Christmas craft week!

On Monday we found out that we would be making special Christmas crafts all week. We made a reindeer bag by sticking a face onto a brown bag, colouring it in and drawing around our hands to make 3D antlers. We then put all of our work into this bag throughout the week.

The first set of activities we completed were Christmas song anagrams, which is where you sort the jumbled letters to create a word making the name of a song; some were really tricky and took us ages! Next we did snowflake number sentences and decorated our own stocking pictures with lots of nice patterns. We then made Christmas bookmarks that said 'Merry Christmas' on them.

Next we made dancing Santa's. We had to colour in all of the parts and then when we cut them out we had to put holes in each part so we could fix them together with split pins to make the joints move. We also made special cards in the shape of crackers and they had pictures of our faces in. We decorated the cards with glitter, sequins and felt tips. 

We made cone Santa decorations to hang on the tree. These were really hard and exhausting to make because it was really tricky to stick the cone shape together. Once you had made the cone body you then had to stick on his arms, legs, beard and belt. 

The final things we made were gingerbread shapes. We had to make the dough by weighing out flour, golden syrup, eggs, ginger, sugar and butter. Then we had to stir it which made us very tired! Next we rolled out the dough and cut into lots of different shapes. When we had finished we baked the biscuits for 10 minutes and after they cooled we could decorate them!

We hope everyone has a lovely Christmas and a happy new year!

By Adi and Owen

Christmas Christingles!

On Monday the ladies from Tesco came to help us make a Christingle each. They began by telling us the reason why we make Christingles, before demonstrating how to make it.

Sue told us that the orange represents the Earth and the red ribbon shows us all being bought together. We then put four sticks on the corners, these represented the four seasons. We put sweets and raisins on the sticks, although if we are vegetarian we only used raisins. We put a candle in the middle to make the world light up!


"I liked the activity because we get to use the candle safely with a grown-up and we get to eat the sweets!" - Tyler.
"I enjoyed doing this because it is something I have never done before" - Rayyan.



By Rayyan and Tyler

Merry Christmas!

In the month of December in Class 9 we decided to decorate our classroom into a Christmas classroom. To do this we put up a tree and decorated it with baubles, tinsel and things that we have made. We also put up a festive wreath and some lights to make our room look Christmassy and wonderful. 

We have a special job to do every day. If you try your best you get chosen to open one of our special Christmas boxes, inside you will find a fun surprise! Also you might get chosen to put the sticker of the day onto our Christmas sticker chart. 

This week we got to eat our school Christmas dinner - it was scrumptious! We got to eat brussel sprouts, carrots, roast potatoes, chicken and we even got Christmas tree choc ices for pudding.

We are also practicing lots for our Christmas play called 'Christmas with the Aliens!', and we are practicing saying our lines loudly and clearly like actors and singing all our songs beautifully. My favourite song is 'Well I Never!' - Tanai. My favourite song is 'We Three Kings' - Luca.

 By Tanai and Luca

St. Peter's Church

Last Thursday we spent the morning at St. Peter's Church. After phonics we walked up a big hill from school to the Church, it took us half an hour! 

When we got to the church we met a man called Ian who took us through the grounds. He showed us a special little door that was used by the Vicar in the past because it meant they had to bow to show respect as they entered the Church. Outside we also saw that the building had been made bigger as more people visit it and the colour of the stone changed. 

When we walked inside, the Church was gigantic! The ceilings were so high. First Ian told us about the things that were in the Church. Then it was our turn to do some work and we were given a booklet with things to find like the Font, stained glass windows and the Pulpit. 

Then we had to draw our favourite part of the Church. 'My favourite part ws the glass windows because they were really pretty.' - Imogen. 'My favourite part was the Pulpit because I like that everyone can hear you talk when you stand there!' -Manjot. We also had to write down the special celebrations that happen in a Church like weddings, services and Baptisms. 

Finally we ended our trip by having a drink and  biscuit, which were super yummy and gave us energy for the long walk back to school!

By Manjot and Imogen

STEM Day - all about chairs!

On STEM day we were set the interesting challenge of designing our own chair. This was so that we could get some ideas for Ridgeway's very own story chair! To begin with we all had to think carefully about the design for the back, the arms and the legs. 

Some children chose to do draw crowns, pencils and some of us even chose to put 'Once upon a Ridgeway time' on the back! "I chose to write a story on my chair because I thought children could read it before they sat down" - Humayd. "I chose to put some legs, hands and feet onto my design - I was trying to be  creative!" - Fiza.

On Friday we took some of Class 9's best work with us to school council, where we all sat and looked at the different designs. Miss Doyle and Miss Coburn listened ccarefully to everyone's opinions before gathering all of the best ideas onto one design. 

<----- The final design is AMAZING! Everybody loved it when it was revealed in assembly. "I really likes the different books at the bottom, especially the Three Little Pigs because there is something special and secretive about it" - Fiza. "I think the R for Ridgeway is excellent!" - Humayd. 
Miss Coburn is now going to send the final design to a wood-carver so he can begin making our story chair. We can't wait to use it! 

By Fiza and Humayd.

Fire Safety in Class 9!

Last week we had an important lesson in fire safety. We were very lucky to have Kate from Kingsway fire station visit us in school. 

When Kate first arrived she told us that in our homes we must have a smoke alarm and we also must test it every week! It is important to have a smoke alarm because it will wake you up if there is a fire in your house. 


Next we watched a video about two children learning to be fire safe and making their fire plan. A fire plan is a special plan that you and your family make together in case there is a fire so you know the best and safest route to leave your house. We also learnt it is especially important that you get out of the building safely, leaving everything behind before ringing the fire brigade. If the door is closed you should feel it with the back of your hand to see if it is hot, this is so you know if it is safe to go through the door. 

Did you know that smoke rises? The safest thing to do is to crawl as close to the floor as you can because you will see more clearly and get more air in your lungs. 

After the video Kate asked us lots of fire safety questions about what might protect you in a fire and also the problems that happen if you overload plug sockets. 

By Emma, Jodhveer and Sabeel

The amazing R.E. Trail!

Last Tuesday we came to school feeling amazed and excited at the thought of it being our turn for the school trip. When we got to school we had to go to the toilet and put our coats on ready for our adventure! We got on the gigantic, blue coach to travel to our first destination. 



After 5 minutes on the coach we arrived at the Mosque. We waited outside for the lady to show us around and we looked at the interesting and unusual writing outside, which we learnt to be Arabic. It was very important to cover our heads with a scarf or a hat to show respect to Allah. Once inside the Mosque we had to take our shoes off to show respect and keep the floors clean. Then we all sat on the floor with our legs crossed to learn about the religion of Islam. The carpet we sat on was divided into squares to show how much space people need to pray. 

After that we walked a short way to the Mandir, which is the Hindu Temple. Once again we took our shoes off to show respect. Next we rung the big bell sensibly to show we were arriving in the temple. Hindu's ring the bell to say hello and goodbye to God. We learnt what the Aum sign looks like and what each part means as well as how it sounds. Some people that visit the Mandir pour milk over a special snake statue. Before we left we walked carefully around the marble statues, which we learnt are called Deities, that are very important to Hindu's. 

After the Mandir we walked down the road to the Gudwara. Once at the Gurdwara we lined up in two lines as boys and girls and covered our heads once again to show respect. After taking our shoes off we went into a big room to learn about the 5K's that are important to Sikhs and we listened lots because we wanted to learn, not just have fun. We walked round the special book and learnt it gets put to bed every night just like we do! Then we went to the Langar hall to eat curry and special bread. It tasted amazing! 

Finally we went back to school to finish an exciting morning by eating our packed lunch.

By Kiean and Layla

Rules of road safety!

Last week a teacher called Sally, who is an expert in road safety, came to teach us how to stay safe on the road. Sally introduced us to two characters called Nogo and Togo who were aliens. Togo was a road safety expert! Nogo is a red alien and he doesn't know about road safety so Togo was sharing all of his road safety knowledge.


First we had to sit down to learn the rules for being safe on the road. The rules were:
1. Stand behind the curb.
2. Wait for the green man to appear.
3. Look left and right twice to be sure!
4. When you are halfway across the road you must look both ways again.
We practiced all of these rules on a pretend road mat in school to make sure we are always safe near the road.



When crossing the road you must wait until all cars have passed. If there are no cars after you have double checked again you are safe to cross but you must remember to keep you eyes and ears open!

By Ibrahim and Jack

Remembrance Day

Today is the 11th of November 2015, We are reflecting on remembrance day. This is a special day when World War 1 ended in 1918. World War 1 was a horrible battle that started in 1914 and lasted over 4 years! Lots of soldiers during this time got injured or sadly died. 


In assembly today we recited a poem that everyone in school learnt called 'Poppy, Poppy' to remember why we celebrate remembrance day. We really enjoyed learning this poem!




We have made our own poppies today by colouring two cake cases red and cutting them to shape a poppy before glueing it on card and drawing our own fields of poppies.

Last year the Tower of London was covered in 888,246 poppies to show that this is how many soldiers lost their lives in battle.

Written by Daniel and Ben

Take an adventure to our magical Book Fair!

This week at Ridgeway we are so excited to have the book fair visit us in our school hall. A book fair is where lot of amazing books come into school in special cabinets and you can visit with your grown ups and hopefully buy an interesting book for you to enjoy!

"My favourite author is Liz Pichon who writes the Tom Gates books. She is my favourite author because she makes really amazing and realistic books in the style of a diary about a boy and what happens to him throughout the days." - Emilija 

We love reading books not only at school but at home as well because a book can be adventurous or exciting or funny or interesting, you just don't know what will happen until you get lost in it! Some of our other favourite authors include Roald Dahl, Daisy meadows and Julia Donldson.

Written by Amelia, Millie and Emilija 

Mysterious Me!

This half term we are going to be learning about ourselves. We are going to be sharing information about our religion, our families, things that are important to us and our friends. We will also be celebrating what we are good at.

We are very excited and delighted about going on our school trip, the 'RE trail', to the church, the mosque, the gurdwara and the mandir. We are looking forward to finding out more about the statues, the features of the buildings and learning about the different religions.




We will soon begin practising for our Christmas play, keep your eyes peeled for more information!


Written by class 9

Going Global

This half term we have flown to different continents, we travelled around the world in six weeks! We have been looking at facts about all seven continents.

On our first day, Miss Bailey gave us our very own passport to complete each lesson. We used our own international passports to fly to a different continent.










In each continent we looked at two countries in detail. We learnt about their human and physical features, the weather, the animals and the music.

Did you know Oceania is the smallest continent?

At the end of our topic we learnt the continents used to be connected together to make a super continent called Pangea.

We loved the exciting adventures we went on this half term! 

Written by Class 9

Fantastic Farm to Fork Week!

Last week was Farm to Fork week at school.
On the second day, four ladies from Tesco came in to show us fish, cheese and fruit and vegetables. We got to taste the fruit and cheese, some of us weren't keen on the stronger cheese!. We got to hold some sardines and mackerel, they were slippery! 

Betty's Farm also came in to teach us what has got egg in it. Did you know that make-up has egg in it it? We also got to stroke Betty the chicken, she was very soft and fluffy. 

The Co-op came in to show us what a portion is. We did a quiz about fruit and vegetables.
On the last day we made butter from milk! We even got to have a go at milking a pretend cow. When we were making butter we had to shake the sloppy cream really hard because this separated the fat. Afterwards we ate the butter on bread. 

We thought....

Farm to Fork week was supreme - Emilija
Farm to Fork week was amazing - Maceo
Farm to Fork week was a really nice week - Dan
When all of the visitors came in it was fabulous - Millie
When we stroked Betty it was amazing - Tanai
My favourite part of it was when I got to try new fruit and vegetables - Humayd
My favourite part was holding the fish! - Owen

Written and contributed by all of class 9