Our final Forest School today! 😢
We have absolutely loved the last 5 weeks.
This afternoon we built a nest for a bird, did fire striking, threaded beads on to necklaces and finished the afternoon with hot chocolate and s’mores. 😋
Thank you, Ms Turner-Jones.
This morning Year 1 and Year 6 shared their library sessions. The younger children loved listening to the older children read them their stories. At the same time, Year 6 children enjoyed listening to the Year 1 children practise their developing reading skills.
This morning, Year 6 completed their geography fieldwork. Children were tasked to see the impact of population increasing in our local area. They did this by completing a vehicle tally chart and a litter tally chart. After this, children produced a report of their results and conclusions.
Class 3 and 4 had a fabulous time at Creswell Crags. We did Stone Age art, survival skills and exploring inside a cave. The Creswell Crags leaders were so impressed with the children’s knowledge!
What a lovely afternoon Reception had at forest schools. We climbed trees, went on the swing, made slides and see saw, used two buckets to make some weighing scales and of course plenty of bug hunting.
Year 6 pupils have made a fantastic start to their sculptures: manipulating wire to make a posed figure, creating a clay base and layering mod roc to shape them and increase stability. They will be decorating them to improve their aesthetic appearance. But we’re sure you’ll agree that they look great already!
We are so proud of our Year 5 pupils for completing their Level 1 or 2 Bikeability certificate. The children learned how to be safe and good techniques for cycling, such as turning and signalling. Once they had mastered these skills, they applied them to cycling safely on the road. Congratulations to all!
Year 4 pupils really enjoyed their morning at the Great Orchestra Experiment at the Royal Albert Hall. It was wonderful to see our pupils excited to form part of an orchestra. They displayed great musical talent as they played the trumpet. We are incredibly proud of our amazing pupils.
Year 6 have completed the first stages of their sculptures this week: manipulating wire to make posed figures, building a base and layering with mod roc to shape them and increase stability. We still have the decorating stage to go, but think they are looking fantastic already!
Reception have been learning about number bonds to 10. They have been finding different ways to make 10. They have enjoyed using numicon to help them. Lots of children then wrote the number sentence on a whiteboard. Great job by our reception children!
Over the last few weeks, Class 3 have been learning about the Beaker people and their pottery. The Beaker people came to Britain at the end of the Stone Age period. We have developed a range of skills working with clay to produce these amazing Beaker style, coil pots!
Reception had a great time doing their outdoor learning. They looked at different leaves, did some bug hunting and even climbed a tree.
Climate Change Ambassadors met with our Green Team. They discussed and shared ideas to develop our school grounds to help inform our climate action plan.
The Green Team created drawings with their ideas. They included suggestions our grounds to be used for growing vegetables, plants, trees, wildflowers, micro habitats and water buts and much more. We look forward to meeting with Climate Ambassadors next term.
Class 6 have been enjoying the sunshine whilst practising their shooting skills in basketball, and celebrating Iranian New Year by making these lovely flowers with Class 4
Children in Year 3 and 4 used an OS map to explore their local area. They identified physical features like rivers, trees and hills and human features such as roads, buildings, and landmarks. They noted down these features, enhancing their understanding of geography and map reading skills.
Spring has sprung in Reception. We enjoyed doing some observational drawings of daffodils. We looked carefully at the flower and the stem.
Huge thanks to our wonderful catering team for helping us celebrate St Patrick’s Day in style! The traditional Irish menu was delicious!
Our Year 5 and 6 Scientists, have been learning about photosynthesis. Marvelling at how plants take CO2 and water and turn them into glucose and oxygen using sunlight. They conducted a fascinating experiment with discs of spinach, syringes and a solution of baking soda.
So many amazing activities at Forest School this afternoon! We’ve been whittling wood, using the saw to cut pieces of wood, using the tool station and looking at cloud formations as well as our favourite activities such as the mud kitchen and tightrope.
Children worked with our horticulturalist to design and create a sensory path. This path will support biodiversity and enable pupils to explore and nature.
Our Green Team and Wellbeing Ambassadors joined forces this week for Eat Them to Defeat Them campaign.
They launched the week with an assembly sharing the importance of healthy eating for their wellbeing and physical health. Each day, children were encouraged to defeat the vegetable of the day! We had a special visitor for the local authority, who encouraged children to take part in the salsa dip taster activity.
Our catering team were amazing with engaging displays, provided lots of interesting facts. What a successful week this has been!
As part of ‘British Science Week,’ Classes 3 and 4 joined an online event, ‘Amazing Adaptations.’ We learnt about how animals have adapted to their environments such as the Belted Galloways. We talked about what makes them so suitable to living in Britain. Dr Harriett told us all about the importance of sustainability in farming, such as using animal poo as a fertiliser to grow better crops. She also told us how farmers have to adapt their practise due to climate change and how we can do our bit by,’ Loving our leftovers’ and stop throwing food away.
Today Year 6 have had an excellent time at Capital One. The visit included a tour of the bank before focussing on careers. This focussed on hard & soft skills where a combination makes you highly employable. Children had to evaluate themselves with a range of skills. After this, groups had to create a skill robot from recycled waste. Well done to the winning group, who all received an Amazon voucher from Capital One.
Our pupils in Reception and Year 1, thoroughly enjoyed their workshops delivered by Judith and her team. They taught Reception and Year 1 children a lot of new skills as they travelled through Gambia.
Children made a colourful African mask, learnt traditional songs and dances, the drums and the bongo! The classes came together to put on a very energetic, entertaining and inclusive performance.
Thank you Judith and your team for coming in and working with us. We have learnt so much about Gambia, through the arts.
Another wonderful afternoon in Forest School. First, we learnt how to make a timber hitch knot. We used clay to make animal footprints as well as setting a safe trap (with peanut butter!). Hopefully, we will see some little animal footprints when we open the traps on Monday. We also used cold charcoal from last week’s fire to make pencils and made potions in the mud kitchen. To finish off, we toasted apples over the campfire.
To celebrate World Book Day, our Reading Rangers launched a week encouraging children to think about their future careers. Each class enjoyed reading a career related book: All Through the Night, Whose Hands are These and Unusual Jobs That You’ve Probably Never Heard. Classes created artwork to celebrate the many essential jobs and jobs they may never have heard about.
Throughout the week, we had special visits from a Paediatric Consultant, Police Officers and a Horticulturalist. We celebrated the end of our week with a parent/carer stay and read, children dressing as their future careers and a wonderful end-of-day assembly celebrating all the hard work the children have put into their career themed artwork.
A big thank you to everyone who made this week such a memorable and inspiring experience for all!
Reception loved making pancakes! They mixed eggs, flour and milk to get the batter. They then fried them. We had a choice of toppings and they tasted yummy.
What a fabulous afternoon we’ve had at Forest School! We started with a treasure hunt followed by balancing on the slack line, climbing trees, building dens, trying out the new hammock and bug hunting. And it wouldn’t be Forest School without hot chocolate and toasted marshmallows on the campfire. 🔥
This week, Year 6 have been busy learning basketball skills in the sun and decorating jars with the popular Victorian arts and craft technique, ‘decoupage’. A fantastic week of learning; what a great start to the half term!