Dear Parents,

It has been another extremely busy week in school with sporting events, assemblies and talks by parents of children at Maldon Court.

We started the week with an assembly about British Sign Language. Mr Want, dad to Holly and Sophie, came in to talk to the whole school about being deaf, how it affects his daily life and how he learned to communicate through sign language. It was wonderful to watch the children learning to sign ‘Hello, my name is…’ and ‘What is your name?’. Holly was fantastic, showing the whole school how to sign her full name using sign language.

Form 4 had a visit from Mrs Cowell, mum to Beatrice, to talk about bees and how important they are to the environment. More about this wonderful talk can be found later in the newsletter.

Forms 3 & 4 had an amazing adventure to Fingringhoe Wick exploring their history and science geography topics. Form 3 had a great time making their own spears and building shelters from tree branches. Thankfully they escaped the torrential rain!

It was another amazing week for sport with children representing the school at the Gosfield Cross Country event on Wednesday. There were over 1200 children racing and as always, the competitors from Maldon Court demonstrated exemplary determination and sportsmanship. All of our runners finished in the top 50 and two of runners finished in the top 3! This is testament to the hours of hard work the children put in during their PE lessons and we are very proud of all our runners.

I would like to say thank you for all your support this half term and have a wonderful half term holiday. I look forward to seeing everyone back after the two week break refreshed and in their winter uniform.

Mrs E Clark

Acting Headteacher

Headteacher’s Award

Happy Birthday to Alice, Mya, Ottis, Hugo, Sienna A, George B, Sienna C, Arthur G, Ms White and Mrs Guest

~~~

Happy Birthday to Alice, Mya, Ottis, Hugo, Sienna A, George B, Sienna C, Arthur G, Ms White and Mrs Guest ~~~

Stars of the week

Nursery

This week has been lots of fun in Nursery as we have been exploring our Autumn topic. We have used the foliage we collected during our Autumn walk last Friday in our tuff trays and throughout our learning and play during the week.

Our new Autumn sensory basket has been a great hit! The children have loved exploring all the items inside, including an Autumn scavenger hunt. Using magnifying glasses, they had great fun searching for and spotting the different Autumn items.

We have also been exploring pumpkins, looking closely at their colours and comparing their sizes, from small and medium to large. The children enjoyed watching as we carved our pumpkin and discovering what was hidden inside. We explored the contents together and even had the opportunity to try some pumpkin soup!

It has been a lovely week of hands on exploration, sensory experiences and discovering more about the changes we see during Autumn.

Mrs Callaghan

PRE-RECEPTION

The children have had a great week engaging in lots of Harvest and autumnal themed activities, the children enjoyed vegetable printing with a variety of different vegetables. We looked at repeating patterns, discussed what they are and how to create them, the children also spotted errors in the patterns too.

Mrs Kennedy and Miss Hansell

FORMs 1 and 2

Forms 1 and 2 have been working incredibly hard in DT, designing and creating their very own pirate treasure chests using egg boxes! The children showed fantastic creativity and imagination as they transformed everyday materials into wonderful treasure chests, each with their own unique design. One of our biggest challenges was creating a working hinge to allow our treasure chests to open and close. The children rose to the challenge brilliantly, demonstrating excellent problem-solving skills, determination and perseverance. We are so proud of their fantastic creations.

Well done everyone!

Miss Vaughan and Mrs Caldow

FORM 4 BEES

As part of their science topic of Living Things, Form 4 has been studying bees. They have been investigating whether they are a ‘friend or foe’ and the effect of environmental changes on them. This week, Mrs. Cowell and Beatrice Cowell gave Form 4 a very informative talk about bee keeping and the effect of mites on the survival of our bees. We were shocked to discover that bees contribute to every third mouthful of food we eat and that they are being threatened by a parasitic mite. Form 4 asked lots of interesting and relevant questions which were expertly answered. A huge thank you Mrs. Cowell and Beatrice for giving their time and knowledge, we loved counting the mites!

Mrs Baron

FORM 3 AND 4 FINGRINGHOE WICK

Form 3 and Form 4 enjoyed a wonderful trip to Fingringhoe Wick this week. Form 3 took part in a Stone Age themed day. We have been learning all about the Stone Age in our history lessons, and our trip was a great opportunity to consolidate our learning. Our day was absolutely jam-packed with hands-on activities to help us understand about life in this pre-historic time. We had the opportunity to build dens in the forest, create a Stone Age timeline, whittle Stone Age tools, follow animal tracks through the woods and even create some beautiful cave art with natural materials.

Form 4 had a very interesting day. We started the day identifying trees by their leaves, using a classification key. After that, we had great fun pond dipping. We found so many different animals including shrimps, beetles and a stickleback. After a scrumptious lunch we went minibeast hunting, we found spiders, millipedes and woodlice, to name but a few. This was followed by hunting different coloured pipe cleaners to see what a difference camouflage made and finally we created a food web. All these activities supported our science topic of living things.

Mrs Baron and Miss Oxford

FORM 5

Form 5 were so grateful to Maddie, when she brought in her ‘Sunny Stick Insects.’ The class all got to hold them and Maddie’s shared incredibly, informative facts about them. We were all impressed with her knowledge and had fun getting up close to the gentle creatures. Thank you Maddie.

Mrs Dickinson

cut hedge cross country - gosfield

On Wednesday a team of KS2 cross country runners attended the 59th annual Cut Hedge Cross Country Competition hosted at Gosfield School.

There were 1200 runners at the event on the day, with each wave of runners having 150 racers. In fine racing conditions the children excelled themselves. They ran with determination and racing skill to record some outstanding results for Maldon Court. All our racers finished in the top 50 in all races which is an unbelievable achievement and gave us the best results at this event in many years. We also had two racers in the top ten and a further two in the top 3. Well done to all the children involved, you made us and your parents so proud.

Mr Coyle and Miss Broadbridge

WEEKLY MENU

MONDAY

Creamy mac and cheese served with homemade coleslaw, garlic bread slices and salad

Shortbread fingers

TUESDAY

Traditional roast chicken served with homemade rustic roast potatoes, peas, carrots, Yorkshire pudding and gravy.

Yoghurt or fruit

WEDNESDAY

Sausages in a crusty roll served with seasoned curly fries, sweet corn and tomato ketchup

Fruit jelly or fruit

THURSDAY

Chicken tikka masala served with fluffy rice and warm naan bread

Iced vanilla sponge cake and sprinkles or fruit

FRIDAY

All day breakfast burrito (bacon, hash brown and egg) served with baked beans

White chocolate and raspberry cookies or fruit

Sports Timetable

dates for your diary

Half Term
Children return to school, clubs resume
Sibling and Individual photographs
First Aid Training PR - Form 6