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!

Year 6 at Crucial Crew (live blog)

Year 6 are at Crucial Crew, learning how to keep safe in all sorts of situations. The areas we are covering are:

Fire safety

The recovery position

Electricity safety

Water safety

Dealing with an accident

The magistrates court and alcohol awareness

Internet safety

The impact of shoplifting.

We also covered drug awareness, stranger danger, how to make an emergency call and the impact of hoax calls. It was, as ever, as superb afternoon, jam packed with learning very relevant to the children.

Superb Singing Lessons

How do you get someone to learn musical notation, so that they can read the music they are singing? Write it on the new library carpet of course!

Another brilliant idea from Mrs Southby's singing lessons. It worked really well and children were very quickly singing the phrases they had written.

p.s. It was only written in masking tape so, thankfully, it did come off.

Fairy tales brought to life

The world of Hans Christian Anderson, the great Danish writer of stories for children - came to life this morning when we were treated to a performance by the Manchester Actors Company.
The play brought together some of his best loved stories including: The Ugly Duckling; Thumbelina; The Emperor's New Clothes and The Little Mermaid.

The company of three actors delighted the whole school with their performance which was at times funny, sad and dramatic.

"It was amazing how they were able to play so many characters!" said Ross. Everyone agreed that the performance had been a great way to start our day and will provide lots of stimulus for our Literacy work in the future.

Calendar challenge!

As part of our topic on time this week we have been looking at calendars. Pupils worked in pairs with a class list (inlcuding birth dates) and had to work out, using their calendars, which day each pupil's birthday was or will be this year. Sounds easy right?

Well, we made it a little bit harder than that. Not only did pupils have to read the calendar pages carefully, work out from the class list the exact date and month and remember how many days were in each month, they also discovered that their calendars weren't complete! Some had whole pages missing......

Some groups just had a few pages of their calendars! Look - one's ripped in half!

Some pupils were left with just scraps of ripped up calendars!!

Class 4 had to use their best investigative skills to work out the most efficient method of working out the birthdays. Mr Sturgess was very impressed with how hard everyone worked on this, as well as the excellent achievement by all of the pupils.