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

• Year R Firefighter visit!

  Tue 16 May 2023

  Year R have had a very exciting morning today! As part of our People Who Help Us topic, we were lucky enough to have a visit from one of our parents who is a firefighter!

  The children had such a great time learning lots of interesting facts about what a firefighter does including all of the equipment that is used. They were even given the opportunity to 'put out' a pretend fire with a hose and try on the uniform, including the helmet which they all said was very heavy! The children had so much fun as you can see from the photos!

  

• Year 5 visit to Butser Farm

  Fri 05 May 2023

  Year 5 had a fantastic trip to Butser Farm today to learn about the Vikings and Saxons. They took part in activities such as archaeological digging , learning about ancient runes, jewellery making, pottery and a tour of the Saxon houses. Luckily the rain held off for most of the day and a brilliant time was had by all. Take a look at the photos to find out more...

  

• Coronation Celebrations

  Thu 04 May 2023 Mrs H

  What a wonderful day we had yesterday! The children all looked fantastic in an array of red, white and blue. They got to take part in a variety of Coronation activities all day, including: studying the conventions of a Coronation and what this entails, looking at the royal family's family tree and various craft activities including portraits of the King himself! The weather held out for us meaning we got to enjoy our Coronation picnic outside and we even got to sing the National Anthem on the courtyard as a whole school. A 'lump in your throat' moment for sure - the children did us proud. From all of us here at GBPS we hope you are able to enjoy some of your own Coronation celebrations this weekend (have your umbrellas handy though ;-)

  

• Stone Farm Day 3

  Thu 27 Apr 2023 Mrs Osborne and Mrs Byrne

  Today we visited the Plymouth Aquarium. The visit started off with a tour of the aquarium where the children saw a wide array of fantastic sea creatures such as: crabs, sharks, turtles, seahorses and rays. After lunch they then looked at some under water artefacts and fish skeleton parts in order to design their own underwater creature. One of the most exciting parts of the trip was being able to wear VR headsets which made them feel as though they were divers under the sea! 
  This evening, the children are enjoying some free time in the games room and hay maze. They will also be sketching Hedwig the owl.
   

   

  “The sharks were so cool and my favourite animal!” Dylan.

  “I loved the VR headsets - it was so realistic!” Jude.

  “The whole aquarium was amazing!” Harry.

  “The hay maze is so much fun!” Navaeh.

  “I am looking forward to sketching the owl later.” Esme.

   

   

   

   

   

   

  

• Iron Man lands on GBPS playground!!!

  Thu 27 Apr 2023 Mrs H

  STOP PRESS!

  After hearing loud clatters and clanks on the school playground, Year 3 stumbled to the courtyard to find a smattering of steel pieces, thought to belong to Ted Hughes' Iron Man. There was a buzz of excitement and apprehension as they frantically collected the pieces and hypothesised which of the Iron Man's parts they may have been. They then interviewed key eye-witnesses such as Mrs Dean and Mr Wood and have taken journalistic reporter's notes. They will spend the next two weeks writing up their blog reports which will then be published on this very website so watch this space!

  

• Stone Farm Day 2

  Wed 26 Apr 2023 Mrs Osborne

  The children have had another fantastic day today. The day started off with farm duties and a delicious breakfast of cereal, eggs and bacon. After that, they headed to the Eden Project where they toured the biomes and took part in some fantastic activities linked to surviving in the rainforest.

  After their trip to the Eden Project, they enjoyed a lovely dinner, followed by a falconry show. 
   

  "I loved how hot the biomes were - it made me feel like I was in a real rainforest" Aaryan.
  
  "I loved the banana plants at the Eden Project. They were huge!" Morgan.
  
  "I liked the wobbly bridge with the steam coming out of it!" Ava.
  
  "Baloo, the guinea pigs and digestive the rabbit are great!" George.
  
  "I love the guinea pigs!" Tayte.

  

• Stone Farm Day 1

  Tue 25 Apr 2023 Mrs Osborne

  What a fantastic first day at Stone Farm we have had! Unfortunately, due to traffic, we didn’t make it to Buckfast Abbey but this meant that we were able to spend a bit of extra time with the animals. The children have enjoyed taking part in farm duties such as: looking after the rabbits, Guinea pigs and chickens. Mr Wood drew the short straw of cleaning out the pigs! 
   

  We enjoyed a lovely dinner of either fish, sausages or veggie burger with chips and then ice cream for dinner. All of the children said the food was fantastic!
   

  Tomorrow, we will be taking a trip over the border to Cornwall to visit The Eden Project. 
  
  We hope you enjoy looking at today’s photos…

  

• Sea City Museum trip - Year 2

  Fri 21 Apr 2023

  Sea City Museum Trip

   

  The year 2s had an exciting trip to the Sea City Museum in Southampton. This was to help launch our Iceberg Ahead topic, which is all about the Titanic, why people wanted to travel on her and what happened over those fateful days. 

  Our days was made up of three sections:

  1. We got to hear some exciting facts as we were guided around the museum where we learnt all about life on board the Titanic.
  2. We had a workshop where we took part in various activities. These included looking at artefacts, guessing different smells from the Titanic, discovering how the compartments flooded in the Titanic and trying to decide who should be on the lifeboats.
  3. We were also able to explore the museum in our groups, where we had a go at steering the ship, saw a 2^nd class cabin, looked through and tried on some items of clothing that people may have worn at the time, stood in front of the 1^st class grand staircase and learnt about Morse code. We even got to sit in a real jury room where the Titanic enquiry took place. 

   

  We had a brilliant trip out and look forward to using all we learnt throughout the day during our further learning this half term.

  

• Year 4 Easter Trail at Christchurch

  Tue 28 Mar 2023 Mrs Osborne

  Year 4 had a fantastic morning at Christchurch taking part in a trail of Easter activities. These activities included finding acting out the Easter story, writing messages and prayers on wooden hearts and decorating a wooden cross with daffodils to represent new life. A huge thank you to Reverend Jonathan and the staff at Christchurch for arranging some brilliant activities. Take a look at the photos to see what they got up to…

  

• World Maths Day Fun at GBP!

  Fri 24 Mar 2023

  Yesterday, the children thoroughly enjoyed immersing themselves in the world of Mathematics to celebrate International World Maths Day 2023. There was a real buzz throughout the school as the children took part in a vast range of activities aiming to make Maths as fun and accessible as possible. Sometimes there can be a little bit of a stigma against Maths as it can be subject children find difficult. However, yesterday was all about celebrating Maths and recognising all of the different ways we use Maths in our everyday lives - ways we had never even considered before: – tessellating patterns, architecture, scientific experiments, baking, scoring games, fashion design and so much more!

   

  Each class also received a Maths themed book to read and focus on throughout the day. These included ‘365 Penguins by Jean-Luc Fromental’ which Year 4 loved and ‘How Many Jellybeans by Andrea Menotti’, which caused much excitement when Year 2 considered the prospect of eating 1000 jellybeans!

   

  Lots of classes conducted Maths Scavenger hunts where they were encouraged to use their ‘Maths eyes’ to detect different Maths in our environment, including: finding examples of fractions, angles, symmetry and estimating how many Buttercup bunny hops it would take to get from one side of the school to the other! Art/Design Technology was another popular subject chosen to help the children identify how our Maths skills can be transferred in many unexpected ways. Year 3 thought carefully about their understanding of 3D shapes to create a junk model rocket which they then measured precisely and Year 5 enjoyed using Pringles to create their own Pringle Ringle – this sounded absolutely awesome too!

   

  To top the day off, we also held a school-wide competition where we asked each class to list all of the different ways that they use Maths in their life. The winning class in each key stage will be announced in next week’s Achievement Assembly but all I can say is that the classes were certainly very competitive and managed to come up with lots of unique and creative ways that we used our Maths skills without even realising!

   

  Well done to a fantastic day everyone – we hope you enjoyed immersing yourselves in all of the fun Maths activities. I wonder if you can continue to spot all of the different ways you and your family incorporate Maths at home!

   

  Have a little look at the pictures to see what we got up to.