2015-2016
Painting Fun !
So many children enjoying painting pictures to go on our seaside display.
Celebratory lunch in the sunshine - Happy 90th Birthday your Majesty!
Wow! All the children and staff were treated to a special lunch in the sunshine to celebrate the Queen's 90th birthday. What a lovely time was had by all!
Thank you so much to everyone who made it so special and super fun!
Queen's 90th Birthday - special lunch
As part of our special day on Thursday to celebrate the Queen's 90th Birthday the children had a giant street party in the playground.
Thank you to all our cooks, lunchtime staff and all staff who helped.
Enjoy the pictures below!
Queen's 90th Birthday - visit to Church
We had such a wonderful morning on Friday when the whole school walked to Church to celebrate the Queen's 90th Birthday.
It was so lovely to see the children and staff walk through the village together and to see the Church full.
We had a fantastic service led by Rev. Geoffrey Marshall and the children were also given a beautiful booklet about the Queen to bring home.
A brilliant start to the weekend.
Class R New Term Letter
Dear Parents/Carers,
Please find attached a copy of our new term letter.
Many thanks
Miss Hill
All creatures great and small!
Such a fabulous time at the Tropical Butterfly House. Class R enjoyed learning about different types of minibeasts and even had the opportunity to hold a stick insect, hissing cockroach and a giant snail! The children discovered lots of different types of animals including birds and even some dinosaurs! All of the children had an amazing time and enjoyed their visit so much. A huge thank you to Mrs Evans, Mrs Shelton, Mrs Drury, Mrs Eley, Mrs Hull and Mrs Ufton for making the children's visit so special.
Ship ahoy!
Preparing for Royal Celebrations!
Sprucing up the Royal Yacht ready for our Royal Celebration on Thursday 9th June.
CPD - reviewing successes and sharing good practice
We have had a brilliant series of staff meetings this Summer Term so far. I'd like to share two of these with you.
Before half term staff met to review school improvement plan but also at the same time our Shared Vision for 2015/16. I'm pleased to say we are making great progress with both and very soon our chickens will be arriving! Watch this space!
Also, at tonight's meeting staff led a mini Teachmeet to share their best practice with each other. The room was buzzing with ideas and creativity with staff sharing positive,simple ideas that work!
There were a range of topics including; creating exciting hooks, the value of having school trips at the beginning of the term, the power of using music in lessons, using brilliant texts to engage children, learning outdoors, instruments in EYFS and beyond, using your imagination, practical Science, valuable ideas shared from the Education Psychologist, Brain Gym, Differentiation, Grammar and Writing skills and improving children's Reading.
The standard was incredible and I was so proud to be Headteacher of such a talented and committed team who are prepared to share with each other and ensure their teaching becomes even better! We are very lucky here at Smalley.
There are a few pictures below of our shared vision and staff in deep discussion reviewing it.
Visits to Church - Smalley Flower Festival!
I have been fortunate enough to attend Church with every class this week over three afternoons to see the stunning flowers in Church around the 'Once Upon a Time' theme.
All our children were a credit to the school when walking through the village and in their behaviour at Church.
Staff commented how lucky we are to work in a village with a strong sense of community.
Enjoy the pictures!
A busy baking morning!
What a busy morning in Class R!We have baked thirty butterfly cakes to take on our visit to the Buttterfly World. We will enjoy them with our picnic. Our ingredients were weighed in grams and we looked closely at the changes in the mixture when we added our ingredients.
Caterpillar Grub!
Amazing Animal Print Artwork
Look at the beautiful animal print paintings Class R have produced. They have looked very closely at the pattern on a zebra, giraffe, cheetah and tiger. Their work will create a very eye catching display in the classroom. Keep a lookout for it!
Enjoying paints on a Friday!
Enjoying the weather!
CIRCUSOLOGY!
HOUSE TEAM REWARD
Last Friday, we had the pleasure of welcoming Alex, from CIRCUSOLOGY, into school.
KESTRELS & EAGLES were our winning teams over the Spring term, winning the most weeks over the half terms.
Each team got a session enjoying the many activities that you can in the photographs.
Members of Hawks & Falcons also had a taster session.
Please have a look!
Well done children, keep up the hard work - I wonder what will be the treat for the Summer term?
I wonder which team or teams will win?
Good luck!
Phase 6 Letters & Sounds
This week we have been looking at the end of words and investigating the rules for when we add the suffix:
tion, sion and cian
Take a look at these links and enjoy playing the games.
https://www.spellzone.com/games/index.cfm?wordlist=127
http://www.bbc.co.uk/skillswise/game/en19patt-game-wordsearch-tion
https://www.studyladder.co.uk/games/activity/spelling-rule-tion-and-sion-lesson-17390?lc_set=
1 merit if you can make a list of words which have 'tion', 'sion' or 'cian' at the end.
We're going on a Minibeast hunt!
Happy St George's Day!
Today Class R have been learning about St George and his fight with the dragon! We have been learning about who St George was and why we celebrate St George's day on April 23rd. We talked about the colours in the St George's cross and that these colour also feature in the Union Jack. The children were able to enjoy expertly decorated Union Jack cakes as a special treat! Happy St George's Day!
A very special visit from Dexter!
Class R had a very special visit this morning from Dean, Dave and the lovely Fire dog Dexter who all came from Derbyshire Fire and Rescue Service.
Dean spent time in our classroom telling us all about the important jobs that the Fire Service do and the ways that they help us. Dean showed us the special uniform that Firefighters have to wear to keep them safe and even let some of the children try it on!
Dave then spoke to us about his role in the Fire Service and also the role of Dexter his dog. Dave told us that Dexter is a very special dog who is used to sniff out petrol. When Dexter has found the petrol he uses his nose to point to where it is and then he waits for Dave to give him his favourite toy as a reward for finding the petrol. Dexter's favourite toy is a squeaky ball! Dave also told us that Dexter climbs ladders with Dave by sitting on his shoulder like a parrot...what a clever dog!
Dean, Dave and Dexter taught the children so much about their roles in the Fire Service and have definitely inspired us as to what a fantastic and rewarding job it can be.
The children are now going to become mini Firefighters and will be looking for smoke alarms at home as they now know how important it is to have working smoke alarms and to check them regularly.
Please see the below link for more information on how to keep your family safe.
A HUGE thank you for Derbyshire Fire and Rescue Service for lending us Dean, Dave and Dexter for the morning we have all learnt so much!
Class R New Term Letter
Dear Parents/Carers,
Please find attached a copy of our new term letter.
Many thanks
Miss Hill
Easter Egg Hunting in Class R 😊
People who help us
Thank you to everyone who came into Class R to talk about the job that they do and how it helps us and others in our community. We had our local PCSO, a critical care nurse, a shop assistant, a food bank volunteer and two volunteers from the British Heart Foundation. The children really enjoyed learning about the jobs that you all do.
Smalley TeachMeet 2016!
Yesterday the school was host to teachers from 14 different schools across the county for our first ever TeachMeet.
A TeachMeet is basically staff from
Schools sharing good practice and learning with and from each other which we believe is the best way to learn. Each speaker has either 2 or 6 minutes so it is fast moving!
This is the first of its kind in our area so we were very proud to host and ensure it was a success.
We had international speaker and friend of the school Andy Cope to host the event and he quickly had everyone laughing whilst also passing important messages about how we can best use the 4000 weeks that on average a person lives for. We learned about 7 second hugs, the 10:5. Principle used by Ritz Carlton and how high performing teams ensure there are at least 6 positives for every criticism.
Andy also spoke about changing our thinking so we didn't get the same results if we wanted to be World Class for our children. A truly brilliant start to our session.
Our own Chair of Governors Sarah Armitage spoke about National Leaders of governance and their role which was fantastic.
We had a wide range of topics after from Racing to English, Modern Foreign Languages, Class display books, chickens, newspaper in a day, effective times tables, travel smart and lots of other fascinating talks.
Amazing artist and friend of the school Anthony Greentree captured the event and you can see what a fabulous job he did in the picture below.
Our Local Authority was well represented; Paul Livingstone, head of IT was a huge technical support ensuring the evening ran smoothly, Rob Bounds spoke about Travel Smart whilst Senior Advisers Carolyn Brearley and Sue Potter attended too and enjoyed the evening.
The event was kindly sponsored by Teacher Active who supply teachers across the country and wanted to give something back to schools whilst providing training for their staff as well. This positive event was nothing more than we've come to expect from this forward thinking company.
They also provided a fantastic buffet which was enjoyed by all.
We finished on time at 6:00 with a few speakers missing out which means we must now begin to organise Smalley TeachMeet 2!
We couldn't be happier with our first event and huge thanks to everyone involved for their help and support.
Enjoy the pictures below!
Phase 6 Letters & Sounds
We have been investigating contracted words and making sure that we know where the apostrophe goes in the word.
We have looked at words like wouldn't, couldn't, shouldn't, didn't, can't, won't, weren't, aren't.
Also I'll, we'll, she'll, they'll, he'll and we've, she's, he's, they've, I've.
Look out for these words when you're reading - what other ones can you spot?
Write down any you find in a comment below. 1 house point for every one you find. 20 words earns you a merit!
Parachute Fun in Class R
Happy World Book Day!
Class R enjoying World Book Day in their pyjamas! Happy reading everyone!
Piano skills!
Isobel played beautifully as the children walked into our assembly on Friday.
123......Dodgeball!!
As part of our Sports Premium funding our children benefit from excellent coaching from Miss Elizabeth every Tuesday afternoon and Mr Willdig each Wednesday. We also have access to a wide range of clubs and competitions.
Part of the coaches role is also to up-skill staff so as well as staff joining them for lessons each week we were also lucky enough to receive staff training from Mr Willdig yesterday which ended with a few games of Dodgeball.
The staff demonstrated amazing skill and teamwork and we also had lots of fun!!
A huge thank you to Mr Willdig for a wonderful staff meeting, we appreciate your expertise.
We have been challenged to a match by the staff from Loscoe Primary and after seeing the talent on display last night we are more than happy to accept!
Enjoy the pics below!
Happy Pancake Tuesday!
Class R had chocolate filled pancakes for snack on Shrove Tuesday - they were delicious! We talked about how pancakes are made and what toppings we like - chocolate was the favourite!
More news!
Year 6 complete "Newspaper in a day challenge !"
Wow ! Year 6 spent the whole day writing, typing, selling and printing YOUR NEWS -a school newspaper in just one day ! Everyone had a role to play to ensure success ! Orders were taken at 9am and then the editors met to agree plans . Meanwhile , writers were busy and photographers got their orders ! At 11am everyone enjoyed hot chocolate and biscuits and were ready to start the next session. During the afternoon things got a little frantic but by 2.30 pm it went to print 😀 . 140 papers were delivered before the end of the school day and everyone went home happy after a hard day at the office ! Well done Year 6 I am SO proud of your teamwork and determination -my congratulations to you all ! Enjoy the photographs.......
'Thumbs up' for Tim Peake!
In last weeks Gold Book Assembly all the Reception children shared a wonderful piece of work that they had produced linked with our Earth and Beyond topic. We had rockets, alien pictures, paper plate planets and solar systems. The children have learnt so much that they also shared some space facts with the rest of the school. The highlight of the assembly was singing 'Thumbs up for Tim Peake' a song they have learnt from watching the Stargazing series on CBeebies. Well done Class!
What a brilliant afternoon!
What a lovely afternoon! I was taking one of our year 6 pupils to see his buddy and class R were having a brilliant time working on their Earth and Beyond topic.
Whilst in Class R I could hear our year 5's having their brass lesson! They sounded amazing so I just had to go and listen for a few minutes.
I also saw some of our year 3 children in the hall having great fun doing an experiment with our two student teachers Miss Brooks and Miss Dunford.
That was all in addition to year 5's doing art with talented illustrator Lucy Truman and a whole range of other exciting lessons across the school.
Then after school there was a wonderful buzz as children were leaving Dr Shelton's science club!
It makes me so proud to be Headteacher of our wonderful school and I would like to say a huge thank you to all our staff who provide such brilliant, creative opportunities for our children.
Special visitor in Class 1
Class 1 had a special visitor today as part of their 'Animals' topic... Miss Tulley's pet tortoise Hamilton Button came in to stay in Class 1 for the day. Hamilton had a busy day taking a tour of Class 1, letting all of the children feel his shell and he even inspired their writing! Hamilton also found the time to squash in a visit to see Class R and Class 2 :-)
Can you remember any facts about Hamilton?
Filling up with 'ful' - Phase 6 Letters & Sounds
This week we have been learning about the suffix 'ful'. We have looked at the spelling of these words as well as their meanings.
We all hope that we can spell BEAUTIFUL beautifully!
Earn a merit and write a comment showing 10 words that have the suffix 'ful'.
Good luck.
Warm as toast!
Planet making
Today Class R have been very busy making planets. They have designed and created them using paper plates, glitter glue, feathers, fluorescent paint and glitter. Take a look at some of their creations.
Class R New Term Letter
Dear Parents/Carers,
Please find attached a copy of our new term letter.
Many thanks
Miss Hill
Letters & Sounds Phase 6 with Mrs Reckless
Happy New Year - we've launched QUickly into 2016 with a word challenge.
How many words can we find that have qu in them?
Make a list either on the website or bring it in on a piece of paper - prizes available!
Answers by next Monday please.
A Miracle in Town!
We were so very proud of all 90 of our children as they sang and
performed to the packed audience on Monday evening and Tuesday afternoon.
Well done children and a very Merry Christmas!
More photos to follow when technology allows....!
The Sorcerer's Apprentice - Blunderbus visit Smalley!
Our children loved the Blunderbus performance of 'The Sorcerer's Apprentice' today. From start to finish, the excitement and delight on the children's faces was very clear to see! The children giggled, sang and joined in with the performance - a real delight. If you get chance to see any of the Blunderbus performances, we'd recommend them! Here are a few photos to share.......
Christmas Jumper Day
Class R you look wonderful in your Christmas jumpers!
Class R's Christmas Party
Merry Christmas to you all from Miss Hill, Mrs Evans and Mrs Hird.
Christmas baking in Class R
Today in Class R we have been very busy making Rocky Road Christmas puddings! We melted chocolate, crushed biscuits, cut cherries in half and added raisins and marshmallows. They are now in the fridge and the children will bring them home on Thursday- I hope you enjoy them!
Christmas disco!
Great fun was had at the Christmas disco - thank you so much to our valued members of the PTFA for organising and running the event.
Christmas Fun!
Class R have had a lovely afternoon making Christmas cards with help from Year 6,dressing up as Santa Claus and playing in Santas workshop and carefully colouring in pictures of Santa,Christmas stockings and Christmas trees. Well done Class R!
Phase 3 Letters and Sounds with Mrs Shelton and Miss Longdon
Well done to Phase 3 for working hard on the sounds th, ch and sh.
We are now moving on to the following sounds;
ng - ring, rang, hang, song, wing, rung, king, long, sing, ping-pong
ai - wait, Gail, hail, pain, aim, sail, main, tail, rain, bait
ee - see, feel, weep, feet, jeep, seem, meet, week, deep, keep
Please support your child by practising reading and writing these sounds/words at home.
We are also currently working on the alphabet, recognising the upper and lower case letters and learning the letter names.
Thank you for you support,
Mrs Shelton
Christingle
We had the pleasure of attending a lovely Christingle service this afternoon at St. John the Baptist Church, Smalley. It was so good to see so many of our school community at Church enjoying this lovely tradition. Our choir performed two songs beautifully and I am so proud of them. I would like to say a huge thank you to the church, especially Reverend Lisa for the warm welcome and excellent service. Thank you also to our choir who were brilliant and to all the parents and grandparents for your support. Massive thanks also to Mrs Mason for playing and organising the choir and to Mrs Evans and Mrs Rhodes who supported the event. What a fantastic way to spend Sunday afternoon, enjoy the pictures below.
Spread the Happiness!
International speaker Shonette Bason has kindly sent me some more spread the happiness thank you cards last week.
I will be handing these out over the coming weeks to staff, children, governors and parents for wonderful things that have made me happy!
During the last week Dr Shelton, Miss Tulley, Mrs Macdonald and Class R have all received one.
It could be your turn next!
Thank you Shonette for your kindness.
Road Safety Week
Happy Retirement
We send you all our best wishes for a long, healthy and happy retirement.
Our school song for Friendship and Respect week 2015
Each morning, we have been listening to this song by Bruno Mars. We have been learning the lyrics together and we plan to sing together during Friday's special Friendship Assembly. We will also find out how each class have been celebrating Friendship week....watch this space!
Link to Hope
Children in Need
Our Appeal
Family Shoebox Appeal
A letter of thanks!
We received an email this morning, from the Padley Centre, to say thank you for our generous Harvest gifts. Thank you again everyone.
Thank you for our Harvest
What a special way to end an action packed half term with our Harvest assembly today.
All the children shared the importance of food and thinking about others using poetry, songs and special words.
Thank you to you, our Smalley family and friends, for all of the kind Harvest gifts for the Padley Centre - all of your thoughtful gifts will be warmly welcomed at the centre and will help people in Derby all through the coming year.
It was so very special to have such a full audience too. Thank you again for your generosity and sharing in our special Harvest message. Wishing you all a very safe half term holiday.
Travel Smart......
During our art lesson this week the children created dinosaurs and we have entered them into the 'Travel Smart' competition.
Please Join Us.....
19th - 23rd October 2015 Please join us for 'Travel Smart' week by encouraging your child to stand out from the crowd by ' Making a Monster Move' and choosing active and environmentally friendly ways to travel to school.
Leaflets will be sent home next week.
Dough Disco fun in Class R!
I had a great start to my morning today on my travels around school! I arrived in Class R just as they were about to do dough disco!
The children, Miss Hill, Mrs Evans, Mrs Ufton and myself all had a brilliant time whilst warming up our hands and fingers ready for the day.
Thank you all and I look forward to doing it again sometime very soon!
Our Autumn walk
Today Class R have welcomed October with a wonderful autumn walk around our school field. We looked and listened for signs of autumn beginning to show. During our lovely walk we spotted some signs that Autumn is arriving! We saw acorns, golden and fallen leaves, fungi, red berries and a squirrel! We were also greeted by the ponies in the field next door! Take a look...
Look what we've been learning in Reception!
Class R have been so busy this week exploring their classroom and outdoor area. We have been learning to share and take turns, counting and sorting shapes, pouring and measuring in the water, practising our ROARs with the dinosaurs, sharing stories with friends and grown ups, mark making in the sand, developing our balance on the scooters, and exploring with the iPads! We've also been working really hard on our listening skills and we have been playing lots of sound games.
Take a look at some snippets of us enjoying Class R! :-)
Thank you and good luck Graham
We were so very lucky today, as we welcomed Graham to take his last assembly with Smalley School. Our children listened beautifully as they heard that Graham and his wife are soon leaving the U.K. for an exciting adventure to Zambia in Africa. Graham's wife is a nurse so will help to care for people and Graham is going to work with the children in Zambia.
Graham has visited our school for many years and is held in high esteem by all members of staff and children. Our children have loved his assemblies, classroom activities and a lunchtime group - 'God's Club'.
Graham, thank you so very much for all the thoughtful work that you have done with our children. We will all miss you dearly and know that Zambia are extremely lucky to have you. We wish you all the very best and hope that you'll keep in touch and let us know how you're getting along.
Golden Book assembly 18.9.15
Well done for achieving Headteacher's Award and Random Act of Kindness Award - Smalley School is proud of you.
