Year 5 Singing Event at Thomas Mills High School

The evening of Tuesday 9th March saw the primary schools from Earl Soham, Charsfield, Dennington, Easton, Wickham Market and Sir Robert Hitcham (Framlingham) link up with students from Thomas Mills High School for a fantastic evening of singing and music.

The TMHS Orchestra started off with 'Overture to Tannhauser'. This was followed by the primary schools signing 'Afton Water' and then 'Canoe Song' which was sung as a whole group, then in a round of four and finally as a round of five as the audience were encouraged to participate!

Next up were the music competition winners from TMHS who were absolutely superb with their range of solo singing, piano playing, violin and a brilliant jazz ensemble. The primary school children sat amazed at what hard work and dedication could achieve.

The primary schools were then accompanied by the TMHS Orchestra for a, 'Abba Medley' including: One of Us, Thankyou for the Music, Knowing Me, Knowing You and Money, Money, Money. Yet again, superbly performed, and the parents joined in too!

A fantastic evening for all involved - sorry, no pictures available.

Year 2 'Wake and Shake' Festival

On Friday 5th March, Year 2 children spent the morning at Debenham Leisure Centre taking part in a wide range of physical activities. Many schools from across the area were represented with all children having a great time.

The children are pictured below with 'Mr Cuddles' from Suffolk Schools Sports Partnership.

Chinese New Year

Children were given the opportunity over half term to to create a piece of work based around the celebration of the Chinese New Year. This year the celebration started on 14th February, the Year of the Tiger.

The children were given some basic information, with their task being to research in more detail and to present their work in as interesting a way as possible.

All entries received are shown below along with some of the overall winners who received a book token for their efforts.

Well done to everyone who entered - judging was extremely hard!

World Book Day - Thursday 4th March

The day started with an assembly which all the children brought along their favourite books to.

Staff shared their favourite books and explained why they liked them so much.

Back in class, Blue Class were busy making story books for younger children...

Children in Red Class spent time reading, listening to stories and writing...

As did Yellow Class...

The school had a lovely feel about it throughout the day. Stories simply can be magical!

Strange Sightings in the Sky at Earl Soham

What is it? That was the question on everyone's lips on Monday morning. Bemused children racked their brains...

A slow moving, bright object was visible in the sky...

Strange patterns were visible on the playground...Memories were cast back to the Roswell incident and strange sightings in Rendlesham Forest. Fortunately, a passer by (who wished to remain anonymous) was on hand to put our minds at rest. "What you can see is the star at the centre of our solar system which is approximately 149.6 million kilometres away from Earth. Most people call it the Sun."

Well, it hasn't been seen for quite some time!

World Maths Day

Blue and Yellow classes started by warming up with the traditional logic problem of the farmer needing to get his chicken, grain and a fox across a river. The farmer is only able to ferry one item at a time to the other side, but needs to ensure that none of the items are left unattended which may eat another item! The children wrote down their ideas for how this could work and then acted them out.

They then undertook the 'Only Smarties Have the Answer' challenge. This involved the children working in groups of 3 or 4 investigating the contents of a fun-size box of smarties.

The children started by counting the contents of their own box.

Then they added the totals of the contents in their group together. This enabled them to work out the mean average per box within their group.

The different colours in each box and group were then sorted and this information was then transferred into a graph which could then be interpreted. This information was then shared with everyone else in large tables. The children also measured Smarties and then worked out the total length if they were placed side by side. The three most effective leaders were then awarded with a rather 'funky' calculator each for their sterling efforts. It had been a great morning for everyone.

Rotary Club Assembly - Shelter Boxes

This morning Rotarians Chris Sharp, Arthur Dorsett and Susan Hansen led our assembly on the theme of Shelter Boxes.

They spoke about the current plight of people in Haiti following on from the recent devastating earthquake.

The children got to see the contents of a Shelter Box which can provide everything that a family of ten people would need to survive should disaster strike. A Shelter Box costs £490 and can save lives and make a real difference. The School Council are going to discuss which fundraising events we could hold to put money towards buying one.Some of the equipment was passed around - here are some children feeling the warmth of one of the blankets.It was an extremely interesting and eye-opening assembly which left the children thinking that they could make a real difference to the lives of many.