This morning Year 6 were visited by Belong Nottingham as part of Black History Month. Children were fascinated by the story of Jacob Wainwright, a companion of Dr David Livingstone. Unfortunately, Jacob’s reputation has been tarnished over the years, highlighting the racism and prejudice that different minorities have faced throughout the years. This project improves his reputation as well as exploring Jacob’s links to Nottingham.
Reception enjoyed learning about Bessie Coleman for Black History Month. She was the first African-American female pilot. We learnt how she did acrobatics on her aeroplane and even jumped out of it. We then made our own paper aeroplanes and practiced throwing them to see how far they could go.
A fantastic final afternoon of Forest School with Ms Turner-Jones & Mr K. The fire has been burning all afternoon as children have been baking chocolate orange sponges which tasted delicious. On top of this, children enjoyed the full range of usual activities such as den building and whittling.
Thanks to Ms Turner-Jones & Mr K!
Prepare to be amazed! Look at our astounding greenhouses! We have learnt all about how greenhouses work and why they are used. We learnt about the Eden Project in Cornwall where giant greenhouses house tropical plants. We have designed, made and evaluated our own greenhouses. Today we planted seeds in them to grow for our school grounds. All the teachers are amazed at our workmanship!
In Design and Technology, we made a pair of curtains. We had to design and use an appropriate material to block the light. We learnt that the material had to be opaque.
Mrs Kerrison and our No Outsiders Leadership team, led our Black History assembly to introduce the theme ‘Reclaiming Narratives’. The team have chosen books for their classes to read and activities to complete.
Our children have learnt about significant individuals in history and discussed the importance of equality and inclusion.
This year’s theme is Mental Health in the Workplace. The theme highlights the importance of addressing mental health and wellbeing in the workplace, for the benefit of people, organisations, and communities. Our Wellbeing ambassadors delivered little goody bags to all of our staff to say a big ‘Thank You’ for all that they do for everyone in school and to show their appreciation on behalf of all the pupils. All of our school team were overjoyed with their display of kindness. How lucky we are to have such thoughtful children in our school.
Lots of lovely independent learning happened in Reception class today. We used our phonic skills to make words, created repeating patterns, used numicon to make a picture and accessed the mark making table to practice letter writing and formation.
This afternoon in Year 6 children investigated how to prove yeast is a microorganism. In groups, children wrote a prediction before completing an experiment using warm water in a bottle that was mixed with yeast and sugar. On top of the bottle was a balloon which gradually filled with gas, proving yeast is a microorganism.
A group of pupils from Year 5 and 6 took part in a poetry workshop with poet Manjit Sahota.
They focused their poetry on the themes ‘Identity and Belonging’. Our pupils were thoughtful with their vocabulary choices, making creative connections with the work around them. Manjit shared his own works and ideas, to help the group create their own poems. They were all unique and inspiring. Each pupil performed their work with such pride and enjoyment. Well done to our future poets!
In History Year 1 are looking at the history of schools. So why not look at the history of our school? We asked Miss Whiley to talk about Southwold as she remembered it when she attended here as a child. We learnt so much from here and loved hearing all of her stories.
Local poet Manjit Sahota, visited our school as part of National Poetry Day. He recited poems influenced by numbers, holidays and other enjoyable themes. Manjit encouraged our pupils to share their own poems. They spoke with confidence, creativity and showed a genuine enjoyment for poetry.
Children in Reception and Key Stage 1 have gained a great deal from BeatFeet drumming sessions, where the children have taken trip to Africa, meeting animals and working together to sing African songs and play various rhythms on drums and expressing themselves through movement. The children have developing their imagination and cooperative skills, as well as continue to develop a love of learning through fun and engaging activities.
A fantastic end to our Year 6 Into University Focus Week. Children performed a short show about their important individual from WW2 before receiving their certificate from David, who works at Nottingham University. Before this, children further developed their WW2 knowledge while also participating in a campus tour to see what university life is like.
Reception class enjoyed doing an experiment for science this week. We used kitchen roll to make our own rainbow. We coloured in the ends and then dipped it in water. We were amazed to see how the water soaked into the kitchen roll and made the colours move. This then created a rainbow effect.
Our House Captains and Creative Collaborative Lead have been reviewing new designs for our school. Our pupils discussed the designs, reflecting upon colour, style and the message being communicated. They showed a deep understanding of our schools ethos, core values and rules. They were incredibly creative with their ideas and clearly articulated their suggestions with strong reasoning. Their feedback has been returned to our designer. We are looking forward to seeing their revised designs.
Our pupil Wellbeing Ambassadors have been very busy in their recruitment for new Behaviour Leaders. They discussed and made a list of questions for the Behaviour Lead interviews. Our Ambassadors then considered very carefully the qualities that are needed for the role. This included our school rules and core values. Using this information, they selected pupils for interview. Our pupils were incredibly thoughtful of the needs of our pupils and school, and how we can best support our pupils.
What a fabulous day we’ve had at Perlethorpe learning all about the Vikings. We visited a Viking home; trying on armour, playing a traditional Viking game, and grinding grain to make flour. In the afternoon we did den building and ended our day in the play area.
Today was Year 6’s first day at Into University. Children were introduced to their focus week before being placed into their groups. Using the focus of WW2, children then completed four tasks relating to important aspects such as rationing, morse code & VE Day. The afternoon saw the start of the secret mission – shhhh!
This afternoon, Year 3 have been learning how our muscles work. We made a model of our arm to show how the bicep and tricep work together when we bend and straighten our arm.
Our Year 5 guitarists travelled to Ilam Hall for their Music Camp residential. They engaged in all activities with great energy and enthusiasm. They enjoyed playing in the monster band, musical orienteering and the fabulous (if a little wet) night walk.
Our school is committed to promoting British Values and ensuring all of our community feel welcome and respected. As part of the Picture News Big Celebration Assembly, our pupils celebrated people’s differences. Through their discussions of mutual respect and tolerance, they shared ideas of how we can all support each other. Our pupils also gave some lovely examples of what they do in school to support other pupils.
At the start of term, our year 6 pupils were very busy preparing for the House Team election campaign. Their speeches were full of inspirational ideas, with a clear view of how they would like to help improve of school. All of our candidates spoke with passion and enthusiasm. As ballot cards were filled and votes counted, a buzz of excitement filled the hall.
Well done to our newly elected Year 6 House and Vice Captains. They will lead our: Green Team, Pupil Wellbeing, Community Ranger and No Outsiders teams. We look forward to working with them over the year.
The No Outsiders had their first meeting today in our beautiful library. We discussed poetry and ensuring everyone feels welcome at Southwold in preparation for World Poetry Day.
As part of the Urban Nature Project Explore project, Year 6 visited Wollaton Hall yesterday to participate in a range of outdoor activities examining the diverse range of living things. Children completed a botanical garden survey using quadrats before engaging in a water investigation at Wollaton Lake. This involved pond dipping and identifying different species. Our pupils are now part way through achieving their Crest Award. An excellent day; well done all.
This afternoon, class 3 have been artefact detectives. We were lucky to have artefacts from Wollaton Hall. We answered the questions; What is the artefact made from?, What was it used for?, Who used the artefact?, What does the artefact tell us about Viking life?,
We even got chance to try on a Viking helmet – it was very heavy!
Today our pupils enjoyed their first instrumental lesson of the year. Pupils have been introduced to a new brass instrument – the trumpet! They started by learning how to place their lips on the mouthpiece and breathing techniques. The pupils thoroughly enjoyed learning about the wind instrument.
We would like to introduce our newly formed pupil leadership group, our school ‘Attendance Champions’!
Every week they will meet with our Deputy Headteacher, Mrs Taylor, leading attendance across the school. The children will decide on suitable targets for classes to achieve and rewards that classes can earn, which will be shared weekly in our whole school assembly, as well as our attendance champions sharing and promoting with their classes.
We know that ‘Moments Matter’ and every child deserves to get the best from their time at school.
Today in Science we have been investigating the question, ‘Do people with longer arms throw further?’
We measured the length of our arm then threw a bean bag and measured the distance of our throw. We found out that the person with the longest arm did NOT have the longest throw.