Dear Parents

There’s been a lot going on at Bridgewater this week which started with an informative assembly by Miss Sheikh where we had a fresh insight into Ramadan.  Then we had Shrove Tuesday, World Book Day and the start of a new project called ‘Narrative 4’.

Bridgewater Welcomes the Month of Ramadan

Thank you, Miss Sheikh, who has summarised the Ramadan project for us as follows:

This week, across the school children learned about the significance of the month of Ramadan for Muslims around the world. At Bridgewater, we focused on the values we share as a community and how the month of Ramadan helps Muslims to focus on self-reflection and make positive changes in their lives.

Our Reception children enjoyed participating in a range of activities around the celebration of Eid whilst our Year 1 children learned about the value of thankfulness and made lanterns of gratitude. In Year 2, children focused on fasting and the value of commitment, they reflected on how they can show commitment. Our Year 3 children learned about the importance of prayer during Ramadan for Muslims and focused on the value of hope and showing patience. They created their own prayers for the world and community, which were very thoughtful.

Year 4 focused on the value of giving and arranged a food collection for our local food bank whilst our Year 5 children focused on the value of self-discipline and thought about how they can build a good habit in their life. Our Year 6 children investigated the concept of fasting in different religions around the world and created informative posters.

As a school we reflected on the values Muslims can learn from Ramadan and how we all connect through these core values.

Shrove Tuesday

On Shrove Tuesday our Language Ambassadors prepared an assembly where they made links to our partner school in Italy, Miss Sheikh’s assembly and different cultures around the world.  They spoke beautifully about the start of Lent and shared that Year 6 had written to our partner school and showed them how to make pancakes. In return our partner school made the letters into a display in their school and told us about the ‘Battle of the Oranges’, in Ivrea near to their town.  It was another great assembly by our Language Ambassadors and Mrs D'Agostino, our inspiring Spanish teacher.

World Book Day

Another great World Book Day all linked to our favourite books and stories. We started with an assembly by our fantastic Reading Ambassadors where we all wore our incredible hats. Well done to all the children and families who have been very inventive as always and what a great exhibition of all the hats yesterday afternoon! Mrs McNair (English), Miss Valentine (KS1 reading) and Mr Green, (KS2 reading) thought up the wonderful idea based on the book, ‘Hamilton’s Hats’ by Martine Oborne and Axel Scheffler.  It was a lovely opportunity to twin with our partner classes and share our favourite stories.

Narrative 4

As part of our World Book Day, we shared stories via an approach called Narrative 4. Staff had two training sessions with Sean McGrath where we learnt about the process and shared our own stories. Yesterday was our first opportunity to try it with the children.  In pairs they shared their favourite book story, linked to their hat and then they retold each story as the other person. They found it really made them listen hard to their friend and they were able to recall their friend’s story. They can hopefully explain better to you than I can. We can see that it will develop links between children, build confidence and develop empathy, compassion and listening skills.

Family Breakfast Behaviour

Thank you for not using your phones during Family Breakfasts. I need to remind parents that children need to remain with their adult/s, seated with them at the tables as some children unfortunately broke a child’s World Book Day hat this week. This morning I had to speak to children who were running outside in the road and remind them to go back in and sit with their families. It is lovely to see children engaging with their parents at the tables and many are reading. sharing games and talking together alongside mixing as a community.

Science Week

It doesn’t slow down next week as we are all ready and excited for Science Week that Mrs Hallett and the Science team have prepared for us. We look forward to hearing our volunteers talking about their careers in STEM industries.

Have a great weekend

Alison Harvey