Diary Dates
 

House Points

Upcoming FOAH Events

Valentine’s Sweet Jars – Flyer below with more information.
Mother’s Day Present Room – Friday 1^st March
Friends of Almond Hill will be running a Mother’s Day present room on Friday 1^st March, if your children would like to do some shopping for the special ladies in their life. All gifts are £2 and there will be a great selection of items - so they are sure to find the perfect gift.  Present(s) can be purchased on School Gateway up until Saturday 24^th February. What will your little one choose for you?
Movie Nights: possibly Tuesday 16th April (year 3 and 4) and Tuesday 23rd April (years 5 and 6) – subject to enough parent volunteers. Please contact foah@almondhill.herts.sch.uk if you can help with this event.

 

 

In Other News

Football
It was always going to be tough with a few children off sick, a stand in player and no subs! Sadly after a superb first half which ended 1-1 after a goal from Harry, we lost against King James 3-1 meaning we are now out of the cup. The children played well as a team and had a few chances that did not go their way and on a different day, a different score line may have been reflected! This week's player's player was Teddy and Cleo took home the manager's player - well done to all. A big thank you to Roman who stepped up for the first time to help us out and tried really hard - good shift, well done Roman!

Cross Country
On Saturday 3^rd February, Almond Hill were represented by ten cross country athletes at The Herts Cross Country Championships in Bushey. The first race saw Alex and Mas, our Year 6 boys, motivate the team by running a great race and smiling the whole way around the course. The Year 6 boys were followed by our Year 6 girls, Sophie and Willow, who managed some good placings also. Year 5 boys (Eddie, Alex and Louie) were up next; they ran an extremely good race together. To achieve placings in the top fifty in the county was extremely pleasing. Year 5 girls (Marley, Isla and Laxmitha) kept up the Almond Hill efforts and all pushed themselves hard to the finish line. A very proud Mrs Fordham and Mrs Small really enjoyed spending the morning with a fabulous bunch of athletes. Well done, Almond Hill runners.

Year 3 trip
Year 3 had a fabulous trip to the North Herts Museum in Hitchin. We learnt lots to support our History topic on the Stone, Bronze and Iron Ages. We got to dress up like Iron Age children, build a Stone Age tent and fire a bow and arrow just like the hunter gatherers would have done. We also learnt about Iron Age burials and got to touch some real objects which were thousands of years old including a stone hand axe, a bronze sword and a mammoth's tooth! Everyone did well to follow instructions during the day and we enjoyed wowing the museum staff with our poems whilst we waited for the coach. 
 

Writing days

Year 5 had a wonderful 'inspire writing' day on Monday. Our two visitors re-enacted the story of Beowulf and Grendel (our year 5 class reader and English book), then discussed typical weapons that would have been used in the Anglo-Saxon and Viking times and then re-enacted (with some excellent volunteers) a famous battle before ending the day with a Q&A session. The children listened incredibly well and had some brilliant questions at the end. We will definitely use all our new knowledge to help our writing and history lessons. 

On Tuesday, Year 4 had a visit from Time Capsule education. The children were introduced to their own fantasy adventure - a journey through a portal to Castle Courageous! We visited the local emporium to properly equip ourselves for an adventure, designed a companion to accompany our quest and planned our fantasy worlds where our stories will be set. We are looking forward to using these ideas next to inspire our writing.

Year 5 Maths Challenge

Eight children from Year 5 took part in heat 1 of the county wide Year 5 Maths Challenge on Wednesday 7^th February (Alex and Oliver from 5P, Ryan, Ananmay and Lucas from 5W and Dylan, Finn and Fredrick from 5S). The boys worked in two teams to answer questions that tested their teamwork, problem solving skills and quick mental maths. They used knowledge of the four operations, fractions, 3D shapes, measures, missing number calculations, decimals and more! We are waiting to hear our scores and if we have made it to the final. Best of luck boys!

Safer Internet Day
The children have thoroughly enjoyed completing all sorts of activities promoting Safer Internet Day this year.  We have designed our own influencers who make a positive impact on the world, investigated how programmers use persuasion in their programming to make children play video games and watch content for longer,  discussed AI and the potential impacts on the world as we know it and much more!  We have also discussed how technology can change our moods and what to do when we come across content that makes us feel uncomfortable in any way.

Please ask your children about the activities, check any settings on their devices and keep monitoring their activity.  It's a jungle out there!

#SaferInternet Day! Join us and @UK_SIC

to www.saferinternetday.org.uk

Christmas Jumpers
Forgive us for mentioning Christmas in February but we would kindly ask if you have any Christmas jumpers that will not be suitable for next year, please consider donating them to us.