Year 6 Weekly Blog 'It's the most wonderful time of the year'

I think you will all agree that Tuesday’s concert at church was so magical and a real thought-provoking evening for us all. We were so unbelievably proud of the children; the way they spoke and the way they sang was just so beautiful - it really started Christmas for us all. Thank you for coming and joining us in this celebration.

Amidst all of these performances and our own rehearsals, the children have continued to work incredibly hard. We have have been analysing biographies, using adjusting to subtract decimals and large numbers and been learning learning all about volcanoes and earthquakes!

Our Tudor morning was really fun, we retreived what we had learnt from our History work last hald term and learnt much more! We looked at artefacts from Tudor times and guessed what they were used for, we tried a spot of Tudor dance and re-enacted the Spanish Armada! Thank you to Professor Tuesday for your expertise…

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On Wednesday was our well-deserved Christmas Party, where we danced, played games and laughed …ALOT! It was so lovely to relax and enjoy this time together as a class, followed by a nice treat, relaxing in front of a film!

We loved our Christmas themed Forest school treat on Thursday …

Thank you to all of the children for their hard work this term, make sure this Christmas you get plenty of rest and re-charge those batteries ready for a busy, hard-working next half term- they are more than ready!

LEARNER OF THE HALF TERM

Voted for by your classmates for being an excellent learning role model within our classroom. The class think you have shone this half term …

Matilda and Finley

Helpers in the mornings:

The first week back after Christmas we have the following children helping to take the younger children to their class:

Hugo Poppy Tommy Isioma

Reminders:

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

Have a lovely Christmas full of fun, family-time and relaxation.

Year 5 Christmas Holidays Homework

Compulsory Homework

Maths

We have been working so hard on our short multiplication in Maths by multiplying 3 digit by 1 digit numbers. We will be moving on to division, which as we know is the inverse of multiplication, therefore lots of TTRS practice is needed to keep on top of our tables facts.

Reading

All children have gone home with a reading book in which they can either finish their book or make some really good progress.

Spellings

Due to all of the festivities during Christmas memory week, we forgot to do our spelling test. Keep practicing these spellings ready for the spelling test when you come back to school.

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

Wishing You All a Merry Christmas!

What a fabulous half term we have had! From fun and games to artistic creations, we have all been very busy at ALL Stars both mornings and afternoons alike! The children have had a ball! With the darker nights, we have donned high vis vests and head torches so that we can get that much needed fresh air after a hard day’s work. The children have got creative with junk modelling, Bonfire Night, poppies for Remembrance Day and of course the run up to Christmas.

Whatever we have been up to, the children have shone bright with their kindness, formed new bonds with others and have been role models to their peers. It has been an absolute pleasure to look after your children this term.

From Monday 5th January 2026, we will be using the Year 6 side gate (in the carpark), as a means to enter and leave. We have had a new light fitted and door bell, which will make things a lot easier.

Thank you so much for your ongoing support.

Have a Happy and Holy Christmas

God Bless

The ALL Stars Team

Wishing You All a Merry Christmas!

Textiles- Cushions

What a term of perseverance, determination and patience! Sewing is such a tricky skill to master and master they have! From learning running and cross stich to embellishing their cushions with applique, they have all done so well. With Christmas just round the corner, the children designed a Christmas cushion. I am so proud of every single child of how hard they have worked to achieve their goal. Well done Year 3 for such a wonderful term!

Next half term, we move onto Painting and Mixed Media.

Have a Happy and Holy Christmas

God Bless

Mrs Mather

Wishing You All a Merry Christmas!

Painting and Mixed Media and Electrical Systems.

It has been so lovely to share our thoughts and opinions on varying artists. Sometimes thinking about very tricky topics, with each topic and artist, the children have shown such maturity and depth in responding to these. The children chose their artist of inspiration, the media of which to use and a topic to base their artwork on. The results were super! Well done children!

We have now turned our attention to Design Technology and electrical systems, where they have been planning a steady hand game, ready to make in the Near Year.

We will then be moving onto Drawing.

Have a Happy and Holy Christmas

God Bless

Mrs Mather

Wish You All a Merry Christmas!

Structures and 3D – Pavilions and Craft and Design – Egyptian Scrolls

What a busy term of learning! We started off the term by exploring making frames using sweets and cocktail sticks, thinking about the weak spots to the structures, then looking at various Pavilions around the world. The children then went on to plan and design their very own. I introduced the children to hot glue guns to enable them to make strong and sturdy structures.

Egyptian Scrolls have finished off this term. It was so lovely to go on the trip to Bolton with them, I had a lovely time! The trip really helped embed their previous learning and enhance their artistic decisions when recreating Hieroglyphics. We have even had a go at making modern day papyrus paper using the ancient techniques of the Egyptians.

Next half term, we move onto Electrical Systems.

Have a Happy and Holy Christmas

God Bless

Mrs Mather

Wishing You All a Merry Christmas!

Mechanisms- Pop up Books and Craft and Design- Architecture

My goodness, how much have we packed in this half term! The children’s Greek Myth pop up books were super! We thought about and used varying mechanisms which best suited the story line and illustrations. The children could use horizontal or vertical sliders, a pivot lever or a pop up to create an exciting book to share with their Year 1 partners. The Year 1’s loved it and could even retell their partners Myth. Well done Year 5!

We have now moved on architecture, where we have been using our observational skills to recreate accurate and detailed drawings. Then going onto to develop these into prints. We will continue this after the holidays.

Wishing you a Happy and Holy Christmas

God Bless

Wishing You All a Merry Chistmas

Textiles and Structures and 3D- Hand Puppets and Pencil Pots.

Oh how time flies when you’re having fun! What a busy term we have ha! The children have been an absolute delight, as we have explored how we can join fabrics together using different tools. The children tried joining using safety pins, glue and staples, then had to make the choice of which was the easiest to do and how effective each was. The children then went on to design a hand puppet, with Christmas just around the corner, we based them on the Nativity Story. The children did a fantastic job!

We then moved onto structures and 3D in Design and Technology. We thought about and discussed what stability means, using our own bodies to explore unstable balances and stable balances. This then led onto the children designing a pencil pot, thinking about how we could make it stable. They all had great fun making these!

Next half term, we will be moving onto Painting and Mixed Media.

Wishing you all a very happy and Holy Christmas

God Bless

Mrs Mather

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!