May I wish you and your family a happy and a prosperous 2025.  After the Festive break we are all ready and have our batteries charged for a fantastic academic year.   Sounds exciting?  Let me share a little of what we have planned in Spring term.

Maths Our initial focus was on place value, addition/subtraction and multiplication, now we move onto building on these foundations and look at fractions.  What is a fraction? How do you show fractions?  Can we add and subtract fractions?  We have a lot to cover and spend several weeks embedding this new knowledge. We will continue with our focus on Multiplication, as in June we take a National test based on our Multiplication facts, so we continue to use TimesTables games and of course TTRockstars to develop our recall of facts to x12.

English  We use one of my favourite books called "Journey" this term.  I won't give too much away but it features an amazing journey by the heroine of the book and despite not having ANY words, paints a great imaginative picture and allows us to create wonderful scenes using a range of literacy features.  Later in the term we explore poetry all contained a lovely collection called "Cloud Soup"!

History Did you know we have a range of history around us? In spring we look at local history and start to explore some of the buildings in Wellingborough and uncover their past.  What was our area like in the past?  Why did Northamptonshire become famous? This topic is a fascinating insight into our past and opens our eyes to our surrounding area.

Art Later in Spring term we start a very special look at art. In particular just one picture.  "Take One Picture" is a brilliant initiative that Park, all NPAT schools and schools nationally, have the opportunity of exploring a single piece of art.  It provides lots of great thinking, discussion and the opportunity to explore art ourselves.  It culminates with a visit to the National Gallery in London to see the art ourselves!  This London visit will be detailed later and is likely to take place late June 2025.

I will stop at this point, but we have a great range of topics and areas we will cover in ICT, French, DT and all the other subjects we cover during the Spring Terms.

PE days are Wednesday and swimming (that starts 16th January) Thursday please remember to come to school in your PE kit on Wednesday which is a white T-shirt and black shorts/tracksuit bottoms and trainers. Please dress for the conditions as we could be outside so on chilly days ensure you are dressed warmly as its easier to remove layers than add them!  For swimming a note has gone home with details of the kit and requirements, but if you need further clarification, please speak to me or the school office.

Team wise I am joined by two wonderful Teaching Assistants, Ms Griggs-Sealy who is in class in the morning, Ms Capiron who is with us in the afternoon.

For any parents who wish to discuss anything with me, on most days I will be outside the boys exit at 3.30pm or alternatively leave a message with school reception and I can get back to you on whatever your query is.

Kindest Regards

Mr Draper, Ms Griggs-Sealy and Ms Capiron