Our Year 6 children continue to amaze us with their attitudes and efforts in the classroom and they are impressing us every day with the quality of their work.
Their latest Big Writes have blown us away: they are immaculately presented and the content of their writing is so good it is better than most of the books in Waterstones’!
We could have put all of their Big Writes on the website, but here are just a few to give you an idea of their quality:
Representatives of our Pupil Presentation Committee met to decide who deserves a pen licence. They were as strict as ever in deciding whose writing was good enough! Presentation is improving across school, with 39 pupils now writing in pen in their exercise books.
Today Forest School has spent a sunny afternoon planting two lovely Rowan trees in our fast-developing Forest School area!
Class One looked at roots and shoots in the school allotment today and planted their beans amongst the potatoes in the raised beds.
This week we have been reading the story of, “The Smartest Giant in Town”. The children have been involved in lots of different activities; designing their own clothes, crowns and jewellery ready for the fashion show.
The children loved walking along the catwalk and even some of the parents got involved.
We have also been experimenting with “Transient Art” this week. The children have been using lots of different materials and media and having fun making lots of various creations.
The Rainbows have been making jam and chocolate spread sandwiches with Mrs Dean and then writing their own set of instructions with Miss Whiley.
We have been interviewing our pupils with their books to let them show off their good work and so that we know how much they understand about school policy.
Today Miss Haywood spoke to Early Years’ children and they had so much to say about their learning – how much they enjoy their Writing, Maths and Project and all the other fun things they do in the Early Years’ Centre!
Year 5 went to Planet Bounce today using the money they raised through the Enterprise Project.
They used this fun environment to compare modern Olympic sports with Ancient Greek sports!
Year 5 enjoyed their trip to the Nottingham University Campus and the Lakeside Arts Centre to take part in ‘Literacy at Lakeside’.
They found inspiration from the artist, Winifred Nicholson, to develop their Literacy skills.
This week in Forest School we have been Twig Weaving!
The children produced some fantastic designs to take home and hang in a tree or their room. We enjoyed choosing the right sized twigs and picking complimentary colours and learned to square lash pieces of wood together.
We also tested and checked our lovely new willow tunnel (all 8 metres of it!)
One of Year 5’s Maths ambassador effectively helped her peers further reasoning and problem solving skills.
Year 5 and 6 are enjoying their Bikeability sessions and have been around the playground and on the roads.
They will be able to tick this off in their Southwold Passports as another important life skill.
What a fabulous time Year 4 are having on their overnight residential at Newstead Abbey! They set off yesterday with so much luggage they nearly didn’t fit into the mini-buses!
When they arrived they set up camp and had their lunch.
They then went off to explore the grounds and took part in activities such as going inside the water fountain, rolling down a hill, skimming stones, fishing with nets, rock and tree climbing and playing on the adventure playground. They played games such as football and hide and seek in the woods, as well as dressing up in the Abbey.
Yesterday evening the children a camp fire with camp songs and stories from a storyteller (who said they were a wonderful, engaging and lively group!). They roasted marshmallows on the fire then walked around Newstead Abbey listening to ghost stories!!
After keeping Miss Haywood and Miss Hardy awake for most of the night, the children awoke to a soggy day but they remained in great spirits and even danced around in the rain.
This term we are learning all about traditional stories with our question being, “Is a goody always good?” To start the project, the staff did a performance of “Jack and the Beanstalk”, for the children to watch. The children really enjoyed the play and they were very excited to start the project. They could not wait to start acting out the story for themselves.
We have also been making our, giant beanstalk for the display and the children have been busy using different media and painting techniques to make leaves.
The lovely Mr Rowland came into EYC to help the children plant their own beanstalks.
The Adventurers have had fun planting beanstalks and watching them grow.
Miss Whiley and the children have been talking about what they think a giant looks like. They did some transient art to make a giant and his wife.
The children have also been using their, “fixing and fastening” skills to make split pin giants.
Today, working in small groups, children were challenged with finding fractions of amounts of food.
Sharing grapes, biscuits, peas, chocolate and pizza the children managed to find lots of different fractions.
The children say they understand fractions of wholes much better now…
…and it was also great to eat the pizza!!
Just look at all the learning going on in the Early Years Centre this morning..
“1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8…I have counted my cubes to find out the length of Kitty and she is 8 cubes long”.
The Rainbows were dressed in their superhero mighty missions capes and were completing some wonderful writing.
Class 5 visited IntoUniversity, for a fun-filled focus day investigating Ancient Greece! Children participated in many exciting activities developing literacy, maths, history, geography and drama skills through a variety of engaging and challenging activities. Working as part of a team, children had to use their mathematical skills and knowledge to solve problems relating to geometry and code breaking.
Using their chart reading skills, children were able to compare the climate between England and Greece, focusing upon temperature and precipitation (rainfall). Children also applied their knowledge of Athens and Sparta, to complete a Venn diagram comparing the life of children.
The afternoon was dedicated to drama by investigating the main types of plays enjoyed by Ancient Greeks in the orchestra. Working in groups, children read a famous fable and discussed its morale. Next, they discussed the characters in the fable and allocated roles for their play. Using a variety of resources, children prepared their own script, props and acting scenes. After rehearsing, each group performed their amazing play to the class.
A fantastic day was enjoyed by all! Not only have the children deepened their knowledge about Ancient Greece, but also about education and courses at University!
Class 5 are already excited about their return visiting Year 6! Thank you IntoUniversity team!
As part of our foci question ‘Who were the ancient Greeks’, Class 5 children have been investigating how people lived during that period. A key area of foci was to compare life in the two main city states; Athens and Sparta. Using non-fiction books and other information sources, children researched many areas of life such as; slavery, education, democracy, leisure interest and the role of men and women.
Using this information children made arguments for and against living in Athens and Sparta. After choosing which city state they would like to live in, they held a lively and fiercely fought debate!
Led by the leaders of both cities—children shared their opinions about the government of their city state. Many strong arguments, both for and against, were discussed. For example; the use of people as slaves, the rights of females to be treated equally (go to school and vote), the rights of children to not be trained to fight as soldiers, as well as democracy versus dictatorship.
After much discussion, some children were so influenced and persuaded by the issues discussed, that they defected to the opposite city state!
Congratulations to Nyla in Class 3, who won the ‘Giant Easter Egg’ raffle prize. Hope it tastes as yummy as it looks!
Also a big WELL DONE to class 4 who have raised £70 towards their enterprise project for organising the Easter Egg Hunt, it was thoroughly enjoyed by all.
Class 4 enterprise project, making their £30 grow – following up their danceathon with an easter egg hunt for children.
What a fantastic end to our “Space Project”. The children dressed up in their space costumes and we held a special exhibition for the parents to showcase everything we have been learning about this term. It was an amazing morning and as you can see from the photographs both the children and parents thoroughly enjoyed it.
Have a look our “Space Project” photographs below!
The children looked fantastic in their space costumes.
A big “thank you” to all the parents for making our exhibition so special!
A huge well done to Class 4 who completed their 1 hour sponsored Dance-a-thon on Friday 24th March. As part of their Enterprise Project, the children danced their socks off and completed the 60 minute challenge. Thank you to all those who have sponsored them.
Class 4 look forward to hosting their Easter Egg Hunt on Tuesday 18th April (Tickets are £1 per person and are available from Class 4).
For the end of Class One’s project we created a peaceful fairy tale community and thought about how we would get the characters to live together.
We decided what buildings and people we would need.
We made the box models and arrange them as a town.
We decided on rules for our characters to live by.
Lots of children read their writing to the parents and Mr Gabbitas, the neighbourhood Development Officer from Nottingham City Council.
Mrs Holmes and Miss Benton are very proud of the whole class and they are sure the parents are too!
The excitement is mounting as a new Play Tower is being installed this week. This is the end product of a lot of fundraising and design-choosing (led by our School Parliament!)
The Play Tower will be ready to use on Friday 31st March! We are now looking to install some Monkey Bars as our older children especially want these in our playground.
The end of term Achievement Assembly was such a positive event! Behaviour and Achievement awards were presented to two pupils in each class and teachers spoke about all their wonderful learning and behaviours.
Our wonderful choir sang, as did the whole school and the Easter story was retold by Year 6 pupils. 100% Attendance Awards were also presented and all names were entered into a raffle for fantastic prizes donated by Aquinas Education (including a tablet and cinema tickets!!)
The assembly ended with a fantastic Easter Bonnet Parade, accompanied by pupils on the thundering drums!
Prizes were awarded for three bonnet winners. What a lovely and successful end to the Spring Term!
On Friday 24th March, Southwold pupils and staff wore red clothes (and noses) to school, raising money for Comic Relief. There was also a cake sale and a raffle to paint the teachers’ faces!
The children simply loved the staff getting involved. Overall, school raised £515 for this worthy cause.
As a part of our Lego project, Class 2 had the opportunity to visit Harley Gallery to look at their ‘Brick Wonders’ exhibition.
We saw lots of amazing models and designs: The Pyramids of Giza, Niagara Falls, The Great Wall of China, The Matterhorn, The Hanging Gardens of Babylon, and so much more! They were all designed and built by Warren Elsmore
.
We also got the chance to build our own Lego City. We each designed a house and a garden – some of them even had swimming pools!
It was a fantastic trip and something I’m sure we’ll all remember for a long time.
On Friday 17th March, Year 5 made kites to investigate forces and gravity.
They trialed their designs on the windy school field and had lots of fun learning and discussing the effectiveness of their kites and the forces at play!
Class 1 have been thinking about how they can help the Little Red Hen, and so we decided to make some Bread.
We used measuring jugs and scales to measure in millilitres and grams. We found out that 1 kilogram is the same as 1000 grams. We read the recipe and followed the instructions.
We all mixed in the yeast, salt sugar, water and oil to make the dough.
We kneaded the dough and then left it to prove…
Look how much it had risen after lunch!
We used halving and doubling to work out how to turn each ball into 16 bread rolls…
Here they are fresh from the oven….
We all thought they smelled and tasted delicious!
We are definitely going to need a bakery in our fairy tale community. So many characters in fairy tales are hungry! Can you think of some of them?
On Wednesday 15th March, Year 3 had an immersive project day, learning about Roman leisure.
They enjoyed many activities that enabled them to imagine life as a Roman citizen, such as relaxing in the spa and feasting on a range of food.
Some pupils were slaves who crushed grapes with their bare feet to make ‘wine’ or served food and drinks in the spa.
The children were engaged all day and were able to discuss their learning in detail. They are now excited about writing about their experiences.