Our KS2 children became entrepreneurs for the afternoon as they planned, sourced, set up and sold at our Annual Children's Fair. The children worked so hard and were very much independent - considering everything they needed to make it a success. There were sweet and cakes stalls, smoothie and milkshake stalls, beauty and jewellery stalls, stationery stalls as well as collect-a card, toy and book stalls....in addition to this there were various games to like Splat a Rat, Pie Face and Hook-a -Duck.

Thank you to all of our children across the school for bringing in their pennies to buy things and to play the games. We could see that you were all really enjoying yourselves and lots of children got some brilliant bargains. Mr Quilter was also really impressed with the team work afterwards - everyone got stuck in to get the school hall, library area, courtyard and Music and Drama Room shipshape again! Well done to you all as you raised £432 and this will of course be given to The Children's Fair Committee to buy new play and lunchtime equipment for you all to play with. This committee will meet with Miss Lyddon early next term, to trail through the catalogues to decide on what to buy.  

This initiative really makes our children appreciate the hard work of the stall holders... and in turn they all take great care of the playtime resources available to them.

Today Year Four were lucky enough to have representatives from OtterBox come into school as part of their Closed 2 Open days. On these days, the team close their doors and computers and head out to inspire young entrepreneurs. They gave a fab talk where they explained a little bit more about them and their company, how they work and grow their business minds and how ideas are developed. Then the children were put into teams and had the challenge to think of a new invention or kit that could be designed and sold on in an extreme location. The children had to think of their product as a team, collaborate on the name, logo and design as well as come up with an organised and convincing pitch. This allowed the children to develop their communication, team work, determination and leadership skills - all fantastic traits of a strong business mind!

All of the children did so well - the team really was blown away! Some of the company designs included:

-Midnight MoonBall which was a waterproof gravity ball, big enough to hold one adult or two children. 

-STS tsunami raft that conveniently fits into a waterproof, light weight bag.

-A heatwave survival kit that included water bottles in cooling pouches. 

All the children were given medals by the OtterBox team for their great effort and each member of the winning team received a trophy. What a great day! Thank you again to the team for coming in and for inspiring the children in so many different ways.  

Today, the Year 5 and 6 children became embalmers at The House Of Death by learning how to mummify a dead body (an action figure). Luckily they all had strong stomachs and could deal with a lot of blood and guts! Below are the set of instructions they followed. Take a look at our photos too - can you tell which step they are following in each picture?

1. Wash the outside of the body with palm wine

2. Carefully pull brain out of the nose using a hook

3. Make a clean cut on the left side of the body near the tummy

4. Remove all of the internal organs

5. Let the internal organs dry

6. Place the lungs, intestines, stomach and liver inside canopic jars

7. Place the heart back inside the body

8. Rinse the inside of body with wine and spices

9. Cover the corpse with natron (salt) for 70 days

10 After 40 days stuff the body with linen or sand to give it a more human shape

11. After the 70 days wrap the body from head to toe in bandages

12. Place in a sarcophagus (a type of box-like a coffin)

As part of our topic ‘Walk Like An Egyptian’, Year 5 and 6 had a fantastic Egyptian themed day where the children wrote their names in hieroglyphs and sketched the infamous death mask of Tutankhamun. We also had a visit from Ben, an actor from the Treehouse Theatre Company, who helped the children perform a play-in-a-day that spanned the history of the Ancient Egyptians from Tutankhamun to the reign of Cleopatra.

Thank you to all of those children who made the effort to dress up as it really did make our performance look even more authentic! We hope the children had a lovely day. Take a look at our pictures to see what fun and exciting things we got up to!

Today Year Four were lucky enough to have a representative from Southampton Football Club outreach team come into school. We were taught how to play some brilliant skill based games that worked on our ability to be aware of other players, move quickly and dodge opponents, use different parts of our feet to move the ball and more. Can you remember how many parts of your foot you can use when dribbling and passing? Lots of us enjoyed developing our skills and some of us enjoyed working on our 'tricks' and more advanced footwork. It was great to see the children working in a variety of different groups and teams. 

Thank you again to Southampton FC for coming into our school. We know Y4 have been inspired to practise their game play! 

Dear Parents/Carers,

Although we are expecting rain during the early hours and all this snow and ice could wash away, there has been lots of work this afternoon to clear the main entrance of school.  We suggest parents avoid driving down Binfields Farm Lane altogether and Pyotts Copse is also very icy.  We suggest parking a sensible distance away from school to avoid skids/slides and accidents near school and our children.  Although the main entrance is clear, the side gates have not been cleared and will not be open (unless the ice has washed away) so all children should enter school from the front entrance.

We will be having a staggered start so school will open at normal time, but registration will close at 10am to ease congestion. Early morning intervention groups will not run tomorrow morning.

We suggest children bring in a change of clothes/footwear in a named bag in case of wet feet etc. 

A big thank you to all who could help clear the site.  It really is appreciated. I am sorry I couldn’t be there to help, we were digging ourselves out in Kingsclere and it was just too risky to drive ice wise! 

Kind regards,

Ms Rogers

Great Binfields Primary School has made the difficult decision to close today (Friday 1st Feb) due to the adverse weather and travel conditions. The drop off and collection of children from our site during severe weather conditions would create a high degree of risk to safety and the majority of our staff travel some distance to get to/from school. We are therefore very concerned about children and staff being able to get home safely if conditions further deteriorate as they have done in the past few hours.
Rest assured we will reschedule Children's Fair for next week. Further details to follow.

We apologise for the inconvenience caused, but hope that you realise we have not taken this decision lightly.

Further activities can be found on our school website and there are lots of activities to choose from on Education City and Abacus once the children have come in from enjoying the snow.

Thank you for your understanding, Ms Rogers