Year 5 are taking part in the Hampshire Illustrated Book Awards. They will look at six different picture books, aimed at older readers, and judge them under the criteria of: picture power, picture position and picture pleasure. All six books are fantastic, so it’ll be a difficult choice for them!

 “I like the way today’s book included some of our school values and important messages. I loved the pictures too. I can’t wait to read the rest of the stories.” Ivy.

“It was great being able to read books I haven’t read before.” Francesca.

“I liked listening to the story today and loved the pictures because they were colourful and bright.” Harley.

“I loved how bright and bold the pictures were in today’s book. I wonder if the rest will be like that?” Amelia.

On Friday Year 2 were lucky enough to be visited by Ben from Treehouse Theatre. We went back in time and learnt all about the Great Fire of London. To begin the session, Ben re-enacted the events of Sunday 2nd September 1666. The children were very excited by this and it was interesting to hear the various things that happened when the fire broke out. We then took part in a workshop where we had to pretend to be someone who was alive during the Great Fire. The children chose jobs that they would have had during those times. They had to think carefully about what items they might save from the fire and how they would feel about all those that they had left behind. They then acted out trying to put out the fire, and realised what a tricky job this would have been in 1666. To end the workshop they had to discuss as a team how they could pay the ferry to take them across to the other side of the Thames. Overall the session was a great success and the children gained a great deal of knowledge from it. 

Wow! What an amazing Victorian Day Year 3 have had. The children really got into role as children in a Victorian school, and were surprised to see how in role their adults were too!  To begin, the children lined up in two lines – boys and girls. They had their nails inspected and paid a penny to come to school. A few children did not follow the new school rules and were sent to the Headmistress to be caned or sent to stand in the corner with the dunce’s hat.

The children sang the National Anthem and recited the Lord’s Prayer before moving into learning their spellings and times tables by rote. The children were shocked by the lack of support on offer from their teachers and found the lack of group work and collaboration difficult. We then experienced some Victorian playground games such as marbles, Blind Man’s Bluff, skipping and hopscotch, as well as later taking part in exercise drills (instead of PE).

Whilst the children were learning about the British Empire and the Kings and Queens of Britain, the boys were taken in small groups for gardening and the girls took part in cross stitching. This led to lots of discussion about how boys and girls were treated very differently in Victorian Britain, and whether this was fair!

Well done Year 3. You can look forward to a normal day of friendly faces at school tomorrow.

What a start to the new half term we’ve had! This week, Year 6 have thoroughly enjoyed taking part in a series of Road Safety proficiency sessions delivered by the Hampshire Bikeability team. We were blessed with good weather as it remained dry all week which meant that the children were able to maximise their time cycling on the road. All children were incredibly polite and respectful to the Bikeability staff and they were impressed with how well the children listened to instructions.

At the beginning of the week, the children learned about some of the essential checks necessary to ensuring their bike was safe before setting off on their journey, including the ABC check – air, breaks and chain. Following on from this, the children learned how to signal, how to perform a U-turn in the road and how to safely exit a junction using the 'Look, Block, Signal' strategy amongst other road safety skills. The children were incredibly sensible and were able to follow clear instructions before practising the manoeuvres themselves. The children will bring home their road cycling proficiency certificate tomorrow and be able to explain all of the different elements that they learned this week. 

Everyone demonstrated excellent perseverance and we feel really proud of how confident the children have become when cycling on the road.

Here are a few quotes from the children:

"Bikeability week was really good fun. I learnt lots about the different road signs and now feel proud that I can cycle confidently on the road.” Chloe H

"This week has taught me how to cycle confidently on the road and I now understand how to keep myself safe on the road. It was great fun!” Blake H 

"The instructors were really clear when helping us to learn about different road manoeuvres. They never made it boring and were really friendly." Leonardo C

Take a look at our pictures to see how much fun we had during our Bikeability sessions.

It is time to begin a new topic in Y4 - The Ancient Greeks! The children got a taster of what is to come as we launched our topic today. 

We started the morning listening to Icarus and Daedalus, the first of many Greek myths that we will explore this half term. We soon realised that myths are very much guided by the morals of the time, prone to being quite harsh and shocking and perhaps do not always have a happy ending. We then spent some time reading up on the Greeks, thinking about what we what to learn about this time in History. The children were very enthusiastic and gained some fantastic knowledge. In the afternoon, we read about the Ancient Greek Gods and Goddesses - what impressive stories they have. From this, we were inspired to refer back to the proportion skills we explored in Art last half term and have a go at drawing one of the Gods ourselves. The results were very impressive. Finally, we enjoyed a Greek inspired food tasting session. We tried figs, goats cheese and honey, pitta and oil and olives. On our upcoming Greek Day, we will be doing some Greek inspired cooking - so watch this space.

A great day was had by all. We are very much looking forward to this topic in Y4 (it is Miss Grove and Miss Hanafin's favourite) and cannot wait to explore our concepts of 'aspiration', 'tradition', and 'democracy'.