Year 2 went for a Peel Park, to look at the changes that occur between the seasons. The children discovered that the  leaves begin to change colour and fall off the trees. That some trees remain evergreen throughout the year.

This term Year 5 have been learning all about recycling and how to be more economically friendly. After much online research finding facts about what plastic bags do to our planet they realised how important it is to REUSE and REDUCE.

With Mrs. Hutchinson’s help they have made some fantastic reusable bags for their friends and family to take to the supermarket. This way they can reduce the amount of plastic bags they use and help our planet.

Yesterday a  new member of Year 2 was discovered in the Library. He had left clues in our classroom, we followed these clues which lead to footprints outside our classrrom. These lead to the stranger, reading a book in the Library, looking for a new home for Christmas. We discovered he had no name, so after consulting everyone we have named him Star. He has settled in well into our class. Keep a good look out for him, he might appear in your classroom!

Today we had some very special visitors to our assembly.   Two Buddist monks came in to start to introduce us to their religion.   It was really interesting to talk about the things that all religions have in common and also the things that are different too.

We learnt that:

• Buddist monks wear the same types of clothes all year round.
• The orange colour of their robes comes from a dye made from tree bark that also acts as an insect repellent!
• Buddism teaches respect and peace to all people.
• Buddists have special celebrations like Christians.

Father Mark also commented that the reason both he and the monks wore one colour so that people were not distractedfrom listening to their message by looking at their clothes.

We’re really looking forward to seeing the monks again soom and finding out more about their religion.

Yesterday was the first of our school Behaviour Credit Card Days.  The vast majority of the school who have behaved well this term and recieved their Bronze award were invited to a cinema afternoon in the hall wearing their own clothes.  Mr. Kirkpatrick even told the children that they could bring in a chocolate bar too!   So much for being a ‘Healthy School!’

Everyone had a great time and it was well deserved!

We had our first Parent Council meeting on Friday, 13th November, 2009.  At the moment, we have four Parent Representatives – Gemma Brookes-Ryan, Helen Hepburn, Elina Parker and Kapila Wickramarachchi – together with myself, Sue Jones.

The Reps. want to be able to reach out to parents so that we can find out the issues that are concerning you about any aspect of school life and then to present these issues to the School Governors and the Management Team.

We are starting a ‘Drop-in’ facility this Friday (20th, November) at 8.45 a.m. to 9.30 a.m. whereby parents can come and have a chat to us.  We have also made a Suggestion Box, where suggestions may be entered into it (by post, email) so that parents can remain anonymous if they wish to.

We will also be getting involved in fund-raising activities.

We welcome any parent/carer to become a member of the Parent Council.  If you wish to join the team, please contact Mrs Jones at school.

We would welcome your comments and feedback relating to the Parent Council and it’s future developments.

YYear 3 have been making a pop up book this week. We based our book on the story of  Theseus and the Minotaur, which we have been reading in literacy. We practised 5 different pop up techniques at the beginning of the week, and then used these to create our class book. We found images and backgrounds on the internet to make our book look more professional and really took our time. Take a look at our finished book!

In the Summer, year one and year five ‘buddied’ up and spent a most interesting and enjoyable couple of afternoons looking at how things change as we grow up. Year one showed their buddies the kinds of things they were learning, and year five told their young buddies all about their move into the juniors and how things change as we move up the school.

They did hand and foot prints to show how we grow.

We can ride a bike!

Mr Burrows and Ms Walters have been teaching us to ride a bike safely and skilfully. We had great fun, and we learned more about our topic on Forces!

We’ve had great fun in our ‘rocket’ this half term!