Over the last few weeks we have been a hive of activity preparing the school for Christmas. This includes the amazing decorations the staff put up around school and all the hard work that has gone into the Christmas productions and performances.
The first performance was by Key Stage 1 who performed ‘The Little Fir Tree’, for teachers, children, parents and carers.
KS1 performing The Little Fir Tree.
KS1 Perform ‘All Alone’ at their Christmas Production, ‘The Little Fir Tree’.
KS1 Perform ‘Hear the Rain’ at their Christmas Production, ‘The Little Fir Tree’.
Later in the week we were treated to EYFS performing their production, ‘Christmas Counts’ during which we heard both amazing singing and the children pulling off some extraordinary dance moves and solos.
EYFS perform Christmas Counts.
EYFS perform ‘Who Can Count the Angels in the Sky’ as part of their Christmas Production.
EYFS perform ‘Christmas Counts for Everyone’ as part of their Christmas Production.
The final production of the week was KS2 performing their Carol Service. A time to bring everyone together we watched some beautiful singing of many Christmas staples.
KS2 performing their Carol Service.
KS2 Performing ‘We Three Kings of Orient Are’ at their 2019 Christmas Carol Service
Its really been a wonderful and festive last few weeks and we wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Enjoy your holidays everyone.
Year 5 children perform in their Ancient Egypt Assembly.
Year 5 performed their annual assembly this morning. The topic was about Ancient Egypt to fit into their history lessons. They sang songs and performed acting about mummification, the discovery of Tutankhamun and about King Tut himself.
Year 5 children perform in their Ancient Egypt Assembly.
Year 5 visited the Oriental Museum in Durham as part of this term’s history topic; the Ancient Egyptians. They looked at and were able to handle a range of real Egyptian artifacts and also dressed as Egyptians and learned all about how to mummify a body and why this was important to the Egyptians. Finally, the children saw (and smelled) a real Ancient Egyptian Mummy.
We recently held a Recycling Week here at school. Our aim was to ensure that the children know:
What is pollution and what link does it have to recycling?
What is recycling and why is it important?
What impact can you have to help our environment?
We did this by carrying out a number of discussions and activities with all the year groups.
Key Stage 1 did such things as looking at the story of the Messy Magpie and how collecting litter ruined her habitat. From this the children had a discussion about the impact of pollution and wrote a poem about 5 ways we can help the Earth. This culminated in an activity to sort through rubbish left in different terrains to see what needed to be recycled and what thrown into the rubbish.
The children separating normal waste from recycling.
Key Stage 2 watched the BBC documentary The Blue Planet, and followed it with a discussion about how waste, including plastic waste is having an extreme negative effect on our planets oceans. They made a poster showing 5 ways to help the Earth and carried out an Environmental Review where they answered check boxes and left comments about how our school meets up to the expectations of the Eco Schools Ten Sustainable Topics.
An example from our Environmental Reviews carried out by the children.
The Year 5 and 6 Tennis team took part in the Sunderland Tennis Finals. They showed great determination in both their tennis matches and in the skills events. After all the points they gained where added together we had beaten everyone else and where named Sunderland Champions.
The whole of year 5 enjoyed an afternoon with some of the players from the Newcastle Eagles basketball team. During the afternoon, they worked on how to stay healthy in terms of diet and mental health. To finish the afternoon the players showed off some of their skills and then ran drills with the children. Finally, the children finished off with a game against each other.
We started the week with a whole school assembly about Fairtrade and then each year group carried out research into why Fairtrade is important and why we should be supporting it. The children then made posters to encourage people to buy Fairtrade products. Year 2 wrote letters from the point of view of Fairtrade farmers, telling people why Fairtrade helps them and their families. Year 5 and 6 held a discussion on whether we should buy Fairtrade chocolate and the arguments both for and against.
All this work culminated with a display board we have put up in school that displays all aspects of the work we have done throughout the week.
The children take part in a Show Racism the Red Card activity
All the children from Year 5 took part in a day put on by Show Racism the Red Card. They completed a range of tasks throughout the morning about racism including some of the vocabulary which they may encounter and where it originates from. The sessions were a great success with the children receiving important information along with some great prizes for participation.
