Our Year 6 Netballers took to the court yesterday at Castel Hill School. Mrs Gough was blown away with the team work and skills portrayed! There has been so much improvement since our first match. Great Binfields came away winning 11-5! Well done team!

The sun shone down on us today and the Year 6 were able to thoroughly make the most of the glorious weather during their Basingstoke Trail trip into town. All of the children were respectful, polite and showed great 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 town centre which they had never spotted before yet walked past numerous times!

Our Basingstoke trail included:

- 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). We really benefitted from the knowledge of the volunteers at the church who were able to bring the history of the building to life.

- Learning about the tragic tale of Mrs Blunden who is said to have been buried alive (twice!) 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, Thomas Burberry and the history of the Basingstoke market.

- Locating what used to be the residence of Thomas Burberry’s first retail shop (what used to be the British Heart Foundation at the top of town) which has now been converted into a new supermarket.

- Visiting the current exhibition at the Willis Museum and taking a look at the history of Basingstoke exhibition on the middle floor.

And these are to name just a few of the activities we took part in today. We also enjoyed spotting the fairly recent artistic additions to our town centre and were fascinated to see Kev Munday’s artwork up close and in real life – an artist who has inspired us with our artwork this half term. 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 well as enjoying their commutes with the addition of 59 children on the bus. 

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

On Tuesday, the year 2 children were lucky enough to be invited to the Anvil to watch Barnaby Bear's adventures at sea. This is part of the Hampshire Music Services commitment to bring music alive for children. Willow and Sycamore were very excited to travel into Basingstoke on a bus and walk through town in their bear ears and pirate hats!  They had been practising the songs and were in fine voice along with other schools from around the area. The story told, explained that every pirate is gifted a bear and that one pirate had lost his bear and it had been locked in a chest. Would Barnaby bear be able to save Bertie! Of course he did and the kids loved Barnaby Bear. One of the children exclaimed it was "The best day ever!" We can't wait for next year's adventures with Barnaby!

Today some of the Year 5 pupils (Science Ambassadors and a few extras pulled from a hat) were lucky enough to attend the Basingstoke Primary Schools STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) Fair at QMC. The children took part in a range of interactive activities ran by different businesses. The aim was to educate them about STEM industries and career options, as well as challenge perceptions and job role stereotypes. Mrs Franklin was immensely proud of all the children who came along and she received fantastic feedback about their engagement and attitudes. 

Yesterday was a very exciting day for Year 2, as they prepared for their trip to Milestones Museum. The year 2 children have been eagerly awaiting this trip after starting our new topic 'Journey'. In our English writing we have been inspired by the book 'Journey' by Aaron Becker, where we have looked carefully at the pages to come up with some creative ideas about the main character and the journey she will go on. As part of this, we have been deciding what mode of transport the girl might chose to use for her journey. Our trip to Milestones was an opportunity to develop our ideas and creativity for our writing. 

The children enjoyed the quick bus trip to the museum and were fantastic at showing Great Binfields respect to the volunteers at Milestones who greeted us there. We had a chance to explore the museum in our groups for the first part of the day. This included going on the bus, looking around the fire engines, looking through the various shop windows and of course a visit to the sweet shop!

After this, we were ready for some lunch! During this time, the children were excited to find out about the afternoon workshops that they were about to do. One workshop gave the children a chance to learn about Victorian transport and answer questions about the range of vehicles they could see. The children learnt lots of brilliant information and impressed us with their descriptions. The second workshop was all about the 'Thornycroft Steam Wagon company' where the children used their observation skills to find key features of vehicles, compare historical vehicles to modern versions and matched types of vehicles to the items they would have delivered. 

The children asked some brilliant questions and demonstrated lots of creativity throughout the day, the Year 2 team are looking forward to the next part of their English writing where they will use their experiences at Milestones to continue their stories.

Thank you to all the helpers who made the trip happen and well done Year 2 for being brilliant representatives of the school! 

Mrs Ellis and Miss Heath

Early Years had a fantastic time last week as they were lucky enough to have the opportunity to take part in Balanceability! Using balance bikes, the children learnt how to ensure the vehicle was safe, by checking the tyres and making sure the brakes were working. They also made sure that they wore their helmets and had correct footwear. They were then ready to walk and ride their bikes, learning how to use their co-ordination skills to manoeuvre around the playground. We were so proud of how well the children listened to instructions from their instructor, as well as displaying their perseverance and resilience - as the weather was not always kind to us! Well done Early Years!

Year 3 were extremely lucky to have Mrs Gilham (one of our school governors) come into school to help out with First Aid Day today. The children were able to come away from the day with so much knowledge about how to help people when they need it, and they even have their own pack of bandages to take home and practise using. The children really impressed us with their determination when trying CPR, and their resilience tying bandages. They had curious and insightful questions which really helped push their learning forwards. The children also learnt how to make an emergency phone call, the difference between accidents and emergencies, how to deal with nose bleeds, and the use of the emergency services to us. 

Yesterday, our Year 5 and 6 netballers showed great determination and team work in our match against the Priory. Mrs Gough was blown away by the super improvement made since our last match. Thanks to all our hard work and sportsmanship, GBP won 3-0! A special shout out to Lexi, Eliza and Conner for getting the goals. However, none of that would have been possible without everyone else's super netball skills! Thank you to all the parents for all the super encouragement. It was lovely to see so many of you!

Four of our wonderful Year 4 Mathematician's travelled to St Gabriel's School in Newbury today to represent Great Binfields at the Mathematics Challenge for 2024. They had a fantastic time completing a range of activities including playing dicey dicey, using Tangrams to make specific shapes, magic number, and domino challenges too.   

They worked collaboratively in partners to achieve wonderful success and most importantly, they had great fun doing it. They should be extremely proud of their accomplishments today, we are lucky to have so many great Mathematicians at our school. Well done all of you, you should be very proud of yourself - thank you for representing Great Binfields!