Hello from Mrs Gregan

We made it and I could not be prouder of my whole school community; wonderful families, devoted staff and hard - working children. We are all so very blessed. This year has been incredibly exhausting, but by far the most rewarding term of my teaching career.

This week has been all about making people smile and to share our joy with others. We have been busy making Christmas cards, baubles and a carol concert for the residents of Stella Matutina. They read out the email that we had sent them this week and it brought tears to many of the residents. If we can just spread a little joy to them this Christmas….what a wonderful gift. With the £1 from the danceathon next week, we hope to send them an incredible gift. I will post the video of the carols on the website next week when we share our whole school Christmas nativity. Hopefully it will bring you some light too.

As Mother Teresa once told us, ‘It is not how much we give, but how much love we put into giving.’ It has been lovely to insert some Christmas cheer into our classroom this week and to think about the needs of others before ourselves. We have constantly prayed for the residents of Stella Matitina during this term and I know how much joy the children’s letters have brought to them.

As we head towards the season of Advent, now more than ever, we are trying to be the light that is shining in our world. Each and every day, I am reminded of the joy that each of your children bring. There is not a day that does not go by where we don’t laugh in class - we are really having such a wonderful time learning and overcoming all of the challenges that we constantly face. I am really looking forward to celebrating this magical time with the class. We know that our Christmas preparations will be different this year - maybe it will give us more time to reflect its true meaning.

At the going down of the sun and in the morning, we will remember them. This week is always a poignant week as we stop and remember all of those fallen victims of war and conflict. We started our week on Monday with a worship. The children had all made a poppy for the centre focus and we shared prayers for everyone who has been affected by war and conflict around the world.

Compassion, it is such a big word with such an important meaning. This week in RE we have looked at times when Jesus showed mercy and compassion. He didn’t just show it to people who were one type of member of society, He showed to everyone - from every aspect of society. We have been looking at how we can bring compassion and mercy to our community and to the people in our lives.

I am really excited to get our second half term started tomorrow. I am even more excited that we will be studying Romeo and Juliet as our writing unit of work and Skellig for our reading unit of work!

I find it really hard to believe that next week will be week 8 in school. It seems to have gone in the blink of an eye. I have constantly talked to the children about marginal gains this half term. The notion that getting just 1% better at something each time you do it demonstrates progress. When the 1& gains are added together, the progress is amazing!

We have all been totally captivated by the moving and inspiring story of Anne Frank this week. From learning about the regime that the Jewish people had to live by, to the surrender of the Frank family to go into hiding and then the joy that Anne’s diary has brought to so many people world wide - we have all been totally involved in her story. The events that surround the ordeal that the Franks and other Jewish families were incredibly harrowing and so very hard to believe. We have also discussed how this segregation still affects people, communities and cultures today - we pray continuously that they find a place of safety and that they are loved for who they are.

With so much going on at the moment, it can be hard to stop and reflect and think about everything that we have achieved. Sometimes we only think about the things that we have yet to master or our gigantic to do list. This week I made myself do just that - stop and reflect.

Today, we have had our first class council meeting in class. I have to say, this group of children are the most organised group of councilors that I have had - they are just great. I am really looking forward to seeing just what decisions they lead us on this year. The collective human instrument of our class is the most perfect instrument of all.

A group of nervous children arrived in class on Monday morning, eager to hear what positions of responsibility they had been given. Although I kept them waiting until 2.30pm to hear, the children all day we celebratory and excited for each other, not just themselves.

Collaboration is key - especially in Year 6! This week we have collaborated and shared in every lesson - this has helped us to learn from each other. We have collaborated to understand number in maths, making decimal numbers and then partitioning them. We have collaborated in geography, making graphs on Purple Mash to show the rainfall in two places in South America. We have collaborated in english, collecting words that are a root word and a prefix or a root word and a suffix. We have also been sharing who we find inspirational through our biographies. I hope you like our display that we have created this week.

As I opened the gates on Tuesday morning, I think we all had a little apprehension about what school would now be like and how the children would settle back in again after time at home. By 9.05am, that apprehension had completely vanished and from that moment, Year 6 have been just wonderful. I have loved getting to know the children this week and to learn all about them and their thoughts about different things.

Welcome back to school! Way back in March, I did not think that it would be September that our school community would be reunited - I could not be happier to be welcoming the children back to school on Tuesday. And into Year 6! Over the past few days, our school staff have been busy bees getting the school ready and organised ready for when the children come back.

Hello Year 6, I hope that you have all had a wonderful summer with your families and that you are excited to be coming back into school in just a few weeks. I will be putting a video together next week that will explain more about the year but until then…this is all about house captain speeches!