This half term we have been learning about Climate Change and have been inspired by the monsters from the book ‘Planet SOS’. We created our own climate change poems about the despicable Trash-Kong. Children included poetic features such as: hyperbole, alliteration, metaphor, simile, personification and onomatopoeia. They built their very own ‘Poetic Toolkits’ to support in their writing.
Today we hosted our very first whole-school workshare. Thank you to parents and carers for coming along and helping to celebrate all of our pupils’ amazing learning so far! We will be hosting a work-share towards the end of each half-term. We will keep everyone updated with future dates in our monthly school newsletter.
Y5 had a great day celebrating Black History Month. We learnt about the Windrush Generation and what it was like for people at this time, who travelled over to the UK. We read our class reader ‘Windrush Child’ by Benjamin Zephaniah, which the children have been enjoying already this half term. We researched and learnt about the Caribbean carnival, Notting Hill. We got to design and make our own carnival masks and we were lucky enough to go and model these for our Year 2 buddies class, Les Grenouilles. If that wasn’t enough we were lucky to take part in an African Dance workshop and watch them perform at the end of the day.
On Wednesday 12th October, we welcomed Year 6 parents and Carers into school to join us for a year 6 presentation, where Miss Jordan and the teaching team shared more information about KS2 SATS.
We had an amazing harvest assembly this morning, where the children shared harvest-inspired songs, poems and artworks with the rest of the school. A big thank you to Miss Peek & Mr James for their music skills!
This half term Y5 have been learning about humanists and what they believe. We were able to explore humanist beliefs in the classroom and had open discussion on how these beliefs may differ from our own. We were also lucky to welcome a visitor into school from the ‘Understanding Humanism Society’. Children were able to ask questions of our visitor in order to deepen their understanding of what it means to be a humanist. They were set the task afterwards to design what they believe a Humanist building might look like. Their imaginations went wild and they created some amazing looking buildings that incorporated humanist values.
In Y5 we have been identifying emotions and discussing how we can manage them. We made ‘Thunderstorm Bottles’ by filling a bottle with water and adding in a range of craft materials and paint. We can then use these whenever we feel angry or anxious about something by shaking the bottle. The swirling water and added craft items represent an angry storm, demonstrating how our anger can stir up inside of us. After a few minutes, we think of something that we like doing to help us feel calm. Finally, putting our bottles down and watch the angry storm calm down as we ourselves calm down.
As part of our Reading Masters lessons this half term Y5 texts will focus on Black history. We will read and unpick the poems: The British (serves 60 million) by Benjamin Zephaniah and Mother to Son by Langston Hughes. Windrush Child will be used as our half termly class reader as well as being part of our Reading Masters lessons. Through this heart-stopping adventure, Benjamin Zephaniah shows us what it was like to be a child of the Windrush generation. Our non-fiction selection is Black and British: an illustrated history by David Olusoga. This book takes us on a stunning visual journey through 1800 years of Black British History.
We look forward, as a year group, to explore the stories that have bought us all together in this country.
We have had such an amazing week getting to know our new classes. Our afternoons have been jammed packed with creativity and all the children have blown us away by demonstrating just how artistic they are. They have created their very own beautiful crown sun catchers and included an image related to climate change ready for our new geography topic. They have also drawn their self portrait and then recreated it in the style of artist Frank Auerbach.
We’ve been school dogs for six years now and in that time we’ve seen and heard some things!
We’ve heard most things whilst sat in The Boss’ office – the parents who see school as a “them and us” and who take no responsibility or ownership for their child’s learning to those who microparent their children and every type of parenting in between. Being a parent these days is difficult – in some ways technology has helped (there’s an app for just about everything) but it also means the little people have a very scary world at their fingertips and don’t actually know if the 10 year old they are supposedly chatting to is real or someone attempting to groom them.
For us, that’s why our camping trips with the children are so important. The little people get a break from technology and they learn to make dens, climb trees, roll around in mud and experience good old fashioned childhood fun. When The Boss became head teacher of Queen’s Hills “way back when” (she was appointed in 2007 and started in April 2008) she knew she wanted the little people to have a good, rounded education with opportunities for The Arts, Sports and Outdoor Learning. Little did she know back then how hard that journey would be. Balancing the aims against the budget is always tricky and many of the activities that have taken place over the years wouldn’t have been able to happen without the huge generosity of staff and supporters in both time and resources.
So, what have we learnt in that time? Schools are so much more than places of education. Obviously teaching the little people how to read, write and do maths is absolutely crucial but they are also learning how to interact with others, how to share and show empathy, to become resilient and to understand that there is a big world out there for them to explore.
She’s had to battle over the years: against Ofsted (who can only take account of published data – the irony of being graded “requires improvement” in June and being in the press for the “most improved school in Norfolk” months later in October was not lost on her and yes, she did email the lead inspector to tell them that the predictions she had given them that they were not able to take into account were absolutely the results the children achieved), she insisted the school hall was expanded when additional classrooms were added, she badgered politicians and council members when she didn’t feel the Queen’s Hills community was getting the support it needed.
She’s cried when parents have come to her with diagnoses of terminal illnesses, when her female staff have told her they’ve miscarried or when a member of the team is going through a personal crisis, when she can’t get children the support they need to thrive (whether that’s additional support for the family or a placement in specialist provision) and she’s cried when she’s just been so frustrated with the “system”. We’ve seen first-hand when she has been shouted at and threatened and almost hit on more than one occasion by various parents over the years.
But we’ve also seen tears of joy with marriages, babies and graduations. We’ve seen a community come together in a pandemic, we’ve seen families grateful for the additional support (emotional and financial) that has been secured and we’ve seen our big little people cry with the relief of getting the results we knew, but they doubted, they were capable of.
We have seen non-verbal children gain confidence and whisper our names, we’ve been prodded and poked and laid on when little people have needed us to help them regulate, we’ve had them return to see us and tell us how well they have got on in their new setting. We’ve wagged our tails when they’ve shown us their best work and we’ve curled up with them when they’ve needed a bit of love.
According to the dictionary, a school is a place where children are educated. We disagree. A school is a building which houses a community of teachers, support staff and children who together aim to develop a passion for learning. A community where adults care about developing the whole child.
We are going to miss working with the little people so much and we are excited that we have more four legged friends in training. We think every school should have a dog. The Boss says you two legged folk should learn from us: we are always pleased to see you, every day is a fresh start and full of adventure, we want to make you happy and proud of us and so we give any task our absolute best effort. We also know when you are having a bad day (that’s when we go out of our way to be extra attentive to you); we are full of energy when we need to be but at other times we’re just happy to chill.
Children will always be children – they will have good and bad days, fallouts and celebrations. We know how hard the staff are working to do the best they can to support the little people, giving up their own time to go that extra mile. They won’t always get it right, because they are human and also because sometimes the parents’ expectations of what “the school” can do is not entirely realistic. But they will always put the little people first – because that’s what they do. Whatever is going on in their personal life. And we know that because we’ve seen that first-hand too.
Be kind to each other and keep helping the little people to develop their passion for learning and life.
With the waggiest of tails and the fondest of memories,
Molly and Jasper xx