Wishing You All a Merry Christmas!

Craft and Design- Clay Houses

What a wonderful term we have had! We certainly got our hands mucky with our art! The children had a fabulous time exploring clay and learning techniques to aid them in their craft. From pinch pots to clay tiles using the score and slip technique to join clay together. We also thought about impressing and adding embellishments to create negative and positive spaces.

To finish the term, we have enjoyed the run up to Christmas by doing an array of Christmas activities.

Next half term, we move onto

Wishing you a Happy and Holy Christmas

God Bless

Mrs Mather

Year 5 Weekly Blog 12.12.25- ‘Peace on earth will come to stay when we live Christmas everyday’

What a final week of full learning it has been- the festive spirit has certainly ramped up as we lead towards our third Sunday of Advent. Our week has been filled with numerous trips to church to practice for our Christmas Carol Concert. In RE, we have been looking at the O Antiphons and reflecting on the deeper meaning behind these pieces of art. Later in the week, it was the children’s turn to create these pieces of wonderful and spiritual art and the results were fantastic! The end of our week has been very festive, starting with an invitation from Mrs Tierney to join her in forest school for a festive lesson on the forest symbols of Christmas. We then finished our lesson with a story of the ‘Winter’s Solstice’ around the campfire. Christmas week had truly began today with Christmas Jumper and Bake Off Day! Myself and Mrs Johnson were blown away with the festive bakes on show and they tasted amazing!

Conversation Starters

In Geography, we have been comparing biomes around the world and the animals that live within these environments. We finished with a ‘what is your favourite and why’ question about biomes. If you could live anywhere in the world, where would you live and why?

Riddle of the Week

I lose my head every morning but I get it back at night.

What am I?

Let’s Celebrate

Virtue Star of the Week: Our virtues for this half term are faith-filled and hopeful. Our winner this week goes to Myles. In the midst of all of the festive madness and the lead up to our final week of advent, you have such a calmness about you Myles that is needed in times like this. Your calm and composed nature allows you to focus solely on your task at hand and to remain faith- filled throughout this special holy time of year.

Learner of the Week: This week, our learner of the week goes to Isaac for being a determined and focused learner. You have really impressed me with your article writing this half term Isaac. You have applied your creativity along with our newly learnt grammar skills and layout. You were super focused during our independent writing of this and determined to finish every single feature of your article. Transfer this into all aspects of your learning.

Notices

• Homework- Please check the homework blog for your child’ weekly homework, including the deadline date.

• Travelling Nativity has started to go home so please use this as a special time to connect with Jesus and to get you in the Christmas spirit! This will need to be brought back in the following school day.

• We have began to prepare for our KS2 Christmas Carol Concert which is taking place on Tuesday 16th December. Song lyrics and recordings of our songs are on the homework blog for you to practice.

• Christmas Raffle- This will be taking place on Wednesday 17th December. Tickets are to be bought at the office.

• This is also the day of our KS2 Christmas Party. Children can come into school in their own clothes and are allowed to bring one chocolate bar and one small non fizzy drink.

• The final day of term is Friday 19th December and we will be finishing at 2pm

Year 4 Weekly blog. Friday 12th December "Gaze upon Christ, consider Him, contemplate Him and desire to imitate Him. (St Clare of Assisi)

What a reflective week it has been in Year 4. This week in RE, children have been learning about the ancestry of Christ and the Jesse tree - Jesus’s family tree that traces Him all the way back to Abraham. During Advent, we reflect on all events of the bible leading up to Jesus Christ our Saviour. In the gospel liturgies this week, we learn that Jesus came to draw everyone into His love and thhis Sunday is Gaudete Sunday, which translates to Joy. We celebrate the privilege of loving Jesus and strive to imitate Him.

This week, children have had two practices in church for our Christmas Carol Service - they are doing so well and are singing with such reverence. The trickiest one is our French Silent night - be sure to practise this further sat home!

In other news: children have planned their story based on the Pied Piper - and they are writing a paragraph a day. Their description skills and crafting of sentences is really coming along. There is some super work going on. We are grappling with the possessive apostrophe in spelling - we just need to make sure we only use it for possession and not every time a word ends in s! In maths, we have looked at 3x7=21 and 6x7=42 in our mastering number. In our lessons, we have been trying hard to understand rounding 4 digit numbers ot the nearest 10, 100 and 1,000. This requires a really good understanding of number. In Science this week, we have learned about the process of evaporation - when matter changes state from liquid into gas.

Here are some pictures of our travelling nativity:

Here are some examples of our wonderful stories so far…

Well done to our amazing bakers today - what a triumph! they were beautiful. Thank you to Mrs Tierney also for our lovely forest school experience today, where we gathered round the fire and listened to a story about the Winter Solstice. We made our new year hopes and aspirations and put them on the fire to symbolise a new beginning.

Conversation starters

RE

What is the Jesse tree? Have a look at some images online.

Science

Why does washing dry better on a warm, windy day outside? How do your clothes get dry on the radiator? What is happening to the liquid water?

Let’s Celebrate

This week, our certificate winner was Eliza. You have received a Bobby Bee certificate for being a child who loves learning and fully participates in all lessons. You try so hard and want to achieve highly - and you are!

This half-term our virtues are Fairth-Filled and hopeful. Logan has recieved our virtue star because you are so helpful within class. you try hatd to make sensible decisions. You are always such a positive and hopeful chap! Well done and thank-you!

Notices

.Tuesday 16th December Key Stage 2 Carol Service in church 2pm and 6pm. Please wear school uniform on Tuesday - not PE uniform.Children will need to be there in the evening at 5:45pm in full school uniform too.

Christmas Raffle- This will be taking place on Wednesday 17th December. Tickets are to be bought at the office.

Wednesday 17th December - Christmas party day. Children can wear their party clothes - sensible shoes though! They can bring a (non-fizzy) drink and one treat for a snack like a small chocolate bar or a normal packet of crisps. We will be watching a film of their choice in the afternoon. If a P.G I will send a text to let you know which one.

No ukulele next week.

We break up on Friday at 2:00pm

Mrs Lyons and Miss Slater

a.lyons@ourladystarofthesea.lancs.sch.uk

Year 5 Homework- Due Thursday 18th December

Compulsory Homework

Reading

Only a couple of weeks left to hit your reading target- lets aim for at least 20 minutes of reading per day. You will be amazed by how much you can read in a week if you stick to this routine.

Spellings

We have changed our spelling practice lessons in school to focus more on retrieval spellings- especially our high frequency and common words.

Practice writing these words three times on the line in your BEST handwriting. Make sure to complete lots of mini spelling tests in preparation for our weekly test on Friday.

1. actually

2. gently

3. accidentally

4. wrinkly

5. differently

6. occasionally

7. greedily

8. critically

9. easily

10. beautifully

11. strangely

12. giggly

13. frantically

14. basically

15. dramatically

KS2 Christmas Carol Practice

This week, we have learned three songs for our Christmas celebration which will be in church on Tuesday 16th December. Please practice and learn these off by heart.

Silent Night- French

We are challenging ourselves this year by applying our french skills to one of our most well known Christmas carols. We will only be singing up to 2:12 on the video. We have split the song into 3 verses. Year 5/6 will sing verse one which will be from 0:00-0:43 seconds on the video. Year 3/4 will then sing verse two and everybody will be joining in for the final verse which will be 1:28- 2:12. The children have all been given a song booklet of our Christmas songs.

This week....

Another fun and exciting week as we journey together to the stable. This week has been full of special events. It started on Tuesday where went to watch KS1 Nativity. It was absolutely wonderful, we are still talking about it! Well done KS1!!

On Tuesday and Wednesday our resident elf brought us a special delivery…movie tickets! We took our tickets and joined reception in the year 1 classroom to watch a short film- Alien Christmas and CBeebies Cinderella panto. What a treat!

Even though we have been out of nursery quite a lot this week we have still managed to have our two PE lessons and have completed lots of Christmas learning challenges!

Forest School

On Tuesday Mrs Tierney invited us to join her to listen to Christmas stories around the camp fire…and to eat chocolate biscuits, mmmm.

We listened to Little Robin Red Vest and Stick Man.

Click here for Little Robin Red Vest

Click here for Stick Man

Enjoy!

Worship

Advent Stations.

Advent is the four-week journey in the Christian calendar that prepares our hearts for the celebration of Jesus Christ's birth at Christmas, while also reminding us of His promised return.

This week we visited the Advent station which have been set up around school, one per class.

The Advent Stations took us to seven Advent "stations" or "stopping points" and provided us a way to ponder the mystery of how God prepared the world to receive his Son at the moment of the Annunciation.

Christmas Party

Next Thursday will be our Christmas Party, everyone is invited to join us! It will begin at 9.30 am until 11.30 am. If it is your childs usual session please bring them at the normal time. You do not have to bring any food as we will be having birthady cake with Baby Jesus. Lunches will be as usual.

Party clothes and dancing shoes are COMPULSORY! We aim to have a fabulous time!!!!!!!!!

URGENT PLEA

Nursery no longer have any spare clothes in case of accidents. If you have any nursery clothing at home could you please send them back in or if you have any items you are willing to donate we would be most grateful.

Item needed include: socks, underwear, leggings and trousers

Thank you

Finally, next week is going even busier that ever so have a good rest this weekend!

Stay safe and God Bless

Barbara

Year 1 Weekly Blog 12.12.25 - "For those who love, nothing is too difficult, especially when it is done for the love of Jesus Christ." St Ignatius of Loyola

In this weeks Gospel we heard how John the Baptist had heard about Jesus Christ’s miracles and all the other wonderful things that Jesus was doing. Jesus came to teach us to forgive and heal anyone who put their trust in him. In Year 1 we have reflected on how we can share Jesus throughout todays world. The children have offered many wonderfully kind ideas such as sharing, including everybody, looking after God’s animals and making sure we don’t litter.

Going deeper in conversation

During RE we have continued our focus on the Nativity and have discussed how there are no photographs of the special night Jesus was born, however there is so much artwork that people have created. The children closed their eyes and listened to a description of Jesus’ birth, we then shared what our minds pictured. We then went on to look at artwork from around the world and the children put these in order of their favourite to their least favourite, explaining there reasons.

Question to ask:

This week’s Wednesday Word was ‘Christ’ What can your child tell you about this word?

Magic moments

We have enjoyed the most magical of moments this week. The pure joy and pleasure of watching Year 1 take to the stage - alongside our brilliant Year 2’s - to deliver the most wonderful story and message of all. We are sure you will all agree that they did a tremendous job. They sang with love for baby Jesus and made us all feel incredibly proud. Thank you for joining us in school to share this special moment. Please don’t forget that it was recorded so you have the opportunity to watch it all again together at home with all the family!

A special message for Year 1…

Year 1, we are unbelievably proud of you. You have shown such bravery taking to the stage to share this very special story and have done so with such love and joy in your hearts. What a wonderful team you make! You should all be very proud of yourselves; well done!

Let’s Celebrate

A huge congratulations to Henry who has been awarded the learning certificate this week for being a Focused Cooper Crab. Henry, your focus has certainly not gone unnoticed this last few weeks! At the start of each lesson you are listening and ready to grow your brain. With this brilliant focus you have engaged in discussions, challenged thinking and dug even deeper into our learning. We have lost count of how many times your name has been used as an example of a brilliant role model! Well done Henry!

A huge congratulations to Florence who has received the Star Virtue award for demonstrating our Faith Filled and Hopeful virtues. Florence, you always take the moment to reflect deeply during our prayer and liturgy and during our discussions in RE. We can see how you think carefully about these teachings and how they can help you make positive choices in school. This care and respect was demonstrated during our Nativity performance and our discussions within which you spoke beautifully about the very special moment when baby Jesus was born. Thank you for helping us all to be reflective, faith filled and hopeful. Well done Florence.

Reminders

Hot snack menu - The order form is on Mrs Gregan’s blog, if you would like to order any hot snacks for your child this coming week. Please complete your orders ASAP (before Monday).

Christmas Lunch - Wednesday 17th December.

KS1 Christmas Party: This is the morning of Thursday 18th December. We ask for children to come to school in party clothes and bring a drink (not fizzy) along with a treat snack such as a packet of crisps or a chocolate bar. We also please ask for sensible shoes as the children will be outside during breaktimes and lunch time break.

Emails:

c.bassett@ourladystarofthesea.lancs.sch.uk

s.hartley@ourladystarofthesea.lancs.sch.uk

Have a lovely Christmas!

Year 6 Weekly Blog- 'Joy does not simply happen to us. We have to choose joy and keep choosing it every day'

As we move towards the third week of advent, it seems unbelievable that we have nearly completed our first full term together in Year 6. As I reflect on how much the children have grown, learnt and enjoyed every experience in Year 6, it seems only fitting that the third candle of advent represents JOY. It reflects the joy that comes through Jesus’ arrival, and through the salvation he has gifted us and as we continue to approach Christmas Day, our joy grows more and more.

Thank you to the following children for such a beautiful liturgy this week...

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We have also met with our Reception buddies this week, where half the class took their partners around the school for the prayer pilgrimage, following a prayer map. The children went to each station, where they focused on each stations key message during advent. It was a beautiful and reflective afternoon, where the children got to listen to prayer and scripture…

This week we have had a wonderful week of learning and practice for our Chrsitmas concert next week. The children are speaking out beautifully in church and singing their hearts out- we can’t wait for you to see it.

This week we have started to look at biographies in English and pull out its features. We have collected biographical language, looked up any unfamiliar words and looked at the importance of using choronology. In Science, we have been looking at the circulatory system and the main components that move the blood around the body. What a busy week of learning …

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Christmas Bake Off…

Wow what an amazing selection of cakes, brownies and cookies! So much effort has gone in to each and every one of them and they look FABULOUS, never mind taste FABULOUS!! Thank you to all the effort you have gone to, to make our ‘Bake Off’ extra special! The judges found it incredibly hard to decide on the winner, look how tasty they all look …

Well done to our ‘Bake off’ winner! Yummy brownies that tasted divine!!

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Leading Learners

Well done to William this week.

William, you work tirelessly in lessons to be the best you can be and we love teaching you as you are always so focused and engaged. Your reflective attitude towards your learning has really improved and  helps you to take your learning that step further.

Faithfilled and Hopeful Stars

This half term we will be on the lookout for all the children that are intention in their actions. Children who show great faith in themselves, others and God. We will also be spotting children who are hopeful, who show hope for the future, enabling us to trust ourselves and those around us with the decisions that will shape our future. These children are the role models of the school. This week we thank Matilda for being faithfilled and hopeful.

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Helpers in the mornings:

This week we have the following children helping to take the younger children to their class:

Logan Toby Lily Isioma

Reminders

• Bikeability has been rescheduled for Wednesday 7th January- please remember to bring bikes, helmets and coats this day!

• We are out and about a lot next week, walking to church. Please could you make sure children have a warm coat and hat each day to keep warm.

• We have decided as a school not to send individual Christmas cards to each other, but to instead put this money towards a chairty of your choice. Children can if they wish, write one card for the whole class.

• KS2 Christmas Concert: This will take place at Church on Tuesday 16th December. The children will perform the concert twice at 2pm and 6pm

• Tudor morning in Year 6- Tuesday 16th Decemeber- Dressing up is optional - but if you do want to dress up then we will need to bring our school uninforms to get changed in to ready for the Christmas concert!

• We close for Chrsitmas at 2pm on Friday 19th December

• Wednesday 17th December Key Stage 2 Christmas party. Children can come to school in party clothes and sensible shoes. They can bring a non-fizzy drink and a small snack such as chocolate or a packet of crisps.

Have a lovely weekend with your family.

Year 4 homework to be handed in on Thursday 18th December

Christmas song practice

This week, we have been to church to practice. Please keep learning your Christmas songs with your booklet and have a go at singing along in French to verses 2 and 3 of Silent Night.

We will also be singing two verses of Silent Night in French. Here is a video of it below for you to have a listen.

Christmas apostrophes!

All spellers this week

This week we have focused on correct use of the possessive apostrophe. Use the table below to create some sentences and write them in your best handwriting in your homework books.

The black words are the owners - they will need the apostrophe before the s.

They can possess any of the words in purple.

Here is an example sentence:

There was some room in the inkeeper’s stable.

Optional Home Learning - Autumn 2

It is an exciting half term! Have a look below at the different tasks you can complete to enhance your learning.

Year 3 Homework- To be handed in Tuesday 16th December

Spellings

This week we are focusing on common exception words, words that have an usual spelling or don’t follow the usual spelling rules.

1. sentence
2. bicycle
3. address
4.heart
5.arrive
6.believe
7.Father
8.because
9.clothes
10. eight

Maths - Please complete the questions in your homework book.

Christmas songs practice

Every year, our wonderful KS2 children prepare a carol service in church for the community. The service is full of prayer, scripture and song - it really is a special afternoon and evening. The children have been practising the songs in school and have all been given a song booklet so that they can practise along with our recorded videos at home.

Autumn 2 Optional homework

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Wyre & Fylde Dance Competition 2026

Our Lady Star of the Sea is taking part in the Wyre and Fylde 2026 Dance Competition at the Tower Ballroom, Blackpool on Monday 2nd February.

Schools will perform and receive a score from a panel of judges. Each act will receive positive feedback following their performance from one of the judges. The theme for 2026 is "Rhythms of Unity": Celebrating the spirit of major sporting events happening all over the world in 2026 where sport, culture and imagination come together as one.

The competition will mean that we will spend the afternoon and the evening at the Tower Ballroom, but specific details will be given after Christmas.

This is not like the annual dance fesitival we usually take part in, therefore auditions for this will take place next Monday 15th December, during the school day, and the dancers will find out whether they have made it in to the dance competition before they leave for Christmas. The form below is an expression of interest only and will tell me how comitted the children are to rehearsals, as well as whether they will be auditioning in school next Monday. As we only have 4 weeks to put a fully choreogrpahed routine together, attendance is vital.

Dance rehearsals taking place in school hall for 4 consecutive weeks on Monday 3:30 - 4:45pm and Friday mornings from 8:30am - 9:15am. 

Year 5 Weekly Blog 5.12.25- 'Make your heart a manger so that it can be born to God'

The weeks are certainly flying by now as we travel through advent together in love, prosperity and reflection. We have just indulged ourselves into advent this week with no better way than with our Nursery and Reception Nativity performance on Tuesday. We then strapped up and bared the winter weather for some Christmas tree planting around our forest school area. In art, Mrs Mather has been testing the children’s drawing skills as they have been replicating the scene of the Nativity. We have also been down at Church for our first altar practice of our KS2 Christmas Concert, ready to fill our sacred place with song and scripture. To end our week, as a school we came together for our ‘Travelling Nativity’, again coming together with song and scripture to really celebrate this wonderful time.

Conversation Starters

In Geography, we have been comparing biomes around the world and the animals that live within these environments. We finished with a ‘what is your favourite and why’ question about biomes. If you could live anywhere in the world, where would you live and why?

Riddle of the Week

I have legs but I can’t walk. I have a back and arms but I can’t reach.

What am I?

Notices

• Homework- Please check the homework blog for your child’ weekly homework, including the deadline date.

• Travelling Nativity has started to go home so please use this as a special time to connect with Jesus and to get you in the Christmas spirit! This will need to be brought back in the following school day.

• The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe Parental Guidance- We are currently reading this book as our class novel. We are due to finish the book just before Christmas and are hoping to watch the film during Christmas memory week. If you have any queries or issues about your child watching this film, please email me. If no emails are received, I will take this as a yes to your child being okay to watch the film.

• Christmas Bake Off- This will be returning on Friday 12th December. I can’t wait to see (and mainly taste) your chocolatey crimbo creations! This will also be our Christmas Jumper Day!

• We have began to prepare for our KS2 Christmas Carol Concert which is taking place on Tuesday 16th December. Song lyrics and recordings of our songs are on the homework blog for you to practice.

• Christmas Raffle- This will be taking place on Wednesday 17th December. Tickets are to be bought at the office.

• The final day of term is Friday 19th December and we will be finishing at 2pm