford. The children absolutely loved learning about weather phenomena and were blown away by the experiments! It brought a new love of science whirling through our class!

Today, 6HF visited Avondale Care Home. In their history lessons, they have been learning about World War II, therefore, they arranged to speak with Avondale’s residents about their wartime experiences. One resident they spoke to was 101 years old and joined the Navy when he was 17 in 1938. During the war, he travelled on a ship to Egypt where he fought and in doing so, earned himself 5 medals - the children were lucky enough to see them all! We really enjoyed our time and learnt a lot from the residents. Thank you to Avondale Care Home, Aylesbury for having us!

3NR used watercolours to create an abstract style painting of a tree. We think the colours they have chosen are very effective.

6AH enjoyed their Christmas jumper day last week!

Year 4 have moved onto the next stage of their ‘Seven Summits’ project by painting them, ready to be finalised this week. The children have also created some lovely presentation videos to go alongside their mountains and will share them this Friday.

Holly in 4LA has written the most fantastic change story for her Independent write ✍🏻. We wanted to share with everyone.

Get a cuppa, get under a blanket and enjoy!

Year 3 and 4 had fantastic fun in the snow at break time today making snow angels and creating snowmen. They even tried to create their very own ‘Snowman’ from the famous Raymond Briggs story.

Last week, a number of our lucky Year Two's visited Avondale to sing for some of the residents there. The children performed the Christmas songs from their Grinch play and sung beautifully with such enthusiasm! The residents were thrilled to have them keep them company and very much enjoyed singing along and joining in with the actions. It was a wonderful experience for all involved. Avondale Care Home, Aylesbury

PreSchool and Reception had a surprise visit from a very special Storyteller. She took the children on a magical journey taking them to wonderful places and introducing them to exotic animals. They were fully enthralled and learned so much about the world and the adventures they could go on! It was lovely to see them engaged and excited about stories and the possibilities that stories bring. A big thank you from all the teachers and children at Haydon Abbey!

This week, 3LE have been creating their very own Ancient Greek shields in art. We think they’ve done a fabulous job.

Year 4 have been working on their footwork this week in Netball and then applying all of their skills in a game situation.

4SH have been working in groups to research ‘The 7 Summits’ in their Geography lessons. Last week, they started to make their mountain and summit using newspaper and mod-roc. This week, they’ll be painting them and continuing with their research posters.

Year 1 and 2 have loved showing their performance of The Grinch to their adults and the school over the last three days. They have worked really hard to learn all their lines, songs and dances over the last few weeks. Thank you to all adults who were able to come and see the performance the children thoroughly enjoyed themselves.

Year 1 had a brilliant time at Bucks Museum on Friday. They had a toy workshop where they explored toys throughout time, some of them even had to dress up as children from that time! Then, they explored the museum and particularly liked the optical illusions!

As 5CP have reached the end of their Crime and Punishment topic, the children now have the opportunity to conduct research into various crimes and punishments in an era we haven’t studied and teach a lesson to their peers! Firstly, they discussed all the elements that go into planning a lesson, including what information they want to teach and what the main activity will be, and have filled out a lesson planning sheet to prepare themselves. In a couple of weeks, they’ll all be ready to become history teachers!

This week, Year 1 have been learning about weighing using non standard units of measure. Yesterday, using their knowledge of weighing they worked together to create Gruffalo crumble with apricots for the eyes and jelly tots for the purple prickles. They can’t weight to taste it later.

Today in 5HB, the children have been finishing their model prisons. They looked at all the finer details of their prison cells in order to finish them. Don't they look fab?!

In today’s maths lesson, Year 6 completed various mathematical investigations. These focused upon: number, tessellation, arrays and symmetry. They worked in groups to discover patterns, rules and missing information, then self-assessed their work when the answers were revealed.

Today, 3LE were learning how to draw Ancient Greek temples. They looked at tone, line and shape and thought about how these skills could help them with their drawing.

Year 6 all enjoyed their ‘Now Press Play’ session last week. Listening to a story through headphones, they were all immersed in the world of World War 2, experiencing the emotions of evacuation and the worry of the Blitz. They loved acting out each event!

Did you know that not all metals are magnetic? 3NR had an afternoon investigating a variety of metal objects in the classroom to test which were magnetic or not.

3NR created theatre masks based on Ancient Greek designs. The masks had to be bold with very prominent facial features so the large audiences of 18000 people could see them in the ancient amphitheatres.

Year 2 have been learning about how the Great Fire of London started and why the fire spread so quickly. They created their own houses, which were set alight to see how fast the fire destroyed London. They were so excited to see the houses on fire!

After writing warning stories this week, the children in 5CP then took the time to look back through their writing and their partner’s writing to make any necessary corrections or changes to make it sound even better. This has resulted in some fantastic pieces of work!

Preschool have had a frosty week, based around the story of ‘The Snowman’. They started the week using the ‘Now Press Play’ headphones, listening to and acting out a story about winter, making snowmen. They had a snow storm with the parachute, investigated the properties of gloop (cornflour and water) and they played with ice. Look at their excellent paintings of snowmen! They have also been practicing their counting; counting out buttons for the snowmen.

On Tuesday, Year 3 had a fantastic time at Tring Museum looking at the amazing exhibits there.

Year 5&6 SkyNews club held a debate yesterday, creating points for and against the motion ‘Is the government doing enough to stop climate change?’ All children raised such thoughtful points and respected each other’s opinions.

Year 4 have been working on some attacking skills in Netball this week. 4SH did a fantastic job of passing and moving down the court in order to keep the play moving. They started off working as a pair, then once confident, a third player was added as a defensive position. It was great to see the children using both chest and shoulder pass based on distance of their teammate.

Year 2 have been using ‘Scratch JR’ to begin to learn the basics of coding and algorithms. Their main task was to make the car drive down the road.