WELCOME TO RECEPTION CLASS
14.2.24
(Blog Post)
Good afternoon,
You know it has been an interesting week when your class ends up in the back of a police car! We clearly need to break this week down. Key themes of wellbeing and safety have flowed through this term and this week was the pinnacle of safety. We look at the key Pantosarus which I will share with you all to enjoy. It clearly explains that pants cover up our private parts and if someone asks to see them tell them no. The message is extremely important and done in a sensitive way to not confuse or unnecessarily upset little minds. The following day we moved onto road safety and how to safely cross a road and navigate busy areas. We know our grown ups will keep us safe, but we can do our little bit to keep grownups safe too. Then we had our visit from our police friends! Luckily for us, Jen and Martin were here for positive reasons – to help us learn and grow! Jen and Martin explained their roles in the community and how they help us. They gave us some great safety tips when at home and out in the world about stranger danger. They then let us look at a real police car! Martin was even kind enough to play the sirens for us – very cool. Thank you to another set of wonderful friends of the school Jen and Martin. In the afternoon Pendle and Parlick worked collaboratively to explore a wide range of wellbeing and safety issues. We started off with a hazardous hall, where we had to identify any dangers involved. Children then explored the school grounds to monitor dangers and keep each us all safe. We then looked at body washing and teeth brushing with Mrs Davies, germs with me and Mrs Blair explored dangers around the home. A frenzy of practical learning. On Thursday we brought all of this learning together and celebrated it with the whole school. Children shared all these key things that will keep us safe with our friends in KS2 and they shared key information about the dangers of electricity, train lines and dangerous substances with informative PowerPoints, posters and dramas! Thank you everyone. The children of Preston are a little bit safer because of your splendid efforts! To end with a very special acknowledgement we have reached the half way point in the year. I know a very special time for Miss McCrone and I is looking back and seeing how far each individual child has come! I encourage you all to do the same. Thank you for another wonderful half term Pendle. I hope you get to spend as much time together as families as possible. Stay safe everyone and I will see you all very soon.
With love,
Mr McGill
7.2.24
(Blog Post)
Good afternoon,
I must begin with a huge thank you to a wonderful friend of the school Amy Dover. An incredible fact about Amy is that she is a paramedic! Amy very kindly explained her role, showed off some of her equipment, played some games with us and even brought and showed off her ambulance! Amy explained all the little draws and cupboards and even let children sit upfront to inspect and take a great picture. Amy did give us a little bit of homework. Amy explained about big hurts and little hurts. For a big hurt we would call 999 and smaller hurts where trips to the Dr and show a loved one a bump or scrape. Our homework is to memorise the special phone number ‘999’ and the first line of our address to give to the emergency service phone operator in the unlikely/unthinkable happened at home. I think we may all agree that it is better to know it and not need it, than need it and not know it! So thank you Amy for your time and help. Children have explored our mental health and wellbeing together as a team with the brilliant Parlick Y1/2. Children moved bodies to reflective slow paced music and then to get the endorphins bumping some faster paced music. Exercise makes us feel good and it is a good and healthy thing to move. We explored our own brains through specific emotions and the reasons why we may feel joy, anger, sadness or fear. Children then explored the concept of personal growth with ‘Grow Yourself, Know Yourself!’ As we develop through our school lives, who do we have strong bonds and connections with. We spoke about families and friends and this then developed into our hobbies and passions and as we grow these will grow and change too as we explore new things in life. Big ideas for little minds! I have to share something the children are very excited about something we are doing more and more now the weather is improving. Our writing is blossoming, most recently over the wonder Rapunzel, our doubling is growing and I encourage you to see with your own eyes using some finger mathematics but they are not the incredible things I wish to tell you. It is – RUN A MILE! I am sure you have heard of similar things, but in the afternoon we try and run a mile. You may, walk, skip, jog or run. The children aim to beat their previous score and persevere! Children track scores by using little block towers. Children are showing me they love to be active and brilliant running can be seen, such as running on the balls of our feet for balance and power. Well done team, I am proud of each and every one of you! Thank you for a wonderful week and see you all Monday!
With love,
Mr McGill
31.1.25
(Blog Post)
Nihao all,
We have celebrated the spectacular Chinese New Year, learning about the tale of the Jade Emperor creating a calendar for his people and the race that ensued. We have used the greeting Nihao to welcome each other in the mornings and afternoons and I am sure that will continue in the weeks and months ahead. Give it a try at home! Children have made paintings to celebrate the year of the snake and used Mandarin characters to write it. In our phonics Miss McCrone and I were buried under a mountain of leaf and bean writing templates and we almost decided to stay as the writing is just that good. It was so good that a giant peaked his head into the classroom and asked if he could use our writing to replace all his stolen treasure. Alas, I said no. Our writing is constantly becoming more enriched, our independence is developing and children are sharing really great ideas with each other. We are constantly drawing from our phase 2/3 and now 4 knowledge and applying it often! Thank you for the feedback about Bug Club. I am delighted with how you have all thrown yourself into it. If the technical gremlins return, please contact me and together we will get your account up and running again. By Thursday, I aim to return to sending 2 physical books home and you will have your very own bespoke E-Library at home. The best of both worlds! I thank you for your support with this. In mathematics children have doubled, doubled and doubled again! Children have blown me away with key knowledge of equal/same, combining number to surpass 10 and even record their work on a whiteboard. We even used a scale to further compare and evaluate numbers – Fannntastic! Children have made mini representations of their lives so far, even talking about future careers – you can never start too early! For our religious work, children have explored the story of Jesus blessing the children. A story that encapsulates the love Jesus has for us all, young or old, rich or poor. God’s love is truly for everyone and we can go forth and share that love and compassion with our family and community. To finish we have a special treat. To follow on from the incredible work from Mrs Luke and her bird feeders. We explored our grounds and did a small amount of bird watching with a twist. We made observations about our changing environment and were armed with Ipads to document nature and birds we saw. Luckily for us, we had Mr Gilmour (a bird watching savant) busying away outside too. Unbelievably, some children saw a heron! A coincidence or did Mr Gilmour have a pocked full of bird seed and canned tuna? Something to ponder over the weekend. With the mix of pictures that have come out, the children asked if we can show them off to you. So on the blog, I will use some of the photography from the incredible Pendle the children have decided to share. Thank you all for a lovely week, and see you all Monday.
With love,
Mr McGill
24.1.25
(Blog Post)
Good afternoon all,
A windy welcome to you all! Funnily enough, we have had lots of huffing and puffing this week! Let me catch you up on another marvelous week! I shall begin with the 3 Little Pigs! A little known fact, 1 out of 3 are excellent builders and I have a story to prove it! Children worked extremely hard this week creating another story book about the 3 little pigs. It is not very often Mr McGill lets children write the word ‘bottom’ in a story book! However, we all learned a lesson about not climbing down chimneys. In mathematics children comprised a range of numbers using tangible objects. We even created a game in pairs where a specific amount was broken behind our backs, then one part was placed in front of us. Children then had to deduce what number remained to combine into the whole part. A game I think will be enjoyed at home, with blocks, toys or even tea spoons! Linking to our 3 Little Pigs we are in the process of designing and creating houses for our pink friends. Some children are building a house of bricks, some a house of sticks and as you can imagine some drew the short straw and had to make a house of straw. If a wolf asks, they are all made of bricks! We wanted the children to trial different materials and take part in a trial and error process to tweak and improve. I cannot wait for you all to see the houses and the stories we shall safely tuck inside these designer buildings. The children have further explored the Feeding of the 5000 and even heard about other miracles performed by Jesus. We did our very best to unpick a very tricky word ‘miracle’ we discussed what it means and why Jesus could perform them. Jesus is not ‘magic’ he is the son of God. Children showed great awareness about this and as we continue to explore these stories children are sharing brilliant ‘I wonder’ moments and asking the key, how and why questions! At the moment of writing this Bug Club show be up and running this evening, electronic gremlins always linger but speaking to the IT rep I feel confident it should be live this evening. I shall send logins to you directly via Seesaw. Your child’s account will have a username – JMcGill password – changeme and School Code – hsx3. This will allow you to access a plethora of online resources and be another brilliant resources at home to continue this love of reading. It will be a really enjoyable experience for you and your child. If you need any support with this, please let me know. On Monday I will add new books for every children and ask for your feedback. This will run parallel to our bookmark sticker system. Thank you everyone for a marvelous week and see you all Monday!
With love,
Mr McGill
17.1.25
(Blog Post)
Good afternoon all,
Welcome, salutation and hello all! We are back, Jack Frost is calming down and what more can we ask for! You will not to be seated reading this weeks blog as children have completed a whole booklet story and a humongous gingerbread man writing frame! With our return to school in 2025 writing waits for nobody and we began with completing a Goldilocks and the 3 bears story. Key language, funny ideas and brilliant phonics throughout. As we encounter these familiar traditional tales, we aim to make them more personal and change key details of the story. E.G characters, setting, endings. Some children created classic happy every after, some hilariously thought Golilocks should be gobbled up for her light fingered nature – very strict! In mathematics our counting becomes higher and higher and important we are matching the numerical value. Children organised number knowledge, built cottages with number constraints and even combined our larger numbers to create on the spot sums of addition and subtraction. We really are a bunch of clever clogs. In our topic work children have mapped the school playground and classroom, thinking of orientation and location of things. We then were inspired by Matty Long’s Salty Dogs map and create a fantasy map. We have had the classic pirate sea monkeys, monsters in the sea, lovely picnic fields, volcanos aplenty, fishing ponds, shipwrecks, treasure islands, spooky caves and many more wacky and interesting features for our maps. We even got to show them off to our wonderful friend Miss Silvester who came to Pendle Class and celebrate our maps and heap the children with praise for unique shape and structure. Children also made mini accounts of themselves growing up. We looked at the time we have been here on this earth as babies and transitioned into toddlers and now children! Before you know it high school will be here and we shall all be scratching our heads thinking where the time went! On a special note to finish in R.E we lead the whole school in Monday worship, sharing our Glory Be prayer to the school. We need to go forth and share prayer with others this term. Luckily for Pendle Class we have YOU! Next week we are going to try to record and send home our Glory Be prayer via Seessaw. I would love it if you could watch it and home and our aim is to inspire you with the love of the Lord. Finally, I have sent WOW moments home. No more than 1 a week. It can be a simple moment that has made you go wow! From acts of compassion to incredible mathematics and anything in-between! Thank you children for an excellent week! I cannot wait to see you all Monday!
With love,
Mr McGill
21.12.24
(Blog Post)
Good afternoon all,
It’ssssssss CHRISTMAS! (nearly!) Just like that the Christmas holidays have arrived and you are all thinking how that has gone so fast! I must gush to you all as it seems to be a theme over the last couple of weeks. Thank you so much for all the cards, presents, sweet treats and kind words. They are never expected but Miss McCrone and I are massively appreciative of it – THANK YOU! I have tried revisiting the Seesaw journals today and from the reactions it seems to have gone down very well. I have seen how the journal works from the perspective of a ‘parent’ and everything seems to be running as it does. At the moment you cannot upload home learning to your journal, if this changes we will let you know. If you need any support accessing your journal let me know. Now to the pressing matter, what are the highlights of this busy week. Today looked at some complex phase 3 sounds in our phonics disco, applying them in word writing and then inserting that word into a sentence we have made ourselves, which you should be able to see with your very won eyes and be amazed! Children worked in Christmas groups with Parlick class and completed a plethora of mini Christmas themed activities, from painting, letter writing, coding, building and role playing. Our P.E was uniquely brilliant as we tested our dance moves, listening ears and a brilliant demonstration of the hokey-pokey by yours truly, a real gift for the world. I am so overwhelmingly proud of the incredible milestones the children have achieved in our first full term together. Bring on 2025 where we shall accomplish even more! Thank you as always for all your support during our first term together. A special thank you to Miss McCrone for all her love and support too. I hope you all have a peaceful Christmas together and can spend as much of it together as a family. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year everyone!
With love,
Mr McGill
13.12.24
(Blog Post)
Good afternoon all,
What should we talk about, the weather? Darker and darker evenings? OR 1 FAB NATIVITY – perhaps the latter! I must begin with thanks to my incredible colleagues. Mrs Davies, Miss McCrone and Mrs Devine. The effort from them all has been truly above and beyond and they are the overwhelming reason why your children have done so well and preformed to such a high standard. Thank you to everyone at home for working on the songs, lines and actions. A final and most important thank you to Pendle and Parlick class! Standing at the front in a very busy hall is never an easy task let alone preforming and singing! I sincerely hope you enjoyed our show, well done everyone. In our phonics we are targeting a range of sounds within phase 3. I did promise all the children an incredible present at the end of this term, a sound mat to take home! You will be proud and slightly surprised by how keen they are over this, so save money this Christmas and do some phonics. In mathematics we have plotted out shapes and gave reasoning for a guess (when the shape is hidden) and then key identifying properties of a shape when we see it. For a wonderful art masterpiece we worked with our buddy friends in Beacon Class! As a team we tried to recreate the famous Van Gogh ‘Starry Night’ painting. Our buddies showed us some interesting techniques, one was a ‘splatter’ which sounds very messy but if done carefully looks incredible and showers the canvas with colour. I would like to remind you all that the Christmas Fair will be this evening afterschool. I shall see you all then. Please remember that the school trip to the Lowther is Tuesday 17th December. Any questions, please ask. Thank you all for a very special week we are all going to remember and see you all Monday. Pictures and clips of the Nativity will be with you ASAP!
With love,
Mr McGill
Born in a Barn Lyrics (Please click the link for lyrics.)
1.Shh, Dont wake the Baby
2. Its a long way on a donkey
3. Don’t worry Mary
4. No Room, No Room
5. Wake up Shepherds
6. We are camels
7. He’s the king
8. Born in a barn
6.12.124
(Blog Post)
Good afternoon all,
Cheeky elves! Christmas cows! Quadgraph! What on earth is happening this week! The children have told Miss McCrone and I many strange and hilarious tales of cheeky elves. Some have pinched Nutella, made terrible messes, snow angels in flour and my personal favorite story, pinched one of our students trousers before school – THE CHEEK! I hope these elves do not hang about much longer as Santa will need all hands on deck! Lights are twinkling, baubles aplenty and a festive looking trees are inside the classroom. It would be false to say children are ‘now’ in the Christmas spirit (as they definitely already were) but it has stepped up a gear. The children are ready for the Nativity next week. Please triple check all the details handed out via Seesaw and if you have any questions, big or small please ask. It is a day to celebrate your incredible children and the birth of Jesus Christ as a school. Children have reached a special milestone this week with our phonics reaching the end of phase 3 sounds. As mentioned we will constantly review these sounds and identify key sounds to work on. In our phonics we did come across something incredible a ‘quadgraph’ which simply is 4 letters that makes one sound! The children were excited to learn a very sophisticated word and share that with friends. Children have pattern made with shapes, creates pictures, hunted for shapes and created our very own snowflakes. We all discussed the properties of shapes as we advance throughout. In our literacy we have made observations about the world around us changing, create phoneme frames and turned into little segmenting and blending robots to be exposed to a plethora of sounds. We are also working on a top secret Christmas project. With many crafts, messages of love and Christmas cheer to share with you all. This will be shared with you before you know it. Thank you to the incredible Glee Club for showcasing incredible singing and preforming talent and thank you for the PTFA for the design a mug festive idea. All the designs were great and they ranged for the classic Christmas tree, pudding, Santa, elves and even a cow festively adorned with tinsel, hats and festive colours – who knew that was a thing! I will like to remind you all our Nativity is on Wednesday, please come to school in normal school uniform. On the Friday is the Christmas Fair. On an emotional note we say a temporary goodbye to the incredible Mrs Devine from Parlick Class as she leaves to have a baby. Rather selfishly she is not providing her baby for the school Nativity for a role he/she is seemingly is born to play, but my protests have fallen on deaf ears. I know as a school and community we wish her all the best of luck, a speedy recovery and a huge congratulations to her and her partner. You will be sorely missed and the children thank you for your love, support and smiling face every day! Rest up team, it is show time next week. Thank you and see you Monday!
With love,
Mr McGill
22.11.24
(Blog Post)
Good afternoon all,
After that PUNFUL start last week I shall begin swiftly. This week is UK Parliament Week. We had a virtual guide around Westminster Palace. We noticed the incredible history, symbols and sculptures. The children tried to think of what this incredible building was. Some suggested a castle, church and interestingly a palace! When we explored the grounds and discovered the ministers’ chamber where our country is safeguarded for future generations. I do like to think, if we have the St Francis children safeguarding our future in the years to come, we would truly be in safe hands. We then explored a core value of democracy – voting! We discussed what a ‘healthy’ debate is and how we share our values, thoughts and get people to see our way of thinking respectfully. Another set of phase 3 sounds have been encountered and knocked out of the park. Please note that we are still in the early days of our phonics journey and these core skills simply take time and need to be constantly revisited. You will really start seeing a jump in the length of books and breadth of language used. Home and school will always be different places so if you need any adjustments to the home reading, please let me know. In mathematics the sound of pins getting struck by ‘super’ strikes have rung out. Children have applied number knowledge, subitising, addition and subtraction in this fast paced task. We have compared quantities used STEM sentences using key language more/greater, less/fewer and same/even. Some children took this even further by then combining irregular amounts! We were inspired with our painting this week and tired our hand at painting a robin. We looked at the variety of colour on a simple robin. When we went outside to paint, we were watching the world go by and looking at our stunning environment. Unbelievably! The robins around us clearly love to do some modelling work, as when we were painting a pair fluttered and scampered around us – truly magical. I must finish with a great moment of the week. The first test with costumes on, I will attach pictures below! Costumes will be tweaked slightly so we shine like we should. As a class we wanted to reflect upon our roles in the Nativity and the feelings that may have come up. A big well done to Parlick Class for the exceptional example they set! Thank you all for an incredible week and see you all Monday.
With love,
Mr McGill
15.11.24
You all better keep your eyes peeled! We are BAKED in business this week! You can really PEEL it in your bones! That this week has been a special one and if you want the puns to stop, you’re in for a ROOT awakening. The children and I have been ever vigilant for the evil pea. Luckily for us, Supertato was keeping an eye out too. It was a real treat seeing that Supertato made an appearance at some of your homes too! Trigraph! What on earth is a trigraph you may ask. Luckily for us Pendle Class worked extremely hard (as always) on a very tricky new concept. A trigraph simply put is 3 letters that makes one sound e.g. ‘igh’ l-igh-t = light. We did have a range of vowel sounds to work through. This will grow our writing/reading repertoire exponentially. In our phoneme frames and sentence writing, we implemented these sound in words and sentences. Children were even pushed to create their own sentence! Please give your little stars a big well done from me! In mathematics number composition was looked at, we gathered natural materials to match number and amount. Children then looked at irregular ways to count to given numbers. For example, 4 sticks and 3 cows. Individually we have 4 and 3, but instilling this number knowledge in us will allow us to make quick combined links for addition and subtraction. Number truly is all around us! Speaking of which, Christmas magic! I have emailed each of you roles and if needed, additional bits for costumes. If you have not received this, please contact me. Children made reflective pictures for the birth of Jesus Christ and an ‘I Wonder’ statement. This allows children to express a deeper thought about the story and discuss it with an adult or friend. We had 2 very special/ important events this week. Anti-bullying week and Pennies for Pudsey. As a class we looked at why these causes are important and how we can do a little bit of good in the world. Something that is very common, not just in the classroom, but at St. Francis! We will continue to look at these key themes and honour them not just for a day or week – but a lifetime! Thank you all for your love and support for the home learning. I hope you all have a lovely weekend together as a family and see you all Monday! I will see you TATER!
8.11.24
Good afternoon all, Superheroes assemble! Hold on to your seat folks. We had our very own superhero in school today! It was not a bird or a plane. It was ‘FIREMAN DAVE!’ He came into school to explain his role, how he helps others and helped us learn some fire safety tips. He did give us a little bit of homework. As a family, do you have a fire safety plan? Can you remember the first line of your address? Dave explained how these were important to know. I hope you can discuss it calmly as a family over the weekend. Another week, another brilliant set of digraphs have been accomplished, children are now implementing these in words and even sentences. In very exciting news we will begin our vowel digraph sounds next week! When appropriate, books with these sounds will be sent home. In mathematics number composition is key and children have been building towers, using comparative language and combining the towers to make numbers sentences – sounds supeerrr to me! Children recorded this information in ways that were appropriate to them. In our topic work, we had a recap and celebration of Diwali. Children made rangoli patterns outside to welcome you all to school and mehndi art to accompany the celebration. Mrs Davies and I are just in the process of attaching the sounds to the website for you to work on at home. As you may imagine the Nativity swing is in full effect. Children are super excited and I hope you are all seeing that at home. I shall send out roles next week. It will be Christmas before you know it. On a somber note, the children wrote lovely prayers for our Remembrance Day. You could really see children demonstrate great values, love and respect into our world. We then made a poppy for our remembrance class display. Well done team. I am so proud of you all. I hope you all have a lovely weekend as a family. With love, Mr McGill
