Lazing on the job? No way!

Teachers at Harewood will go to any length to inspire learning. Here Mrs Burnley is the object of a practical maths session on measuring.

Beautiful Music

On Thursday 9th March we held our second annual Harewood School Music Concert. All the children who take additional music lessons, at school or privately, had the opportunity to perform. The concert showed the whole spectrum of development, from beginners to more experienced learners, and included recorders, piano, woodwind, guitars, violin and singing. All the children, no matter what their level of learning, performed wonderfully and the evening was greatly enjoyed by everyone who came.

Harewood Castle

The children in Year 4 had the great honour and good fortune of being the first school children allowed to look around Harewood Castle. It was fabulous. We learnt about the history of the castle and the lives of those who lived there.

In places the magnificent detail is still preserved. We were in the Great Hall on what would have been the first floor. The levels of the other floors were clearly visible on the walls. The massive fireplace was very impressive.

 We went down into the cellar which would have been below the kitchen. The remains of the bread oven could be clearly seen.

The bedrooms for the family would have been in one of the two tall towers on the south side of the castle. Everyone else would have slept on the floor in the Great Hall or other rooms.

No autographs please!

Word of our fabulous fundraising efforts reached as far as the BBC. Harewood were invited to appear on the One Show as part of their outside broadcast following the progress of the Sports Relief relay. The children once again dressed in their wacky costumes and scooted, skated and hopped along to the Harewood Arms on Wednesday night.

They patiently waited for their big moment. We had to practise cheering and making noise - which luckily came very naturally!

Lots of other fundraisers were there too, so there was lots to see including this Leeds Rhino player who had his head shaved for the charity!

Despited being a little chilly the girls remained very enthusiastic.

It was a very exciting night, well worth the wait!

Miles of Smiles!

Scooters, skateboards, rollerblades - even space hoppers! Tuesday saw the whole school going loopy for Sports Relief.
Mr. Madeley calculated that sixteen laps of the playground or field were equivalent to completing a mile. The children set off enthusiastically to make it to the mile in record time.

These ladies are ahead of the crowd on their spacehoppers.

Not only did we have wacky transport but we had crazy costumes to match.

With sponsor money still coming in, it looks as if we are set to smash the £500 marker! A fantastic effort for our small school. Well done everyone!

Look What Happened To Class One's Egg

This is the mysterious egg, which was delivered to Class One at the beginning of the week. Everyone helped to build the cage to keep us safe from whatever creature might appear. The children used lots of different resources and even put pictures inside for the egg to look at. Erika suggested we video the egg at night in case it hatched when we weren't there.

Oliver and Edward even made a bed for it to sleep on so it would be comfortable. How kind!

Andrew brought a beautiful cage from home for the egg. It was just the right size.

The egg hatched on Wednesday night and the children were very excited to watch the video on Thursday morning. They were surprised that it was a dragon. But was it a real dragon? After much excited discussion and a little more investigation it turned out to be not quite as alive as everyone had first thought.

Our dragon is beautiful and, after some initial disappointment that it isn't really alive, everyone was eager to have a go at making our baby dragon alive themselves. They did a brilliant job.

We have lots of other puppets to practise with.

The puppet theme soon spread into the garden where there were lots of new characters to meet and stories to tell.

A Mysterious Delivery for Class One

This morning Class One were surprised to receive a special delivery. A box was brought into the classroom by Mrs Masterton and Mrs Wadeley and on it was a letter. It asked whether we could look after the contents of the box because Class One are so good at looking after things (such as the birds in the garden and our fish).

The letter suggested we keep the anonymous sender of the box up to date with any changes that happened to the contents so we decided to do a blog.
Once we opened the box we found a large, soft, brown and black egg shaped object. There was much discussion about what it might be. Someone suggested it might contain a puppy or an elephant but Isabelle pointed out that they are both mammals, which don't lay eggs. After further thought the children wondered if it was more likely be a chick, ostrich, turtle, crocodile or dinosaur egg.
Some of the children were concerned about safety and it was decided a cage would have to be made in case the egg hatched. Erika thought it would be good to use some wire.
There was a big rush to design a cage that would be big enough and strong enough but still allow us to keep a close eye on the egg. It looks like we're going to be busy finishing our cage tomorrow. I hope we get it done in time!

Maths Week 2012

The pupils became the teachers today and their students were their parents! The adults went back to school to learn the strategies and methods we use in our maths lessons.

The afternoon session included activities in every classroom. The children in Class 1 were ordering numbers and sharing their expertise in symmetry.

Meanwhile in Class 2 the class showed us how to add and subtract numbers. They also had some great games for learning your times table facts.

The children below are using their knowledge of number squares to find the mystery picture.

The parents were very keen to find out how we do things in our maths lessons. They all agreed that maths seemed to be a lot more fun than when they were at school!

Class 4 used their ICT skills alongside their numeracy knowledge to create fabulous video tutorials. The videos explain how to tackle tricky problems. During the afternoon they were able to show their mini masterpieces to their parents.

The children were tough teachers! They even made the adults complete test questions using the skill they had been taught on the video clips.

Our governors found time to pop in too! We impressed them with our division methods. I wonder who was the winner of this game! Only one of them knows the trick to winning ...

The maths feature week has been a great chance to share our work with our parents and grandparents. Thank you to everyone who came along and helped to make it such a success!

Chemistry Master Class (live blog)

Four Year 5 children are enjoying a day of chemistry master classes at Harrogate Ladies College.
In the morning we have been testing for acid, alkaline or neutral.

This afternoon we have been using the bunsen burners to burn metal solutions and see what colour flames they make.

We have been learning how to work safely and scientifically.....and we also made friends with a stick insect.

Class 2 Meet the Penguins

On Thursday Class 2 walked down to the Harewood Bird Garden to meet the penguins. We were lucky enough to play on the adventure playground first.


We then went to the penguin pool to watch the penguins have their breakfast. We found out lots of information and were able to ask lots of questions.

We went inside to make penguin hats which was lots of fun and we all came back to school wearing our hats and walking like penguins!