E-Safety information for Parents – Amino

12th July 2023L Forster

Expressing ourselves and interacting online can be fun – but only if it’s safe for everyone 💬👍 The social networking platform Amino offers opportunities to exchange views on countless hobbies and interests … but its lack of age verification represents an obvious risk for younger users ⚠️

 

With inappropriate content, the possibility of messages from strangers and rewards for repeated daily usage front and centre among the potential dangers that parents and carers should know about, this week’s #WakeUpWednesday guide gives Amino the acid test.

 

A sprawling online discussion forum with incentives for checking in each day and the facility to follow certain users, Amino bears comparison to Reddit – but with an added sprinkle of Snapchat and a Twitter twist. It may not be radically original, but’s proving popular: there are now more than a million communities of fans exchanging views on topics from anime to zombies.

The concept is to recreate the passion and excitement of live conventions in the online world: from behind their screens and keyboards, however, not everyone behaves as well as they might in person. From hurtful comments to age-inappropriate images and predatory messaging, our #WakeUpWednesday guide highlights some potential hazards to protect young users from.

https://nationalcollege.com/

E-Safety information for parents – Rumble

6th July 2023L Forster

Big names, challenging opinions and comparatively lenient censorship 📢 Rumble is a video-sharing platform which has achieved stellar growth in recent years – as well as drawing a similarly eye-catching amount of criticism for the views of some of its best-known account holders 🤬

As our #WakeUpWednesday guide this week explains, young users of the app (even ones who are over the recommended age limit) may encounter hazards including political bias, potentially harmful misinformation and inappropriate content if they stumble across Rumble.

Conceived as giving independent content creators equal representation in the online space, Rumble has found something of a niche in restoring a voice to influencers who have been blocked from similar platforms. It’s become particularly renowned as a forum for political debate, with some prominent account holders’ choice of subject matter attracting a degree of notoriety.

Indeed, a study by the USA’s Pew Research Centre found that the platform’s most popular topics included gun laws, the January 2021 Capitol riots and Covid vaccines. Many parents and carers may feel that these sensitive topics – when addressed in a less-than-sensitive manner – aren’t suitable for young users. Our #WakeUpWednesday guide attempts to get a feel for Rumble.

https://nationalcollege.com

Reader of the Month – July 2023

3rd July 2023P Mullea

Once again we got the chance to celebrate all the fantastic reading achievements at our school. This month staff were asked to look out for readers who ‘set a good example’ and found it extremely hard to choose just one fantastic pupil from each class!

The children chosen this month have impressed us with their effort, performance and progress in reading.

Special shoutouts for:

Rori in Y1 who has returned her reading book every single week this year!

Isla In Y2 for a super effort in reading lessons and working really well with her partner.

Ava in Y5F for reading 6 books in a week and scoring over 96% on her quizes each time.

Daniel in Y5 for challenging himself in school and at home when reading.

 

Well done everyone. We hope you enjoy your prizes and keep up the hard work!

Art Workshop in Year 6

30th June 2023D Fawkes

Year 6 were lucky enough to have an another visit from a fantastic artist, Jane Lee McCracken.

Jane is a very talented Artist; Designer & Founder/CEO of ‘Drawing for the Planet’. She worked with our children on their drawings of Ugandan animals and discussed how a lot of the animals are either endangered or extinct.

Using coloured Biros only, the children selected an image and drew their own version of the animal.

The work the children produced was AMAZING and Jane is in the process of scanning and returning their pieces. Some of their work will even be displayed in Jane’s collection.

Year 5&6 STEM Week Competition Day!

19th June 2023L Forster

After a week of work, the children have competed in their STEM week competition. They delivered their presentations to a panel of judges – including the Economic Inclusion and Career Development Coordinator for South Tyneside, a representative from the National Centre for Computing Education and the deputy head, Mr Donnelly. The children came back from presentations full of energy and enthusiasm. Their ideas got feedback such as ‘that’ll be tough to top’ and ‘this could work in the school yard to create energy’.

They have also took part in 3 robot games – which involved running their code to complete as many tasks as possible to score the highest amount of points. There have been some jumping with excitement and some hands covering faces in disappointment – but with some amendments and improvements, fun was had by all.

The semi-finals of the robot game took place in the afternoon (after an impromptu quarter finals because of a 7-way tie for 4th place), with the 6 top scoring teams competing in a knock out. The top 3 teams went through to the finals to compete for the robot game trophy.

To end the day, the children enjoyed the trophy ceremony. Each of the winning teams received a trophy and were celebrated by their peers in the sports hall.

The winners were:

Robot Design – Brick-otatoes (6F)

Core Values – Game Changers (6T)

Innovation Project – Brainiacs (6A)

Judges’ Award – Super Septuplets (6A)

Robot Game – Rotten Robots (6T)

Champions Awards (and overall winner of the week) – Energetic Energy (5L)

Based on the output of work, dedication to coding and overall enthusiasm from the children this week, the staff would like to think that STEM week was a roaring success!

 

STEM Week Year 6 – Day 2

13th June 2023C Allen

Tuesday was the second day of our Lego Challenge STEM Week. Each class was split into 4 teams. The first task was to come up with a team name – some were unusual to say the least! Then it was time to code the robot to carry out tasks on the models which were built yesterday. There was also an innovation project to start in which a sustainable energy invention was designed.

The children were busy all day, and even though it was very noisy, there was some amazing STEM work taking place.

Primary Engineer Leaders Award 2023

12th June 2023R Errington

Once again, the children of Harton Primary School have blown the judges of the Primary Engineer Leaders Award away with their innovative ideas to answer the question ‘If you were an engineer, what would you do?’ Over 30 children from our school were shortlisted for the final round of judging and Bonnie was awarded winner of the north east of England! She had her award presented to her at Sunderland University. We are incredibly proud of all of the children who took part and can’t wait to see what ideas they come up with next year!

The Shields Gazette wrote an article about the fantastic achievements of our pupils in this competition over the past few years.

https://www.shieldsgazette.com/news/latest/south-tyneside-primary-school-praised-for-their-involvement-in-primary-engineer-leaders-award-4178921

Year 5 pupils shortlisted.

Year 4 pupils shortlisted.

Year 6 pupils shortlisted.

Bonnie – Y4 winner for north east England

STEM Week – Day 1 in Year 6

12th June 2023D Fawkes

This morning we learned about renewable energy and hydroelectric stations that generate electricity through moving water. We then built a range of models before conducting our research on the energy of the model we had built.

This afternoon we learned about affordable energy and how electricity is transferred to network grids before being distributed to customers before building models linked to this such as an oil platform model, fuel tank model, hybrid car and ramp model, a power plant and a smart grid.

We have had a great first day and have shown excellent collaborative working skills.

River Tyne

7th June 2023D Fawkes

Year 6 have been learning about rivers in geography. They have learned all about the positive and negative impacts a river can have to the environment, for industry and for wildlife and we have now applied this learning to look specifically at one of our local rivers: the River Tyne.

We conducted some research in pairs and then we have used this to help us start to create some informative posters.

Did you know that the River Tyne is the best river for salmon in England!

Also it is home to some of the most impressive bridges in the UK including the Tyne Bridge, the Swing Bridge and the Gateshead Millenium Bridge.