KS2 Quad Kid Athletics – Tupton Hall 17th July

Quad Kid Athletics 17th July – Tupton Hall

KS2 children are again invited to take part  with cluster schools in the Quad Kids Activity day at Tupton Hall on Friday 17th July. Children should wear their school PE kit as this is a school event and also please remember suncream and water bottle. Please see separate letter for further details and permission slips. Younger children may be collected from school before the end of the school day in order for parents to get to Tupton Hall to collect older siblings. Thank you.

Our trip to Cromford Wharf

First we got on the bus and travelled to Cromford Wharf, we then got off the bus and looked at the boat. The boat was called ‘Birdswood’. We got onto the boat and sat down on our seats, then the boat started to move. The man told us that along time ago, the boat was pulled by a horse but today it had an engine to make it move. Whilst we were on board, we played ‘I spy’ and did some paper plate weaving. In groups we visited the cabin and saw where the family would have lived, there was a special pull-down bed, a stove for cooking and heating and a place for coal to build the fire, but there was no toilet! Along the way we saw lots of wildlife, and we even saw a dinosaur!
The boat turned around and we went back towards Cromford Wharf. We all had a fantastic time and said a big thank you to the volunteers who had looked after us.

Written by The Woodpeckers.

Tea with the Bishop!

House of Lords – Monday 13th October

‘My C of E School’ competition winners!

Stretton Handley Church of England Primary school in Derby diocese won the national MyCofESchool competition. The contest launched last June, invited pupils at Church primary schools to celebrate what their school meant to them in a three minute film.

Children have been selected by prize draw to visit London to join the Bishop of Oxford, Chair of the Board of Education, for tea in the House of Lords. The children will be accompanied by Mrs Knight,Mrs Mahadevan and Mrs Riggott.  Children will be ambassadors for our school, going on the visit to represent all our children. We are sure they will have a great time and come back and share their experience with the rest of the school. We will then add photographs and information to the website.

Whole school trip November 26th

Whole school visit Derby Open Centre / Places of worship

                                   Tuesday 26 November 2013

            (Open Centre, mosque, Sikh gurdwara, Hindu temple, Baptist church.)

Please check your child’s bag for information, contribution details and slips about the visit to Derby Open Centre and places of worship on 26th November. 

As a Church of England school, we are keen to develop in our children Christian values of tolerance, understanding , respect etc. Each term we choose to focus on a different value and to recognise these in action in school and out.

It is also important for children to realise that other faiths and other Christian denominations eg Catholic, Methodist, also promote these values and that there are many similarities as well as differences in places of worship and ways of worship.

Children will need a packed lunch (no glass bottles please). If your child receives free school meals – please let the office know if you would like a free packed school lunch on this day. Children should wear school code of dress, sensible footwear and a coat as we will be walking between some of the buildings. Everyone must wear TROUSERS and have some form of respectful HEAD COVERING eg scarf or hat (not base ball cap). Shoes and socks may need to be removed in some places of worship. No spending money is needed as we will not be visiting any shops.

 The coach will depart from school at 9.00am prompt (register 8.45am) and we will return to school for 3.30pm.  Children will need to be collected as usual by an adult. 

 Please return slips to school as soon as possible. Thank you very much.

A Tupton Taster and Taiko Drumming

Our Year 6s spent  Monday morning at Tupton Hall School designing ‘alternative’ movie posters using Photoshop, an industry standard software package for image manipulation and creation. Rango the Chameleon morphed magically into Ringo playing his fish guitar; Up became Pup in a Cup; Zookeeper became Lookeeper (use your imagination!); Epic became Antiseptic. Mr Cooke even made an appearance in a Where’s Mr Cooke? poster sporting a stripy red and white hat. The Photoshop session was a new workshop option offered by Tupton as part of their annual ICT transition programme for Year 6 children from feeder schools.

In the afternoon the children were joined by our Year 5 children for a very energetic Japanese Taiko Drumming workshop led by Tupton Hall’s Head of Music. The hot weather wasn’t able to dampen the children’s enthusiasm and the rhythmic pounding of drums reverberated around the Expressive Arts Department and possibly outside too through the open windows – oops! Tupton Hall runs a Taiko drumming club especially for their Year 7 students…I think they may have gained a few future recruits!

Whirlow Farm Visit – Keep Calm and Carry On!

Whirlow Farm visit

KS2 children enjoyed a great day at Whirlow Farm taking part in WW2 workshops as part of their ‘Keep Calm and Carry On’ topic, learning about life on the home front. They dressed up in 1940s clothing to be evacuated for the day and took their war time packed lunch in paper bags.The children used a hand pump to extinguish a potato incendiary bomb and took shelter when the air raid siren sounded. The farmer’s wife took them on a tour of a WW2 kitchen. In groups they kneaded dough for home made bread and set out the china for the visiting vicar, as well as having a go at some ‘make do and mend’ activities like knitting and rag rug making. It was very funny watching children peel vegetables and loading scraps into the metal pail for feeding the pigs.  Martha , the ‘land girl’ took the children on a tour of the farm. They had a go at ‘digging for Victory’ in the vegetable patch and had a look at how the farm land was used during the war.

A slideshow of our visit to Whirlow Farm can be viewed on our WWII topic page.

2nd July – Whole school trip

Tuesday 2nd July.

We will register promptly and then at 9.00am the coach will set off to Whirlow Farm Trust.

Class 1 – Please remember you will be outside for activities about animals and plants- bring a water proof coat. Wellies or sensible, comfortable outdoor footwear.

Class 2 and 3 – Life during WW2 .We will be meeting the farmer’s wife and learning about rationing as well as the jobs of a land girl. At some time during the day the air raid alarm will sound…….Please try to dress in the style of the 1940’s and bring your packed lunch in a paper bag. ( A rainproof coat too please) See separate letter for details.

If the weather is sunny please apply suncream before you come to school and bring a hat. Children will be back in school to be collected as usual at 3.30pm.

Geocaching on the Woolley Moor Trail

On Thursday afternoon, not dissuaded by the bitterly cold weather, Class 3 donned their wellies and warm clothes to walk the Woolley Moor Trail.  They were accompanied by Mr Cooke, Mrs Mahadevan and Mrs Gill (Chair of Governors).  The children had a great time stamping in partially frozen puddles as well as completing their question sheets!

We also took the opportunity to hide our first Geocache somewhere along the trail. Geocaching is a real-world, outdoor treasure hunting game using GPS-enabled devices. Participants navigate to a specific set of GPS coordinates and then attempt to find the geocache (container) hidden at that location. We registered our cache, Give Way’, on geocaching.com and within an hour of being published, a first to find (FTF) was logged on the web site!

If you want to find out more about geocaching, visit geocaching.com or download this leaflet.