Pirate day!

Yesterday we had a special day where we dressed up all about our topic this half term; PIRATES! 

At the start of the day class 7, 8 and 9 all went into the hall for an assembly. We were so shocked to see a real pirate had come into school. His name was Captain Burrwash and he was a funny, exciting pirate. He told us all about what it was like to be a pirate and even asked us lots of questions to see what we knew! Captain Burwash set us a challenge to make a new Jolly Roger flag and a wanted poster for some new crew for his new ship.

Next we went back to our classrooms and we carried on with our DT projects about mechanisms. We have looked at horizontal and vertical sliders so far but today we made a pirate that moved his arm using a pivot mechanism. This was really tricky, we had to make sure we put the split pins in the right place so his arm moved properly. 

Afterwards we got into groups of three and set about on Captain Burwash's challenge. 'On our Jolly Roger we put a skull and crossbones with lots of blood and a cutlass going through a heart' - Owen. 'On our Jolly Roger we put a skull with blood dripping from it's eyes' - Ben. We had to make our flags scary because the one he had already wasn't scary enough to ward off other pirates.

After dinner we were lucky enough to have Captain Burrwash come into our classroom. He picked people to hold his guns, cutlass, coins, cannon balls and grenades! When we were learning about them he told us how they worked and how pirates used them.

 'He told us a story about when a pirate cheated in a dice game that he shouldn't have been playing and the Captain caught them and they had to stand back to back before have a fight.' - Owen. We also got to hear lots of stories about Blackbeard and his crew. 

By Owen and Ben

Sensory Square Grand Re-Opening!

Last Thursday afternoon we were all invited to the grand opening of our school's Sensory Square, which is part of our 'Sensation Activation' project.

Everyone in the school went outside and gathered around our the outside. 'I was so excited and over the moon that we will be allowed to play and explore the Sensory Square'- Kiean. 'I felt happy that our hard work helped to create the Sensory Square' - Millie. 

The sensory square is really special to us because we had a STEM day to test the materials for the different pathways. It took a really long time but we feel very proud that we were part of the designs that were made into the final garden! 

At the grand opening we were very lucky to have two V.I.P guests from Rolls-Royce who have been talking to Miss Coburn throughout our project to find out how we are doing. One of the ladies, called Sam, even came in on our STEM day when we tested lots of the materials - we even tried rice pudding! 

The V.I.P guests and Miss Coburn cut a special red ribbon to announce that the Sensory Square was open, it was so exciting! 

By Kiean and Millie

Yoga Bugs!

On Thursday we were very lucky to have a taster session of yoga. Reception do yoga once a week so we were very excited  to try it. Karen came to teach us what to do. When we got in the hall we had to take our shoes and socks off because we all had our own mats to work on. First we had to warm up. It is important to do this because it stops us from hurting our muscles and gets our hearts pumping faster.

Karen showed us how to stand like a 'mountain': this was a very straight, still and tall position. Yoga is a type of exercise that includes lots of different stretches. We did our stretches whilst Karen told us a story about an alien called Jury who was trapped on the moon. We did lots of different movements like climbing a rocket, walking without gravity and shooting back down to Earth. It was a bit like a role play. We managed to save Jury before it was too late!

At the end we had some relaxing music on and closed our eyes whilst we lay in the shape of a star. "Malaika and I nearly fell asleep! After it was really calm."- Hijaab. "We would like to do yoga every day!"- Kamile.

By Hijaab and Kamile

Pesky Pirates!

At the very end of our last half term just before Christmas, we said a sad goodbye to Daniel from class 9 who has gone on a new adventure! We are very excited to find out who will be joining our class in the coming weeks.

Our topic this half term is Pirates. We will be learning all about Blackbeard, who is a famous pirate captain. We learnt that Blackbeard lights fuses in his beard to scare enemies away - we think that sounds scary! 

So far we have written poems about Pirates that used alliteration like scary, smelly, scallywag Pirates. We also wrote some acrostic poems where the letters down the side spell out the word Pirates. We wrote them in our neatest writing on special pirate paper for our display. 

We've also made 'wanted' posters of class 9 dressed as gruesome Pirates. We had to give them funny names and think of a reward for their capture!

In two weeks we are going to have a special day where we dress up as Pirates with eye-patches and torn trousers just like real Pirates do. 

We are really excited to learn more about Blackbeard and what it was like to be a Pirate.

By Maceo and Anya