World Book Day 2020

This year on World book day we all took part in 2 whole school activities.

For the first activity we worked in partnership with our parents to give Family Friday a distinctly potato-ey feel by decorating our own potato book characters.

Our wonderful families came up with a range of creative ideas for different literary characters and the pupils loved the opportunity to talk about their favourites whilst they did it! Many of the children were desperate to take them home and I have already heard stories of how the potatoes have fared since they have gone home. 

The Journey by Francesca Sanna

As part of our Articulate curriculum theme this term the children are investigating the way we can send important messages through art. Books are an important way to do this and can be heart warming as well as challenging. So on World Book Day all classes in school looked at the same text and were set the challenge of responding to it by the end of the day.

Our pupils used a variety if ways to respond through visual arts, drama, orally and in written form. Through this they challenged each other, built on ideas and produced empathetic and focused responses.

On Friday 25th January, a team of Year 4 children headed to Woodrow First School to take part in the first stage of an ongoing project to change our community and world. The children did an amazing job thinking about social and environmental issues. They have started to plan what we could do to change and improve them. The RSA4 is a pupil-led youth social action project for Year 4 pupils across RSA Academies and local schools. It provides pupils with a chance to identify, research and take action on a social issue that will make a positive difference to their school and the local community.

If you want to find out more about this exciting project visit: https://www.rsaacademies.org.uk/projects/rsa4-primary-youth-social-action/ 

PTA - Thank You

Thanks to the PTA for their hard work in supporting the school. They have recently paid for some new team kits and tracksuits for the children to wear to sporting events.

A big thank you also to anyone who has contributed by buying raffle tickets, tickets to discos / cinema evenings, spending money at a Christmas or Summer fair, etc. The money they raise really does make a difference.

From the Year 4 children who took part in the RSA Contemporary Art Project -

The RSA created a contemporary art project to inspire children, and we have been one of the schools participating in this fantastic venture. We spent three days working with artists and A-level art students from Arrowvale High School to come up with ideas to inspire Laurie (the artist who created the sculptures).

Firstly, we worked with an art therapist. She taught us all about how art can make you feel different emotions. An important idea we learnt was that art can make people feel different emotions, and mean different things to different people.

After considering emotion and feelings, we thought about communicating through art and sharing a message. We created sculptures of creatures that could communicate in different ways, through touch, sight, sound, smell and even taste. Laurie showed us how to use clay to create figures, and whilst we did this we thought carefully about how people share ideas with each other.

We also created silhouettes of ourselves carefully using light and drawing around each other. This taught us how everyone is unique, special and different. It also made us think that the same piece of art can be looked at by two people and they can think two completely different things about it because they both have their own thoughts! 

We then used technology and sound to explore how language and messages could be shown. We used ipads to record our voices as sound waves. We thought it was really interesting that a message could be shown as lines on a screen!

After this, we planned how we could use the courtyard space in our school. And gave all of our ideas to Laurie the artist.

Laurie, who was inspired by our plans, used wood (that would normally be used for building yachts) to construct the sculptures. He also used a complex machine to cut out each segment accurately. He then constructed them and installed them in our school.

You might be wondering what’s next? Well, we are going to use this space to inspire our learning and each class will add to it and come up with art thinking about our theme ‘articulate.’

Christmas at Abbeywood Dec 2019 

Thank you to all the children, staff and parents involved in our festive celebrations.  Year 4 kicked things off in early December by singing for the Elderly at our Local Community Centre, Willow Trees.  Years 3 and 4 did an amazing job opening Church Hill local community Christmas Fayre with their singing and the whole school thoroughly enjoyed our visiting Pantomime along with the year 5's from Church Hill Middle School.

Our youngest children in Nursery performed a very magical 'Nursery Rhyme Nativity', whilst Reception and Year 1 put on 'A Miracle came to Town' which was enjoyed by all our families and friends.  Your kind donations raised approximately £150 to go towards more puddle jumping suits! 

Abbeywood raised just over £100 for Birmingham Children's hospital through our participation in Jolly Jumper day and nearly £500 to go towards curriculum opportunities and resources through the Christmas Fayre. This does not include the £1000 made by the PTA from their raffle!  The PTA also held our first Christmas disco which the children absolutely loved, raising even more money for school along the way. Monies raised from these events are going towards a new sports kit for children to wear when they compete in tournaments against other schools.  The PTA will also be contributing towards the RSA Contemporary Art Space project where the children are lucky enough to be working alongside professional artists.

Years 3 and 4 lead our annual carol concert at St Leonard's Church, where the year 4 children wrote and read their own readings and poems making this a truly special Christmas event. Lucy's Christmas card design was chosen to grace the Central RSA Academy Trust Christmas card and hundreds were sent to all of their friends and colleagues throughout the country. Term ended with our favourite carols around the Christmas tree, where the whole school and our families came together to celebrate Christmas.  Thank you for all your support.

Showcase Nov 2019 - The Business Of...

Well done to all the children and staff for putting on yet another spectacular showcase event celebrating the children's learning from the term. Children across the school had been exploring various fields of business, learning about jobs they never knew existed.  Year 4 held a 'high school reunion', where it was 2049 and the children were explaining their life and educational journey to this date.  Year 3 shared their knowledge of engineering over time and parents were invited to enter the mine, play their top trumps game and dismantle electronic devices.  Parents entered into the world of theatre in year 2, collecting their tickets from the box office and then heading inside the theatre for a backstage tour. Year 1 opened their doors as a travel agents, allowing the children to travel back and forth between earth and the moon as they shared their learning about space. Superb!

Visit from Pudsey Nov 2019

We were lucky enough to have a visit from Pudsey Bear himself to collect the generous donations from our families towards Children in Need.  Through a non uniform day, the children raised over £200 and were very proud to understand that their money was going to such worthwhile causes.

NSPCC Assemblies - October 2019

A visitor from the NSPCC along with her cuddly friend 'Buddy', delivered assemblies to Key Stages 1 and 2, giving some very important messages about keeping safe.  Children will continue to explore the message of "speak out, stay safe" back in their classes.

Artsmark Gold Celebration Event - October 2019

We were invited to the Birmingham Hippodrome to celebrate the achievement of being awarded Artsmark Gold. Mrs Kemp took Mollie and Heidi to this special event where they were treated to afternoon tea and were formally presented with our certificate. This was a celebration of the school's hard work and ongoing commitment to the arts which are at the heart of our curriculum.  Next goal is Platinum Award!

Save Oscar Day - October 2019

The children and parents raised a huge £262.42 to go towards a life saving operation needed for a little boy called Oscar who attend a Worcestershire school.  The children were very proud to attend school in their own clothes in order to raise money.  Thank you to everyone who donated.

Harvest Donations - September 2019

Thank you to everyone who donated so generously for our Harvest Festival.  Year 2 put on a fabulous musical performance called 'Harvest Rocks' to celebrate this time of year.  Redditch Food Bank delivered an assembly to explain to the children where their donations went and who they would be helping.