Sports Relief 2016

Last Friday we had to come to school dressed as our favourite sports person. 'I dressed up as a street dancer because that is my favourite sport to do' - Maceo. 'I dressed up as a ballerina because I love that type of dance' - Anya. 

In the morning we started our day of being active by dancing with the teachers and staff on the playground to songs like 'Macarena'. We all had lots of laughs and fun joining in. 

Next we went swimming as we do every Friday but this week was special! We got to have a fun swim session where we got to use giant floats, throw balls and use surf board floats to play with. Miss Bailey also got in the pool and we had fun splashing her!  

At lunch there was a big competition of teachers vs children! We all had to throw dodgeballs at the grown ups but avoid the balls they threw. The teachers nearly won but at the very last moment the children were victorious! What a fantastic time we had! 

To use these photos we went and got permission from the grown ups to check they were happy to feature on the internet and to keep them safe!

Sports relief is very important because it is a charity that helps children that aren't as lucky as us. They help children all over the world to have a better life. 

By Anya and Maceo

Wonderful World Book Day!

Thursday 3rd March is World Book Day! We bought some of our favourite books in to school to read with our friends. After phonics we had a whole-school story swap. We went in to the hall to find out which books the teachers would be reading and we got to choose the book we wanted to listen to. 

"I went with Miss Baldwin to listen to The Book With No Pictures, there were so many children who chose this book that we had to stay in the hall instead of going to the library! I like this book because it is funny and it doesn't have any pictures so you have to use your imagination!" - Layla.

"I went with Miss Dale into Class 3 to read The Highway Rat by Julia Donaldson. I have this book at home and really enjoy reading it. I like it because I find this author's books very interesting. I would recommend Stickman and Monkey Puzzle as well." - Millie.

In the afternoon, Miss Bailey read the story she had chosen for the story swap to us. This was 'Slug Needs a Hug', a really heart-warming story about a slug who wants his mum to give him a hug so he sets out to become more huggable. She then gave us time to read our own stories with our friends. We both bought in our favourite books from home. 

"I bought in The Perfect Hamburger by Alexander McCall Smith. It is about a man who works in a hamburger shop and his name is Mr Borthwick. It is a funny story about a customer, Joe, who helps Mr Borthwick make the perfect hamburger but then forgets the ingredients so they can't sell any! I think lots of children would like this book, especially ones who like hamburgers!" - Layla.




"I bought in The Troll by Julia Donaldson, I told you I liked her stories! This book is about a troll who has to find a bridge to find a goat and eat him. If he hears a noise on the bridge he says 'Who's that trip-tropping over my bridge?' I find this book quite funny because of the illustrations. I read this book with my little brother at home because he likes it too!" - Millie. 

World Book Day is great because we get to share lots of stories with our friends and teachers! 

By Millie and Layla

Marvellous M.A.D.D Week

This week is M.A.D.D Week! This means we have a really fun week focusing on Music, Art, Dance and Drama. At the start of the week we had an assembly from Mrs Gray about our special week. We went through the letters and saw something exciting for each letter. 'M' for Music -we sang our school song. 'A' for Art-  children from each class showed some of their artwork, in our class Emilija showed a piece of chalk work. 'D' for Dance- Class 5 showed us their Scottish dance. Finally 'D' for Drama- Mrs Gray talked about our School Pantomime and we practised shouting "Come In" when we hear a knock at the door. 

After assembly we started our week with some art. We used watercolour paints to create colourful, eye-catching Chameleons. We had to use lots of water to make sure the different colours blended together. After we practised on our small Chameleon, we then made a larger Chameleon for the hall to show one of our school values - Considering Chameleon. 

On Tuesday our day started with an exciting and energetic assembly from Ashley from West End In School. He showed us lots of different types of dance like Ballet, Tap and Hip-Hop dancing. When we heard we were first to work with Ashley we were over the moon! In our workshop we did dancing through the ages, starting with the Charleston, which was interesting because it was something we hadn't heard of before. We also did Rock n' Roll and disco dancing, which was really fun because we got to learn lots of different types of dance. Ashley was a brilliant dancer and we all had a big smile on our faces throughout!

On Tuesday afternoon we created our own play to show to the rest of Year 2 on Thursday. Our performance is about a Chameleon that is a little bit down in the dumps because he was disappointed that he was grey and didn't have a special talent. He went on a journey and discovered a rainbow, but did he get his colours? The children worked in 3 groups to add different things to our play. One group tried really hard to create an exciting super rainbow dance to dazzle our audience. Another group created realistic rain sounds using instruments like maracas, drums and tambourines! Our final group were amazing animal actors and they were fantastic at remembering their lines. 

On Thursday we got to perform our Chameleon play, we were a little bit nervous before but we managed to put on a great performance. Class 9 went first and we even added a bonus song at the end! Next went Class 8 and they did an incredible performance about the Discussion Dolphin (we liked the songs best!). Finally Class 7 performed and they did a marvellous guessing game to get the audience guessing which school value they had focused on, we discovered it was the Active Ant. 

We are really happy that we have got to learn lots of new things during M.A.D.D week and we loved every minute of it!

By Class 9

Discovering Islam

This half term we have been thinking about the question 'Who is a Muslim?'. In our first lesson Class 9 thought about questions we would like to ask a Muslim child. Miss Bailey then asked those children who are Muslim to come up to the front to be our 'experts'. Children asked us questions like 'What do you eat?', 'What do you wear?' and 'How do you celebrate a wedding?'.


Ibrahim and Malaika showed us how to pray in a Mosque. You take your shoes off and kneel down on a prayer mat. Boys' backs have to raise up and girls' backs must be flat. We also looked at a Qu'ran and the special stand they can sit on. Did you know that Arabic is read from the right to left - the opposite way to how we read English? Lots of children told us all about their own families, where their relatives were born and how they practice their religion. We could remember lots of things from our R.E. Faith Trail back in November too.

In another lesson we looked at Allah's 99 names, it must be very hard to remember them all! M.Ayaan very kindly bought in some prayer beads from home to show us. Muslims use prayer breads to help them remember the 99 names, moving one bead along each time a name is said.

We have all really enjoyed learning more about Islam this half term and are excited to learn more about 'How and why do we celebrate special occasions?'.

By M.Ayaan and Malaika

Visiting the Council Chambers

Last Tuesday, the school council went to visit the Council Chambers in Derby. Right before we went I felt so excited because I've never seen the Council Chambers before!

To get there we had to go on a small blue coach, it felt like the journey whizzed by but actually the Council Chambers are quite far from our school. When we got off the bus we stood on the stairs outside the Council Chambers but we nearly blew away because the wind was so fierce. We got to look at the doors that used to be the entrance but Mrs Gray realised these were the old doors and they aren't used any more!

Miss Doyle and Mrs Gray had to sign us into the Chambers to keep us safe and in case there was a fire. Then a lady that worked there called us into the hallway and told us there was 150 stairs to the Mayors office. That sounds like a lot of stairs! 

After that she called Mr Mayor to come and meet us all and he took us into the meeting room. The meeting room was gigantic and it was filled with chairs, even a special chair that the Mayor sits on (it's the biggest one!). 



We all had to find our chair that said 'Councillor' and our surname, which made us feel very proud and important that we were allowed to visit such a special place. Mr Mayor showed us how to use the microphones, which you have to turn on every time you want to speak during a meeting. When you use the microphone your face appears on the television screens around the room so everyone can see who is talking.

We were lucky enough to hold a School Council meeting in the real Council chambers. In our meeting we discussed the outdoor classroom vs a canopy over the Sensory Square. We decided the outdoor classroom was a good idea because you can rest there if you get tired and  because its a nice big space. 12/12 people voted for the outdoor classroom instead of the canopy. Miss Coburn took lots of photos of us with Mr Mayor around the Council Chambers. 

By Humayd 

Websites to help at home!

It is always helpful to have a list of 'go to' websites on hand to continue to make learning progress at home. Here is a list of websites we find particularly useful!

Literacy websites

http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/words/grammar

http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/words/punctuation

https://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/en/english-grammar

http://www.oxfordowl.co.uk/for-home/reading-owl/reading

Read the Oxford Reading Tree books and lots of others for free on this brilliant website.


Maths websites

http://www.mathletics.co.uk/

Tell your child to ask if they have lost their Mathletics log-in details and we can send them home again.

http://www.topmarks.co.uk/

http://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/ks1/maths/


Computing websites

https://studio.code.org/hoc/1
Continue to play the coding games we have been using in class.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/guides/z3c6tfr
Practice typing skills with this fun game! 

If you ever have any questions about how you can help your child at home, please ask me after school or send a note in with your child and I will get back to you as soon as possible. 

Miss Bailey

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