April 2019 Issue 54

XXXXXXXX Year 5 had an amazing time on their three-day residential visit to Robinwood activity centre at Dobroyd Castle in Todmorden in March. Over the weekend, they developed a range of skills and qualities in their groups such as: challenging themselves to overcome fears, becoming great team members, supporting others in challenging situations, improving their problem solving skills, overcoming physical challenges and developing their confidence.

The children took part in a variety of new and exciting outdoor and adventurous activities there, including:

learning archery and doing shooting competitions;

riding a giant swing with their friends;

canoeing and playing ball games on a lake;

riding down a zip line in the snow;

jumping off a high tower to catch a trapeze;

climbing up walls to reach the top as fast as possible;

trying to escape from the Dungeon of Doom.

April 2019 Issue 54

Blue Planet

Years 1 and 2 went to the Blue Planet Aquarium in Cheshire. The children looked at starfish, rays and sharks in the tanks, then took part in a workshop to learn how to identify and classify marine life, in habitats like rock pools and coral reefs.

Spaceport

Years 5 and 6 went to Spaceport museum on the Wirral. Here the children: explored the exhibits explaining the science of our Solar System, watched a film about extra-terrestrial life, fired toy rockets and rode a rollercoaster space simulator.

Football team

Our football team had a great experience at Spotland Stadium in January, being flag bearers and then playing a mini match at half-time against Moorhouse.

Choir

Huge congratulations to the choir who performed brilliantly at the Rochdale Music Festival. The children came first in one choral singing competition and third in another.

Valentine’s Day

Children in Years 2-6 had a fun time dancing, playing games and eating heart-themed snacks at a special Valentine’s Day disco, raising a total of £327 for the school!

Roman experience day

Years 3 and 4 travelled back in time to discover what life was like in the Roman army on their trip to Murton Park.

Equipped with their uniform, helmet, spear and shield, the young recruits learnt the skills of: weapons training (using

dummy weapons!), guard duty, craft work and parade drill.

April 2019 Issue 54

Bikeability

Year 5 children took part in two cycling proficiency lessons in which they learnt the basics of controlling a bike and how to ride on quiet roads with traffic.

Children had lots of fun on 7th March by dressing up as an author or character from a book that inspires them. Teachers also read extracts from their favourite story books to each class to share their love of reading.

Red Nose Day

To support Comic Relief and Down’s Syndrome Awareness Day, the children enjoyed having wacky hair, non-uniform and rocking their socks!

Fair Trade Fortnight Classes across the school did a day

of activities about fair trading: decorating biscuits with fair trade ingredients, drinking fair trade tea and designing their own fair trade wrappers. Children could also bake an amazing cake for a competition using fair trade ingredients, judged by our Eco Team.

Humanities big finish

The whole school split into groups of mixed ages to finish this half-term’s topic work about history and geography. They were challenged to answer two questions in each classroom to help them discover different facts:

Reception’s theme was ‘castles’ and they learnt about their defence features and William the Conqueror.

In Year 1, they learnt about the history of transport and could recreate some vehicles from the past using Lego.

In Year 2, they found out about the Manchester bee symbol and its meaning.

In Year 3, they learnt about the Roman invasion of Britain and Hadrian’s Wall.

In Year 4, they were taught how to march with shields like Roman soldiers.

In Year 5, they learnt about Henry VIII.

In Year 6, they found out about Britain’s battles with Spain in Tudor times.

April 2019 Issue 54

Mining museum

As part of their science topic on ‘rocks and soils’, Years 3 and 4 went to the National mining museum to learn about how coal was formed 300 million years ago and how it is extracted from the earth by miners. They all enjoyed going underground into a real mine shaft and finding out how hard the working conditions were.

Year 4

Year 4 explained the science behind what makes the Earth angry, including how the movements of plates cause earthquakes and how volcanoes erupt when magma is released from the gaps between them.

Year 5

Year 5’s assembly was about the Earth in space. The children talked about: the history of astronomy, facts about the different planets in our Solar System, what causes day and night and the moon landings.

Easter celebrations

The whole school had another 'egg'-cellent time celebrating Easter this year: three classes visited All Saints and Martyrs

church to learn about the different parts of the Easter story, the Infants did an egg hunt, parents took part in a family Easter

bingo event and lots of children displayed Easter bonnets and decorated eggs they had made in our annual competition.

Class assemblies

Lunar New Year

The infants spent a morning rotating around their classes to celebrate the start of the Lunar New Year of the pig. They: made paper lanterns, painted pointillism pictures of cherry blossom trees, coloured in dragons, tasted noodles with chopsticks and wrote words in Mandarin using water ink.

Created by Mr. Haughton