In The News

What great fun the children had on their first trip to the Denes!  The children explored the local environment looking for signs of autumn.

Jacob – “The leaves have fallen on the floor.”

Rebecca – “They changed colour to red and brown and yellow!”

Alana – “We might find some conkers!”

Orla- “Trees are important cos they give us oxygen. We have to look after them!”

Cassie “I even sawed purple leaves.”

The children used some of their senses to describe their environment:

Sophie –“I can smell the flowers.”

Eddie – “I can hear a truck”

Eric – “I see trees”

Lucy – “I can smell fire!”

Using a compass, we looked North, East, South and West and sketched what we could see.

Once back at school, the children mapped their walk.

In Year 6, we have produced some incredible Poppy artwork to reflect the importance of Remembrance, which we are very proud of.

We also create poppy pebbles which we have put in the KS2 garden to mark Remembrance.

This morning, Year 6 have been studying the Holocaust.

We began with a social experiment. The children with blue eyes were separated from those that are non-blue eyed. The children with blue eyes remained in the classroom (and watched a cartoon). The children with non-blue eyes were given a blue spot with a cross on it and taken to the hall where they were told to stand against the wall in silence.  Although the children did as they were asked, they were confused and some said they felt quite frightened. It was for three minutes but the children said it felt much longer. From the blue eyed children, Olivia said “I think the blue cross means something.” She also said “Hitler liked kids with blue eyes and blonde hair so we are ok.” Matthew said “I hope the non-blue children are ok. Don’t execute them!”

When we returned to the classroom we discussed how we felt to be separated from friends and to wonder what they were doing. We studied how Hitler hated Jewish people and planned to eliminate all Jews across Europe. We were shocked to find other people such as Romany, disabled, Polish, Russian and homosexuals were also killed in the death camps. We found out about how Jews were treated differently even before the war and created a timeline showing the laws which were imposed over time.

Finally, we found out about Hitler’s Final Solution. Using the BBC Newsround Special- Finding my Family, we learnt about Maggie and her Grandfather Steven Frank, and their journey from England, to the Netherlands, the Czech Repulic and finally to Auschwitz  to discover what happened to their Jewish family during WW2.

We designed our own Holocaust memorials to remember this terrible time and the lesson’s we must learn from it.

As part of a whole school Geography Mapping curriculum day, Year 1 spent the day learning all about where in the world we live.

First, we looked at the countries and flags of the United Kingdom and had fun playing ‘Pin the place on the map’ – seeing who could get the closest to pinning where Darlington is in the North East of England.

For the next challenge, we sorted out which place names are countries which belong to the United Kingdom, and which are found somewhere else on earth.

Our last UK mission was to find out which flag belongs to each country. Great detective work Year 1!

After this, we learnt all about aerial mapping, and even flew a drone over Reid Street School to see what it looks like from high above the ground!

These are some of the images taken by the drone:

The children used what they had learnt to create small scale aerial street maps of where they live.

Finally, we worked in teams to plan and create maps of ‘green spaces’, linking back to the learning in our previous sessions on ‘The Promise’. We talked about what useful facilities a green public space would need, and how we could help to ensure it was accessible for all who want to use it. We linked this to the work we are continuing to do around Global Goals.

As a school, we embed The Global Goals for Sustainable Development within our curriculum. These are goals agreed by leaders from 193 countries all over the world. The aim is for everyone to work together to achieve a better and more sustainable future for all. They address global challenges we face such as: poverty, inequality, climate change, peace and justice.

We have launched ‘The Global Goals Characters’ to support our learning. They focus on 5 key characteristics (curiosity, creativity, empathy, problem solving and communication)

Meet the characters below!

Claudie Curiosity

Crawford Creativity

Cassia Communication

Ekani Empathy

Parker the Problem

Each year group has completed an activity based on these characters and key characteristics. Ask your child all about it!

We had an amazing morning building our own map of the UK. First a group of us marked out the outline in chalk.

Then we added the countries in white. Next the regions in red. The counties were yellow, cities in green (with London as the capital in gold), landmarks in pink, rivers and seas in blue and finally the mountains in brown. Great organisation!!

The children thought carefully about how to prepare; first they washed their hands thoroughly and then put on aprons to protect their uniform. They used their senses to explore all of the vegetables and the stock cubes – words including: “Cold, hard, juicy, shiny, yummy, wet, seedy and heavy,” were used. The children carefully used tools including: a vegetable peeler, a grater and knives to chop. Finally they mixed it all together and added a pinch of salt. When it was cooked everyone took a pot of soup home. In school we looked at various coins and talked about shopping and how we pay for our food. Some children knew that you can take money out of a machine or pay with a card. Some parents were very generous and sent donations in for the soup. We will purchase new games with the £30 pounds that we received. A very fun enterprise for all! 

Today, the children received a letter from the Class Teddy. He told them he kept getting lost in the classroom and asked what the children could do to help. The children decided he needed a map so we explored different types, for example: Google Maps, Ordinance Survey Maps and Treasure Maps. We worked as a team and used photographs of the different classroom areas to make a map. Next, the children used different media to create their own. Some children drew their maps, some made them out of playdough and others cut out shapes and stuck them. All the children were very engaged and produced some fantastic work!

Later, we extended the learning by looking at a globe and thinking about the planet we live on, the country we live in and the town. We discovered the children all lived in different streets which led us onto learning our addresses. We explored different types of homes, for example: houses, bungalow and flats.

What can your child remember?

What a brilliant end to our Maths morning with the focus on division! We accepted a division challenge from Mrs Perry. Using our understanding to solve calculations, we searched the classroom looking for the correct codes. Then using QR codes, turned the answers into letters to work out a riddle. The answer was Division is Great (although not everyone agreed with the statement).

On Friday 16^th October we watched a short animated version of the story ‘The Promise’ by Nicola Davies (see link below)

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0xPoOI4uUrN8FQYrrCs1gQ

We used the video to prompt lots of discussion and art work around the idea of ‘green spaces’ and the many benefits they have.

We have learnt how spending time in green spaces can improve your physical health and your general wellbeing.

Year 1 have described green spaces as being: calm, beautiful, peaceful and natural. They also said that visiting parks, forests and other green spaces makes them feel; happy, calm, chilled and relaxed.

We have worked together to make collage leaves and flowers to make our own ‘green space’ in the Year 1 corridor.

We linked our learning to conversations about climate action and Global Goals. Visit https://www.globalgoals.org/ to find out more about the goals.