Year 3 William Morris printing

Year 3 have been learning about the Victorian artist, William Morris. Like William Morris, we have taken inspiration from nature to design our own relief poly blocks. We used simple patterns to ensure our repeating patterns were bold and would stand out! The finished pieces were incredible - take a look at the pictures to see how they turned out!

KS1 footballers certainly put the GREAT into Great Binfields this afternoon! The team spirt, determination and sheer skill shone through each and everyone of the 8 footballers. The team have portrayed our school values onto the pitch showing resilience and perseverance- never giving up! Miss Lyddon and I are super proud of the 100% effort team GBP put into their games. A special thank you to Phil Jeffs for organising yet another great sporting competition. It was great to be back!

For the past 6 weeks, the children in Year 2 have been taking part in Relax Kids sessions with Kath on a Friday afternoon. The children have gained a lot from these sessions and have taken part in the following activities:

• Dynamic warm ups and exercises

• Mindful games

• Relaxing stretches

• Calming breathing exercises

• Soothing self massage

• Positive affirmations

• Creative visualisations

Some highlights included the children each looking at a special person inside her box (the box contained a mirror) and the use of breathing sticks which were introduced today for their final session. The children will now practise using their newly learned skills outside of sessions.

As part of our 'Seasonal Food' DT unit, Year Three got their aprons on and partook in some baking! This formed an important (and fun!) part of our 'Creativity' concept for this half term. We specially selected local, seasonal, British Bramley apples and cored, peeled and chopped them before stewing them. We popped this into pastry cases and sprinkled with soft brown sugar. We can confirm they tasted as good as they looked! Yum! Delicious! 

This afternoon, the adults whipped up a delicious hot chocolate with a twist ... it was spicy (chilli powder and cinnamon) !!!! This was inspired by the drink that would have been enjoyed by noble families in the Maya civilisation. The children played a true or false game all about the Maya whilst they waited for the tasty treat. They were all brave and bold enough to give it a try when it came out.

Reviews were very positive! Despite it sounding a little daunting, the flavour was great. Many of the children even asked for the recipe to try at home. 

Today, Year 6 experienced a truly awe-inspiring session with a veteran who visited us to talk about his career as Sergeant in the RAF Regiment. Our Year 6 children were so respectful throughout the session and asked lots of insightful questions about his training, different job roles and where he served on his tours during his time in the army.

Ian also kindly brought in some WWII memorabilia to help bring the session to life. This included two replica rifles from WWII, his own helmet, his medals of honour and a button shining tool which he was issued in 1958 when he first joined the RAF Regiment.

Throughout the session, Ian was very honest and candidly opened up about some of his experiences during his service including how he first came under fire at the age of 18 in Cyprus. Other tours have taken him to Borneo, Northern Ireland and Aden to name but a few. It was also interesting to learn that he was evacuated at a very young age with his sister during WWII. Year 6 have been empathising with WWII evacuees within their History and French sessions so they were able to apply their knowledge when discussing this with him.

Whilst Ian was able to offer the children lots of personal anecdotes about his time in the army, the children enjoyed sharing their WWII inspired letters and medal designs with which Ian was incredibly impressed and was struck by how realistic and emotive the letters were. Providing an authentic and critical audience to our Year 6 children was such a pleasure to witness as they were desperate to share their learning with him. 

Take a look at the photos below to see how engaged and inspired the children were by our wonderful visitor today.

On a final note, one of our Year 6 children asked ‘what advice would you give to someone of our age who would like to become a soldier’, to which he replied:

“If you’re prepared for it, go for it. My only advice would be to carefully choose a branch of the forces that you’d like to go into…The forces can teach you a good trade and set you up for life. I would definitely recommend joining the cadet force at your age to get a taste of what it’s like.”

Today, Year 5 managed to ‘rise’ to the challenge and ‘prove’ that they are all star bakers worthy of a handshake…
 

For their DT bread-making day, they had to design, make and evaluate their own flavoured bread thinking carefully about which ingredients would compliment each other. Some of the ingredients they could choose from were: cheese, garlic, sun dried tomatoes, olives, raisins and chocolate chips. 
 

As well as making their own bread, they tasted and evaluated different breads from around the world. Did you know that the bagel originates from Poland? 
 

Take a look at the photos to see what they got up to…

Today in Year 2 we were lucky enough to have a visitor (one of our parents) come in and talk to us about Diwali. We have been learning about the celebration in our R.E. lessons so it was a really valuable opportunity to learn more from a Hindu perspective. 

Last week, Y4 received the brief from Nicky (Ma Humbugs owner) on the advertisement poster we will be producing for her. This year, Nicky has challenged us to specifically advertise her new, exciting Christmas stock. 

We have spent time researching the shop, getting to know the products as well as developing the vocab we will use when creating our posters. We got round to coming up with a plan of the content and design of the poster and today, we were lucky enough to have Nicky from Ma Humbugs come in to review our work so far. 

Nicky gave us a history of her shop and a run down of the logistics of running your own business. We learnt a lot from this section. The part we enjoyed the most was when Nicky told us that she has made lots of mistakes in her time running the shop and that it is these mistakes she learnt the most from. Growth Mindset in action! 

Nicky was then kind enough to spend time looking at our draft plans, giving really specific feedback to help us develop our ideas. Nicky spotted loads of great ideas and thoughts but she also gave useful, critical feedback on how we could improve.

We are so grateful that Nicky gave up her time to come and visit us - the feedback we got was invaluable. 

We know lots of Y4s have been inspired to visit Ma Humbugs - we can see why!