Morning!!!!! Have just gone round to the cabins to wake them up. Not a peep out of anyone all night and now we’re getting ready for breakfast.
Today , we have Trapeze, Giant Swing and Jacob’s Ladder, amongst other activities, depending upon which group you’re in.
Right -I’d better go and get them lined up!
Says Toad!!
Everyone now out kayaking in the beautiful sunshine. What a lovely, colourful afternoon!
We are all safely on the island, having managed to get an earlier ferry. Everybody is tip top, having eaten their lunch at 11.30!!! We spoke to a headmaster on the ferry who had lost his whole school party ( he had driven - the school were on a coach which was late and missed the ferry!!). Mr King would never do such a thing!
We are in St Lawrence cabins and our PGL ‘buddy’ is called Kat.
Year 6 have worked their socks off this week sitting their SATs. We are all enormously proud of them. All we ever asked was for them to try their hardest and they most certainly did that.
Well done, Year Six. (Can I get out of this ridiculous costume yet??) x
This is what we do before the SATs. A bit of quick revision, and then some serious dancing to various hits from the 80s!
That’s normal, right?
Year 6 have returned to school after their Easter break full of determination! We know we have to work really hard for the next few weeks so that we can show what we have achieved at primary school. Equally, we know we have lots of exciting things to look forward to straight afterwards, including PGL, our play, a trip to Littlehampton, Bikeability and much, much more.
One final push, Year Six! We are all really proud of you!
Year 6 children are working really hard at the moment. On Tuesday and Wednesday lunchtimes, some pupils who are all working at a similar level are spending half an hour at SPaG club!!! This is really starting to have an effect and we are super proud of their hard work. The upside is that they do get ‘bonus biscuits’ as a treat!! Well done, SPaG club gang!
I wanted to share with you here some fabulous writing from one of our Year 6 children. The carefully, deliberately chosen language used to describe the main character and the setting is wonderful.
This is the standard we should all aspire to achieve. Aim high!
The Day the Birds Came by Hannah L
I was a statue. A flamingo statue. Salmon pink with spindly wire legs and a vibrant orange beak. My eyes were glass with sky blue rings around a pitch black pupil. My name was ‘flamingo by the penguins’. I was all of this; a dull metal statue - before today. Today out of absolutely nowhere I was freed. My legs began to wobble and I put my second wire leg on the sandy floor after fifteen years of keeping that tiresome pose. I stretched my wings out feeling like I’d just woken up from a deep sleep. People began to point and stare.
“The flamingos, they’re coming to life!” one mother screamed. She ushered her children into the gift shop; staring intently at us, shaking her head and mumbling under her breath.
We sprinted for hours on end, only stopping for brief water breaks. We were tired and cold; unused to the drizzle of the English countryside. Though the weather stayed stormy we ran on, the leader of the flock guiding us all the way. She said she knew where we were going. She said we had a plan. I was unsure.
Despite the encouraging chatter from the rest of the group, I did not like this plan- whatever it may be- but I went along anyway. As we entered a small rural village my brain began to whirr. I remembered things, things from before, before my years of captivity. This was my home. I lived in the woodlands by the school, yes it was all coming back to me. I was a small chick scared and alone until this child found me. She told me I was safe. And I was- until she left. Poor Caroline. She was such a sweet child, but then why did she leave? I was so confused. I was a small chick, scared and alone once more.
I blinked hard, trying to erase part of my memory but she stood there firm, desperate not to be forgotten. I strode forwards, past the woodlands, then I stopped. We were here, outside Caroline’s house. Maybe she still lived here. I didn’t have the nerve to find out. I stomped forward, a plan forming in my head. We headed to Caroline’s old school, past the pond where we would feed the ducks. My eyes watered and as I tried not to cry, I felt a soft warm hand close around my neck. “Caroline?”
Caroline didn’t reply but she bent down into my feathers and I could tell she was crying. So, Caroline hopped on and again, we ran, back past the pond and into the woods. Hiding behind an ivy curtain - which I pushed back with my beak - there was our way out of here. A rusty old flying mobile big enough for 30 flamingoes.
Off we flew, higher and higher until the village was an ant-sized blur. The pilot, a flamingo named Mol, was steering us up, up and away. Suddenly, we reared to the side and we all slid down, holding on for our life. After five hours, we were all tired and feeling ever so slightly sick. I looked down and saw that we were over the ocean. The Pacific Ocean according to Mol. After several days of ocean, land, ocean, land, Mol announced that we were at our destination. I peered down to see that we were back where we had started. I was furious! Why had we gone halfway round the world when we would end up here? Mol led us round into the school and up into the attic. We began work immediately. Making beds with sheets from Caroline’s house and using cushions and books for tables and chairs. At long last, we had a place to call home. “Feathery”, Caroline asked. Feathery was her name for me. “Can I be like you?”
“What do you mean?”, I asked.
“I want to be a flamingo. A flamingo with pink feathers and a yellow beak and…”
“Ok, Ok, I get it.”
And with a click of my fingers, Caronline was no longer Caroline, she was a flamingo.
So, here we are now, living in the attic and catching fish when necessary. Caroline is happy and so are we all. This is our ending.
Year 6 were asked to bring in an object from home on World Book Day. Despite many, many questions on this, ( Whst can I bring? Does it need to be precious? Can I bring my dog? etc etc), they were told it could be literally ANY object - old, new, beautiful, ugly, annoying, soothing…
They are now working in small groups, having been given the challenge of writing stories for Reception Class featuring their objects.
This afternoon, we will head to Robins to read them the stories, together with our objects!
Year 6 attempted to write instructions for the making of a ‘deluxe’ sandwich. They then swapped books and tried to follow their partner’s recipe…. Unfortunately, almost all of them forgot to mention needing a knife!! We had a go, using our hands ( or, in some instances, just staring at the ingredients because all we were given was simply that - a list of ingredients!) and quickly realised how much we needed to do to improve our instructions. The final versions were MUCH better!
Year Six have been studying Edvard Munch’s The Scream, and have tried to recreate this famous painting using various media. Here are some of our attempts!
Year 6 can beat grown ups at maths!! Mrs Powell took a screenshot from a recent BBC Pointless programme, knowing lots of Badgers would know all the answers!
She was right! Easy peasy! Well done, Year 6!!
We have had such an exciting week in Year 6. First, we received a tweet from Malorie Blackman, world famous author of Pig Heart Boy, the book we started reading on the very same day that the news announced that a man in America had received a pig heart in a life-saving operation.
Our art work has been fabulous. We have created a murmuration picture, inspired by the work of Henri Matisse, as well as creating beautiful little birds from newspaper and twigs. We think they look stunning. Today, we are using goose feathers to create quill pens which we are looking forward to using. What a wonderful week!
Art week has started in Year 6 and we’ve spent lots of time learning about Henri Matisse, focussing in on his bird pictures! We have sketched simple bird shapes, translated them over onto polystyrene tiles and tried to create colourful prints. We are now going to try to create smaller prints in order to produce a set of bird-themed Easter cards.
Later this week, we are going to use recycled materials to produce some bird ‘mobiles’ ( not the telecommunication sort!) and also try to create and use our own quill pens made from goose feathers.
We had a fabulous day on Monday when Ian, from Mexicolore, visited us. We learned all about the instruments they used ( some amazing whistles and drums), their diet, their clothing and also the punishments given to girls and boys!!! It was a great way to kick start our new topic.
So, after seven increasingly autumnal weeks, we reach the end of our Victorian topic. The children were excited, this week, to spot people sewing samplers in a documentary in exactly the same way as us.
Well done, Year Six, for a great start to the new academic year. Now, go and have a lovely, safe, healthy half term with lots of fresh air!
Next stop - the Mayans!
Year Six have worked really hard to make lovely posters advertising the wonderful, newly revamped play park on our village green. We are hoping to see some of them there in the next few days for the grand reopening.
As part of our Victorian topic, Year Six have been learning about the importance of silhouette pictures and are starting to create their own.
I cannot wait to have 62 children’s faces in the classroom instead of a mere 31; however, a couple of additional beauties appear to have snuck in. Can you spot them?
This week, Year 6 started a new daily challenge called ‘Daily 10’. The children have a series of quick-fire maths questions to try to answer within a certain number of seconds per question ( the lowest being 3 seconds per question). It has been great fun and is a huge test of both concentration and agility with mental maths! Very exciting!!!
Year 6 were ridiculously excited to finally meet their Reception Class buddies this week! This has been a rite of passage for Year 6 children at out school but sadly, due to Covid, we could not put it in place last year. It is wonderful that we are now able to resume ‘buddies’ as it gives Year 6 children the opportunity to be role models, plus provides the youngest members of our school community with an older friend who can help and guide them as they settle into school life.
