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Early Years Foundation Stage

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  • Spotlight on Learning - Autumn 2

    Published 19/12/24, by Adam Gilbert

    As the Autumn term draws to a close, we’re excited to share a glimpse into the incredible journey of learning and growth your children have embarked on so far. 

    To celebrate and showcase their hard work, we have created a special Spotlight on Learning. This interactive Microsoft Sway presentation captures the highlights of this term, showcasing what the children have learnt and how their experiences have been enriched both inside and outside the classroom.

    How to View the Spotlight

    Click here to access the Microsoft Sway presentation and take a virtual tour through the learning journey of the first half of the autumn term.

    We hope you enjoy this opportunity to see the progress and enthusiasm your children have shown over the past weeks. It’s a testament to their hard work, curiosity, and the supportive community we’ve built together.!

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  • Discover the Magic of Learning: Our Autumn 1 Spotlight

    Published 02/12/24, by Adam Gilbert

    As the first half of the autumn term draws to a close, we’re excited to share a glimpse into the incredible journey of learning and growth your children have embarked on so far. 

    To celebrate and showcase their hard work, we have created a special Spotlight on Learning. This interactive Microsoft Sway presentation captures the highlights of this term, showcasing what the children have learnt and how their experiences have been enriched both inside and outside the classroom.

    How to View the Spotlight

    Click here to access the Microsoft Sway presentation and take a virtual tour through the learning journey of the first half of the autumn term.

    We hope you enjoy this opportunity to see the progress and enthusiasm your children have shown over the past weeks. It’s a testament to their hard work, curiosity, and the supportive community we’ve built together.!

    Read More

  • Diwali Workshop

    Published 22/11/24, by Adam Gilbert

    The recent Diwali Workshop was an incredible experience for our Reception children.

    One of the highlights of the day was the interactive retelling of Rama and Sita: The Diwali Story. This engaging session brought the ancient tale to life, captivating the young minds and offering them a memorable introduction to the story behind Diwali.

    Beyond the story, the children were introduced to the various customs and rituals that make Diwali so special. From the lighting of diyas (oil lamps) to the colorful decorations and festive foods, they learned all about the traditions that make the festival so vibrant.

    The fun didn’t stop there—everyone had the chance to learn a traditional song wishing good luck, which added to the excitement. To top it all off, the children joined in a joyful dance, embracing the spirit of Diwali with energy and enthusiasm.

    All in all, it was the perfect way to end the week, creating lasting memories for our Reception children. We are deeply grateful for everyone’s support, making this Diwali Workshop a truly unforgettable experience for our young learners.

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  • Healthy Me Week 2024

    Published 16/07/24, by Adam Gilbert

    In the first week of July, Aragon Primary School was buzzing with excitement as we celebrated our annual ‘Healthy Me Week 2024’ with the theme 'Path to Paris', in anticipation of the upcoming Olympics. It was a week filled with fun, learning, and plenty of physical activity!

    Miss Ballantine, our PE lead, reflected on the week: "Healthy Me Week was a fantastic opportunity for our students to embrace the importance of physical activity and well-being. Seeing them participate with such enthusiasm was truly rewarding."

    Highlights of Healthy Me Week:

    1. Sports Clothing Days:
    Throughout the week, children came dressed in their favourite sports clothing, showcasing their enthusiasm for physical activity. From football kits to dance outfits, everyone looked ready to get active!

    2. Virtual 'Race to Paris':
    In the spirit of the Olympics, each class embarked on a virtual journey to 'race to Paris'. Families logged their physical activities outside of school online, contributing to their class's progress. Mr. Gilbert, Deputy Head for curriculum, commented, "It was amazing to see the community come together to support their classes in reaching Paris. The competition really motivated everyone to stay active!"

    3. Show and Tell Assemblies:
    Year groups held special assemblies where children shared sports they participate in outside of school. "It was great to hear about my friends' hobbies and see their medals," said Nylah, a Year 3 student.

    4. Morning Zumba and HIIT Sessions:
    Before school started, teachers led energetic Zumba and HIIT sessions. Students and parents joined in, starting the day on a positive and active note.

    5. Other Activities:
    The week was packed with engaging workshops, yoga sessions, water safety education, and even our own Tough Mudder challenge. "I loved trying yoga for the first time. It made me feel calm and strong," shared James from Year 4.

    Healthy Me Week Results:

    In line with the theme, classes raced to see who could reach Paris first. Congratulations to 6EB for completing the 'Path to Paris' first! Here are the top 5 classes:

    1st Place: 6EB
    2nd Place: 6F
    3rd Place: 3M
    4th Place: RA
    5th Place: 5E

    Sports Day 2024 Highlights:

    Sports Day was a culmination of our week, filled with tremendous efforts and sportsmanship. Congratulations to all participants and winners! Here are the results:

    **KS1 AND KS2 Overall Placings:**
    1st Place: Unicorn (162 points)
    2nd Place: Phoenix (138 points)
    3rd Place: Dragon (136 points)
    4th Place: Griffin (126 points)
    Sportsmanship Award: Griffin

    **Reception Winners:**
    Dragon House

    A huge thank you to all staff and families for making Healthy Me Week 2024 a resounding success. Your support and enthusiasm made it a memorable experience for our students. Here’s to staying active and healthy throughout the year! 🌟

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  • Wonderdome

    Published 16/07/24, by Adam Gilbert

    Last term, our Reception and Year 5 children embarked on a cosmic journey through their topic and science lessons by delving into the wonders of space! We were thrilled to welcome a mobile planetarium show to our school on 10th May, transforming our hall into a gateway to the Universe.

    The planetarium show was an engaging and immersive experience that brought the mysteries of the skies and the thrill of space exploration right to our students.

    For our Reception pupils, the show took them on an exciting tour of the planets, shared tales of brave astronauts, and showcased the sheer power of rockets. "I loved flying past the planets! It felt like I was in a spaceship," said Emma from Reception. Miss Smith added, "It was wonderful to see the children’s eyes light up with curiosity and excitement. The show truly ignited their interest in the world and Universe around them."

    Our Year 5 students had an equally awe-inspiring experience. The show provided them with a greater understanding and appreciation of our position in the Universe. From introducing the sheer scale of the Universe to demonstrating how the Moon moves through its phases, the presenters made complex concepts easy to grasp. Milan from Year 5 exclaimed, "I never knew the Universe was so huge! The part about the Moon phases was really cool." If time allowed, Year 5 students also got to ask their burning space-related questions.

    Mr Lillie was particularly impressed, noting, "The WonderDome experience was truly awe-inspiring. It sparked a desire in the students to learn more about space, and it was fantastic to see their enthusiasm."

    We’re so proud of our budding astronomers in Reception and Year 5. This cosmic adventure has undoubtedly sparked a lasting interest in the wonders of space. Well done, everyone!

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  • Reception Spotlight - Spring Term

    Published 22/03/24, by Adam Gilbert

    What a busy and jam packed term we have had in Reception!

    In Spring Term 1, our topic was called ‘People Who Help Us!’ We kick started this topic by learning all about the people in our school who help us. Each class visited a mystery person in the school (Mr Myers, Mrs Kennett & Miss Granelli and Mr Hennessy) to find out what they do in the school and how it helps us. We then moved onto the Emergency Services with a visit from Police Officers from our local Police station and a Paediatric Nurse from St Helier Hospital. We found out lots of important information about their jobs and saw some of the equipment they use. We even sat in a Police Car and try on some pieces of police uniform. Wow! We ended our topic by learning about a variety of other people who help us in our local community including people who help us at night when we are asleep. We read the story ‘All Through the Night’ by Polly Faber.

    During Spring Term 1, we also celebrated National Storytelling Week and completed a variety of different activities about The Gingerbread Man. It was so much fun!

    In Spring Term 2, our topic was ‘What a Wonderful World!’ We started this topic with the help of Google Earth finding out all about where we live! We were fascinated to see our school on Google Earth and loved looking at different places of interest in our local community. Learning about and using maps was a big focus for us. We created our own maps learning all about a ‘Birds Eye View’ and we used maps to look for clues/rewards around our school. A big part of this term has also been celebrating special events such as Pancake Day, World Book Day and STEM Week! We absolutely loved having visitors into our classrooms for STEM Week and we were fascinated by their job roles. I think we were definitely inspired to become engineers from these visits. We had a science day full of science experiments and activities and working with Year 4 on the IPads for technology day was really useful.

    We loved welcoming our families into Reception for our ‘Mothers & Others Day’ and we think they thoroughly enjoyed our special gifts and song we sang for them. What another busy term!

    Every morning, we have continued to impress our teachers with our fantastic phonics! “Phonics helps us to read and to write!” This term we have learnt; 14 digraphs and trigraphs, 9 new tricky words, and we are now reading words not only containing these digraphs and trigraphs, but also longer words where we need to ‘chunk it up!’. We have continued with our ‘Let’s Read’ sessions in the mornings and have thoroughly enjoyed becoming more independent and fluent readers. There is a real buzz in the classroom seeing all of the children developing their love for reading!

    In maths, we have been very busy continuing to develop our subitising skills. Remember ‘don’t count, say the amount!’ We have also been developing a deeper number sense by finding 1 more and 1 less, calculating doubles and finding halves of a shape and of a number.

    In our PE lessons we have been working on our gymnastic skills in Spring 1 and our Dance skills in Spring 2. Developing our coordination skills to create different gymnastic movements was a little difficult at first, but with lots of practise, we got there! We have loved our dance lessons. We have been learning basic samba moves from Brazil and also basic Charleston steps from the roaring 1920’s!

    We have had a fantastic Spring Term in Reception and seeing the children continuing to grow and develop as learners has been amazing!

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  • Nursery Spotlight - Spring Term

    Published 15/03/24, by Adam Gilbert

    The children all settled back into Nursery life quickly following the Christmas break and did a super job of remembering our rules and routines. At the beginning of our Spring term, we had lots of new friends join us in Nursery, they all settled in well and quickly became a wonderful addition to our Nursery!

    Our Spring 1 topic was ‘People Who Help Us’ and we kick started this by having some great discussions about all the different people who help us and what it is they do to help us. We spent time learning all about the Emergency Services, focusing on Police, Paramedics and Firefighters. We spoke about what they can do to help us in an emergency and even had a go at matching the Emergency Services with the different scenarios. We have also learnt about the importance of calling ‘999’ in an emergency. We were lucky to have three Police Officers visit us where they told us lots of information and we got to ask them some questions too. Our favourite part was when we got to wear the Police Officers hat and sit in their Police car! We have also spent time learning all about the roles of a dentist and a vet. We especially enjoyed exploring our Veterinary Surgery role play area where we put all our knowledge of vets to good use and helped to make all the animals better. During this topic we were also very lucky to have visits from two of our Parents one of whom is a children’s Doctor, it was so interesting to hear all about the important work she does to make us feel better when we are unwell. Our other visitor told us all about her job at the hospital, we especially loved the video of the emergency helicopter landing!

           

    Our Spring 2 topic was ‘Once Upon a Time’ where we focused on a different traditional tale each week. We started our topic by reading the story of Jack and the Beanstalk. We enjoyed listening to this story, answering questions and joining in with the ‘fee fi fo fum’ chant! During our busy time, we were busy using our hands to mix blue and yellow paint together to make the colour green which we then hand printed onto our very own beanstalks, they look great! We were so excited to plant our very own beanstalks. We spent time talking about how we can care for our beanstalks to make sure they grow big and strong (just like us!) We also read the story of The 3 Little Pigs and retold this during our play. We were busy building our own houses out of straw, sticks and bricks and testing them out together to see which one is the strongest. We also created our own paper plate pigs and drew maps to help Mummy pig find her way to the 3 little pigs houses. We have also read Goldilocks and the 3 Bears, The 3 Billy Goats Gruff and Little Red Riding Hood!

                  

    This half term we have also enjoyed lots of additional enrichment activities such as National Storytelling week, Children’s Mental Health week, World Book Day and STEM Week. During National Storytelling week our focus story was The Gingerbread Man. We used our five senses to explore a gingerbread man biscuit (our favourite part was eating it, yum!) During our busy time we had fun creating our own gingerbread characters as well as using our maths skills to match the correct amount of pegs to the numeral on the gingerbread man. We loved drawing giant gingerbread men on the big paper and working together to decorate them. As part of Children’s Mental Health Week, we spent time talking and thinking all about our feelings. We practised recognising feelings by looking at different facial expressions and sharing times that we have felt different emotions and why we felt that way. The children enjoyed watching video clips from the film ‘Inside Out’ – they especially liked the ‘guess the feelings’ game that we played. Throughout the week we read both ‘The Colour Monster’ and ‘The Crayons Book of Feelings’ and spent time discussing the different colours and emotions from both books. During busy time, the children enjoyed completing a feelings sorting activity where they had to recognise the sad, happy and angry pictures and sort them to the correct emotion.

              

    In Maths this term we have been singing a range of number rhymes as well as practising our number recognition to 5. We have also spent lots of time practising our counting skills and completed activities where we had to match the amount of toys to the correct numeral. We have been learning all about how to compare amounts using the words ‘more than’ and ‘less/fewer than’ as well as developing our understanding of positional language. We have spent time reviewing our knowledge of 2D shapes by naming and describing their properties. In the Maths area, we loved tracing round the 2D shapes to see what pictures we could create. We then moved onto learning about 3D shapes which we have learnt is a shape that has three dimensions and is not flat.

                     

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  • World Book Day 2024

    Published 15/03/24, by Adam Gilbert

    Theme – Reading for Pleasure 

    Our entire school recently took part in World Book Day on 7th March 2024! This incredible annual event is a charity event held in the United Kingdom and Ireland on the first Thursday in March. On World Book Day, every child in full-time education in the UK and the Republic of Ireland is provided with a voucher to be spent on books; the event was first celebrated in the United Kingdom in 1998. 

    It is important for children to develop a love for reading as it helps grow their vocabulary and their understanding about the world. The closeness of snuggling up with their favourite book leads to an increase in self-confidence and imagination, and helps children gain a wealth of knowledge from the books we share with them. 

    To kickstart the day, the whole school were invited to the MUGA in the playground for a costume parade. Each year group had a turn to parade around the MUGA showing off their wonderful costumes of their favourite book character. Miss Brown and Mrs Garcia chose 4 winners! However, all of the costumes were absolutely incredible so thank you! 

    Throughout the day, we did a variety of activities. We wrote stories just by choosing random words from the thesaurus to determine, the setting, characters, problem and solution. It was lovely to see the imagination and creativity flow.  

    We made ‘loo roll’ book characters which was great fun! In addition to this, we had a ‘trade off’ where children bought in books from home they no longer wanted and traded them with a book they wanted. We finished our day by watching some ‘Masked Reader’ videos where we had to guess who was behind the mask. 

    We are immensely proud of all our students for their enthusiasm and creativity during World Book Day.  

    Let’s keep the love for reading alive throughout the year and keep those pages turning! 

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  • Children's Mental Health Week - EYFS

    Published 26/02/24, by Adam Gilbert

    This week has been Children’s Mental Health Week with the theme of ‘My Voice Matters’. Over the course of the week, we have been doing lots of different activities to encourage the children to talk about their feelings because ‘it matters!’ We ended the week with a dress up day where we all wore something to express ourselves!

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  • Paediatric Nurse Visit

    Published 21/02/24, by Adam Gilbert

    To finish our topic of ‘People Who Help Us’, Reception were very lucky to have a special visitor from St Helier Hospital. 


    We got to meet a paediatric nurse (Evie’s daddy) and  found out about their role and what they do day to day. We learnt that paediatric nurses look after children when they are feeling poorly both in the hospital and at their houses  (in the community). 


    We got to explore some of the equipment they might use including a heart monitor and we looked at their uniform. Thank you Evie’s daddy, we had so much fun!

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  • Storytelling Week

    Published 20/02/24, by Adam Gilbert

    Our entire school recently took part in Storytelling Week, from 27 January to 4 February! 📖 This incredible annual event is a vibrant celebration of the power that stories hold, reminding us of the joys of sharing them. ✨📚

     Stories have the remarkable ability to teach us about the world around us, letting us step into someone else’s shoes, encouraging empathy, and broadening our horizons. They also provide a means to relax and escape from the everyday, whilst nurturing essential literacy skills. 

    To kickstart the week,  Mrs. Ryder and Mr. Gilbert, shared an enchanting tale during our assembly. They then set a thrilling challenge for the children: to learn and retell a traditional story over the course of the week! 📚📝

     The culmination of this exciting week was a magnificent assembly, where each year group showcased their incredible storytelling skills. The performances were absolutely captivating! 

     Throughout the week, our eager students eagerly shared stories amongst themselves, and were treated to some mesmerizing tales from adults around the school. In addition to this, all parents, grandparents, aunites and uncles were invited in to school to read with their children and share stories.

    🌟 We are immensely proud of all our students for their enthusiasm and creativity during Storytelling Week. Their dedication to honing their storytelling skills was truly inspiring! 🌟

    Let's keep the magic of storytelling alive throughout the year, nurturing a love for tales that will last a lifetime! 💫📚

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  • Police Visit

    Published 01/02/24, by Adam Gilbert

    Meeting the real-life superheroes that keep our community safe 🦸‍♀️🦸‍♂️

    Our children in Early Years had an absolutely amazing day on Monday! They were thrilled to meet three Police Officers from our local Police Station. 🚓 The excitement was contagious as they got a first-hand look into the incredible work they do to keep us safe.

    💙 The children listened with awe as our local heroes talked about their role in helping people in our community. They were fascinated to learn about different aspects of police work and bravely asked questions.

    But that was not all! The highlight of the day was sitting inside a real-life police car 🚔, trying on a variety of police hats, and getting their fingerprints taken. 🖐️ We could see the joy and excitement on their faces as they actively engaged in these hands-on experiences.

    We are incredibly grateful to the friendly Police Officers for taking the time to visit our school and make this experience unforgettable for our children. 🙌 Thank you!

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