Well done to all of the children who have entered our Spring Reading Challenge, reading a book in an unusual place. It is wonderful to see so much enthusiasm around reading. A winner will be picked from each year group and announced in assembly on World Book Day – Friday 6th March. 
In the middle of our half term, the Harton Primary Puzzlers met at Newcastle Airport – excited for their trip to Bristol for the First Lego League England and Wales Final.
Athena being x-rayed
Tea in the departure lounge
Boarding the plane
All smiles…
…for take off.
On Saturday the 22nd of February, we set off the University of West England to the competition, setting up our information board at table 50 in the pit.
After the opening ceremony, we had to quickly change into our costumes to give deliver the best and last presentation on our idea for a solar powered tram to help boost interest in South Shields town centre. After than we had to run to the Robot Game table for our first of three attempts to score as many points as possible. Lets watch:
The day was full of interesting activities, on top of the usual Core Values, Robot Design discussion and practice tables for the robot game. The teams spoke to other teams, interviewed by the IET team and, of course, had lunch.
Opening ceremony
Team photo
Interviews – some serious…
…some not so serious.
Lunch!
In the practice pits…
…between games.
With all our practices over, our last robot game was on table 1, with all the cameras on us. Below is the live stream of our last game (If time link doesn’t work, time is 4:42:20):
On the final tables we came 20th, out of 66 teams. But with teams with joint scores, we had the 13th highest score on the day! The Harton Primary Puzzlers worked their socks off, did themselves (and their teachers) proud, and had a great day!
Photo booth medal photo.
Team photo
A huge congratulations to Ruby, Jayden and Phoebe who are our first Word Millionaires this academic year. They have read over a million words since September! Wow! They say they have achieved this for a variety of reasons: they “just love reading” and a love of the Harry Potter books has helped them achieve their goal. They each got a certificate, an engraved trophy and they each got to select a book of their choice for their prize.
Also, well done to Ben who has achieved his “Half Millionaire” award, reading over 500, 000 words. 
Last half term Y6F won the ‘Healthy Harton Bake Off’ and made the best healthy chicken wraps in the year group. We won a prize of a wonderful class cookbook and a session with Mrs Seales, our school cook, to make anything of our choice. We chose to make double chocolate brownies and they were delicious!
We carefully measured out and mixed all of the ingredients ourselves and we worked really well in groups, taking turns in mixing and serving our brownies. They were so delicious and there were so many leftover we got two huge servings each and even the teachers got to have some!
Y6F recently enjoyed a visit to Harton Technology College to take part in a Science workshop named Witches and Wizards. The children became Hartwarts students for the afternoon and made a series of potions and concoctions with very exciting results.
We have introduced a new online learning platform called NumBots. This game is aimed at boosting addition and subtraction skills for all aged children.
Since the success of Times Tables Rockstars in encouraging children to master times table and division fact instant recall, we would like their skills with mental addition and subtraction to be just as good. NumBots will help! More importantly, children in both Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2 can access the games.
All children start at the same place in Story mode, and when they get to a certain stage they will unlock Challenge mode. The idea is that they play little and often, and this will significantly improve their understanding of number bonds and addition and subtraction facts.
The login is exactly the same as the one for Times Tables Rockstars – Key Stage 1 parents should have received parent letters with new login details.
Times Tables Rockstars app and NumBots app are available to download on all android and Apple devices.
It has taken a few weeks of patiently sewing to our cross-stitch designs, but the results are impressive. It proved very relaxing, having to think about every stitch. Some of us added a few extra touches. We shared our expertise with others.
Our School Council have been like busy little elves making Positive Vibes Boxes for each class. They can’t wait to share them with their classes in January and explain how to use them. We promote positive mental health and wellbeing at Harton Primary.
Our Year 4,5,and 6 Wellbeing Club were the first to visit our newly planted orchard. We have apple, quince, plum, pear and cherry trees. They are looking forward to more frequent visits to tidy the raised beds and plant seeds.
After months of hard work, the Harton Primary Puzzlers took part in the South Tyneside First Lego League competition – with OpenZone in The Word.
This year’s task was to identify a problem in our local area and design a solution to fix it. We designed at solar powered tram that would travel from the The Word down King Street to the sea front. We thought this idea would:
- Make the sea front more accessible to people who could not walk that distance.
- Bring in more people to the town – bringing shops back to the town centre.
- Lower pollution from less cars being used in the town.
We presented this idea as a new report, with Caitlin and Sophie as hosts and Ruby as the weather girl, and the rest of the Puzzlers being all the experts we spoke to – including a solar panel scientist; a tram engineer from Beamish; a PhD student from Northumbria University; a Nexus worker; and a member of the South Tyneside 365 rejuvenation scheme.
Our interviews with the public of South Shields
Our idea on poster…
…and made from Lego, which ran around that track all day.
The Puzzlers spend the day talking to other teams, finding out about their ideas, helping with robot tasks, practicing their robot challenge and just having a great time!
The excellent judges.
Setting up our area.
Getting our practices in.
Getting our practices in.
Talking to other teams.
Selecting correct program.
Cheeky smile at the table.
Core value task – what famous building are we making?
Core value task – what famous building are we making?
Well deserved lunch.
Competing in the robot game.
Competing in the robot game.
Competing in the robot game.
Competing in the robot game.
Competing in the robot game.
Competing in the robot game.
Competing in the robot game.
Competing in the robot game.
Competing in the robot game.
They also had to compete in a robot game; a 2 and half minute challenge to complete as many tasks as possible to score the most points, with 4 highest scoring teams got into the Semi-finals.
The Puzzlers came 3rd in the knock-outs with 215 points. When competing in the Semi finals, they scored 225 – securing their spot in 2nd to progress to the finals. Competing against Oakwood, who were unbelievably talented at the robot game. They set a heavy lead with 300 points in their first of 3 rounds – securing their trophy in the robot game – but the Puzzlers fought in every round, scoring their highest score of the day of 245 points.
Winning the Robot Design Award…
…Athena (on the right), known at the competition as ‘The Beast’
And winning the Champion Award.
Some tears of joy.
We are the champions….
…and we’re off to Bristol!
The trophy ceremony gave the Puzzlers 2 reasons to celebrate! Their robot – Athena, God of Technology – won ‘Best Robot Design’, after being referred to as ‘a beast’ by the judges. After coming 2nd in both the presentation and robot game, and 1st in the robot desgin, the Puzzlers won the overall day – for a 2nd year running – and now have to compete in Bristol in the national competition!
