Tag: stafford

During 4th -11th March at Stafford, we celebrated our fantastic reading week with a whole host of reading centred activities.

On Tuesday and Wednesday, we opened up the doors to the hall and welcomed lots of eager children and adults to take part in a reading breakfast. So many children bought some new and exciting books from the book fair and read to their adults whilst helping themselves to tonnes of free breakfast items! It was a wonderful and magical couple of mornings watching children enjoying reading and talking about books!

Tuesday afternoon was spent sharing a story. Lots of year groups mixed up so that children could read to someone older or younger than them. The children thoroughly enjoyed themselves and the older ones were reading role models to some of the younger ones. Year 3 had an opportunity to go back to Roselands and read with Year 1 and Year 2 got to experience reading with Year 5 – they made some lovely friendships which will help when some of them arrive at Stafford in September.

On Thursday, we celebrated World Book Day. There were many activities taking place around the school such as: live author interview videos, creating book character bunting and bookmarks, book quizzes and loads more! As well as this, the children participated in dressing up as a book character of their choice. The winners from each year group and an overall school winner were awarded with National Book Vouchers. We thoroughly enjoyed seeing all the fantastic outfits the children wore!

A book swap shop was set up in the library on Wednesday and Friday at lunch time for children to bring in up to five books from home that they no longer read to swap for new books to increase and widen their reading experiences. We hope you’ve found something enjoyable from all the donations!

Finally, our favourite story teller, Craig Jenkins, paid us a visit on Monday 11^th March to entertain us with a plethora of exciting tales! We heard all about a story which empowered women which featured a singing cow; a story based around a donkey with an important moral as well as various others. Craig then allowed parents to take part in a work shop after school which got all of the children and grown-ups off their feet and moving around as an animal of their choice in his story of  ‘The Sky is Falling’. He shared a variety of stories from other cultures and countries including: Thailand, India and Malaysia. We look forward to welcoming him back next year.

Year 3 have loved ‘I Love Reading’ week! It has been great to see the children so excited about reading. We have loved learning about their favourite book characters and books.

Throughout the week, the children have been writing a non-fiction fact file about their favourite book character. Their knowledge of their chosen characters has been very impressive! They had to think about the features of a non-fiction piece of writing, as well as thinking carefully about the different sub-headings and the relevant information they should include under them. We will be finishing these off next week, so keep an eye for some finished pieces!

On Tuesday, we went to Roselands to read with the Year 1 children. It was so lovely to see nearly 200 children engaged in a range of books. The Year 3 children read their books with confidence and enthusiasm and the Year 1 children listened beautifully. Some of the Year 1 children even chose some books to read to their Year 3 partner. It was a fabulous afternoon – well done to all the children involved! Thank you to all the parent helpers who helped walk the children to and from Roselands – we wouldn’t have been able to go without you!

World Book Day was on Thursday and the children (and adults!) in Year 3 arrived as a range of characters from a variety of books! The children participated in lots of reading activities, but the highlight of the day was making potions in Maths! Professor Albus Dumbledore had set a task to make potions that could control parents, make teachers give you stickers and a potion to make you invisible! The children had to carefully measure the ingredients (such as juiced minion, unicorn blood and troll spit!) using different equipment and different scales.

After much anticipation, the children in 3 Rowan finally received their first letters from their Australian pen pals! It felt like Christmas day opening up the parcel with them all in, and even more exciting to receive and open their individual letters.

The children spent time reading their letters and finding out about how some children live on the other side of the world! They are currently finishing off their replies, ready to send at  the beginning of next week.

3 Rowan have loved putting their learning into something meaningful and can’t wait to hear back from their pen pal already!

On Monday of this week, Year 4 celebrated the end of term by having a Mayan Day. We learnt about the importance of chocolate in the development of the Maya culture. Did you know that it was used as money? We found out how they became powerful, as well as why they declined. We were able to compare what we knew about the Saxons, Celts and Ancient Egyptians to see that they were not totally different after all. We retold stories in words and pictures, with some children even acting out what they had found out. We looked at different masks, comparing some of them with those we had looked at in term 1 and used coloured squares to create mosaic designs.

After painting their salt dough jewellery, Year 3 have opened up their own jewellery shop!

Thank you to Ms Slimon for being so creative – we think it looks fab!

On Thursday morning, Year 5 visited the children in Year 3 to share some of their writing they have been working really hard on. After explaining what their writing task was, the children from Year 5 read their work with confidence to the Year 3 children. The children in Year 3 listened to their Year 5 authors beautifully. In a kind and thoughtful way, they then gave the Year 5s some positive feedback and something they could improve on. The Year 5 children took on board the feedback they received and have spent (or will spend!) some time making these improvements.

Year 3 loved listening to the Year 5’s writing and it has inspired them to become fantastic writers too!

The first Eastbourne PE Association dance festival is taking place this Thursday 7th February at 6.30pm. We are excited to be entering a group performing our dance against ‘Pointless Plastics’ to Michael Jackson’s, ‘They don’t really care about us’. We are really looking forward to it and have performed in school already to Years 3 & 4 (see the photo!). We are looking forward to performing to Year 5 & 6 – hopefully later this week.

Mrs Lloyd would like to thank Miss Doig, our dance specialist, for all her amazingly work with the children. They have worked so hard and it has been wonderful to see their enthusiasm and fabulous dancing skills. Enjoy your performance on Thursday!

On Wednesday afternoon, Year 3 got creative with salt dough! They had looked carefully at different Bronze Age jewellery, such as necklaces and bracelets, and designed their own piece of jewellery using what they had observed.

The children used different methods to create their desired shapes and then used a range of tools to create marks and patterns.

Next week, the children will be painting their jewellery so keep an eye out for further updates with some final pieces!

On Tuesday, Year 3 went back in time to the Stone Age.

They began their day by participating in Stone Age sport activities. This involved ‘hunting’ animals using the javelins, practising their aims and hunting mammoths! A massive thank you to Mrs Springett, Mr Smith, Mrs Osborne-Walker and Mr Richardson for organising this.

After break, the children became archaeologists. They investigated Stone Age people’s poo to find out what they ate! This was a very mucky, but exciting, way to investigate this! Thank you to Mr Walton, Mr Haddock and Mrs Lloyd for coming to see this. The children loved sharing their findings with you!

In the afternoon, everyone went on a Stone Age hunt to find different items. They had to identify what the item was and create a list. The children also had to find a suitable stick to use for cave paintings. For the cave paintings, the children used black and red paint to create some beautiful work.

Thank you to everyone involved in Year 3’s Stone Age day, including Ms Slimon, Miss Shields, Miss Dixon and Miss Thornton.

6 Larch have been looking at ‘Balance in Motion’ this term during their P.E. with the support of Mr Griffiths. Throughout the term the children have learnt the importance of warming up correctly and the positive changes they will notice in their bodies once they have successfully completed a warm up. They then built on the moves they used during their warm up, to create a group balance. We have also explored flight, how to work together collaboratively, worked on the skills required to perform a head stand and used the wall bars and other apparatus safely. To finish our topic, the children worked on a group performance which they then performed to Mr Griffiths and Ms Markides who were the judges. The children all took this performance seriously and it was wonderful to even see one group practising their routine during morning activities! Well done 6 Larch for all you have achieved during your P.E. lessons this term and a special thank you to Mr Griffiths.

It has been wonderful to walk around the school and see how each classes Reverse Advent Calendars have grown throughout December. Thank you to everyone who has supported with this. The Reverse Advent Calendar, which we are filling with anything from non-perishable food items to toiletries, will continue until Wednesday 19th December. Ms Markides will then collect all of the donations before a group of teachers take the donations to Grove Road food bank on Thursday 20th December. Thank you for your support with this and for making a difference to others this Christmas. We look forward to seeing how the hampers continue to grow in our final week.

This week, the Year 4 children welcomed their families to our Rainforest café. It was an opportunity for the pupils to share their stories, poems and collages, as well as the ‘tropical squash’, cakes and biscuits they had helped to decorate.

It was lovely to see so many of you at this event and we hope that you enjoyed having the Year 4s reading to you. We hope to do a similar event before the end of the spring terms.

Year 3 took on the challenge of doing some Stone Age cave paintings this week. Every child took a ‘hands on approach’ by adding their hand prints to the ‘cave’ walls. Some children got creative by drawing different pictures which would have been found in caves. The children loved being creative and getting a little messy!

A really big thank you to Ms Slimon and Miss Dixon for organising and cleaning up 90 pairs of hands!

This week, some librarians ran assemblies for all of the children at Stafford to share their love of reading. It was wonderful to see how confidently the librarians spoke and how one pupil had taken her own time to create a PowerPoint to accompany the assembly. Alongside sharing their love of reading, the librarians spoke about how the library is run, how to look after books (so we don’t damage them) and reminded children that they are able to come in and read with a librarian during lunchtime – if they so wish. Well done tothe librarians for leading the assembly. Thank you also to all the librarians, who give up their lunch times, to support in the library.

Ms Markides recently ran a competition which offered pupils the chance to design the programme front cover for this year’s carol concert. It has been overwhelming to see how many responses have come in and the effort which has gone in to them has been wonderful. All the staff would like to thank the pupils for the time they have taken to create their own covers. To celebrate the effort that has gone in to the designs, a handful of the entries are shown here. We would forward to seeing you at the Carol Concerts to see the winning design.

Click on any to view full size.

To mark November the 11th, 100 year since the end of World War One, Year 6 have been looking at war poetry throughout the week. We have learnt that a war port is someone who participates in a war and writes about his/her experiences, or a non-combatant who writes poems about war. We also looked at skipping rhymes which have a rhythm, once read aloud, so makes them perfect for chanting. Within our classes, we worked on reciting the rhymes until we had learnt them by heart. We then went outside and used skipping ropes just as school children would have done during periods of war. The teachers were really impressed with how the children were still able to recall these skipping rhymes days later. We look forward to building on our knowledge of World War One over the rest of this term.

On Wednesday, the children at Stafford were visited by author, E.R. Reilly. He shared a number of his books with the children, writing challenges and tips on how to improve their story writing. Eamon was very funny and made them laugh throughout. They particularly liked the way he wiggled his bottom when he drank his tea!

On Friday, several children were able to meet Eamon in person and have books signed by him. We have also got a number of books to be shared in school – ask your teachers to read you one!

Tuesday saw all of Year 3 go out on a school trip to Michelham Priory that dates back to 1229. An archaeological site famous for its mysterious and eerie past, the children had fun handling Bronze Age tools and learning about burial sites and rituals, making clay animals and silver amulets, before going on a walk back in time around the grounds. After lunch, the children had time to explore a replica Bronze Age Roundhouse and played in the grounds. Back at school, the children will be writing some spooky tales about what it would be like to spend the night at Michelham Priory. Thank you to all the parent helpers that came along to support, the day wouldn’t have been possible without you!

The School Council members from Year 3, 4 & 5 put together a shortlist of scarecrows for the prize and some members of the PTFA kindly judged our scarecrow competition.

The winner is…Crowella by Niamh and Elsa Barrow.

Highly Commended by the PTFA…Jack the Pirate

Runners up (chosen and named by school council children):

Jeffrey the Scarecrow

Jack Sparrow

Scarlett the Scarecrow (scary!)

and Sarah the Scarecrow

Please come and see us if any of the scarecrows above are yours and we will get their prize to them.

On Wednesday, Year 3 went outside in the Secret Garden for their Maths lesson.

The children had to produce a piece of work using nature (leaves, twigs, petals and grass) to demonstrate what they’ve learnt so far this year.

Everyone was creative and showed off their addition, subtraction and place value knowledge.

On Thursday, Year 3 took a quick trip over to Florida! They had to go through the airport processes and have their passports and boarding passes checked. This took a very long time so it was a good job their flight was delayed!

Once they arrived in Florida, they spent some time taking in their surroundings and going on a treasure hunt to look for items which are common in Florida. After this, they explored Disney World and mapped out a route to get around the park by enjoying certain attractions along their way. We then visited the International Space Station and learnt how astronauts go to the toilet and wash their hair in space! The children also designed their own space suit following a certain criteria.

By this point, the children were hungry so they went and had lunch in a Floridian school with some American children! Having refuelled, the children then sat down to write a postcard home reflecting on their exciting day! Before flying home, they spent some time relaxing on the beach with a delicious icepop and enjoyed the scenery whilst listening to the calming waves.

The children were great to travel with and everyone had a blast! What a great end to busy term where the children have worked extremely hard and settled into Stafford well!

Just a reminder that your child needs to bring a healthy snack for breaktime at Stafford. They are allowed any fruit or vegetable and plain or flavoured rice cakes. We are noticing that not many children have a snack – it would be great to see lots more on Monday morning.

The first week of morning activities have been a real success at Stafford with lots of children and parents joining in the fun. It has been fabulous to see lots of breathless, energised children going into class having been skipping, running the mile, hula hooping, taking part in Zumba or dice games and climbing on the Trim Trail. This has set them up really well for a good morning of learning.

We will keep that activities the same next week and then swap for some new fun ideas.

Stafford PTFA asked pupils to design a front cover for a brochure they are producing for the Federation Family Picnic and Summer Fair on Friday 22nd June.

We were really impressed with all entries received and the PTFA would like to thank all pupils for their hard work. Come along to the picnic and collect your brochure to see the winning design!

On Thursday 24th May, Year 3 enjoyed a special ‘We Are Artists’ Day. The children created a landscape painting, a collage in the style of Matisse and pencil sketches of artefacts and landscapes. The Year 3 teachers were impressed by the quality of the children’s work and the effort which they put into each task. At the end of the day, we showcased our artwork by transforming the Star Studio into an Art Gallery.

Year 6 have been learning about: saving, banking and budgeting. Alongside this, each class went to the Metro Bank, in Eastbourne, to see how the bank works. This enabled the children to learn about the different sections within a bank. Firstly, we started by the cashier desks where we learnt all about the checks cashiers carry out to prevent your money from getting stolen. We learnt about the different currencies and how to spot fraudulent money.

Then we went to the Customer Service desk. We learnt how to set up an account and which forms of I.D. we need to take with us if we wish to do so. Customer Service also carry out face checks which prevents you from getting your money stolen. They also showed us the printer which can print credit cards.

Next, we went to the Magic Money Machine which allows you to put a guess of how many coins you have before it counts it through using a laser.

Finally, we were taken inside the vault. Izzy has said, “The vault was so cool! We saw all the safety deposit boxes and the different variations in size that they can be. We also saw all the vaults that had money in them. On average they had £50,000 in them!”

At the end, all of Year 6 were given a goodie bag which contained a piggy bank so they will hopefully put into practise all they have learnt over the week!

On Wednesday 2nd May, the Year 4 pupils battled bravely to Fishbourne. Like the original Roman invaders, we were not defeated by the earlier morning rain, plus most of our activities were inside.

We found out about how the Palace at Fishbourne was discovered and looked at some of the amazing artefacts that had been buried in the ground for almost two thousand years. We took part in a workshop where we were able to make mini mosaics, practise writing our names and even build structures. We found out how the Romans kept themselves clean, how food was prepared and got to dress-up as slaves or important citizens. We even had Mrs Porrell telling us about the different mosaics and had to spot where the mistakes were in them.

We would like to thank our class teachers, the extra school TAs, parents and carers and Mr Walton who came with us. We really enjoyed the visit and have lots of extra facts that we will be able to use in our Learning Journey work back at school.

Last week we were lucky enough to have a visit from Abi Elphinstone, author of The ‘Dreamsnatcher’ trilogy and ‘Sky Song’. She talked to the children about the process of writing a book and brought her wildcat Griff along, as well as other items, such as catapults, featured in her books. Abi talked to the children about all the adventures she went on which inspired her book; waterfall climbing as a child, riding in wheelbarrows, climbing the moors and wildcat spotting.  She told them how she found the inspiration for the woods in The Dreamsnatcher, in the great oaks of the New Forest. All of her ideas for writing came from experiences rather than sitting in a room trying to think of plot lines and characters. She told the children to look up and experience life, as storing these memories could be inspiration for future writing.

The children were captivated by Abi’s tales of all the adventures she has been on from abseiling down caves, hangliding off mountains and her recent trip, living in the mountains of Mongolia with the Kazakh Eagle hunters.

There were lots of interesting questions for Abi about who influences her, who her favourite authors are, and she gave sneak preview of the next book she is writing. Later, Abi signed copies of her books for the children. Thank you to our librarians who were super ambassadors for Stafford and who were very helpful in making the day run smoothly.

On Thursday 22nd March, the Year 3 corridor was transformed into an airport so that we could all fly to Florida for the day. Upon arrival, we explored our surroundings with a treasure hunt before planning a visit to Disney World; learning about the impact of hurricanes and sketching animals and their habitats. At the end of the day, we relaxed on the ‘beach’ with ice pops and flew home just in time for the end of the school day! The Year 3 teachers enjoyed our trip as much as the children did – it was a great way to conclude our topic and develop the children’s geography skills. We would like to thank the children for their enthusiasm and parents/carers for their support with the children’s Florida-themed outfits which really helped them get into the spirit of the day.

On Wednesday, Year 5 had an exciting Greek day. Here is what we got up to:

Over in Acacia, the children had a chance to get messy with PVA glue and newspaper, while they were making paper mache Greek masks. The children decided whether to make one individually or in pairs (although some found it easier working in pairs and less messy!). There was a lovely buzz around the classroom as each group came in and worked on their mask, deciding on the facial features and how they should look.

In Beech, the children tasted a range of Greek foods such as bread sticks, Greek yogurt, olives, feta cheese and bread with olive oil and balsamic vinegar.

The most popular was breadsticks which they dipped in Greek yogurt. It was a unanimous vote across the year group that feta cheese and olives were foods that the children did not like – there were some very interesting faces being made whilst these were being eaten!

Everyone completed a food tasting chart and made comments about all the different foods. In their groups, the children engaged in interesting conversations about what they thought new foods tasted like.

In the Star Studio, the children learnt how to dance the ‘Zorba’ a famous Greek dance. They had to learn a sequence of moves and then choreograph a section of the dance themselves. I was really impressed with the speed at which the classes picked up the sequence. We had lots of fun!

5 Sycamore classroom was busy all day making laurel wreaths out of green card of various shades to enhance their costumes.

Last week, we had a fabulous ‘I Love Reading’ week at Stafford!   The week got off to a super start with a visit from Henry Young from East Sussex Library service.  Then, children enjoyed some thrilling adventure stories by Pie Corbett and produced their own exciting stories in response.  We all had fun sharing a book with a buddy from another class.  We also watched the World Book Day ‘Biggest Book Show on Earth’, which featured top authors and illustrators like Cressida Cowell and Chris Riddell.  On Thursday, World Book Day, the children looked amazing in their ‘reading heroes’ costumes and staff were transformed into witches, crayons and even astronauts!

We were thrilled to have the support of so many parents and carers at our reading breakfasts and book fair.  It was lovely to see so many families enjoying a book together.  We raised a whopping £856.50, giving the school £453.90 to spend on books.  Thank you!