January 2021

Wishing all our community a happy new year. It's been a hard start to the year but we are here to help you. Make sure you are keeping up to date with Mr F's messages. There will be 2 One Kind Learning films a week to keep your children busy and your children's teachers will upload daily learning via SeeSaw every day. There will be a schedule you can follow. Not sure how? We will help. Need even more for your children - we will help.

Christmas Lunch 2020

A special treat for all the children this week. Festive lunch - American Diner Style, Children enjoyed a delicious burger and skinny fries with milkshakes, jelly and Ben & Jerry's ice-cream. Thanks to the I-Shine Kitchen Team who cooked and served for 3 days in a row so that every year group bubble had a wonderful time.

StarLight Festival 2020

A very different Starlight Festival this year but very beautiful nonetheless. Every child created a scene within an individual box. Children worked hard to learn and develop new artistic and creative skills, including 3D sculpture, finger knitting, decoupage and pom pomming. The boxes were exhibited and buddy classes had a viewing. We hope you agree that they are really impressive.

Christmas Jumper Day - Friday 11th December 2020

Today was National Christmas Jumper Day and Orion kids and teachers as always did their best to come to school in something sparkly, christmassy or colourful. Smiles all round!

Hot Chocolate Friday - Friday 4th December

A hot chocolate treat for all the children who were able to step it up this week. The weather has turned really cold and the hot chocolate was perfect. Thanks Mr F and all the staff who made and poured it for us to enjoy.

GIVE IT - The Art of Kindness

It's beginning to feel a bit like Christmas! We are getting ready for Starlight and the Xmas trees are up. This year they are Kindness Trees. Have a look at the gorgeous decorations we have made for them - in the name of kindness. Can you see the gifts under the tree? There are 11. One for each day until the end of term...have a look at our nursery children opening the first one. It was the gift of fun! What will the next gift be?

Do More - One Kind Learning - Family Art Task

Well done and thanks to all the Orion families who spent some time this weekend creating a family portrait. The art brought back into school was stunning - we hope you had fun together!

Togetherness Thursday (26th November 2020)

We have been colouring our world with togetherness this week. Being together is such a great feeling. Together with our families, together with our friends, together with our teachers and classmates. It's been tricky to be together this year but we managed to meet some buddies across the school in some clever ways! We sent messages to each other, made films for each other, met via Zoom to play Bingo and do quizzes and even waved from a distance. We are always better together!

Year 1's Queen's Banquet - Wednesday 25th November

All dressed up in their finest to have tea with the queen this afternoon. The queen wasn't able to come today sadly but we had a great time anyway!

Cone Together - Friday 20th November

Celebrating teamwork

Teams come in all different sizes. In our year groups we are in teams of 120 plus our adults so that's a huge team all working together and helping each other. Some teams are just 2 people like Ben & Jerry, makers of delicious ice-cream. Not only did these 2 men work really hard to set up an ice-cream company but they also campaign against injustice and support lots of worthy causes. Peace, love & ice-cream!

BBC Children in Need 2020 - Friday 13th November

Wow! Huge effort from every single child today all dressed up smart or silly style and all bringing money to support Children in Need. Together, we filled our school with hearts, we learned the dance moves from One Kind Learning Special film, we got tricky with "in the bin" trick shots and we went to the One Kind Learning Pop Shop and filled a happy bag for home time. What a smiley school today and what incredible thanks our brilliant children and parents gave. We are proud to be TOGETHER!

Pop Up Art

We can't go to an art gallery this month because of lockdown so art came to us at The Orion and we viewed a pop up art installation. The weird and wonderful world of RED...

Half Term Food Hub

Over the week of half term footballer Mesut Ozil sponsored the cooking of delicious fresha dn healthy meals which were distributed from the food hub at The Orion for Goldstar families who could enjoy them at home. The meals were packaged to go with a selection of fruit provided by The BYT Project. Thank you to chef Stefan Pappert for cooking the meals throughout the night so they would be ready for each morning and to Mr F who made sure the food got to families who needed them. Thanks also to the staff team who volunteered time to help out.

Amazing first half term!

Thank you all for an amazing first half term of 2020/21.  Things have been a little different and there have been some changes but we're so glad we're all back at school.  Have a brilliant week and look our for a brand NEW episode of One Kind Learning. 

Let's Go Colour Our World with Art

During our new "colourful" day we get creative in the afternoons. Our corridors have been transformed into galleries with each class creating a large canvas full of colour. Check out our creativity in the photos below. 

Black History Month at Orion

This week every year group celebrated Black History. Children had some amazing debates, wrote speeches, poems and facts, Lots of children were inspired to do even more learning at home. We are so lucky to be a part of such a diverse school community where respect, and equality is part of our daily lives.

The Big Draw - Thursday 15th October

Today we had a special drawing morning - using shapes to draw a range of animals. Did you know that drawing  can really help establish and develop concentration, it improves hand eye co-ordination, fine motor skills and increases children's confidence. Look at the concentration, effort and skills that have gone into these pictures.

Apple Week - Celebrating Rocktober

We had a different variety of apple every day for 7 days! Red delicious, Baeburn, Fiji, Cox, Pink Lady are just some of the 7,500 apple varieties that exist worldwide. Did you know that apples are 25% air and that's why they float in water? Cut an apple in half to see the five seed pockets inside - they are called carpels. Eating 2 apples a day can really improve your health.

World Smile Day - October 2nd

Help Me Help You!

Easy home task for every parent today. Just say YAY! to your children and give them a huge smile. Even though it was raining heavily this morning parents and children came to school with huge smiles. Smiles are definitely contagious!

Macmillan Art Day - Friday 25th September

We all wore something green today and donated some money to say thanks and show our gratitude to the amazing Macmillan nurses who do such an important and difficult job. We did some green themed art to create a tree of care. Each child also took home today a gift for their family to show thanks to them too and to say well done for our first month back at school this year.

Peace Day 2020

We marked the International Day of Peace this year by being thoughtful and mindful about what peace means to us and to others round the world. We did some peaceful art in our classrooms

Quest 2020/21 - Lets Go Colour our World with our new Colourful Day

We have returned to school this year to embrace our new kind of learning - A COLOURFUL DAY. We have a BIG morning with longer literacy and numeracy sessions. This means we have time for new important learning and also to recap areas that we might have missed or not understood. We read and write every single day. We have a nurturing afternoon which includes art lessons, science, music, drama, PE and PSHE and a Zones of Regulation lesson. Afternoons are calm and creative and we love them!

Our quest this year uses colour to help us return to an I Shine way of thinking

Orange is for energy, excitement and enthusiasm

Green is calming and also says "Let's Go!"

Red is the colour of love - it symbolises our commitment to our friends and family

Blue is the colour of trust, unity, loyalty and confidence

Yellow is sunny, cheerful and positive

Pink is for putting your heart and soul into all that you do