Happy Christmas from all the staff at school!

School starts again on Thursday 5 January 2017

RISK-IT week

Last week, we had a highly successful Risk-IT week  - one simple rule to follow when you are RISKing IT: “Use something ‘ICT’ you have not used before”.  Staff were encouraged to use this fantastic opportunity to try out a new tech-based tool to enhance teaching and learning, whatever subject they were teaching. The RiskIT campaign was adopted and adapted so that teachers were empowered, encouraged and supported in trying something different.

Year 6 understood the importance of triangulating research using a variety of spoof and real websites to glean and check appropriate information. In year 5, children rose to the challenge of presenting a “Mannequin Challenge” through video.  With the emphasis on the new curriculum in coding, Year 4 embarked on using online coding programs.  Upper KS2 and year 4 used graphic display programs.  Year 1 and 2 experimented with using QR codes to solve Christmas clues and Year 3 and the reception were successful in a variety of English and Maths activities on the tablets.  Reception also made their Christmas cards using Revelation Natural Art.  Nursery children were focusing their learning skills on using the mouse to click and drag.

Year 4 coding

 Early Years using the tablets

 Year 5 using 'Wordle'

  Christmas cards designed by Early Years using Revelation Natural Art

Year 6 Carols to Mill Meadow residents

Our Year 6 pupils sang Christmas Carols today to the residents at Mills Meadow Care Home ... a really lovely way to round off the term.  Their singing was very much appreciated by the residents and staff there.

Online Safety Poster Competition

Many congratulations go to Flora (JA) and Hayden (LC) who have won the online safety poster competition. Their posters are striking and really reinforce the message about staying safe online.
 

Hayden, winner of the Lower Key Stage 2 poster, included firm reminders about saying no, delete or finding an adult if anything inappropriate appears on your screen. 

Flora's striking poster for Upper Key Stage 2, showed a simple yet powerful messge about staying SMART.

The winning posters will be displayed in the computer suite and in various other key places around the school. They have both won a USB memory stick and a Christmas decoration which will remind them in years to come of their tremendous efforts.

Thank you to everyone else who entered the competition.  It was a difficult to choose the winning posters as there were some excellent entries.

Nursery Christmas Celebrations

We had an exciting day in Nursery today as we had our Christmas party and enjoyed lots of lovely food that our wonderful parents had brought in for us to share. We were very excited to have a special visitor too. Father Christmas came to see the girls and boys to give them a little gift! Thank you Father Christmas. We hope we'll see you again next year!

Eco Council Tree Planting

Our local Rotary Club have generously donated a number of hedging saplings and a lot of man-power to plant some protective hedging around the edge of the playground along College Road.  The Eco-Council donned their wellingtons today to help out.
A big thank you from us all here at school for this terrific donation and piece of work.

Christmas Dinner

I think everyone agrees that yesterday's Christmas Dinner was fabulous and super tasty. Huge thanks go to Mrs Aldred and the kitchen team for their terrific cooking and expert timing, also a big thank you to the dinner ladies (and many of the other staff who pitched in).  Lastly, thank you to the House Captains who did a wonderful job of serving all the adult meals to the Governors and staff.
(Mrs Miller was so busy eating her delicious Christmas Dinner that she forgot to take any photos for the BLOG - so we staged one with the House Captains today!!)

Hamper Draw

Mrs Picton (plus reindeer antlers!) helped the classes to draw the winners for the Friends Christmas Hamper Raffle yesterday morning.  Families of 13 very happy children won a super hamper for Christmas!  Thank you to all the Friends who packed and wrapped these and to all the families who donated items and bought tickets. We'll let you know how much was raised in the new year.

  

Mr Mulrenan won the hamper in class PASB but very kindly said that it should be drawn again so that one of the families could win it - the class gave him a big cheer for this lovely gesture.

Carol Service

The children in year 3 and 4 delivered a wonderful Carol Service at St Michael's Church to the whole school on Tuesday morning, and repeated it again for all their parents after lunch!  It really got everyone into the Christmas spirit.

Cookery Club Christmas Treats

The Cookery Club last week devoted the session to creating some very tasty Christmas Treats - we especially love the idea of the Hot Chocolate Snowman Marshmallow jar - just add hot milk to make a super treat!

 

Nursery trip to the Church and newsagents

Today Nursery headed out to visit the Church Christmas tree festival. We really enjoyed seeing all the beautifully decorated trees as well as looking around the wonderful building. After that we went to visit the Newsagents so the children could spend their £1 coins. They each chose a decoration for the top of the Christmas cakes we have made before heading back to school for snack.

Paper chain madness...

Today in class AB we had the challenge of making a repeating pattern paper chain. We also wanted to make this paper chain as long as possible to decorate our classroom. We started by making the paper chains in pairs and threes before joining them all together. In the end we had 203 chains!

RISK-IT week - Class LH

Class LH tackled the task of doing a Christmas treasure hunt using the tablets and QR codes. Clues were placed around the classroom. The children then used the tablet to scan the QR code to reveal a Christmas clue. After finding all 9 clues, the first letter of the words were rearranged to spell out a word linked to this time of year.

The children were fantastic and having the ability to solve the issues and work together created a great atmosphere in the classroom. Thank you to Mr Fisk, the IT technician, who helped sort out a few minor teething problems.  The children were a credit in problem solving together and working cooperatively during the risk.   

One child said she enjoyed scanning the secret codes - it was like magic and another said it was frustrating to start with but we were learning together.  Several children said it was great fun and want to do it again.  A good risk that we all learnt from.