R.E Trail

Last week we were very lucky to go on our first school trip in Year 2 to the Mosque, Mandir and the Gurdwara. When we came to school we were so excited!

First we went on a large, blue coach to the Mosque. When we arrived we had to cover our heads to show respect to the people who follow the Islamic religion and use the Mosque. Then we took off our shoes and went into the prayer room. There were lots of boxes on the carpet to show where people can use each square as a prayer mat. In the Mosque we learnt that Muslims pray 5 times a day but at different times in the summer and the winter. We also saw some Arabic writing. Did you know that you read Arabic from right to left?

Next we went to the Mandir, this is the Hindu temple of worship. We had to take our shoes off here too. We saw lots of beautiful statues showing the Hindu gods, one of them had 8 arms! We walked around the statues, and saw some people pouring milk and water on a special statue of a snake and then we got a tasty sweet. 

The final place of worship we visited was the Gurdwara. Firstly we had to cover our heads and remove our shoes again. Then a lady taught us about the 5 K's that Sikhs follow. Then we went into the Lungar Hall and we were lucky enough to try some curry and chapati's! This was our favourite part because we got to try new foods and they were delicious!

By Deanna, Isabelle and Rohan

STEM Day 2!

On Wednesday we had the second of our STEM days as part of the Sensation Activation Rolls Royce project. First Miss Coburn told us what we would be doing in a whole school assembly. She explained how we would be better technologists and engineers by designing and making models of a new story chair for our playground.

Our first mission was to design how we wanted the back, arms and legs of our new chair to look. We looked at other chairs and used our imaginations to think of new ideas. We had some super ideas like a king themed chair, a beauty and the beast themed chair and a book themed chair! 

Next we had to copy our ideas onto our final designs. This was when we could make little changes to our designs to make sure they were amazing and unique to our school!

In the afternoon we made models of our final chair designs using foil and sticky tape. We found the foil really tricky to build with because our models wouldn't stand up. In the end and after lots of hard work our models looked great. 

By Ebaney, Oliver and Harleen 

When we went to the Church...

Today we came into school feeling ecstatic to be going on a trip to the Church. First we had to go on a long walk to get to the Church, it took us 20 minutes! On the way we talked to our partners to make our journey go quicker. 

When we arrived we looked at the grave stones that were outside the Church. We learnt that round the back of the church there was an area of really old graves. Next we went inside the gigantic, beautiful Church. The first thing we did inside was sit down on chairs to listen to a man tell us all about Christianity and the Church. He asked us lot of questions and we tried to answer them with what we learnt at school. 

Then the teachers gave us work booklets and we had to look all around the Church to find the objects that were on the first page of our booklets. We also had to draw our favourite parts of the Church - ours were the Font and the Organ! 

Before leaving we were treated to some juice and a biscuit, which were delicious! Then we had the walk back to school but it was much quicker on the way back. 

By Kaynan and Lewis

Mysterious Me

Our new topic this half term is called Mysterious Me and we shall be learning about other peoples lives and thing that make us all special. 

At the start of our topic we made shields. On these shields we had to draw and write about our family and friends. We also had to talk about some of our favourite things and things we are good at.  We made these shields to put on our topic display so we can learn lots about everyone in class 8. On this display we have put up pictures of us with our families, us in our favourite places and pictures of us with our favourite things. 

Next week as part of our topic we are going on an exciting school trip. Our trip is to lots of special religous places. We shall visit a Church, a Temple, a Mosque and a Gurdwara. On this trip we hope to learn lot of new things about the places we are visiting, maybe even about the food they eat and what clothes they wear!

Written by Lewis, Tanvir and Kaynan

Fabulous Farm to Fork week in Class 8

In October we had a special week called Farm to Fork week. We learnt in this week about lot of types of food and how far they have to travel to get to our plates and local shops.

We had a visit from the ladies at Tesco and they brought different types of cheeses to try. Our favourite was the spicy cheese because it made our tongue tingle! Tesco also brought fish in to school and we learnt how to hold them and how to take the head off and how to gut a fish - it smelt disgusting! Finally Tesco brought in fresh fruit and vegetables to learn how much we need to eat for a portion (as big as your palm is only one portion).

We had a visit from Betty's farm who brought in a chicken to show us. The chicken was called Betty and we all got to stroke her. We learnt about how chickens lay healthy eggs and that lots of things in our homes have egg in them like make up and cake!

A lady came in to teach us how to milk a cow called Jenny and we had to pull the pretend cows udders to make the milk come out. We learnt how to turn the milk into butter. We then ate our butter on yummy soft  bread.

Written by Jared, Aditya and Connie

Super STEM day!

In September we had a super STEM day. STEM means we learn about Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths. We had a STEM day as part of our work towards the Rolls-Royce Science prize in which we are finalists. 

In our STEM day we had to test lots of materials so we could change the sensory square because it had lots of small stones in it that we couldn't sweep up! First we had to walk along fake grass and it felt nice and soft on our toes, then we walked through the sand and that felt smooth but it also tickled our feet. Next we tried to walk on rope circles and they felt rough and hard. The big stones and the logs we walked on also felt hard on our feet. We enjoyed walking through the paper because it felt like real snow!

In year 2 we had to measure the sensory square to know where we could put sections of the new materials. After we measured we had to design our plan for the sensory square with the new materials that we tested. The materials we chose as the best for our project were the fake grass, rope circles, the tiles, the big stones and the logs. 

Written by Oliver, Aimen and Ebaney