Today, our Year 2 Football Team represented Great Binfields KS1 at a Football Tournament held at The Vyne Community School. Mrs James and Mr Wood were blown away by the enthusiasm, energy and skills of the team. Although, the 4 games played were played for fun and no winners announced, our players wowed and won two games, drew one and lost one - with only one goal being scored against us the whole tournament. We are so proud of you Year 2!

On Friday afternoon the children of Rowan and Beech classes invited their mum's into school to celebrate Mother's Day.  Over the week the children had been busy learning songs and poems, painting portraits of their mum and thinking about why they love their mum.  The children were so excited to showcase their learning and it was brilliant to see how confident they have become.  At the end of the concert the children presented their mum's with a hand decorated jar full of beautiful flowers.  

We hope that everyone enjoyed the concert and we wish you all a happy Mother's Day.

We are DELIGHTED to announce that yesterday GBPS were the proud winners of the Tag Rugby Festival (also known as the Tudor League). Our Y5/6 team represented the school wonderfully and they certainly didn't give up until they were proud! It was so wonderful to see our field filled with sunshine, laughter and some real competitive spirits! A huge thank you to Roger Filbe for organising and Mr Wood for leading them to their victory (Mr Wood didn't take a breath throughout the whole competition - it was quite tense!). Of course a massive thank you to the other three schools who attended: Fairfields, St John's & St Mary's. Fairfields also won the Sportsmanship and most improved award so a huge well done to them too.  We are so proud of you Y5/6 Tag Rugby Team - you well and truly smashed it!

We are the champions…

Written By Jessie G and Francesca K

After a tough start to this year, with covid and all, Great Binfields really pulled through with this year’s rugby league/tournament. After coming top of the league since playing two previous tournaments, Great Binfields were ready to play (and hopefully win) in their home ground. After drawing the first match against St Mary’s, we were determined to win the next few matches.

  Our hardest games were against St. Johns. Our first match that we played with them we lost. However, using our sporting resilience, we then drew our second match against them. We played St Mary’s twice and drew the first but then ensured we won the second! We proudly won both matches against Fairfields, but it was a real tough competition.  

We scored a total of 32 tries throughout the competition, with the closest second being St John’s with 24. Remi adds, “I feel delighted that we won and the coach of St Mary’s said I was really good at backing up my teammates.” The Fairfields coach complimented Francesca on her excellent Sportsmanship when she comforted one of the Fairfields players. She adds, “I encouraged my team too.”  Isaac also commented, “I think it was a good tournament and I am overjoyed that we won! I’m glad that all the determination paid off”

The whole team agreed, “We have to say a big thank you to Mr Wood because we couldn’t have done it without him!” Mr Wood stated, “I am so very proud of the way the team played throughout the whole of the rugby season (September – March). They will now represent the Tudor League against all the other league winners in Basingstoke.” Our Year Fives have the momentous task of seeing this through as sadly our Year Sixes will have left by the time of the next Tudor League. Year 4s – get ready to step up! Watch this space!

Wow, weren’t we blessed with the most wonderful weather for our Basingstoke Trail trip today? Not only was the sun shining but the children were absolutely phenomenal throughout the course of the day too. They were respectful, polite and showed a superb intrigue in our local area. Because of this, we feel they were able to gain lots from the trip and will hopefully be able to impart lots of this knowledge when they are next in town with you, further demonstrating what a fantastic day we all had. The children were genuinely surprised to notice and learn so many new facts about our city centre which they had never spotted before yet walked past numerous times!

Our Basingstoke trail included:

- Admiring the new Lego exhibition within the Willis Museum - this went down a treat!

- Exploring the beautifully historic St Michaels Church, which has links to both WW2 and the Tudor period (previous topics that we have studied this year).

- Learning about the tragic tale of Mrs Blunden who is said to have been buried near the Holy Ghost Cemetery. We also visited Thomas Burberry’s grave which is located here too.

-  Noticing the informative blue plaques dotted around town referencing the importance of a number of locations relating to great historical figures such as Jane Austin.

And these are to name just a few of the historical and geographical activities we took part in today. We also enjoyed chatting with two local artists who had been commissioned to paint the large flowerbeds outside Thomas Burberry’s first shop (what used to the British Heart Foundation at the top of town). They enjoyed sharing their vision with us and explaining how the aim is to bring vibrancy and colour to our local town.

The general public were also in great spirits too and were really happy to see our children out and about enjoying their local area. As part of our Geography curriculum, the children were able to broaden their skills further by conducting a fieldwork study. This involved asking members of the public their thoughts and opinions about Basingstoke. With adult supervision at all times, the children were incredibly brave and approached a wide range of people from our local community in order to gauge a broad data sample. We can’t wait to analyse our results and begin to make some generalisations about the local people within our community and what Basingstoke has to offer.

Take a look at our photos to see what a fantastic day we had J

Year 3 have been showcasing some of our school values this week in both their creativity and resilience whilst creating photo frames. They needed to consider the purpose of the frame (who was it for and why) and think about how this affected their design. They then needed to think about how they would ensure their frames would be 'free-standing'. They explored a range of paper strengthening techniques to help them conclude which method would be the most effective. Yesterday they evaluated Mrs H and Mrs J's photo frames from their houses, this afternoon they planned and begun creating. We can't wait to showcase the end pieces on Friday - what a wonderful homemade Mother's Day gift idea too ;-)

Year 4 and 5 were very privileged to have Goal Ball UK come to visit the school and introduce the sport Goal Ball to them. The trainer explained the rules of the game and everyone was able to have a go. The school were excited to be introduced to Goal Ball as it is a game specifically designed for those with a vision impairment. It is a sport that all children can access equally. 

Some of our children wrote how they felt about the day:

Goalball is a fantastic fun game for all ages! It's family friendly and if you have a vision impairment this is the game for you!

Worried you can't play if fully sighted? - worry not! Everyone wears a blindfold. Goal ball is a game that takes place on the ground and is a sport which uses all of your senses particularly hearing and touch. It is a fully inclusive sport that everyone can access. 

An amazing member of Goalball UK, Stephen Newey, taught years 4 and 5 how to play. There are three players on a team, all blindfolded and the aim of the game is to score a goal. The goal takes up the whole of the opposing end. A ball with a bell in is used so that players can hear the ball moving. All players lay on the ground and can use their whole body to block the ball from entering the goal. 

Both year groups thought it was an incredible experience. Soon we are hoping there will be a Goal Ball team at Great Binfields that will get to play in tournaments. 

Some of the children were interviewed and here are their views;

"It was very fun and inclusive, I really enjoyed the day!" Lily Year 5

"I love how everyone can play at the same level, whether sighted or not. " Max

"It is a fun filled game that everyone can enjoy! " Pippa

All in all Goal Ball was a fun experience for everyone - We look forward to updating you on our future success in Goal Ball!

Year 2 had an exciting Geography lesson yesterday as they got to explore their local area. In our previous lessons we have been looking at maps, including Digimaps online. Today we got to use all our new map skills by using our maps of Chineham to track our route. The children were very excited to spot where they were on the map and they were very good at using clues around them to find themselves. They also had the challenge to find physical and human features in the local area. We then discussed these when we returned to school. The children really enjoyed using their new Geography skills in a real life situation. We will then use this in future lessons to create our own maps. We are also going to be thinking about which Traditional tale would want to live in our local area.

As part of their Geography enquiry, "who owns the rainforest?", the Year 5 children have been learning about the different layers of the rainforest, the different ecosystems that live there and also the climate.

Today, they made their own ecosystem bottle rainforests (terrariums) which they will be monitoring over the next few weeks to see whether the climate and water cycles inside the bottle mimics that of the Amazon Rainforest. 

Take a look at the photos to see their bottle rainforests...

Yesterday the year 2's had a very exciting afternoon. We had our Traditional Tales tea party! Over the last few weeks we have been working hard to create various things for our party. We had to write our invite to our adult of choice, persuading them that our tea party would be the best ever. We also have created our own stories and puppets to share. In art we created our own bunting to decorate the party. Then in design technology we got to make all the food. We made cheese straws, veg and dip, pizzas and sandwiches. This year the tea party was held outside and we really enjoyed welcoming our grown ups into school. We had a great time and enjoyed eating all the yummy food. The children should be really proud of all their hard work.