Pines, and three lovely Maples, experienced a lovely trip to the Discovery Centre on Monday 21st May 2018. We completed great activities which included - environmental art, using the natural environment. The children were able to explore different ways to use the world around us to make pictures, create homes and match colours. We had a fantastic time and the weather was lovely too.
Year four had a great time when the chocolatier came to visit them.
Finlay Dodds and Emy-Leigh Humm represented the school in the level two cross country competition. They were both great ambassadors to the school and showed a lot of resilience to finish the race.
Well done!
Year 3/4 competed against each other in a new aged curling competition. Some of the children had never played the game before but showed great resilience and determination. The children showed brilliant sportsmanship at the end by shaking hands with each other.
The final score was year 3 - 19 points and year 4 - 24 points.
Sports Relief and World Book Day
Year 2 all looked fantastic in their costumes for world book day and sports relief! There was a great effort made by everyone. Throughout the day the classes moved around three exciting activities related to books:
· The Journey: Everyone wrote their own magical story ending for the book.
· ‘A bag full of worries’. The children made their own ‘worry bags’ and discussed how to make our worries smaller.
· ‘Good Friends’ –it was discussed what made a good friend and helped us to keep friendships.
Year 2's Victorian Trip to Braintree Museum
All of year 2 had a brilliant time at Braintree Victorian Museum. We all got dressed up as Victorians and, looked amazing in our costumes, we headed off to town to find the museum. When we arrived, we were told that we'd have 3 special activities to enjoy. Our first activity was experiencing a real Victorian with a very strict Victorian teacher. Every time we spoke to her we had to stand up and say Ma'am at the end. We had to do lessons just like the Victorian children would have had to do which was really fun. We agreed that we much prefer school now though. Our next activity was finding out about different Victorian artefacts. It was really exciting because the artefacts were real and came from over 100 years ago! We got to touch them and try to work out what they were and what they were used for. The lady told us about some of them. The strangest one was a Victorian mouse trap. We even played a Victorian game that the children would have played. After that we had lunch altogether, our packed lunches were delicious! For our final activity we got to go into the museum rooms, with the glass cabinets containing more artefacts and facts about how they would have been used. We dug in some sand to find some more artefacts and we got to find out what Victorian Braintree was like. We all had a brilliant time and were a credit to our school. Our teachers were very proud of us.
Year 2 Meet the Chicks.
Over the last week we have been watching the chicks tap, tap, tap using their shell tooth to escape their egg shell. Once the chicks were out, they stayed in the incubator until they were dry and fluffy. We were very lucky and got to meet our school chicks. We had to make sure we were really quiet so we didn't scare them and if we wanted to, we got to hold one. They were so cute and we were very careful with them. What an Easter feeling! ??
Spring Chicks
We had some special visitors! We got to hold our chicks! We had to be very quiet so we didn't scare them, then we took it in turns to hold them. They were really fluffy and cute! It has been very exciting watching them hatch from their eggs, and they have already grown so much. It is really interesting to see their feathers changing.
Special Symbols
In Religious Education this half term we have been looking at symbols from different religions and what they mean. We started by looking at what animals we resemble and whether that represents the ‘outer me’ or the ‘inner me’. There was lots of great ideas like; an elephant because they are strong and an owl because owls are wise. After that we discussed what a symbol is and what special things might be found in a Christian home. One of the symbols was a cross. We have also been learning about Buddhism and discussed what Buddhists ‘see’ in the Buddha image and why is it so special to them. We discovered that the symbols that are special for Buddhists is the wheel of life and a beautiful white flower. We all made this beautiful flower. We have had lots of fun looking at all these different symbols!
Medieval Man
We were visited by Peter the peddler, a medieval man who bought with him a variety of ancient objects for us to explore. We looked at ancient dress, weapons and everyday objects that we might find in a castle. It was very exciting being able to dress up as peasants, knights, princesses, kings and queens. We practised pulling wool to make thread, playing medieval instruments, writing with a quill and ink and playing with games and toys that children in Castles would have played with. We even got to make our very own medieval silver penny to take home as a reminder of our time with Peter the peddler.
Last week eight KS2 children participated in the Tag Rugby finals at Witham Rugby Club.
Even though the weather was horrendous, all of the children had lots of fun in the mud and came 5th overall.
They were great ambassadors for the school and showed excellent sportsmanship, even in defeat!
This term in our Year 5 classes we have been learning about fairgrounds. We will be making models of fairground rides and designing our own before cutting and building our final piece.
We are also doing a production called ‘Hoodwinked’, which is a version of Robin Hood. We are looking forward to performing it to the school and parents.
In English, we have been story writing, focusing on the plot using our class text – Robin Hood.
In Maths, we have been learning to compare and order decimal numbers from ascending and descending order.
On Wednesday 7th March, 48 KS2 children participated in a cross country competition at Tabor Academy.
All of the children showed grit and determination and were great ambassadors to our school.
We had 5 children who came in the top ten in their races!
Well done!
On Thursday 15th February, the school had their first ever John Bunyan Football Course Day. The weather was perfect - the day ran even better.
With thirty-six children attending, the day was filled with skill development, competitions and ended with a six-team World Cup tournament. There was great progress in the children’s skills and the winning team (Holland) came out victorious.
The children and staff had a great day and there were many photos and memories captured of the day.
The school is looking to build on the success of the first one by hosting another day in the Easter Holidays.
In science week, year six had great fun trying to make blood. We found out the composite of blood and used Cherrios, vegetable oil, red food colouring, marshmallows and sprinkles to make our own. We had to work out exactly how much we would need of each to make it as accurate as possible. Later on in the week we also found out about blood donation, the different types of blood groups and why they are different.
Year 3 have had a great time in Science Week. On day 1 we investigated which material would help us grow seeds the best, although we had a great time making the slime, it was not a good variable for our test as the seeds died. We also looked at how light reflected in a straight line and also how shadows form using the sundial. At the end of the week, we used Alka-Seltzer tablets to create rockets. We observed the chemical reaction of them in water then tested this by using film canisters and watching them blast into the air. We were going to measure how high they went but we didn't have a measuring device long enough. It was a great week!
On Wednesday 21st February eight KS1 children went to a tennis festival at Essex golf club.
They participated in lots of activities to get them moving, thinking and working in teams.
The children were great ambassadors for the school and were given a tennis ball to take home to practice their skills.
Well done!
On Tuesday 20th February 18 year 5/6 children went to Ramsey Academy to participate in the indoor athletics final.
They faced three other very competitive schools who had all won their heats to get to the final.
The competition was very close and all the children showed great character and spirt and came third overall!
Well done!
On the 7th February we took two Tag Rugby teams to Notley High school to compete in a tournament. Both teams showed great team spirit and respect to the other schools involved. One of our teams managed to win two, draw one and lose one which meant they came second place. This means we now go through to the finals on the 26th February to compete against more schools!
Well done!
On Wednesday 31st nine year 5/6s competed in a mini hockey tournament at Ramsey Academy. They played three games, drawing one and losing two. We didn't make it to the semi-final but they all tried their hardest to be competitive and showed excellent sportsmanship.
Well done!
It's not only the children who are participating in sporting events around the school. Last Thursday, the staff competed in the annual John Bunyan Curling Tournament.
Even though it was very competitive everyone showed great team work and respect to the other teams.
The winning team were:
Mrs Clements
Mr Cullum
Miss Cunningham
Mrs Cardnell
On the 17th of January 18 year 5/6 children participated in the sports hall athletics at The Ramsey Academy. They all showed grit and determination when competing against the other schools and after many competitive events they came first place!
It was great to see the children being great ambassadors to the school and winning as a team well done!
On Tuesday 9th January 2018, years 5 and 6 competed in the intra class dodgeball competition. Everyone enjoyed themselves and participated either as competitor or helper.
Well done years 5 and 6!
Later in the year we will have more intra class competitions with the next one being a curling competition for years 3 and 4.
