Ashton Under Hill First School

Shaping Bright Futures Together


Oak Class Spring Term Week 6

This week we have had a big focus on our mental health and have been joining in with activities to support Children's Mental Health Week: the theme this year being 'Growing Together'.

Each day we have looked at a positive thoughts quotes and discussed how it applies to our everyday lives, thoughts, actions and feelings. The children are getting really good at talking about how they feel and expressing their emotions.

We have also been singing and dancing along to some familiar tunes which have had the words reworked to fit in with the theme. It has been quite tricky at times to keep up with the 'moves'!!

In the classroom we now have a new display with a Wellness Well that has lots of ideas to cheer ourselves up with if we are having a tricky day. The children came up with all the ideas themselves and enjoyed thinking of ideas to support and boost someone in their time of need.

They also spent time thinking about how they have grown in the past and how they want to grow in the future, and produced some growth maps as a result of this. They showed what a huge amount of learning has already taken place in their lives and how their strength of character has shone through to enable them to be where they are today. As well as past growth they put down some of their aspirations for the future too and these were very enlightening. The children have also been (in the words of S Club 7) "reaching for the stars", setting themselves some aspirational targets for the future. We have hung stars we have written on from our ceiling to remind us of what we have set.

On Thursday we went for a class walk with the sole intention to just experience nature and get some fresh air to boost our wellbeing. They had great fun spotting wildlife and the early signs of Spring alongside lots of fun playing in the meadow. There were lots of rosy cheeks and smiley faces on our return to school, we had a brilliant time.

On Friday in science we made our own models to show how water is a powerful cause of erosion. The children constructed small models and then poured water on them to see the effects. They had great fun watching the path water took through sand and how much material it carried. We also created our own sand by rubbing together pieces of sandstone, fast forwarding time to show how rock actually erodes in to sand. Another example of an Outdoor Learning lesson for Oak.

Leo has had some fabulous success with his swimming recently and became the 2nd fastest swimmer in Worcestershire for the under 13 age group in front crawl. He has a bright future in swimming if he carries on like this.

We also had a special visit last Friday (too late for the Newsletter) from Mrs Thompson and Eva. The class loved seeing them both and it was lovely to have a catch up.

We have got the stage all set, props are all ready (thanks to Maisie's Daddy for his expert help) and we have costumes and lights: we are very excited for next week and fingers crossed all cast members will be well enough to perform and we don't have to postpone it. This week some cast members were putting the finishing touches to their costumes making bespoke outfits for their roles! We can't wait to show off all the hard work that the children have put in.