Haydon Abbey School and Pre School

Miss Ferdinand and Miss Haynes are so proud of all Mesum’s efforts in Reading. He has received 10 stamps in his reading record and has now been awarded his Bronze pin. Well done! Keep it up.

Reception have been celebrating Bonfire Night by creating lots of different firework pictures. They've used paint in a variety of ways to create fantastic artwork. They learned how to dab, splat and flick paint using brushes, fingers and toilet roll holders!

Thank you so much to our fantastic Mystery Reader this week; Miss Hurley! The children were enthralled by her storytelling and loved acting out the sounds from the story. They even requested a second book!

Well done to Halima who has been working super hard with her reading and is the first child in Reception to receive her reading bear from Miss Ferdinand.

Miss Ferdinand had a special visit from some of our superstar writers from Reception today. She was so impressed with their sentences that had capital letters and full stops and demonstrated their amazing phonics and handwriting! Well done Reception!

M.G. Leonard is coming to Haydon Abbey ❄️📚

We are so lucky to have M.G. Leonard coming to visit with our KS2 children on Wednesday 15th November to share her wonderful, wintry new book ‘The Ice Children’ ❄️

She will be signing books for the children. So please read the letter sent out by email today for the pre-order link, should you wish to order a copy for your child/children 📚

As a school, we love encouraging reading and love to see the excitement stories bring to the lives of our children 📚❤️

1EP enjoyed their first session back to forest school. There was a lot of tree climbing and swinging!

🌻 Welcome back 🌻

What a wonderful first day of term we’ve had today! Lots of excitable and happy children ran through the gates this morning, ready to get stuck into all of the fabulous learning we have planned.

Year 4 enjoyed their art lesson this afternoon, exploring proportion and tone when drawing with charcoal. They did a fabulous job!

RRD loved learning about Autumn using our Now Press Play interactive headphone experience! They were immersed in a story about Autumn and used their imaginations to follow along. It was fantastic and a definite favourite of theirs!

At their after school DT club, the children from year 5 have enjoyed making bird houses. They designed them themselves, made them (with a little bit of help) and finished them off this week. We think you’ll agree that they look great.

Our boys football team had their first match of the year against Broughton Primary School. They lost 5-1, however showed great resilience and determination. Well done to Alfie R who was our goal scorer.

This week, 3EW have really enjoyed completing their short burst write on Halloween and Autumn. They all worked really hard and created some beautiful sentences! 🍂

This half term 1LE have been loving their time in forest school. Learning how to use tools and whittling their own sticks ready to roast marshmallows. Along with lots of tree climbing and mud pie making!

RRH have been enjoying their time in forest school this half term. Meeting frogs, making mud soup, bug hunting and splashing in the mud!

From the Aylesbury Vineyard Storehouse:

“Just wanted to say a huge thank you to your students, families and staff for the amazing harvest collection this year.

It is very much appreciated and will go a long way to helping us feed the families that we are supporting.”

Say “Hello” to our new Eco Warriors ♻️🌍. So far this term they have carried out an Environmental Review to see what we, as a school need to improve on! The children, along with Miss Hurley and Mrs Wood will come up with an action plan for how we move forward as a school to become more environmentally friendly and hopefully, earn our Green Flag at the end of the year!

Look out for our Eco Tips in the newsletter and on our socials!

6NA finished off their forest school sessions with two busy sessions. Last week they put their skills to the test and made dream catchers practising their knots and lashing they have been taught in the past. They showed teamwork and resilience when it got tricky, helping each other to tie the string. Finally today, it culminated in a fires session where they baked camp fire bread with a dollop of jam!

Year 3 really enjoyed conducting an investigation in science lesson around whether the length of our femurs affected how far we can jump. We saw lots of amazing jumping and some great teamwork. Well done Year 3!

Today, 3EW really enjoyed consolidating their maths knowledge from this week. They were practicing how to use arrays and how to share and group numbers.

Well done 3EW you all worked really hard!

To coincide with Black History Month, Year 5 have been exploring how this annual event came about, specifically looking at the Transatlantic Slave Trade. They looked at what enslaved people had to endure during this time, including being taken from their homes and families and being forced to work for no money, and how slavery was eventually abolished. They then imagined that they were abolitionists in the 18th/19th century and created their own posters to try and bring about abolishing the slave trade.

Year 6 enjoyed a ‘Just Dance’ break after showing incredible resilience and positivity in their learning this week. They also showcased some impressive moves!

In Literacy today, Reception have been writing speech bubbles to show what the animals say in our story ‘The Little Red Hen’. We have even been learning to use capital letters and finger spaces. Arianna, Leo and Nena particularly impressed us with their writing and perseverance. They received a head teacher’s award from Miss Ferdinand.

4ES loved their trip to Science Oxford today! The exploration zone was a firm favourite. The children could make working electrical circuits to power a fans and bulbs, see if they could make a paper object float and watch the process as water froze!

4SH had a fantastic day being mini scientists at Science Oxford today, where they had fun in the exploration zone, watched a show to get them thinking scientifically and investigating ‘Changing Materials’.

🚶🏻‍♀️It is ‘International Walk to School month’🚶🏻‍♀️

Since mid September, the children have been busy logging if they have an active journey to school or not! If they can achieve at least one active journey a week over the month, they receive a badge!

An active journey could be walking/wheeling, scooting or biking, travel by bus and get off a stop or two earlier, or even ‘Park and Stride’, where you can park 5-10 minutes away and walk the rest of the journey.

The theme this year is Nature! So take in the world around you and see what you can spot 📸

Year 3 have been learning about bones and muscles in science. They went outside to draw around each other and then label bones.

6AH loved debating in History. They reflected on their learning over the past few weeks to discuss ‘Was Henry VIII an effective monarch?’ They were so respectful of different opinions and counter arguments.

Last week, Pre-school had an impromptu visit from the Head Boy and Head Girl. They were so excited to see them and enjoyed playing dinosaurs and playdough with them and they shared some stories together too. The Head boy and Head Girl loved their visit as did the children in Pre-school - we weren't sure who enjoyed it more!

Look at these amazing pieces of writing that Y2 have created. They have been using different pictures as their inspiration to create word banks of nouns and adjectives and then using them to write some amazing “I am …” pieces.

On Friday, Year 5 and 6 met Paralympic Archer Jodie Grinham. The children loved listening to Jodie explain her journey to being a Paralympic Silver and gold World Champion medalist and loved it even more when they were able to hold the medals. They were fascinated that the Paralympic medal had beads inside along with being a different weight to others for the blind athletes.

🌻 Weekly Newsletter - Friday 6th October🌻

RHH enjoyed their visit to the school library, where they read stories and listened to one being read by Mrs Hickman.

Year 3 have been conducting their own research into vertebrate / invertebrate animals. This week, they have chosen their own animals and researched some key facts to make some fantastic fact files!

In PSHE this afternoon, 5MM worked on their communication and collaboration skills. The children were given the task of building the tallest tower with just some newspaper and masking tape! Each team had to assign roles, agree a plan and work together under time pressure. We were very proud of their resilience and teamworking skills, and the winning team was very proud of their tower!

4SH enjoyed acting out the water cycle today to help their understanding of each stage. They went from being liquid particles in the ocean, to evaporating and becoming water vapour, to then condensation where they became water droplets and formed clouds. Then they went through precipitation, becoming heavier and dropping as rain back in the ocean for collection 💧 🔁

The children in 3HB had another fantastic session in forest school this afternoon. This week some of the children made dream catchers out of sticks and wool! Here are a few of the amazing results!!

Year 6 became Eco Warriors and went on a litter picking mission whilst over at forest school. They went under the hedgerows and bushes and found a lot of rubbish from the roadside, including a very large traffic cone!

Year 2 have produced some multi media collages of the London skyline to link with their History topic. They thoroughly enjoyed deciding which colours to use and we think you’ll agree the final pieces are pretty effective. We think the addition of the silhouette makes them fantastic! Well done year 2 and well done for clearing up your classrooms too.