On Tuesday 10th march, Martin from the RNLI came in to speak to the Year 4 children.

He talked to the children about how to stay safe when near water, the meaning of the different flags we might see on the beach and lots of other important information to help them stay safe.

The children were really engaged and gave lots of fantastic answers when Martin asked them questions.

On Friday 6th March, 2LL created some apple bird feeders in their Golden Time STEM session.

The children are currently covering the topic ‘Scented Garden’ in their afternoon topic sessions so the bird feeders linked in well.

The children used their problem solving skills to get the seeds to stay in the apples and also carefully added perches for the birds to sit on. Some of the children wanted to take their bird feeders home, but we managed to hang 7 of them around the school grounds. As we were placing them outside, the children could hear the birds excitedly chirping.

It will be exciting to see if the birds enjoy them over the next few weeks.

On Friday 6th March 2020, Class 12 had a visit from the local PCSOs

The PCSO came to talk to the children about the work of the police and also spoke to the children about how they could support the local community,

The session really helped the children to learn more about PCSOs and linked in well with the work they have been doing in their PSHE sessions.

On Thursday 27th January, Paul from Durham County Council came into school to teach the Year 5 and Year 6 children how to code microbits. The children showed great resilience and were able to get the microbits to follow some really complicated coding instructions.

Children will be continuing with microbits coding in their Computing lessons over the next few weeks to really allow them to develop their skills.

This half-term the children in LKS2 have been looking at Traders and Raiders of the UK. At the beginning of the half-term we studied the Anglo-Saxons. Towards the end of this half-term we began to look at the Vikings.

On Wednesday 12th February, the children in Classes 7, 8 and 9 went to York for the day.

The adventure took them to Yorvik (a place deep under the streets of York that has been excavated). Here the children learnt more about life in Viking times (including what they wore, what they ate, the jobs they did and the houses).All of the children really enjoyed the interactive ride experience in the museum (except the awful smell!) and also the exciting ancient poo! They had already learnt about this and really wanted to see it! I don’t think we would have coped with the smell if we were Vikings.

We also had a trip to DIG, which is where the children had their lunch.
There was also a mini museum here with some excavated bones and a replica Viking boat.

The walk through York was also delighful, as the children go to see York Minster, the Shambles shopping street and even had a giggle at the shortest street in York with the longest name (Whip-ma Whop-ma Gate).

An early night was in store for everyone, as we were all so tired after our adventure!

This half-term children in KS1 have been covering the topic called ‘Bright Lights, Big City’.  The Geography focus was on the city of London.  The History link was about The Great Fire of London.
On the last day of term (14.02.2020) the children set fire to the models they had created, which recreated how fast the fire spread. The D&T link was the children recreating some bread using a traditional recipe.

The bread was delicious!

On Wednesday afternoon, Class 8 practised their D&T skills by making some Anglo-Saxon inspired cakes (which were similar to flapjacks).

The children worked in groups of 3 to weigh out some butter and melt it (thanks to some help from Mrs Williams) and then weigh out some oats. The children then had to mix the oats and melted butter together with some honey (and some groups even added some dried fruit). The Anglo-Saxon cakes were then baked for 10 minutes in the oven.

They smelt delicious!

Year 3 and Year 4 are currently learning about the Anglo-Saxons and Vikings that invaded Britain after the Romans left.

For our first lesson on the topic, children had a go at dissecting some ancient poo (known as coprolites) to see if we could find out what foods they may have eaten.

Working in teams, we discovered their diet mainly consisted of fish (as we found bones), apples and cherries (as we found pips and seeds) and grains.

They probably ate a lot of other foods, but they had been fully digested so we didn’t find any evidence.

The children can’t wait to find out more about the life of the Anglo-Saxons throughout this term.