St Philips Avenue, Leeds, West Yorkshire LS10 3SL

0113 2716763

St Philip's Catholic Primary and Nursery School

"In the light of Christ, where everyone is valued and learning is celebrated"

Welcome to the exciting world of the Wonderful Ones!
We are full of fun, laughter, enthusiasm and love.
There are 33 of us including Mrs Morland, Mrs Watt and Miss Shea

Thinking of Others this Lent

This week, Year One started our fundraising for CAFOD and our lollipop stick surprise game was very popular! Everyone was very generous and we raised over £75.

Then we took part in the wheel-a-thon that Reception organised. It was lots of fun on lots of different wheels and we got lots of sponsors.

Then we had a pyjama day to raise money for Zarak to make sure that everyone has a safe place to sleep. We ended the day with a meditation with Miss Raftery. 

We ended Holy Week with a walk to Middleton Park with everyone in our school, even some of our parents came too!  Whilst we were walking we thought about everything that we have that we are grateful for and we also said special prayers for those who are not as lucky as us. 

‘I would like a world that is loving, kind and respectful’-Rachel. ‘’I would like to live in a world full of hope and faith’-Elie B. ‘We all need faith and to show hope’-Joris and Kevin. ‘ We must be respectful ‘-Hiya.

Mindful March 14.03.23

As part of our mindfulness work this March, we experimented with play dough! 
We started by describing how it felt in our hands and on different parts of our body. Then we explored the different textures we could make using our nails and fingertips. After that we tried shaping our play dough into different shapes such as triangles and squares. We took a moment to observe our creations and described how we felt about it to our friends. Finally we were set a challenge to see how many bead shapes we could make from our one piece of play dough in two minutes, making sure that they were the same size and shape.

Happy Mother’s Day 08.03.24

Today was our first class assembly in Year One and we led a whole school worship celebrating the wonderful women in our lives. We said thank you to our mothers, grandmothers, aunties and all the female teachers we love and care for us.  We also said thank you to a very special mother to all of us, our heavenly mother Mary.

World Book Day 2024

Today is World Book Day and we all look amazing! Can you guess our favourite characters?

Our focus text for the day was This Rabbit belongs to Emily Brown by Cressida Cowell. When we read the first two pages together, we notices that the writing had been written in different sizes and shapes. We used this to help us read with expression and intonation.
Then we became illustration detectives, using magnifying glasses to help us look for clues as to what we think might happen. We used what we had found to make some predictions 

When we had read the whole story, we decided to create our our magic door adventure for Emily and Stanley. We used what we had drawn to describe our story to our friends.

After that we decided to make our own Stanleys using pancakes, fruits and vegetables. They were delicious!

At the end of the day, we had a special treat: a very strange looking Mr Sandbach came to read us one of his favourite stories. We especially loved the different voices and expression he used for each character. Watch the video below to hear more…..

Rocking Out! 01.03.24

Today is rockstar maths day and we look really cool! We got our new password for Numbots which is a new app to help us with our number facts. We explored the games and creating our own robot. We discovered that the quicker we answered, the more stars we earned!

Now we are ready to play at home too…..

We are Weather Forecasters 

We have been all about the weather in Year One. We started by naming the seasons and describing what the weather is usually like in each one. Then we investigated what the weather is like in hot and cold climates.
This week we brought all our knowledge together when we recorded the weather in Middleton. As we are now weather experts, we decided to become weather forecasters. We watched the local weather, wrote our own scripts and practiced what we wanted to say. Watch our wonderful weather forecasters below….

Getting Ready for Easter

Lent is here! We started our preparations by changing our class altar. We knew that the cloth had to be purple, our getting ready colour. We added a purple candle to remind us that Jesus is the light of the world. We put our Bible back making sure it was higher than everything else. We decided to add footprints as our topic is called Following Jesus and we thought they could be Jesus’s footprints.

We know every one makes mistakes so we thought of something we were sorry for, wrote it on a piece of paper and ‘threw it away’. Now we are ready to grow in love so we wrote promises of things that we are going to do more of or give up doing this Lent. 

Amazing Animals 08.02.24

Today we explored Yorkshire Wildlife Park searching for animals as part of our science topic. We found baboons, meerkats, lions, eland, giraffes, wallabies, lemurs and polar bears! We used the map to find our way around and we used our scientific knowledge to name and describe the types of animals. We also read the signs and asked the park keepers questions to find out more. Our favourite animals were the wallabies especially when they hopped across the path in front of us! Mr Sandbach’s favourite animals were the giraffes and we were amazed to see just how tall they were. We weren’t surprised that the polar bears liked the snow today but we were shocked to see that they were not white like we thought.

We didn’t let the snow and cold weather stop us either! We also sang one of our favourite songs that Miss Leather has taught us, Mr Sandbach was very impressed. Watch the video below and join in…….

Experimenting with Fastening 02.02.24

As part of our sculpture project in art, today we experimented with different ways to fasten materials together. We used tape, wool and string, pipe cleaners and wire. It was tricky but we persevered to find which ways worked best.

Some of us made our sculptures into something like Kevin who made a rainbow fish and Rachel who made a pair of glasses. However most of us just enjoyed experimenting. We are all very proud of our creations!

What are Exclamation Marks? 29.01.24

We are learning more about what exclamation marks are and what we use them for. We thought about different words and phrases that use exclamation marks and then we tried to use them in our writing. Watch our video below to find out more….

Being Part of the Church Family 

We discovered some special objects in our school entrance today. We found a font and we explored what it was like. Behind the font, we found a precious box and inside was Mrs Morland’s white garment, a baptismal candle, oil and some photographs. We learnt that these are all objects used in a baptism when we become part of the church family 

Then we went to see Father Polland in church and he showed us exactly what happens in a baptism. Elie was the priest who helped Father Polland to baptise our baby who we named Philip after a saint that we knew. We smelt the oil of chrism that is used to make the sign of the cross on the baby’s head and we liked its perfume smell.

Whilst in church, we were fascinated by Father Polland's stole that he was wearing so we decided to make our own. We drew on all the signs and symbols of baptism and we described how they are used to our friends. 

Design, Make, Evaluate 

In our DT topic this half term we have learnt about puppets. We started by exploring different types of puppets so that we understand what they are. Then we experimented with joining fabric together using glue, staples and safety pins.

After that we set about designing. We are reading The Snow Queen and we are learning about Queen Elizabeth II so we designed to make our puppet a monarch. We thought about how which technique we were going to use join our puppet together and what we wanted it to look like. We also decided high materials we were going to use to make the different parts.

Then it was time to make our puppets and we were very excited! We followed our design but we also made alterations as we went along. We tested our puppets to make sure that we had joined the fabric all the way around and fixed any gaps we found. We also checked that everything was secure. It wasn’t easy but we persevered.

Finally we evaluated our puppets. We shared with our talk partner what had worked well in our design and what we found challenging. Lots of us found cutting the fabric and pushing and closing the safety pins hard. 

Giving Generously 20.12.23

Our mission on our Advent Tree this morning was to be generous. We decided that we can be generous with our time and care so we decided to make a Christmas card for an adult in school. We thought this was a great way to show our love for them.

On the front of our card we tried to draw everything we know of the Christmas story and then we went delivering. It was a lovely surprise for everyone!

Get Your Dancing Shoes Ready! 18.12.23

As this is our last week at school before Christmas, we celebrated early so that we could have fun together! We joined with Year Two to play some games and then we shared some food.

Merry Christmas everyone!

Shine Star, Shine! 11.12.23

Today we had a very important job to do and that was to tell the Christmas story. We have been practising our storytelling, our acting and our singing with Year Two and today it all came together in our production Shine Star, Shine.

Lots of grown ups came to see us and they all left with a huge smile on their faces. Mrs Duffy and Mr Sandbach were very impressed with all our hard word; Mrs Morland and Miss Raftery were very proud of us- Key Stage One is full of stars!

Spreading the Christmas Spirit! 07.12.23

We have made it our mission to find lots of little ways to spread Christmas cheer during Advent. Today we shared a favourite hymn that we have been learning with Miss Leather to remind people of the very important role the donkey played in the Christmas Story. Watch the video below to hear us sing Little Donkey, we are sure it will put a smile on your face!

Trees with Deborah 04.12.23

Today we met Deborah the park ranger and she took us on a tour around Middleton Woods. She showed us how to tell the difference between a deciduous and evergreen leaf just be looking and touching them. We described different leaves that we found to our friends and we learnt that some are serrated.

As we were walking, we described the parts of the trees that we saw. Deborah told us the name of each one as well. In Middleton Woods there are oak, sycamore, willow, beech, maple, ash, holly, silver birch and laurel trees. 
We are now tree experts and we didn’t let a little bit of rain and snow stop us from exploring either!

Getting Ready……01.12.23

This week we have started preparing for Christmas and we know that this special time is called Advent.

We started by writing our Advent promises. We talked together about how we could let the light of Jesus shine through us. We hung our promises on our class Advent Tree and we are going to turn one over each day and that will be our mission.

Then we made our Advent wreath. We collected evergreen leaves as we know that they don’t change just like God’s love for us. We know that the wreath is a circle shape because God’s love never ends. Oliver worked out that there are four weeks in Advent because there are four candles in the circle and we know that we keep the white candle for Christmas Day when we remember when Jesus was born.
We were really excited when Father Polland came to bless them. Well done to Isabell and Hiya who were our readers in our blessing service 

Marvellous Mince Pies! 24.11.23

As we move into Advent, the time when we prepare for Christmas, we decided to spread our love to the people in our parish. We chose to make some delicious mince pies for the parish fair and they smelt delicious!

Science Day 09.11.23 

Today in Science we learnt about a famous scientist called Charles Macintosh and how he developed the first waterproof jacket in 1823. We created and tested our own waterproof layers using glue, PVA glue and oil sandwiched between two pieces of cloth. We put each fabric sandwich over a plastic beaker and secured it with an elastic band. Then we poured the same amount of water over each fabric using a  pipette and measured how much water went through. Finally, we used what we had observed to explain which layer was best.

Careful Looking 27.10.23

Today we finished our learning about drawing with some careful looking. We were only allowed to look at the object we were drawing, not our paper, and we even used a cardboard shield so that we didn’t cheat!
We were impressed with all the little details we found and we experimented with shading to show where the darker parts were.
We had to keep our pen on the paper the whole time as well which we found really difficult but we preserved and we learnt that making mistakes only makes our artwork more interesting.

Useful Umbrellas 20.10.23

In science, we have been learning about materials. Today was a very rainy day and Mrs Morland set us a challenge to make her an umbrella! We used  everything we know about the properties of materials to design, make and then test our umbrellas.

We discovered that tissue paper rips really easily when it gets wet and that tinfoil was the most waterproof.

Dear Mr Sandbach 20.10.23

Mr Sandbach wanted to know more about our walk to Middleton Park Circus so we decided to write to him to explain what we did. We know this genre of writing is called a recount and we have spent two weeks learning all about the features of one. We planned what we were going to write about, edited our writing and then published it. Mr Sandbach was very impressed with some of the vocabulary we had used!

Wonderful Reading 13.10.23

Reading is one of our favourite things in Year One and we especially like Fridays because that is new book day!
Today we learnt how to partner read. We worked together to share the same book; one person pointed to the words while their partner was reading and then we swapped roles. As well as helping each other to segment and blend new words, we made sure that we were not reading too fast and we were pausing at each full stop. 
Some of us also also enjoyed sharing some new books that we have borrowed from the big library in Leeds. 

Marvellous Middleton 03.10.23

As part of our geography topic on our local area, we went on a walk to Middleton Park Circus. We used maps to plan our route before we left. As we were walking we used left, right, near and far to talk in our groups about what we could see. We stopped at different points along our walk to draw our own map. We tried very hard to put the houses and all the different types of shops in the right place. We have discovered lots about what makes Middleton such a wonderful place to live and we didn’t let a little bit of rain stop us from exploring either!

Comparing Numbers 21.09.23

As part of our Maths unit on place value, we have been comparing numbers. We started by using the words fewer, more than and the same to describe amounts of objects. Then we used the words greater than, less than and equal to to compare numbers. We also used the inequality symbol for the first time to help us as well as lots of different resources.  

God’s Wonderful Creation 19.09.23

As part of our RE work over the last few weeks, we have been learning about the wonders of God’s world. We started by deciding what we thought was beautiful and we tried to explain why. Then Mrs Morland found a special box, that was a gift from God and inside was the story of creation! After we heard the story, we chose our favourite part and then we worked creatively to retell it to our friends. We know the story so well now that we have made a video to share this special story with everyone else.

The Marvellous Miss Leather 14.09.23

Today we had our first singing session with Miss Leather. She taught us lots of different songs to help us to begin to learn about changing the volume of our voice.

Finally she taught us a new song called ‘He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands’ and we have decided that it is one of our favourites! Miss Leather was very impressed with our beautiful singing voices, listen to the video below to hear for yourself.

The Wonderful World of Books! 07.09.23

Today we went to choose our first library book of the new school year and we were very excited! We enjoyed spending time making our choice and talking about the books with our friends. We think visiting the library is going to be our favourite time of the week....

Meet the Teacher Meeting 06.09.23

It was lovely to meet so many of you on Wednesday, some familiar faces and some new! Please find the PowerPoint below with all the information that we discussed. If you have any questions, please ask one of the Year One team.