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

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