Latest News
Keep up to date with all the latest news happening in school at the moment.
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Day 1 at Stone Farm
Tue 21 Mar 2017Today was a fabulous first day. The children have been very excitable as you can imagine. Our first stop was Buckfast Abbey and the children were amazed at the size of it and were even more surprised when they found out that only 4 people had rebuilt it! The education centre was full of wonderful hands-on activities that the children really enjoyed as you will see from the pictures.
Next the children met Father Christopher who is a monk at the monastery and has been for over 50 years. He told us a little history of the abbey and what life was like as a monk. The children asked some really impressive questions and listened intently.
On to Stone Farm - the children met all of the animals after unpacking. They are looking forward to their farm duties each day that's for sure. There are alpacas, owls, guinea pigs, rabbits, donkeys, chickens, pigs, goats and ducks...oh and I nearly forgot Diesel the Dog.
The children ate loads for dinner - I was really pleased with what they tucked away. A choice of fish/sausages or burger with chips and beans. Ice cream and yoghurts were on the menu for desserts.
This evening we played some traditional games such as pick up sticks, ludo, snakes and ladders, dominoes etc before we went to the barn at 8pm to sketch Hedwig the famous Stone Farm owl. He was rescued 25 years ago by Mr and Mrs Hatton. The kids' sketches are fab - the children are rightly proud of them.
I've just read them a story - one of Aesop's fables, which they really enjoyed and they have now settled for bed. It has gone remarkably quiet - fingers crossed we have a quiet night.
Enjoy the photos and we will post again tomorrow.
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Stone Farm
Tue 21 Mar 2017Just a quick message to let you know that all of the Year 4 children and staff have arrived safely at Stone Farm. They have already enjoyed a tour of the farm and are now settling into their rooms! Watch this space for further updates throughout the week! -
EYFS Spring Walk
Tue 21 Mar 2017Yesterday Holly and Maple classes went on a local walk to look for signs of spring. The children all had checklists of key things to look for such as buds on trees, new flowers and nests being built. We were very impressed with the children's knowledge about the animals coming our of hibernation and how the plants change from season to season. Everyone proved to be super detectives and found evidence of everything on their lists. The children loved exploring the woods and we had a great walk.
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Science Week Success!
Fri 17 Mar 2017It has been great to see Science in action this week with lots of visitors, experiments and investigations taking place. I have been lucky enough to have a peak in most classrooms to see what has been happening and also talk to the children to hear how much they have enjoyed and understood their Science-based tasks. Often without realising the children have been involved in Science; from making toys out of different materials to going on a Spring walk around our woods, it's all Science!
A big thank you to our visitors that have given up their time to work with the children; I hope this has given children the opportunity to see Science in action! Where will Science take you in the future? Which of our children will be the next 'big thing' in Science? What might they invent? This has been a great link with our Challenge evening that took place on Wednesday evening; Science is a great place to develop that Growth Mindset culture.
What experiments will you try at home? Why not bring in some photos to show?
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Challenge Evening
Thu 16 Mar 2017A huge thank you to everyone who attended yesterday's Challenge Evening! It was great to see adults and children working as a team to test their growth mindset and resilience skills. Take a look at the photos to see how much fun everyone had!
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Picasso inspired art led by visiting artist
Wed 15 Mar 2017Our Year 1 have been truly inspired by our visiting artist, Fatima. She gave the children an insight into the works of Picasso and she has assisted the children to use his unique style to create their own portraits/versions. See the wonderful pictures below - They look so striking.
The children were in awe of her work which was lovely and they definitely learned some great art techniques in the process. I absolutely love the charcoal portraits that she has sketched of some of the children too - they are hung in the courtyard windows of Oak and Chestnut classes for you to see. They are really, really good.
This is Fatima's second year of coming to our school and we will be booking up her again to come and inspire our future year 1 pupils as she supports our vision of creating a rich and vibrant curriculum for them.
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The Giant Sing
Tue 14 Mar 2017On Tuesday afternoon, Year 4 went to the Anvil to take part in the Giant Sing along with other schools from around Hampshire. The songs went with the story of the Happy Prince and the children sang beautifully. We also enjoyed watching the dancing and acting too. The children have been practising for the last few months with Mrs Shapland and they really put all their effort into learning the words and the tunes - we were so impressed. Well done Year 4! -
Visit to Southampton Art Gallery
Tue 14 Mar 2017Today a group of children accompanied by Miss Finnimore and myself travelled to Southampton Art Gallery which is situated in the centre of the city. This is an annual trip at GBP where the children invited have the opportunity to view the gallery there and participate in a wire workshop.
The day was once again a huge success and the children were all rightly proud of the wire people they made. The task itself was very fiddly and tricky - the children certainly had to use some of our GBP values and practice their growth mindset skills in order to succeed. The workshop leader was impressed with their effort and so were we.
Afterwards the children had the opportunity to view the paintings and sculptures on display in the main gallery. For some children, they had not been to a gallery before so that was exciting for them. They discovered that just like in libraries, people walk around quietly. We also modelled how to look at the paintings 'deeply' to see how they were painted but also to try and fathom out the story behind them too. Some were very old - over 600 years old in some cases whereas some were modern. Some were very colourful some were not. The children used new vocabulary to describe the paintings and we shared the different names for the styles of paintings too.
The children sketched various parts of paintings that interested them as well as choosing key words that helped to describe their visit and learning. To finish with the children all chose their favourite painting and shared this with the others.
All in all, a fabulous day - thank you to Miss Finnimore, to the staff at Southampton Gallery and to the children of course for making it so enjoyable.
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Science Week at GBP
Sun 12 Mar 2017This week is Science week at GBP and the Science team have worked really hard to put together the exciting programme for this year.The children will be learning about some famous Scientists past and present. Science investigations and experiments have been planned which are linked to the children's class topics. The children will also be exploring some interesting science mistakes as well and this links beautifully with our work on Growth Mindset!
Oh and I nearly forgot, each class will be having a visitor based around an area of science to inspire our children also. Thank you to all of them in advance for giving up their valuable time to come in to school. It is greatly appreciated.
Please do ask your child what they have been learning about this week and keep an eye on updates posted in our Latest News.
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Challenge Evening
Fri 10 Mar 2017We are looking forward to seeing you all at the Challenge Evening next Wednesday 15th March. Click on the link below to watch our video to find out more about it...
