Ripon Cathedral School Update

Week ending Friday 23rd June 2023

Access All Arts - Arts Week

Arts Week - Monday 19th June - Friday 23rd June

It has been a very busy week in school. Each class has been exploring different art forms and many have worked with professional artists.

The theme for the week has been identity and pupils have been encouraged to use the arts to explore their own individuality and what makes each one of us unique.

Over the next week we will be preparing some of the work that the children have produced to share with you in our end of term gallery. We are sure you will be impressed with the wonderful work that the children have created.

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Arts Week in Year 3

In Year 3, the children created their own characters and developed identities for them, they imagined narratives around their character, wrote the stories and acted them out using homemade props and sound effects.

Using inspiration from Henry Moore and the sculptures we saw at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park trip last week, the children created their own abstract sculpture to represent something about their own identity. Their sculptures all tell a story about their lives, whether it is their family, hobby or even favourite food!

Also, the children created some images of the school using silk paint. They chose a place around school which means something to them, took a photo and recreated the image on silk stretched on an embroidery frame, using special silk paint . As the ink was absorbed into the material, it created a blend of bright colours and patterns.

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Year 6 Learn about landscapes with local artist Brad Bingham

This week Year 6 had a visitor from landscape artist Brad Bingham. Through a step-by-step process we were able to create our own landscape artwork of the view of Ripon Cathedral from the playground. We learnt how to produce the initial sketch and how to paint highlights and shadow to help create depth in the final image. We also explored our identity through poetry. We studied the poem ‘I am…’ and considered who and what in our lives had the greatest significance on who we are, producing our own ‘I am…’ poems. Using this idea, we also created a photomontage of our identity using photos of those people and things that are important to us.

Arts week in Year 2

We took the theme of identity and thought about applying this to colours as well as ourselves and gave some colours an emotion. We then created a colour key for these emotions and colours and were able to express how we were feeling with a colourful handprint. We have created two self-portraits based on two different artists: Picasso and Van Gogh and explored their different styles in order to make two completely opposite portraits! We learned a dance about the children’s morning routine including stretching, brushing hair, driving to school and even sharing the peace. Finally we have also written some acrostic poems about what makes us…us! All the poems are different showing how everyone in Year 2 is special and unique.

Year 5 Landscapes

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Arts week in Year 5

We began our week talking about our identity and the places we felt our families and people were connected to: our heritage. This was our starting point and for ‘Moves’ we created a dance built upon our heritage and our common unity. We see leave spaces and others will take that place.

Our ‘Images’ day gave us the opportunity to make ’Stop Animation’ film. We aimed to create a short film based on a journey our ancestors could have undertaken. Our ‘Marks’ day, gave us the chance to meet and work with an abstract artist -SHolmes. He showed us how we could develop abstract landscape images and we made six incredible images using acrylic paints on canvas. Thursday, this was our chance to learn about the Opera – our ‘Sounds’ day. We followed a school trip and their challenge to bring the operas of Puccini, Rossini and Wagner to their school. We developed our ‘Words’ performance skills through storytelling and rap.

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Artistic Achievements in reception

What a fantastic week of arts we have had in Reception. We have thoroughly enjoyed developing our artistic skills whilst also exploring the theme of this year's Arts Week: Identity. The children created superb self-portraits, and showed great pride when comparing their paintings with the self-portrait created at the start of the school year. What super progress has been made! The children have each thought about what makes them special and identified some of their unique qualities. The words that they generated were then used to write lovely poems of self-appreciation. Following on from this, the children created triptychs by taking photos of each other in three different poses that highlight their personality. Of all the activities, a definite favourite was thinking about their hobbies, interests and personality and representing this through playdough characters. Great fun was had using the Chatterpix app to make the models appear to 'talk'! Another highlight of the week was Martha's mummy visiting us to play her cello. It was lovely to see the Reception children so in awe of the instrument and the beautiful sounds it can make.

What a super week of hard-work, perseverance and creativity!

Arts Week in Nursery

The children in Nursery have had such a busy week being imaginative and expressive with all different kinds of art. We have created our own 2D images of ourselves using photo images and a selection of mark making resources, as well as a 3D model where the children were able to be expressive and graffiti their own personal picture and patterns.

We used Chatterpix to enable the children to explore animation as well as writing our own poem called 'I like...' (see film below)

Everyone has been involved and created such lovely things, what a super busy week we have had.

Year 1 Art

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Arts Week in Year 1

Year 1 started Arts Week with mosaic making. The children outlined their first initial into a piece of wood and then used mosaic tiles to fill the letter. We added a border and grout to make the tiles really stand out. After that, we made mixed media portraits using many of the techniques we have learnt this year: paint mixing, paper rolling, paper folding, wool wrapping and thread plaiting. Later in the week we practised photography, taking pictures of our favourite places in the school and went on to write acrostic or anaphoric poems to describe them. We have also enjoyed learning some interpretive dance representing our morning routines with Mrs Bartlett-Young.

Year 4

Using their Courageous Advocacy work as inspiration, the children looked at sculptures and shapes and thought about how 2D designs and sketches can help with 3D art. After choosing an animal and drawing some designs, the class began carving a bar of soap into their chosen animal. Children also revisited the skills they learnt when working with wire. This time they had to think about twisting the wire to secure an extra piece as a hanger. Once they completed their soap and wire sculptures, they logged onto Procreate to write, and then decorate, their poems. Can you guess which animals they describe? The fun did not stop there. They thought about the habitat where their animal lives, how their animal moves and what may make them endangered. Using dance and drama, they acted out their desert, jungle and ocean scenes.

Our second theme focussed on the questions – Who are they? and What are they like? The children worked with different styles of writing to create a ‘shadow word’. Using a shadow sculpture made for Trans-Atlantic slaves as their inspiration, the children took photos of themselves with their shadows around the school grounds. They experimented with different effects and ways to show who they are. Their photography skills were fantastic and their finish photographs look amazing. After this, they took photos of their descriptions and created a stop motion animation. It took a little practice but their animations are also fabulous. Well done, Year 4. You have shown a positive, can do attitude and produced some wonderful art.

Wonderful Whitby

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Year 2 visit Whitby

Year 2 had a wonderful school trip to Whitby. We started off at the Abbey so that we could create a sketch of it, including lots of detail, then we walked down the 199 steps (counting each one as we went down!) to the Black Pearl boat. During our boat ride we were given lots of history about Whitby from our pirate captain and he was even able to show us two shipwrecks on the boat camera. We were pointing out physical and human geography features that we had been learning about and noted them down. Next we enjoyed some of Whitby’s amusements before a lovely lunch on the beach. Year 2 were on the hunt for fossils and Whitby jet whilst we were on the beach. We ended the day with a well-deserved ice cream before heading up to the whale bones.

Summer Fair 2023

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Amazing Animal Summer Fair

A huge thank you to all members of the Friends who put together such a wonderful summer fair on the theme of animals. As well as spiders, snakes, stick insects and lizards we were entertained by a birds of prey show in addition to great stalls and refreshments. Many thanks to everyone who came down and made the event such a success. Although we don't have a final total yet, it definitely exceeds one thousand pounds, amazing!

The Friends have also sent an update on the escaping owl!

'Eva the Canadian Great Horned Owl finally came down from the tree at 9pm on Saturday night! She has beaten her 7 hour tree sitting record which is now 8 and a half hours! Eva was fed straight away and taken home safely and put into her aviary with her friend Henrietta. Thank you to all of those who have asked about Eva!'

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Staffing 2022 - 2023

We are able to let you know teaching arrangements for the new academic year. On our internal transition days in July children will have the opportunity to meet their new teacher and staff who will be working with their class,.

Teaching Staff September 2023

Nursery - Mrs Powell

Reception - Mrs Roberts

Year 1 - Mrs Pitt

Year 2 - Mrs Dallaston

Year 3 - Mrs Spencer and Mrs McIlmurray

Year 4 - Miss Brown

Year 5 - Mrs Beckett and Mrs Babington

Year 6 - Mrs Shawcross

We are delighted that Mrs Pitt will be teaching full time in Year 1 from September.
Mrs Dallaston will be joining the school to cover Mrs Linkins’ maternity leave in Year 2.
In September, Mrs Spencer will be continuing in her SENDCO and Wellbeing role but has kindly increased her working days to share teaching Year 3 with Mrs McIllmurray.
Mrs Beckett and Mrs Babington will both be returning from maternity leave on 10th July. Mrs Babington will be teaching Year 2 on her return for the last two weeks of term and Mrs Beckett will be working in Year 3. From September, when Mrs Babington reduces her working days, they will be sharing teaching our Year 5 class.
We are sad to see Miss Mackenzie leave Cathedral School when Mrs Babington returns, however we are sure that she will be great in her new teaching post at Kirkby Malzeard.
We were incredibly fortunate that Mr Easby was able to join us after Mrs Clarkson’s sudden illness diagnosis last summer, and to stay for the full school year. We wish him well in his new post in Brompton school.

Oscar's Summer Holiday Club

Spaces are being filled, so please be sure to book!

Week 1: Tuesday 25th to Thursday 27th July

Week 2: Wednesday 30th to Thursday 31st August

Please note that the club runs from 9am to 4pm and booking is essential. If you have not used Oscar's before, please find further details on the school website by clicking below. Booking is for all three days in the first week (£50) and for both days in the final week (£35). Therefore, you only need to book the first day to reserve a place for both/all three days.

Parents will probably be aware that staffing costs have risen. In order to avoid an increase in the charge to parents and to secure staffing more easily, we have shortened the day by an hour but will provide a few more snacks. Details will follow to those who book.

Oscar's Information