Earlier in the year, we held our annual whole school dance assembly for parents. Each class chose a country and created a dance to some music from that area of the world. As always, our talented children entertained us with a variety of styles of dance and parents played a game to guess which country the music came from.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_WfB_ncHKzg&w=560&h=315]A visit from Guy Fawkes
Guy Fawkes visited the school today to tell us all about his gunpowder plot. He even showed us how to write secret messages using lemon juice or a special code called a cipher. We enjoyed hearing about his plans, acting out the plot, creating some secret messages and learning about his clothing and some artifacts from the 15th century.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j773PibK3vM&w=560&h=315]Class 3 Visit Bowes Museum 2019
We had a fantastic day at Bowes Museum in Barnard Castle. In class we have been learning about the Stone Age. During the trip we looked at different artifacts, fossils and models from this age. We learnt about how bronze was found and made and even held a 10,000 year old axe! On the afternoon we made our own pottery pots from clay in the style of the Stone Age. It was amazing!
Sports Day 2019
Sports day at our school, is always a big event. Parents, carers and family members come in their droves to encourage the children, from the little rising 3’s in Nursery, up to the Year 6 pupils.
Children ran in races against pupils in their class and everyone tried their very best in each race.
The overall winning team this year was Auckland, who were wearing green. Well done to everyone who took part.
A Day Out At The Beach!
At St. Andrew’s Primary School, we like to reward pupils for good behaviour and attendance. This year, our Summer term treat was a trip to the beach at Seaton Carew.
The children had a fantastic time, playing in the sand, splashing in the sea and eating ice-creams.
Staff say their behaviour was excellent, especially on the bus, where they had to sit for three hours in traffic! The bus drivers said the children were a credit to our school!
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4epwXw-0xY&w=560&h=315]Dream Job Dressing Up Day
At St. Andrew’s Primary School, one of our key curriculum drivers is “Aspirations and Possibilities” and we feel it is our role to help inspire our pupils to be whoever they want to be when they grow up. At the end of careers week, children dressed in the role of their dream job. We had quite a range of jobs come though our gates! From police officers to dogs trust carers, from video gamer to nurses and from teachers to business managers. Children talked lots about their future selves and what journey they would need to take in order to secure their dream job. Overall, the message to our pupils was – “Dream big – be whoever you want to be!”
Easter Bonnet Craft and Easter Service
We invited parents and carers to school and work with their children to create Easter bonnets.
We just managed to get you all in the school hall! What a fantastic turn out.
It was great to see everyone using their craft skills to create some amazing bonnets which some of the children wore to the Easter Service at St. Andrew’s Church the following day.
Mrs James had a very difficult task to pick some winners which were announced after the service.
Please watch this short video to remind you of the day.
Class 2 visit Bishops Park
Class 2 were invited to a local house building site not far from our school. The builders, Linden Homes, are building a new estate called Bishops Park and wanted to tell our children about the dangers of playing on a building site. As the local schools have broken up for Easter, the company thought it was very important to get the message across.
The children were shown lots of equipment and materials needed on a building site and a lot of safety signs were pointed out.
THE HOOPIEST DAY OF OUR LIVES
The school’s Roving Reporters wrote this news report about our visit from Hoopstarz.
On Friday 1st of March, Tracey from Hoopstarz came to visit St Andrew’s Primary. She had come to work with every class, showing them new tricks with hoola hoops. The event took place in the main hall, as the weather was not great day. All of the children and even some teachers took part.
Tracey is a brilliant hoola-hooper. She is better than all of us but always helped us learn. She showed us some tricks using different parts of her body to spin the hoop. An encouraging teacher, Tracey never made anyone feel bad for not getting it right. She is motivational.
Hoopstarz visit our school regularly. Learning to hoola helps us to keep fit and is fantastic exercise. It can help our arms have lots of strength and also develops our balance and concentration.
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While Tracey was here, every class came to the hall for a hoola hooping session. Each class learned different tricks, as well as getting better at the tricks they already knew. The tricks included: using hips, necks, arms, hands, hopping, jumping, running on the spot, kneeling and then combining some of these. Everyone was extremely happy with what they learned that day – even the teachers! As there were lots of different ways to use the hoola hoop, everyone was able to do something. Even if there was something we could not do, there were plenty of other tricks that we could try.
At the end of the day, we had an assembly where children from each class demonstrated what they had learned. It was fun to see even the youngest children showing off their skills. The last group to show off was the teachers. Mrs James even took off her high heels to show us.
We have lots of hoops in our playground and we will practise all our tricks in the yard. Using these, we will improve our technique as well as our fitness. We don’t have to wait until Tracey visits again, we can learn new skills any day. We might even challenge the teachers to a hoop off in the summer term!
Tracey from Hoopstarz is the hoopiest girl we have ever met in our whole entire lives.
We would love for Tracey to come back and teach us some new tricks. Please!
Super Hero Dad’s event
We invited dads, stepdads and granddads into school to become superheroes for the day. The children worked with their family member to design and create a Superhero costume and name. The dads were great sports and dressed in their new superhero outfits before being photographed for a fun Photoshop picture. The children and dads created stories on comic strips too. All children received a book of their choice to take home and read with their grown-up that night. It was a “super” morning.
Here is a short video of the morning, including a few of the Photoshop pictures.
