Childline Assembly

This Wednesday representatives from Childline visited the school to speak to Year 5 and 6 pupils in an assembly. They introduced their mascot, Buddy and talked to the children about what they could do if they were worried or upset about something. They explained that sometimes carrying around lots of worries is like carrying a heavy sack, and a good way to lighten the load is to talk to someone.

The children learnt that Childline was available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year and there would always be someone available to talk to about any worries, big or small.

The children also identified trusted adults that they could speak to if they had concerns.

If you need to contact Childline, for whatever reason, you can reach them by telephone on

0800 1111 

or online at

www.childline.org.uk/buddy

Road Safety Week

This week we are focusing on road safety. We have learnt about safe places to cross and the Green Cross Code. This afternoon, children in Blue class worked with the younger pupils to help them learn the skills to cross the road safely.

We set up our own "road" on the playground and while some children acted as vehicles, others taught the Reception and Year 1 children to Stop, Look and Listen. We emphasized the importance of holding hands with an adult and walking safely across the road. The children chose the most sensible place to cross - on a long, straight stretch of road away from junctions or corners.

Stop Child Labour!

The following was written by one of our year six girls, following some PSHE work on child labour. Please take a few minutes to read this, and if you agree with her, visit www.unicef.org.uk and donate now to help to make a difference.

Please share this post with your friends and family through social media sites and help spread the message. 

Stop child labour!

Unfortunately millions of children around the world are put into child labour. The jobs they have to do can go from being strapped to a camel for adults entertainment to life threatening situations like waiting with a gun with a huge risk of being shot at.These children can go from as young as four to fourteen.

Some six year olds are sent to Britain to beg, work in a restaurant and far worse.

Traffickers often trick mothers into thinking their child has a fantastic opportunity and will be completely safe. But alas the world is not this kind. The children are dragged out of their homes and carted off to a different country … to work.
Most jobs we know in Britain can be annoying but safe.
These children hardly have a hope that they’ll survive. They have to live their life in fear, because of these horrible selfish people.The thing that annoys me and puzzles me is their only in it for the profit.

These photos are not from the past they are from the present. As well as making me angry it disappoints me to know that our world is populated by some of these people.

What we all need to do now is pull together and help. But lots of adults and governments won’t help each other because they think the other one has a trick up their sleeve to get a lot of money. And usually there is. I learnt this in my lesson at school, I didn’t think, these words just came to me “why can’t they just shut up and do something!”

I said this because I am a child. And as children we can see these poor childrens point of view much better than most adults. I also learnt that lots of adults that lots of adults are sitting back and making the situation much too complicated. If we are going to save these children we need to pull together, put our differences aside just for a moment and act as a team. After all this is our world and we need to do everything we can to protect everyone on it!!!

I only had one question after that: what makes me so different from those children? And the main reason was our country had more money. Well, children are told to share. If we don’t then we are a bit selfish. But if the world doesn’t share children are killed!
This is what UNICEF has achieved: children smiling once more. So imagine what we could achieve if we worked together!

But I think we all know we haven’t yet done this. This is what have achieved. I don’t know how we can all live with ourselves knowing that one by one children are being killed, and we could do something if we worked together. But we are not.

Me, you, everyone has to help. I’m asking, I’m begging. I’m a child I know as children lots of us get our rights taken away from us but we don't need to be killed. So please come together, think and help! If you have read this and you still think it’s ok to do nothing, then I don’t think these children have a chance.Please. Help us.

Crucial Crew

Following our success at rounders, we made a mad dash to Stowmarket for our Crucial Crew workshop, in which the children learnt some important safety lessons, including what to do in an emergency situation; how to prevent fires in the home; staying safe on the road; and how to keep their hands clean! After learning that one square inch of skin on your hand can house up to a billion bacteria, I'm sure they will all be washing very thoroughly in future!

Dental Health Topic - Yellow Class

 
 
On week 3 of our Dental Health Topic Mrs Rice brought some disclosing tablets for us to investigate the two types of plaque we might find on our teeth. It caused great excitement and hilarity when mouths and tongues turned blue! The children then used their own toothbrushes to practice the correct way to clean their teeth, after a demonstration with a gigantic set of teeth!
 
 

School Council Elections

Yesterday the school turned out for the 'big vote' to elect a new chairman of the school council. There were only two candidates, so the pressure was on and it was a tense time as the votes were counted, but finally the result was announced in assembly.

As decision was made that although the winner of the vote would become the chairman of the council, the runner up would take on the role of vice-chairman.

Congratulations to both boys, pictured below.

Saving Water

Shortly before half term, children in Blue Class took part in an activity to learn about saving water and to get an idea of just how lucky we are to have access to clean running water.

The children were divided into two teams, one representing the UK and one representing rural Ghana. Each team were given a cup and a container to fill. The UK team had a short walk to the outdoor tap to collect their water, whereas the Ghanaian team had to make their way to the back of the hideouts to collect theirs from a dirty well. They also had the slight disadvantage of a hole in their cup.

Both teams were working hard to collect their water, but the UK team soon took an early lead and could start working on a maths puzzle. This represented the improved opportunities for education in the UK compared to Ghana. Unfortunately for the Ghana team, disaster struck about five minutes into the race, when one of their team fell and broke the cup. Since resources were limited, they were forced to continue with a cracked and leaking cup, and chose to improvise using a pair of socks to try and collect water!

It was a long time before Ghana were ready to start their maths challenge, but when they finally did, they worked conscientiously and cooperated and were the first to find a solution (with a little help from Mrs Exton, who got quite excited by the problem!)

We finished the activity with a discussion about ways in which water is used in both countries and how we can reduce the amount of water we waste.

Friendship Day - Wednesday 25th February

FRIENDSHIP DAY

'Friendship Day' saw the children involved in a range of activities, working with children from other classes and those they wouldn't normally work with. There was a 'lovely' atmosphere throughout the school with everyone working together and thoroughly enjoying it! A special 'Friendship Lunch' was enjoyed by many of the children.

A competition was held during the week with the children being asked to produce a poster relating to friendship. Originally, there were two main prizes to be given, but such was the tremendous amount of entries and the very high standard, this had to be doubled!


The four main winners (pictured below) received a voucher which entitles them to watch a film of their choice along with a friend and an adult.



Mrs Bowman-Garrett (Chair of Governors) also picked out two other entries which she thought were worthy of special recognition, these both received book tokens.

However, all of the children, yet again, deserve praise for their attitudes towards each other and the effort which they put into the day and their competition entries. WELL DONE!