Friday 21 July 2017

End of year Assembly

This morning's assembly started rather strangely - Mrs Picton thought the holidays had started already, and was found asleep on the hall floor!
After being woken up by 350 children, she did realise that she had lots of certificates to present to the School Council, Eco Council, Class Ambassadors, JRSO's, Research group, Worship Group and House Captains!
We also had to say goodbye to Mrs Lord and Mr Brook.










Thursday 20 July 2017

Year 6 Leavers Service

The finale for the Year 6 pupils was the very special Leavers Service held at St Michael's Church, yesterday.
Here are a few images from the service - we're sure there were many parents with a tear in their eye as they were shown the wonderful achievements the children have made in their time here at school.
Well done to you all.  We are very proud of you and wish you all every success as you move on to High School.








Wednesday 19 July 2017

Sensory walk

Yesterday in Nursery the children got to take part in a sensory walk. They were able to explore and talk about the feel of the different textures. Most of the children were happy to walk through the trays, although some preferred to use their hands to experience it. 

The trays had bubble wrap, cornflakes, sand, flour, jelly, ice and warm bubbly water in. The children took part so sensibly, keeping safe by listening to the instructions and enjoying and describing the different sensations. 






Tuesday 18 July 2017

Should the Country Mouse move to the town or stay in the countryside?

Class AB held their first ever debate. At first we read the story of The Town Mouse and The Country Mouse. We discussed reasons why it would be good to live in the town and why it would be good to live in the countryside. The class then split in half. The for side had to persuade the Country Mouse to go back to the countryside. They suggested that the Mouse's family was in the countryside so he should go home as they will miss each other. They also thought that the town would be dangerous as he could get squished by cars or even people. The against side had to persuade the Country Mouse to stay in the town. They thought that the food would be yummier in the town. They also suggested that the Country Mouse would be able to find building materials for his house, a lot easier, in the town.
Once each case had been debated the children put it to a vote. They had to vote for the Country Mouse to either go home to the country or stay in the town. 
13 children felt that the Mouse should go home but 15 children felt that he should stay in the town. Well done to both sides for very persuasive arguments but it was decided that the Country Mouse should stay in the town.




Road Safety

Last week AB looked at how to keep safety when around busy roads. The children all knew the importance of traffic lights and we also discussed how to use zebra crossings. Using the ride-ons the children took it in turns to either be riding around on a 'road' or being a pedestrian. They had to take note of traffic lights, checking which colours they were. The drivers had to be aware of zebra crossings to check for any people waiting to cross. Pedestrians knew to stop, look and listen before they crossed the road. 






Monday 17 July 2017

Brass Concert from Class LC

Here are a couple of clips of the children from class LC performing for pupils and parents at the end of last week... fantastic!

If you don't have flash player installed or are running through Internet Explorer 10 or below it may not work correctly. Our best advice is to use Google Chrome as this works well and comes with its own built in flash player, therefore doesn't need extra installations.  





Year 6 Leavers Book Donations

Thank you to all the year 6 parents who have kindly donated a book to the school libraries - the display is outside the hall if you'd like to take a look.

Wednesday 12 July 2017

Class LH welcome Zambian visitors

On Wednesday the 12th of July we were lucky to have a visit from some people who live in Lusaka.  We have been comparing the cities of London to Lusaka.   Firstly, we had already planned some questions which we decided on from our research so we asked questions about Lusaka and what it is like to live there. 

Jo and her children Libby and George answering questions about life in Lusaka. 

We got the chance to look at the Zambian currency which is called Kwacha; they were telling us how the coins were very new to them, the coins were only introduced 2 years ago.

Looking at the Zambian money - the kwacha



Each table performed a rhythm on the Djembe drums whilst saying a rhyme which they had made up.  One group played the rhyme;  “lemon and water, lemon and water, lemon and water, served with ice.”  Each group had made their own rhythm up and performed to our visitors. 



The flag is green, red, black and orange with an eagle.  Each colour represented a different meaning. The eagle represented freedom, the green represented nature, red represented strength, black represented race, the colour of their skin and the orange represented copper mining fields. Jo kindly brought in a Zambian flag for our class. 


After they had left we wrote on a small Zambian flag what we had learnt from our visitors and placed it on the big flag.   We were sad when they left because we had so much fun!



Oscar, Ivor and Ruby

Tuesday 11 July 2017

Class AB's DT day

Class AB have had a great DT day making their cars. First we looked and researched different vehicles. We thought about their colours and why they were shaped the way they are. We then designed our own cars before carefully drawing it onto the cuboid net. We had to cut our own dowling rod for the axles, using a saw, a special board and a G clamp. We measured the dowling rod so that we could cut it in two equal halves. Once we had finished decorating the nets, we then had to stick them together. We found this very tricky but everyone worked together and persevered. Finally, we just needed to put the box for the bottom together and decorate the wheels before assembling each of the parts. There were some experts who help other children fold to make their boxes. Last of all we attached the axles to the bottom of the box, added the wheels and then stuck the net on top. At the end we got to look at everybody's cars. We evaluated our cars, thinking about what went well and what we could do better next. 

Take a look at some of our finished products. Can you guess what our vehicles are?





Monday 10 July 2017

Camp!

The Whitwell Camp photos are on the website gallery - we had over 400 photos - sorry we couldn't get them all on there!







Summer picnic for gardening club

Gardening club enjoyed a final end of term picnic - unfortunately due to the torrential rain - at school.  We had hoped to be up at the gardens however, Mr Duggens had been up to the school gardens earlier in the day and picked some peas from our plants.  He then also shared a huge cucumber, some mange tout and redcurrants and white currants out of his own garden.  We added some tomatoes, breadsticks and natural yoghurt for a very enjoyable picnic.  Mr Duggens also picked the sweet peas and some of the grasses which the children were able to take home with them. 

Mrs Eyles made a delicious banana cake and an apple cake which we all enjoyed.    Whilst we ate, we reminisced about the crops which we have grown and talked about what the children were growing at home and enjoyed learning about.  There was also a competition to see who had the tallest sunflower - we'll see in September when we come back who had the tallest one!!

Thank you to Mr Duggens for kindly giving up his time to come and volunteer and help at this very special club. 






County Swimming Finals

Our Year 5 pupils represented the school at the County Swimming Finals on Friday.  The Year 6 team were unable to attend as they were at Camp.
Here's the team with their certificates - well done to you all, you represented the school brilliantly.