Class 4

All of the children who attended the inter-school cross country competition at St. John’s did St. Chad’s proud!  The Class 4  teams consisted of Jack Armstrong, Jack McLeod, Ethan Dixon, Thomas Tavernor, Aaron Burton and Dylan Dawson for the boys, and Alice Hughes, Katie Bradley, Emily Lamb, Ellie Clayton, Jane Hayman and Enya Clark for the girls.  A huge well done to all the children who volunteered to take part.  They ran their socks off!

World Book Day was lots of fun at St. Chad’s this year.  The children were involved in all sorts of activities throughout the day, including popping down to Class 1 and Class 2 at various points in the day to read the children their favourite stories.  Miss Connor’s favourite feature of the day was “DEAR”, standing for Drop Everything And Read.  At various points in the day the school bell was rung, at which point all children and staff had to down tools and pick up a book for a few minutes.  What a treat!

Friday saw the arrival of our second CAFOD fundraiser, with Crazy Hair Day!  Well done to all those children who made such a big effort with weird and wonderful hairstyles.  Jack Armstrong gets full marks for artistic design, having gone to the trouble of making a star stencil to use in his funky style!

Many of the children got into the spirit of things and took part in our first CAFOD fundraising event this week.  We saw some fabulous costumes, staff and children alike and raised over £100!  Miss Connor’s favourite Class 4 outfits were those of Ethan and Declan.  Well done everybody!

Cycling proficiency training began this week, with children and instructors braving the wintry conditions to get stuck in!  They began with full safety checks of all the bicycles, before doing some activities to check braking and signalling skills.  All of the children thoroughly enjoyed it and are looking forward to the next session.

Class 4 children had a fantastic morning at St. John’s on Friday, working in the DT workshop with Mr Adair.  They each had the opportunity to make a wooden noughts and crosses game, including using hacksaws and the large drilling machines.  Everybody thoroughly enjoyed themselves (although the drilling was a little taxing for Miss Connor’s ‘health and safety’ nerves!!) and I’m sure you’ll agree that the end products are brilliant!  Well done Class 4, you were a credit to St. Chad’s!

The children representing St. Chad’s at the basketball tournament had a wonderful time and were a credit to the school in the way in which they conducted themselves.  They enjoyed taking part and watching the other teams and came fourth overall in the competition. 

The whole class enjoyed the training so much, that Miss Connor has decided to hold an intra-school competition between the House groups.  We had our first set of matches this week with results as follows: Matthew Vs. John 2-2; Mark Vs. Luke – 0-0 (despite several absolutely cracking shots!!).  The games will continue throughout next half term with 1 point awarded for a draw and 3 points for a win.  Watch this space to find out how each House gets on and who will claim the title of St. Chad’s basketball champions!

Year 5 children have been working hard with Mrs Jackson finding out about different countries all around the world, including what is going on in the world news.  They have really enjoyed selecting countries from the map of the world, then using the computers to research what is going on there and how it compares to life and news in the UK.  They then used the information they found out to write their own newspaper reports about their chosen country.

Fitting in nicely with their PE unit of Dance, this week Class 4 have been working extremely hard on their assembly in preparation for Strictly Come Dancing’s Live Tour to Witton Park this coming Friday.  They have surprised themselves as well as Miss Connor and Mrs Jackson with the speed at which they have picked up the steps and their enthusiasm has been relentless!  Check out these photos for some shots of their fancy footwork!  No snaps of the costumes though – we’re keeping those a surprise!

GET ACTIVE!!!

The children so much enjoyed taking part in the local inter-school Swimming Gala last term, that Miss Connor has entered them for as many up and coming festivals as we can squeeze in!  Next week sees children from Class 4 taking part in a basketball festival following some training sessions with Peter Ramsey, our sports coordinator.  After half term, children from across both Key Stages will be taking part in a cross country competition at St. John’s and the whole of Class 3 will be taking part in a multi-skills festival to have a taster of all sorts of new activities.

After the Easter holidays, Class 3 and Class 4 will receive some cricket coaching from Peter Ramsey in preparation for the cricket festival in the summer term.  Although it’s not possible for every child to take part every time, it is our aim that any children who are interested will have had the opportunity to take part in at least one sports festival before the end of this academic year.  Tracksuits and trainers at the ready…!!

In Literacy Class 4 have been using the story of Alice in Wonderland to give them ideas to develop their writing. As part of this, they have written character descriptions for characters of their choice and done some work with Mrs Jackson to illustrate their chosen character in both pencil sketches and pastels.  We love the end result!

Class 4 had a very special visitor at the end of the school day on Wednesday!  Katie Bradley (Year 5) is the proud new owner of Charlie – a 10 week old English Springer Spaniel puppy.  He popped in to Class 4 to say hello and everyone thought he was rather gorgeous!  In fact, Miss Connor would have liked to have taken him home!  He was very partial to a lick and a nibble of anything he could get his paws on, so we were all very careful to give our hands a good wash after he’d gone!

During the next week or so, Miss Connor will begin training some Year 5s and 6s for the Young Sports Leader Award scheme.  This is a nationally accredited scheme designed to equip children between the ages of 9 and 11 with core leadership skills that will enable them to run lunchtime sports activities for younger children.  It has been shown to develop good behaviour, co-operation with peers and adults, confidence and self-esteem and is a fantastic opportunity for the children! 

This week, the children have been writing letters of application to one of our local sports coordinators to either apply for the scheme themselves or nominate somebody else.  Have a look at the display boards in the school corridor for examples of their completed letters; I think you’ll agree they’ve done a great job!  Watch this space to find out who our first round of successful applicants are!

Guess the game!

Class 4 thoroughly enjoyed their Christmas party this week!

On Wednesday Santa visited with a gift for everyone!  Whatever it was that Aaron asked him, he looked very pleased with the answer he got!

As many of you will have seen, last week our beautiful Christmas tree arrived!  Mrs Jackson has worked hard with the children to make some traditional paper decorations and, as you can see from Alice’s, the end result is lovely!

FLOWERS UPDATE!

So far, the flowers in plain water and water with plant food remain very ‘happy’ and are still standing nice and tall with healthy yellow flowers and healthy green leaves.  Alas, the flowers in water with sugar are not faring so well and after a couple of days drooped a little bit… and then a little bit more!

As the performance date looms ever closer, it’s all hands on deck in the props department at St. Chad’s!  This week, the teaching assistants have been working extremely hard on fantastic props and scenery ready for the full dress rehearsal next week.  Never mind Countdown to Christmas; we’re counting down to the date of our first performance!

In their eagerness to put their skills in to practise on a full-size netball court, the children in Class 4 overruled Miss Connor’s concerns about the cold weather and voted for P.E. outside this week!  Whilst the children donned their shorts, Miss Connor felt there was nothing for it but to prepare herself for arctic conditions.  She couldn’t understand why the children fell about laughing…!

In Science the children are investigating what makes cut flowers last the longest: 2 teaspoons of liquid plant food, 2 teaspoons of sugar or plain water?  So far all of our specimens are looking nice and healthy.  Watch this space to see how they progress!

On Wednesday this week, the whole school thoroughly enjoyed a performance by Wizard William and his drama company.  Jerome was one of the children selected to greet Queen Guinevere with a very special type of bow!  See him here in action alongside Amelia, the King and Wizard William!

Everybody (including Mrs Robertson!!) has been working very hard this week, preparing our Christmas production.  Bring on the Greek dancing!

The children thoroughly enjoyed a visit from Jet and Ben!

AFRICA UPDATE:  Following a fantastic afternoon at the Christmas Fayre and a constant stream of coppers being put in our collection wells, St. Chad’s have now raised over £300 for the Change for Change campaign.  This is over half of the cost of a well!  A HUGE thank you to everyone who has been donating their loose change.  Keep those coppers rolling in…!

This week has been our first week this year of looking at one of the other major world religions.  We have been learning about Judaism; in particular the feast of Passover.  The photos show Ella wearing a traditional Kippah skull cap, Jack holding a yad (used for reading the Torah), Alice holding the special cup used in the Seder meal during the Passover celebrations and a replica Seder plate and Torah.

As part of our topic work in Class 4, we have been making Greek comedy and tragedy masks out of clay.  We have also been learning about how, at Olympia, victors were awarded a crown of wild olive leaves, at Delphi a laurel crown, at Corinth a pine crown and at Nemea a wild celery crown.  The children have had great fun creating some of their own!

The children in Class 4 had a special visitor this week – from one of their new Class Governors!  Mrs Stringer spent Monday afternoon with the children and got well and truly into the spirit of things, especially in practising her shooting skills!  What a whizz she was on the netball court!

In Numeracy, the children have been doing some data handling.  Linked to our work in science, they collected data about just how much exercise they all do in one week.  Once they’d collected the data, they produced bar charts both by hand and using their fantastic ICT skills.

In PE Class 4 have been practising their dodging and marking skills for use in invasion games!

We have been learning how to write clear instructions in Literacy.  To help us on our way we pitched a simple dome tent, some of us with an uninvited furry guest as an assistant!!!  This wasn’t too bad until it bit Miss Connor…..OUCH! 

In Numeracy we have been working on measuring.  If only a mm wasn’t SO small, we wouldn’t have to be quite so accurate!

In the next few weeks, Class 4 will be helping Miss Connor to launch the 'Change for Change' campaign at St. Chad's.  This is part of the school's commitment to helping other people less fortunate than ourselves, as well as developing international links and an awareness of other cultures.  In August 2010 Miss Connor will be travelling to some remote villages in Cameroon, alongwith her partner Michael.  The visit will involve digging wells and basic sanitation systems, as well as working in the local medical centre.  The information below explains the fundraising campaign, which has the main aim of providing wells for clean drinking water for each of the villages.  If you would like to find out more about how you can become involved, please come to Miss Connor's assembly on Friday October 16th.  In the meantime - start saving those coppers!!

UPDATE ON ‘CHANGE FOR CHANGE’

WELL DONE CLASS 4!!!!!  Miss Connor has been completely bowled over this week by the amazing generosity of all of the children in Class 4.  Since talking to them about the Change for Change campaign on Tuesday, there has been a steady stream of loose change being poured into the fantastic wells made for us by Reception Class.  Ethan, Emily and Ella gave up their lunch time on Thursday to count up how much money we have raised so far, and discovered a whopping great total of £53.20!!!!!!!!  This means that already we are one tenth of the way towards a well for one of the villages.  What a fantastic achievement!  Check out the photos below of the children both putting their money in, as well as pouring it back out for the big ‘count up’.

In year 5 this year we have 15 children - 6 boys and 9 girls.

In year 6 we have 6 children - 2 boys and 4 girls.

In Reception Class  this week, the children have done a fantastic job of starting the campaign!  With the help of Mrs Hebron, they have made two wells for the rest of the school to put their loose change in.  They did all the cutting and sticking themselves.  Keep your eyes peeled for when the wells appear around the school - they're fabulous!  Well done Class 1!