What's going on in our school hall?

On Tuesday 29th November we all arrived at school to find warning tape around the hall doors and a no entry sign on the window. Having been given clearance to investigate, the Year 2 children discovered that a cardboard pirate ship had mysteriously appeared overnight! Being intrigued and very inquisitive they set about thinking about why it was there and who it belonged to. (Strangely co-incidentally they had only been watching Peter Pan the day before as part of literacy.) Many ideas rebounded around the rest of the class - some thinking that pirates were off burying treasure in the hideouts - or even the ship might be a decoy and they are really marauding around Earl Soham.

On Wednesday morning the children were startled to find the mermaid from Red Class had been kidnapped, and was tied to the mast by her hair! There was also a pair of boots lying nearby.

Red Class Children, at first, thought Yellow Class had kidnapped her but they had a note delivered to their classroom saying "We kidnapped your mermaid, haarr! Don't tell those scurvy yellow kids!"

Well - Yellow Class were a little indignant at this as you can imagine, and protested their innocence, loudly!
After lunch Red Class found another note claiming to be from the mer-nappers saying "We might release her if you do a dance for us, haaarrr!!"  So Red Class did successfully perform a dance and managed to rescue their mermaid safely.
But what will tomorrow bring...?

A Trip to the Vets!

This afternoon, as part of their topic on animals, Red Class walked up to the Earl Soham Business Park to visit the vets!The children were shown around the reception area where appointments are made. Then, they looked around the preparation area and saw some x-rays and scans. They were also able to see some animals recovering following illness.
The children looked at some of the instruments used in the vets when they try to find out what is wrong with the animals brought to them.
Many thanks to Mr Cloete and his team for making us feel so welcome and giving us a tremendous experience - it really helped to bring our topic to life!

Ipswich Town v Reading

Twelve members of our school community attended the latest offering at Portman Road this afternoon. Whilst the tickets were exceptionally good value, the same cannot truly be said about the level of entertainment on offer. Although there were a total of five goals, unfortunately, only two were scored by the 'Tractor Boys'.It all started quite promisingly with Ipswich taking the lead in the 2nd half and then regaining the lead having conceded a rather soft equaliser. As the clocked merrily ticked its way into 'added on time' Reading hit the home side with, firstly ,another equaliser, and then the winner with just seconds remaining.
Still, football is a 'funny old game' so, who knows what is in store for the next school ticket special on 17th December against Derby? Ho hum!

Writer of the Week

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PTFA Christmas Fayre

The recent PTFA Christmas Fayre was a huge success. There were a variety of things to do including the highly popular sand art, games, competitions, sales and the new school calendar for sale. Scrumptious refreshments were served, as Mr Mansell will testify after his hard-working stint with the School Choir for their first public performance of the year!
Yet again, the PTFA were simply amazing with their hard work.

Anti-Bullying Week

We feel that it is important to keep the children informed on what bullying is, and how to deal with it so that it doesn't become an issue at our school. So, anti-bullying week was an opportunity to remind the children of ways to deal with difficult situations and dilemmas.
During the week, we looked at a number of dilemmas relating to bullying, both in assembly and PSHE lessons. Yellow and Blue classes watched the film 'Ant Bully' and then produced storyboards for the key events.
Blue Class took part in a poster competition, the winning entrants shown below.

Sportshall Athletics

Earlier this evening, Earl Soham finished a highly credible 5th place in the Sportshall Athletics Tournament at Thomas Mill High School. Lining up against many school that were considerably larger in size, Earl Soham children did themselves proud with their refreshing attitude towards the competition. There were smiles all round as the children made the most of the opportunity. I am also delighted to announce that Earl Soham came 1st in the 'noisiest' supporters category! Parents, your support and encouragement was 'top notch'!
Many thanks to Mr Bosley for providing the photos below, mine were rather 'blurred'.

Children in Need

The total raised from last week's fund raising activities for Children in Need now stands at £142.38. This is a tremendous achievement and is by far the largest amount that we have ever raised.
So, thank you to the children for their costumes and coppers, parents for your great cakes, School Council for your ideas and organisation and anyone else who made a contribution in terms of time, money or effort.

Writer of the Week

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Dance East Workshop

On Thursday afternoon, we were visited by Lily from Dance East who gave an excellent cross-curricular dance workshop based on 3D shape. The children worked both individually and in pairs and small groups, preparing a sequence of moves to describe a chosen 3D shape. The resulting performances can be seen in the videos below.

Small Schools' Unihoc Tournament

Eight Year 6 children travelled to Stradbroke for the annual small schools' unihoc tournament. There were a total of nine teams taking part.
Earl Soham started off with a 3-2 defeat against ner-neighbours (and eventual winners) Bedfield. Goals coming from Tom and Darren. This was followed by a 5 - 1 victory against Occold, with Tom scoring 4 and Arran the other. The next match against Thorndon saw Earl Soham victorious again, this time winning 4 - 1, with Tom scoring another 3 and Miriam completing the scoring.
The crunch match came next against Helmingham, and although having taken an early lead through Tom, Earl Soham were finally beaten 3 - 1. In the play-off for 5th place, opponents Dennington were defeated 2 -1, with goals from Tom and Darren.
It was a hard-fought and entertaining morning of sport, where all children involved should feel proud of their efforts.

Red Class - SHARE Writing

This morning, Red Class parents joined us for an interesting morning of writing based activities. The support received from parents was fantastic with over 3/4 of parents able to join us. The children took part in phonics sessions, handwriting and letter formation sessions, building up sentences using VCOP and then applying their phonetic knowledge to write a list of ingredients required to make a gingerbread man.

We were delighted with the outcome of the morning's activities and hope that it has given our parents a greater insight into the development of writing at our school.

Task Tacklers - Fireworks!

The 'Task Tacklers' from Earl Soham, Bedfield, Debenham, Stonham Aspal, Wetheringsett and Helmingham met at Debenham High School for their latest challenge.
During the morning, the children experimented with a variety of compounds to produce the colours for fireworks. They discovered that green is made by using copper chloride, red by using lithium chlorine, purple by using potassium chloride and orange by using sodium chloride. They found this out by dipping the tip of a wooden splint into the substance and then setting light to it using a Bunsen burner.Iron fillings were then added which saw the creation of 'sparks' to the flames.
After more experimenting, Mr Rockett and Mrs McBurney showed some fantastic 'explosions' using gas, washing up liquid and magnesium! Then it was time to design sparklers, followed by the making and testing!
There were some fantastic ideas as the children worked hard to get the mixture of glue, iron filings, magnesium powder and compounds right to have the desired effect. This meant a continual cycle of making, testing and evaluating as the children tried to improve on what they had done previously.
It was a simply great day.

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Earl Soham Remembers

This morning,at 11am, the whole school gathered on the top playground to participate in an act of remembrance.

The dull and overcast conditions didn't dampen the spirit of the whole school who had been developing their understanding of what, how and why, we remember during the week.
An impeccable two minutes silence was observed by all.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:

Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.

At the going down of the sun and in the morning

We will remember them.

Following this, six Year 6 children paid their respects and laid remembrance crosses at the village memorial.

Remember them

Eleventh hour

Meaning of war?

Everybody who died

Memories of the past

Bloody battles

Realise their sacrifice

Armies across the world

November eleventh

Courage that they had

Effort they shared

Died in hope

Awful time

Years have passed

Year 4 Acrostic Poem

K'nex Challenge

In Blue Class this week, we began experimenting with K'nex as we will be using it to produce a motor-controlled vehicle or fairground ride. In the first session the children were set a challenge to build a stable tower that could hold a weight of 500g. They were in competition with other groups, and were aiming to make their tower the tallest.

The children learnt that good teamwork was essential, and that a wide base meant their towers could be taller whilst still being stable. They also discovered that triangular shapes gave their towers greater rigidity.

The tallest tower was over 80cm high, and easily supported the 500g weight. Its robust design meant it was also 'earthquake proof', something we tested by shaking the table on which it stood!

Here are some of the pictures of the work in progress and finished towers.

The Gunpowder Plot

On Wednesday, children in Yellow and Blue Classes spent the day learning about the Gunpowder Plot and what and why we celebrate on the 5th November. Children undertook a variety of activities including designing 'Wanted' posters for the plotters who were on the run, designing fireworks, writing anonymous letters to Lord Monteagle, drawing Guys, writing poems through the eyes of Guy Fawkes looking down on the celebrations and creating firework pictures using chalk and glitter.
Children also looked at the historical evidence from the events of 1605 and were rather undecided on what actually happened or what we are led to believe happened...

The Ghost of Guy Fawkes
It was November 5th
Many people were around
Fireworks were popping,
And making a loud sound.

As I sit here on the tower
My ghost remains to see
All the little children
Making dummies just like me.

My name is Guido Fawkes
My friends all called me Guy
My mates all died in torture
Oh why, oh Lord, oh why?

Every year on the same day
They light a fire ‘cause I died
I watch them now light up the sky
Oh lord, I wish I’d never tried.

How I received this punishment
Was because of The Gunpowder Plot
Me and my companions tried to kill the king
In future years this won’t be forgot.

That is the tale of how I died
And now you know my story
So when you are walking around on the 5th
You can tell everybody the history

By Katie and Jasmine