School Blog

Working hard on their logo designs.

On Tuesday we had a visit from the Jewish School tour. Rabbi Yosef delivered a fantastic assembly where he explained the importance of the Jewish festival of Passover and lots of the children had the opportunity to mix, need, roll and even bake some matzo bread!

Some of the children really enjoyed planting sunflower seeds this week with Mrs. McLean, we are excited to see how tall they grow.

Well done to 4V who impressed parents and governors with their cornet performance. They have learnt how to play the cornet, rhythm, beat and learnt how to read basic music notation.

World Book Day is always a joyous occasion and this year was no exception!

We thoroughly enjoyed meeting Steven Vinacour, author of the ‘Ted and his Time-Travelling Toilet’  series and were hugely entertained by his stories and his messy toilet….

The effort everybody put into dressing up to match their year-group theme was wonderful and we had a lot of fun sharing our ideas and outfits.

Children who have now started (and in some cases, even finished) reading one of the Ted books have reported that they are very funny and are a definite hit!

Congratulations to the following students:
Multisports Leaderboard
Zayn (4M) for coming in 3rd place. Well done!
Tennis Leaderboard
Joseph (5D) for coming in 5th place. Well done!

On Wednesday 5th March Year 4 had a great day visiting the Verulamium Museum in St Albans. The children had the opportunity to explore the museum galleries – The Rites and Recreation area, The Merchants and Market area, the Making a Living gallery, and to handle some Roman artefacts. We have also examined the Hypocaust (underfloor heating system) and the floor mosaics.

Year 5 students on Monday 3rd March explored how to design and create a moveable fairground ride, there were some amazing creations!
Congratulations to the following children whose designs won.
Charlotte and Amelia K (5D) and Kaelan, Bradley and Emily (5G)

Year 5 have been studying Ancient Greece and visited The British Museum on Thursday.  At the Museum the children had the opportunity to learn more about Ancient Greece by exploring the Galleries. In a picture one of the groups is looking at traditional Greek patterns on a vase. We would like to thank all the parent helpers for giving up their time to come along and support us.

ASHA have kindly donated money to each class so they were able to spend it on wet play games. Over the summer we were also fortunate to receive money from ASHA to purchase playground equipment.

Year 5 have really enjoyed their new D.T. Unit ‘Moving Toys’. They have been creative and innovative with their designs. They have worked cooperatively to support each other with their designs, as well as showing a lot of determination and perseverance. Well done Year 5!

On Wednesday we had a visit from Watford Schools Trust, to talk about the true meaning of Christmas They helped the children understand the significance of the different coloured baubles; and even had time to perform a magic trick. 

A very festive day with our Christmas jumper and lunch, followed by Christmas activities in the afternoon which was enjoyed by all.

Our Year 3 children put on a fantastic performance of the Nativity Story. They impressed us with their singing, dancing and acting skills. It was a very amusing play! Well done Year 3.

It was lovely to see the whole school at St. James’ Church to sing carols and learn more about the Christmas story at St. James’ Church. Father David who led our service was very welcoming and the children’s singing was fantastic. It was a nice way to start the last week of the autumn term.

This week in forces club the children enjoyed making melting snowmen biscuits, with icing and marshmallows.

On Tuesday we had a visit from the Jewish School Tour with Rabbi Yosef, who hosted another wonderful assembly. This time about the Jewish festival of lights, Hanukkah. The children learned why the dreidel is significant and why there are 8 candles on a menorah.

Throughout this academic year, 4M have been exploring the world of music through brass instrumentation, specifically the cornet. They have been learning about all aspects of music including the historic, cultural and performance-based significance of the craft.
On Tuesday, 4M had the chance to perform in front of their parents and they’ve all enjoyed listening to the Jingle Bells, Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer and Star Wars.
Well done to 4M and some other children in Y5 and 6 for a great performance and a big thank you to all the parents who were able to attend this event.

Year 3 visited Bushey Library on Tuesday and during this visit, the children had an introduction to the library and the services it provides, listened to a story called ‘Shark in the Park!’ by Nick Sharratt and then had the chance to browse and borrow a book.

Year 4 conducted a very messy, but engaging experiment this week to demonstrate the journey our food takes through the digestive system – in one end and ALL the way out the other.

It has been a busy week at Ashfield.  On Friday, we were visited by representatives of the King’s Lieutenant who delivered a workshop about the monarchy and the Commonwealth Values.  Our visitors led a workshop for Year 6 where they explored the Commonwealth Values in more detail.  It was good to see children actively taking part and discussing the importance of values including Democracy, Rule of Law, Gender Equality, Human Rights, Tolerance Respect and Understanding and Access to Health, Education and Shelter. It was good to see the children debating about the significance of these values.   

On Wednesday, Year 4 visited Bhaktivedanta Manor in Watford to support their learning in RE. They were invited into the Shrine to see the beautiful Murti’s; and had a lesson on the importance of the soul. Some children had the opportunity to dress up as the tri-murti and their Goddess wives. They also had time to feed the cows and visit the Panganur Cattle, a small breed native to India. 

On Thursday and Friday last week, the children took part in our bi-annular Basketball Tournament. The weather for once was good in November and we even saw the sun at times! It was undoubtedly one of the best tournaments we have hosted at Ashfield. Both Mr Jones and I were delighted to witness the high standard of teamwork from each team; the children applied the skills they have been learning in PE successfully. For each Year Group, most finalists came down to either points difference or last-minute baskets. In Year 4, the final itself was settled by a sudden death winner! That game was incredibly close.
In all Year Groups the children demonstrated wonderful sportsmanship and upheld the Ashfield School values of Resilience, Respect, Kindness and Cooperation. It remains hard for teachers and Mr Jones to select the Fair Play Winners and School Value Winners at the end. A list of winners can be found below. We could award far more mmcertificates than we do.
A huge thank you to Mr Jones and the Elms Coaches for running the event and a massive congratulations to all the children who took part and made the Basketball Tournament so fantastic. I am looking forward to our Hockey Tournament in the Spring Term.
Mr Hardy.

Mr Jones attended achievements assembly last week to present Ella (3L) and Maya (5G) their certificates for being The Elms Multi-sports leaderboard winners.

Year 6 visited Whipsnade Zoo as part of their Science Topic on Evolution and Inheritance and had a fascinating day. They looked carefully at rhinos, giraffes and flamingos to see how the species have adapted to their environments over time.

On Monday, our Year 6 children led our Remembrance Day Assembly. We were joined by some of our Forces families  who talked about the significance of Remembrance Day and why it is important to them. After the assembly and two minute silence, Mr Dourado, parents, and children from the Forces families walked to the Memorial at the end of School Lane to lay a poppy wreath. Thank you to the Year 6 pupils and staff for leading the assembly and to the families that came to support the school.

The children learned about various religions that celebrate this bright and colorful festival . The message of the Diwali story (good triumphs over evil) was a point of reflection. It was a beautiful coming together of our Ashfield community as we appreciate one of our many cultures within.

The Year 5  Harvest Assembly was EXCELLENT and it was nice to see a lot of parents and carers visit the school.  It is always nice to celebrate Harvest Festival – it is a time to be thankful for the food that we have. But more importantly, it is about giving something back to the community and for those in need.  A big thankyou to all the families for their kind donations. The food has been donated to the Red Trust Bushey who have a food bank at St James Church.

This term, Year 6 have been exploring and creating 2d images onto 3d designs.   The finished artwork were these creative cereal boxes.  Well done Year 6!

On 10th October, we had an assembly and class activities on how we can look after our mental health and improve our wellbeing. We learnt more about our mental health and how it focuses our mind, emotions and wellbeing and how it affects how we think, feel and act. We learnt that it is okay to feel different emotions but if you have uncomfortable emotions, you should always talk to a trusted adult. To support our mental health, there are lots of things that we can do including: eating healthy foods, spending time with people you love, listen to music, do an activity you enjoy, show kindness and help others, do something active, colouring/artwork, drink water, getting a good night sleep and spending time outdoors.

4M are enjoying their cornet lesson this term with Miss Oliver. They have learnt how to hold the cornet , rhythm’s, lengths/durations of notes and how to read music on a musical stave. They will soon start learning how to play their first tune ‘Hot Cross Buns’.

Welcome to our new school blog.

This blog will be uploaded with photos and information about school events and activities.  We hope that you enjoy this.