We have made it to the end of another term and what a busy final week we have had.

Gymnastics

On Saturday a team of 6 gymnasts who entered the Forest of Dean School’s competition. I was so proud of them all because it was the first experience of this annual competition.  All children did the best that they could do and we had 3 children get placed.  Jenson was 3rd in vault in Level 1, year 3 boys.  Abigail was 3rd on vault in Level 2, year 4 girls, with Rhiannon placing 3rd on floor in the same group. They all had a wonderful time and were pleased with their performances.

 

Reading

One of targets this year has been to increase the amount of children who read regularly, at least 3 times a week.  This term we had a number of children receiving their Tickled Pink Bronze award which means that this is the first term that they have achieved the target.  We also had numerous children receiving their Silver award because they have read regularly since September.  I would love to see everyone receive a certificate in the summer.

Attendance

As you know we aim for all children to have 100% attendance and 12 of our children were able to achieve this.  They are:

Brooke, Frank, Bethan, Cameron, Paige, Lily-Rose, Jenson, Alfie-Jai, Kaiden, Olly, Ryan and Imogen.

Furthermore, a number of children have only missed one day. Well done!

 

Geology Workshop

We have had the Gloucestershire Geology Society in school today working with the whole school.  Here are some photographs depicting the day. We got to travel in a time machine and try to appreciate how long ago fossils were formed.

 

Headteacher Awards

As you know I award two awards, one from Oak and from Willow for the children who have upheld our school values at all times.  It is getting increasingly difficult to choose because so many of our children do this, a wonderful problem to have!

Marriage!

We would all like to wish Miss Brint and her fiance, Mr Stirrup best wishes for their day tomorrow and their future life together.  We look forward to welcoming Mrs Stirrup to our staff after Easter.

 

Happy Easter everyone and I hope that you get to spend some quality time with your families and friends.

Thank you all for donating to Sports Relief. I know that there are so many charities, all of equal worth, it is difficult to know which ones to support. I am not sure of the final amount collected today but I know that viritually all children brought in their pound.  Mrs Hopkins organised it all for us and got the children working out at lunch time.

More monetary success!

In January I wrote a bid to get £17,000 to improve our outdoor area by Oak classroom.  We want to have a covered free flow outdoor area for the KS1 children to be able to use during the day. We found out yesterday that we were successful and would be getting £15,300 from the County and we make our contribution of £1,700.  I have asked for the project to start ASAP!

 

Mental Health and Well Being

This is a hot topic at the moment and rightly so.  Children and adults cannot be expected to thrive unless they feel well in themselves, physically and mentally.  This week we have had Chris Powell from GHLL working with Willow class putting together a program of activities to help them and Oak children to keep their steps up.  We also had Misha from the Wye & Usk federation taking us pond dipping. We all had a fabulous time, although one or two children got a little wetter than planned!  Good job that we have spare clothes!

 

Our Celebrations

 

It has been a strange week without the year 6 children in school.  If the photographs are anything to go by, they have had a wonderful time. I cannot wait to see them on Monday so they can tell me all about it.  Hopefully they will write a little piece about their favourite bits  to post online.  You will be able to see one of the photographs in the newsletter which has been sent home today and is on the school website.

 

Books for Bugs

Thank you to everyone who supported Books for Bugs, we received 9 free books.

I don’t want to repeat myself with my blog and my newsletter so this week’s blog is short and sweet!

Our Celebrations

Forensic Science

Now that the majority of the snow has gone we can get back to reality! Before the ‘Beast from the East’ hit, Willow went to Dene Magna to carry out some Forensic Science.  We arrived to a scene of crime: someone had stolen the answers to the exam papers to make sure that their class scored the highest marks.  The challenge was to investigate and carry out lots of tests to see who the culprit was.

 

Some of the activities included:

• Using Benedicts to test whether there was sugar in blood – the culprit cut themselves whilst committing the crime
• Using Chromatography to test which pen was used by each suspect – a note was left by the culprit
• Finger prints detection – there was a partial print at the crime scene so the children had to compare finger prints to find a match
• Filtering mud left in footprints, then heating the solution to see if there are any salts in it. This could link the culprit to what they have been doing recently.

The children had an amazing time and want to go again!

Thank you to Mr Holmyard at Dene Magna.

 

Bags for School

Thank you to everyone who donated old clothes, the end result was £68.

English improvement Activities

Mrs Hopkins has started work on the Oracy project this week and the children loved it, especially when they got to take home their goody bag and books to share with their parents over the weekend.

We have been very lucky to have Mavis Jenkins bring in her special listening dog, Myfi, to listen to the children read.  This is going to be a regular activity and we look forward to welcoming them to our school.  The feedback from the children has been very positive.

Our Ripping Reads have proved to be popular already, all children can sign out a book from the display in the corridor to read it at home.  Some children have read two books already this week!

 

 

Our English creative homework continues and here are some of the WAGOLL work which has made it onto the coveted space on the wall. Keep up the hard work everyone!

 

 

Book in a Box

All of the children in school, independently, made a representation from their favourite book.  Here are some of the entries:

Our winners were “Rapunzel and Alice in Wonderland” combined from Oak and then “The Tiger who came to Tea” from Willow.  Well done to everyone.

Rapunzel and Alice in Wonderland

 

Our Celebrations

 

After snow stopped play on Thursday, we finally got to spend a day celebrating reading and literature. Some of the events that we fitted in included:

• Talking about our favourite book
• Oak and Willow shared a book
• Oak dressed up in Fairy Tales costumes, in-line with their Traditional tales topic
• Willow dressed as Victorians, in-keeping with their book, Street Child
• Willow researched about Thomas Barnardo, the person who inspired Street Child
• Shoe boxes about our favourite book
• Launched our Ripping Reads which is an initiative to encourage children to read for pleasure

Here are some of the photographs that have been taken, more will follow!

 

 

 

 

We wanted to recreate a Victorian School photograph, I love the outcome!