Christmas parties!

Yesterday we all enjoyed our Christmas parties.  We were very excited as we arrived in our party clothes.  We played lots of games and did rather a lot of dancing! 


Afterwards we had party food in our classrooms and more music.  Mrs Nicholls started a Conga in Year 5 and this travelled all the way around school to the other classrooms.  The children were then very fortunate to be given a Christmas present and KS1 had theirs hand delivered by Father Christmas.  We all had a fantastic time.




We would like to wish all our children, parents & grandparents a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Christingle

On Thursday 15th December we held our evening Christingle event.  Children in year 5 and 6 made Christingles with their teachers and these were lit on the night.  The junior hall looked magical when the hall lights were switched off and the candles glowed in the dark.  Once again, the musicians from Shavington High School played carols and our own instrumentalists and singers took part.

This year the minister from St.Mark's Church in Shavington, Geoff Breffitt, joined us to explain the symbolism of the Christingle.  The evening was the ideal opportunity for Mr.Mitchell to announce the two charities that the school will be supporting this year: Age UK and Starlight.  The evening ended with mince pies and mulled wine.

Prickly Hay!

Rehearsals are well underway for our Reception, Year1 and Year 2 Nativity 'Prickly Hay'.  It is the story of Sam, a stable boy, who thinks he has a thankless and worthless job keeping the stable clean and the hay fresh for all the animals.  No one seems to notice his hard work, and his ever-faithful friend, Shrew, tries to keep his spirits up, but Sam is finding it hard to feel important at all.  That is until Sam receives some very special visitors to his stable!.....


Sam is played by Archie, Arthur is his trusting friend Shrew, Abigail and Max take on the roles of Mary and Joseph in this twist on the Nativity story. 

Baptism

On Friday 25th november, year 1 visited St.Mark's Church in Shavington.  In their R.E. lessons they are looking at the topic of 'belonging' and so they visited the church to learn about Christenings.  Everyone had a special job to do.  Mia was the Mum and Max was Dad.  Then we had Godparents, family, friends, two photographers and two caterers.  Some children chose to change into their best clothes for the occasion.  At the church, Reverend Breffitt christened a doll.  We chose the name Mary for our baby because it is getting close to Christmas.  After the Christening we enjoyed opening Christening presents and then we had a party to celebrate. 

 Thank you to everyone who helped to make the afternoon so enjoyable.

Gladstone Pottery Museum

Year 2 went on their trip to Gladsone Pottery Museum last Monday.  Upon arrival they were taken on a tour of the museum and told a little bit of history about how children as young as five had to work in the factories to make pottery.  Their work had to be up to standard to earn their pay, and usually this was only enough to buy a loaf of bread and a chunk of cheese.

They were shown how clay was made by mixing the raw material so that it looked like cream and then pressing the water out of it to make clay.  The potter then explained that if they made fine bone china, it would have real, finely ground animal bone added to it and if you hold a china cup up to the light, you should be able to see the shadow of your hand through it.

Kate then demonstrated how you would 'throw a pot' and used a manual potter's wheel to shape her lump of clay into a vase.  The circular motions dried out the clay and reduced the air bubbles that were trapped inside.  This was necessary as the vase would explode in the kiln if there was too much air.

The children then had the opportunity to make their own masks out of clay.  They rolled it out and cut a design of their choice, some chose aliens, monsters, babies etc.

Year 2 had a very enjoyable and informative day.

Children in Need

Children in Need day was a great success.  We raised a 'whopping' £565.62!  This was achieved by dressing up in our pyjamas for the day, teachers included, and leaving our 'bedhead' hair.  Hot dogs were sold at break time, to the delight of the children, and then each class visited the annual year 5 Children in Need fayre.


This consisted of many stalls, run, organised and promoted by the children in Year 5.  There was penalty shootout, lucky dip, facepainting, wet sponge throwing, darts, bracelet making and vast amounts of cakes and biscuits!  The children worked really hard in the week leading up to the fayre by making posters to put up around school, making games for stalls and making sure they had all the equipment they needed to make it a great success.


Well done to everyone who supported and contributed to Children in Need.

Meeting an Olympic Athlete

Last Friday the Sports Leaders from year 6 went to MMU in Crewe.  When they arrived they were taken on a tour of the Sports Science rooms, that are used to test people's reactions of the body, during physical activities. 
They then met Craig Heap who is a British Olympic gymnast.  He started his career by accident because he went to pick his sister up from her gymnastics class and liked the thought of doing it.  He asked to go himself and worked hard as he really enjoyed it.  This determination got him into the Boy's Gymnastic Team but his coach said he wasn't good enough to enter a competition.  He thought he was and he did well and won!
He went on to Captain the British Squad and was fortunate enough to compete in the Sydney 2000 olympics.  Unfortunately he didn't achieve a Gold, Silver or Bronze but he said that he would give everything away that he had ever achieved, if he could keep his Olympic "taking part" medal.  He was very proud to compete for the Great Britain team.

He gave us the 7 values for the Olympic and Paraolympic games:

The 3 for the Olympics are:
          Respect
          Excellence
          Friendship
The 4 for the Paraolympics are:
          Determination
          Inspiration
          Courage
          Equality
He then asked us to use these values in school when doing sports and activities.

In school, in the future, the Sports Leaders are going to arrange lots of different sports and activities that have a link to the London 2012 olympics and we have recently heard that the Olympic flame is going to pass through Crewe on the 31st May next year.

Year 1 Fairytale Day

Year 1 arrived for their Fairytale Day dressed as a character from their favourite fairytale and they looked fabulous!  All the children participated in a drama workshop, where they had to rescue different characters that were in the wrong fairytale.  First they had to make their way to Storyland, tackling the crocodile in the sea, the bear in the woods and putting out a burning fire.  When all their tasks were complete, they rescued the characters so that they could return to their rightful place.
They then made their own 'magic potions' to enable them to fly on a magic carpet.  A plastic bottle was filled with water and then sequins, pipe cleaners, glitter and colouring was added, with a drop of oil, to float the items throughout the bottle.
The day was completed with a party and everyone had a great day.

Day 2 at Lockerbie Manor

Day two was action packed.  With an early wake up call and an extremely filling full English breakfast everyone was raring to go.  Again, we were lucky with mild weather conditions for this time of year. 

2 of the 4 groups went canoeing this morning to the oldest Lock in Scotland, which was a whopping 1.5km in length.  In threes everyone got to grips with how to paddle and control the canoe, facing the elements and some of the instructors crazy tasks, like jumping up and down in the canoe and switching from one canoe to another.  Everyone loved it and said it was their favourite activity.

Other groups took part in the verrrry muddy obstacle course; climbing under and over tyres and wooden frames, which everyone enjoyed.  Zip wire was another favourite and all the children loved zooming down the 15 metre line. 

The evening challenged those who still had the energy to dance at Lockerbie Manor disco night.  This time was a great opportunity for Shavington Primary children to mix with Lockerbie Primary where they were able to exchange their dance moves!

Looking forward to our last few sessions tomorrow and we think year 6 will be ready for hometime as they've worn themselves out...

Lockerbie Manor

31 children were packed and ready to go at 7 this morning for their year 6 residential to Lockerbie.  The journey went smoothly and we arrived as planned to Lockerbie Primary School where we had a tour of the school.  Shavington pupils quickly made friends with P7 and P6 (the equivalent of our year 5 and 6) who accompanied our group to Lockerbie Manor. 

We arrived to bright sunshine, full of excitement for the afternoon activties.  The group got stuck into the likes of: rifle shooting, fencing and archery, which was followed by a well deserved meal and desert.  After dinner everyone took part in yet another activity. 

“I think it’s very challenging.  The zip wire was very scary, and I’m looking forward to canoeing tomorrow!” (Chloe Bolland)

“I liked doing climbing in the dark!” (Gabby Bush)

“I’ve been climbing, doing archery and its been really good. You even get hot chocolate before bedtime!” (Niall Hough Bunn)


Looking forward to another action packed day tomorrow.

Year 3 trip to Astbury Mere

Yesterday Year 3 went to Astbury Mere in Congleton to complete our topic on minibeasts.  Despite the wet weather we had a wonderful morning pond dipping, tree shaking and net sweeping, searching for insects in different habitats.  Mr Goodier-Page's group were crowned the 'Best Dippers' catching 5 Froglets and tens of Waterboatman!  Tree shaking was even more fun in the wet than the dry as the bugs fell alongside huge rain drops.
We surrendered to the weather for a hot chocolate and a spot of lunch to return to an afternoon of sunshine and Andy Goldsworthy.  Children used natural materials to create works in the style of the artist we have been studying.

We returned to school soggy but happy!

Mr Pennington
Year 3 teacher

British Food Week

This week it was British Food Week.  Our classes all celebrated all that is good about British food.  We have been involved in lots of activities that required alot of cooking and preparing of good things to eat.  Some of us have made sausage rolls, others have made strawberry jam and scones.  We ended our celebration of British Food Week by having our curriculum hour in school.  Parents and Grandparents came into school today to join their children in their classrooms to make a variety of things linked to food.

Reception class have been reading 'The Hungry Caterpillar' and they based their curriculum hour on what he likes to eat.  They had grown their own produce of lettuce, cucumber, spring onion and radish, all things that the Hungry Caterpillar likes to eat.  They then made a delicious salad for mums and dads to enjoy.

Year 1 have been looking at fairy tales and they made porridge for Goldilocks and the Three Bears.  They also harvested vegetables from the school garden and made a delicious stew.

Year 2 had a wonderful aroma floating from their classroom as they made and cooked pizza.

Year 3 spent the morning at the local Co-op to look at produce and buy their ingredients to make scones in the afternoon, to go with their jam they made earlier in the week.

Year 4 have been researching what foods were brought to this country by the Romans.  They made some of the foods the Romans would have eaten and 'taste-tested' it today.  They then had to give their verdict!

Year 5 have made all sorts of different foods out of salt dough.  They had to think of a typical British meal and make it on a plate.  During British Food Week they also made some sausage and apple rolls and trifle which were enjoyed by their parents.

Year 6 looked at different recipes for smoothies and did a survey on the most popular fruit in year 6. We then chose our favourite smoothie, blended it and then tasted them.

'The Big Tidy Up'

Last Friday we had a good turnout for our 'Big Tidy Up!' Pupils, ex-pupils, parents, grandparents, staff and governors all volunteered to collect litter from around the school.  This was part of our eco schools initiative to Keep Britain Tidy and to support the 'Love Where You Live' campaign.  The afternoon started with everyone being issued with a tabard to promote the purpose and spirits were high due to the weather being in their favour.  Unfortunately this was too good to be true and the heavens opened!  Everyone pulled together and the afternoon was a great success.  The school did not have too much litter lying around which was highly commendable.


Thank you to all those people who gave up their time, it is greatly appreciated.