This year as part of Anti-Bullying Week, we decided to hold our own version of The Great British Bake Off. The focus was on sharing, teamwork, and health and wellbeing.
Each year group decided on a healthy dish to make. They enjoyed creating and eating their version of the chosen dish. Our Cook judged each class’s efforts. She was looking for presentation, teamwork and the health benefits of the dish.
Each winning class in the year group will receive a class cookery book from which to choose a healthy recipe to bake with Cook. Results to be announced soon!
Our Anti-Bullying Week got off to a relaxing start with something new. Year groups 1 – 6 had Tai Chi sessions with Ilona, our Tai Chi instructor. It was a great success, with pupils and staff stating how calm and at ease they felt after it.
Classes from Reception, Year 1 and Year 2 were treated to an entertaining and interactive assembly by Hannah, a facilitator from Bigfoot Arts Education. The assembly and workshops were on an anti-bullying theme and called ‘It’s Good to be Me’.
Key Stage 2 classes also had an assembly and workshops on the theme of diversity and respecting others called ‘The Bigger Picture 2’. The assembly featured four monologues featuring four different characters experiencing racism, cyberbullying, or inequality of some kind.
Each year group had a new story book to read to accompany Anti-Bullying Week. The books inspired some brilliant PSHE and written work. The stories were enjoyed by pupils and created plenty of discussion.
We celebrated with all of our Anti-Bullying Week and Eco-warrior Day competition winners in assembly today. The entries throughout the whole school were of a very high standard. Well done everyone! All competition winners went home with a fantastic book linked to the theme of the competition.
On Monday 12th of November, 5F went to Palace Green Library in Durham to learn about the Ancient Greeks.
To start the day, they played ‘History Detectives’ and had to look at artefacts, and work out what they were made of and what they might have been used for.
They were pushed to try and come up with some impressive descriptions of the colours; some we came up with were: ‘crown gold’, ‘coal black’, ‘satsuma orange’ and ‘dark chocolate’.
After lunch, they completed a series of activities in the museum.
Playing knuckle bones
Playing knuckle bones
Translating ancient Greek
Translating ancient Greek
Translating ancient Greek
Translating ancient Greek
Answering questions using the displays
Looking at plans of the temples for building
They translated Ancient Greek writing, relating to the Greek gods. Looked at the displays to match the object to the names. They also played a game of jacks, with animal bones. Looking at Greek buildings, they had to label them build an example of a temple out of foam bricks.
What do you think of these final temple builds?
The wedding of Jason and the beautiful princess.
To end our trip, they put on our own Greek tragedy: the story of Medea, a witch-like woman who poisoned her husbands fiancé, father and own children. The children were told to exaggerate and overact when performing – like the Greeks did – to make it entertaining.
They were told upon leaving that Isla was one of the best Medea’s the museum has ever had.
Warning: do not have your volume on too loud for the princess’s demise through the ‘Death Door’.
As part of our Anti-Bullying Week, the theme for this year’s Odd Socks Day was ‘Change Starts with Us’. We had a special Anti-Bullying assembly and looked at each others unique Odd Socks class photographs. We are busy fundraising for the Anti-Bullying Alliance by selling wristbands this week. It’s an excellent cause!
There’s lots more to come this week to raise awareness of bullying and building self-esteem.
The week of 14th of October was our school wide ‘History Week’, and in Year 5 we have done lots of stuff to do with our topic of Ancient Greece.
In literacy, we have been taking notes for a non-fiction book about Ancient Greece, and this week we have been writing up our notes into paragraphs with subheadings and diagrams with captions.
Javelin
Hurdles
Discuss
Track running
Long jump
In PE, we competed in a class Olympics with Mr Henson. Our events included: javelin throwing, discus throwing, standing long jumps, hurdles running and distance running on our track.
We have looked at some artifacts in a loan box from the ‘Tyne and Wear Museums’. We had to look at an artifact; describe what it looked and felt like; and guess what we believe the artifact was used for. At the end of the week we were finally told what they were actually used for; we were close with some of our guesses, but completely wrong on others. But it was fun to see and touch these artifacts.
Over numerous afternoons, we used paper mache and balloons to make our own Greek masks for the Greek theatre. Once dried, we cut them in half so each of us got a mask to decorate and design. Some made angry faces, whereas others made happy ones. Because they take so long to dry and make, these will be finished the following week and used after the half term to write and put on our own Greek plays. Very exciting stuff coming up!
Speaking on Greek theatre, we completed a drama workshop with Jenny. Focusing on the different types of movements to represent different people in the city states, since the amphitheaters of Ancient Greek were large and people sitting at the back could not hear, so actions should be exaggerated and obvious.
Here are some videos of our drama activities, including a battle scene as Greek Hoplites and a “Greek Gods Got Talent”.
Great use of the chorus in the Poseidon group, but the scene set by Athena was well done! But all groups were fantastic in their performances = a 5-way tie!
We also had a visit from Joan, who lived during a major event in English history – World War 2. She talked about life during air raids and what it was like to grow up with shelters in gardens to protect from the bombings.
Since it is History week, we also made our poppies to be used in a display for Remembrance day in November. We used felt to make the petals and a pom-pom to make the black centre of the poppy.
We have thoroughly enjoyed our History week, learning lots along with having fun.
Everyone in the school has made a Eco-Pledge, because we are all Eco-Warriors and want to make changes to help the environment. Please enjoy all of Year 5’s pledges, and hopefully some of these will inspire you to make some small changes to help the environment.
It has been a really busy couple of weeks for the boys football teams with our school taking part in 3 different divisions.
In the Wednesday Mortimer League the boys got off to a mixed start with us out playing Monkton and somehow getting beat 3-2. In the second game a backs to the wall dsiplay by the boys saw them beat Ashley 1 nil.
In the Thursday Temple Park League the boys got off to a flying start beating Whitburn Village 5-1 and in the second game they beat Marsden 5-2. This was under the coaching guidance of Miss Smith.
In the the Thursday Biddick Hall League the boys have now completed their season. They defeated every team they played at least once and going into the final game of the season against St Gregorys R.C. the boys knew that win would win them the league. A real team performance saw the boys gradually get themselves on top and a fantastic goal from Josh put them 1 up before half time. In the second half the boys pounced on the counter attack and Logan followed up on his own good work to score the goal that won the title. Massive well done to the boys, who as always, were a pleasure to coach.
