The Chronicle

This week saw the beginning of the Junior 6 Summer Show auditions. The children were given audition packs and have been rehearsing in lessons and at home to prepare for the parts they wish to audition for. The children in J6H have been busy learning lines and lyrics to Aladdin, whilst J6V students have been eager to prepare for The Lion King.

Tuesday saw some fantastic auditions which showcased many talents from a wide variety of children. The staff and children thoroughly enjoyed the first round of auditions and the pupils were clapping and cheering each other on and could be heard throughout the corridors, as they supported each other with immense kindness. We look forward to the final round of auditions next week!

After a hearty breakfast, the children in Junior 5 were ready to face their first activity of the day - the much-anticipated one - kayaking on Lake Darwin! The sun shone as the children listened attentively to the instructors, who explained how to sit correctly in their kayak, and how they should hold and use the paddle effectively to move forwards, backwards, left and right.  Now it was time for action! Each kayak was pushed onto the lake. The children took to kayaking ‘like ducks to water’ and were soon enjoying a variety of games on the calm, clear water. The morning culminated in excitement and courage as a number of the children, under supervision, leapt into the lake to become even wetter than they had been before, if that’s possible!  Needless to say, a tremendous morning was had by all. 

Junior 4 have been making a difference this week at Kingswood, taking huge strides in so many areas of the Crackley Compass. The children have buzzed like Beezley, completing obstacle courses. Collaboratively they crawled, like Archimedes the Ant, through a challenging night-line. With Fin the Dolphin in mind, so much kindness has been on display and they have been so caring towards each other. Responsibly, they have grown in maturity, taking pride in keeping their shared dorms as tidy as possible (most of the time!) It really has been wonderful to see them building memories, that will last a lifetime. Junior 4 are awesome! 

Junior 3 have been enjoying a mini-Shakespeare experience this week, to mark National Shakespeare Week. Our resident book fiend, Mrs Steeples, has been exploring the life of the local ‘bard’ with the pupils, who have loved listening to abridged versions of Romeo and Juliet and The Scottish Play, as Macbeth is known! What a treat and who knew the bard was born and died on the same date? We have also had a delicious time investigating the three different types of rock formation. We made sedimentary sandwiches, metamorphic mini cakes and even ate an igneous egg! It was a fun and tasty way to remember how rocks are formed and the properties of each type. We also loved taking part in the World Maths Day competition and were very proud to come 20th in the country for our year group. Our energy and enthusiasm are so high, you would hardly believe that we are at the end of another term.

Junior 2 have had a fabulous week delving into a book called Vlad And The Great Fire of London. Vlad and his friend, Boxton the rat, love eating and biting their way around London. But one night in Pudding Lane they are caught up in a fire that threatens to destroy them, along with most of the City of London. We have used the book to investigate verbs, alternative verbs, adverbs and adjectives. In Maths, the children are becoming quite proficient at finding halves, thirds and quarters of amounts and we are sure that they could cut a cake into equal amounts for you to share. We all took part in a competition on Mathletics to celebrate World Maths Day and we had great fun imagining children from all over the world taking part at the same time. In Science, we discussed our favourite snacks and what alternative healthy snacks we could have. Tuesday saw us all make a fruit kebab and we thoroughly enjoyed eating this healthy snack. We also visited Aston Hall on Friday, but we shall tell you more about that next week.

Following on from using scales to weigh objects and compare weights in Maths last week, Junior 1 have been looking at capacity and the volume of containers. This involved using water to help find out how big some containers were and how some containers have the same capacity but look very different to each other. We finished looking at the book Where The Wild Things Are in English, writing out the story and then a special letter to Max asking him all the questions we wanted answers to. As it is Mothering Sunday this week we, of course, made some lovely Mother’s Day cards to show our mums how special we think they are and how much we appreciate them.

In Reception this week, we have been thinking about what we love about our mothers and have made Mothering Sunday cards to say thank you for everything they do for us. We have been comparing numbers to 10 and exploring the different ways of making 10 in Maths. We have discovered from our cress investigation, which we started last week, that plants need water and light to grow and stay healthy. We have also watched our caterpillars turn themselves into chrysalides this week, and now we wait patiently for their transformation into butterflies.