Keep up to date with all the latest news happening in school at the moment.

• First Junior Schools Hockey League Match at Down Grange

  Fri 16 Nov 2018 Miss Lyddon
  Last night, 11 children from KS2 represented Great Binfields at the 5 a-side Junior League Hockey Tournament. These were our first matches and both teams played 4 matches each. All children demonstrated good team work, co-operation and played well. Thank you to all of the children for representing Great Binfields and for the parents who came to support. A great big thank you to 'The Friends of Great Binfields' for our new team hoodies.

  

• E-Safety Update

  Fri 09 Nov 2018 Mrs Holdsworth

  We wanted to take this opportunity to update you regarding e-safety. As you know, growing up in such a digital modern world, where things move at such a fast pace, it is vitally important we keep our children safe online. You hopefully will have received our Digital Parenting magazine last half term which outlines some key ways in which you can help keep your children safe online.

   

  It has been brought to our attention that some pupils are using games, apps and online websites out of school which we do not deem to be safe to use. Last half term, during an e-safety assembly, pupils were reminded about PEGI ratings which outline the age games and videos are intended for. As ever, we would really appreciate your support in ensuring that children are not being exposed to game or video content which is not age appropriate or suitable.

   

  One of the apps we would  like to make you aware of is TikTok (formerly known as musical.ly), which is an app that is open to the world, so mature content can (and does) appear in the stream. Tik Tok is rated 12+ on the Apple app store. However, there is no system in place to verify a user’s age, so anyone can download it. Because of the access to inappropriate content, and the use of popular music that may contain explicit language, this is not an app which is suitable for our children. If you are concerned that your child may have it, you can use the parental control settings on your child’s device(s) to prevent them from downloading the app (or indeed delete it should it already be installed). If your child has a phone, I would recommendthat regular weekly checks are set up to monitor usage.

   

  I came across these five top tips for keeping safe online (taken from the NSPCC website) which I would like to share with you:

  1. Set rules and agree boundaries as a family

  2. Talk about online safety and get involved

  3. Know who your children are talking to

  4. Check content is age-appropriate

  5. Use parental and privacy controls

  These points are discussed in more detail on their website(https://www.nspcc.org.uk/globalassets/documents/advice-and-info/online-safety-keep-child-safe.pdf) .

   

  Thank you for your continued support on this matter, I know you will agree that it is vitally important that we keep our children safe online.

   

   

   

• Poppy Tesco Window Display

  Fri 09 Nov 2018 Mrs Harvey

  The whole school have been learning about the importance of poppies. Do you know why poppies have such a significant meaning?

  The Early Years children have used the poppies as a stimulus for some of their art work. They have created some stunning water colour poppy field pieces which are currently on display at Tesco for this weekend. If you get a chance to pop in they are well worth a look, alongside some of the other window displays that also reflect the importance of the poppy.

   

  A great job Early Years and Mrs Harvey was also impressed with your understanding around Rememberance Day as well as your Art work. 

  

• Great Fire of London

  Wed 07 Nov 2018

  Yesterday Year 2 were able to see a reenactment of the Great Fire of London! We used the town houses we made last week to create an old London town. Mr Quilter helped us to start the fire at the bakery in Pudding Lane. 

  We then watched as the fire spread across the houses. It was amazing to see the children's reaction and it seemed to really engage them in the topic. 

  

• Great Fire of London workshop

  Fri 02 Nov 2018

  Today Year 2 took part in a Great Fire of London drama workshop with the Treehouse Theatre Company. Starting out in Pudding Lane, the children dressed up and created their characters. They needed to make decisions as the fire progressed through London. The session really ignited the children’s imaginations and brought the events of 1666 to life.

  

• Year 4 Topic Launch

  Thu 01 Nov 2018 Miss Hanafin

  Yesterday Year Four launched their Greek topic. We had a busy day of learning a little bit about The Ancient Greeks – enough to get us asking lots of questions. We then made some Greek wreath crowns, learning about the different types of wreaths and who they would have been worn by. We also looked at the Greek alphabet and compared how the letter symbols have changed and how some of our English words are derived from Greek words – we will be doing more on this over the half term. In the afternoon, we looked at some Ancient Greek architecture. We focussed on the three different types of columns that were commonly used – can you remember the names? Throughout all of this, we did some Greek food tasting. We had Green Olives, Black Olives, Goats cheese, Feta cheese, pitta dipped in oil, honey and figs. We had to think about the flavours and the texture. It was a brilliant day and everyone is now very excited for the learning to follow as we develop our enquiry about The Ancient Greeks. We are also very excited for our Greek Day coming up where we will all be dressing up. I wonder what we will get up to then ….