We are incredibly proud of the performances by every child and think we can all agree it was a resounding success. The intensity of the singing and acting was coupled with great audience participation, making for a very entertaining evening (albeit a little warm). Thank you to everyone who came to support the production and for your generous donations.
An assessor from South West Grid for Learning visited Preston Primary on Monday, to review the school’s online provision. The assessor met with Digital Leaders, Staff and Parents to discuss the provision and the level of protection for users of digital technologies.
We were delighted to be told that we were successful with our submission, and that as a school we have established a culture which effectively addresses issues and risks, alongside encouraging a positive use of technology to facilitate quality learning experiences.
Well done to all in Mulberry who enjoyed dressing up in red, white and blue and discovering the geography and culture of Cuba! We recreated the country's fascinating history over the past 100 years and discussed the implication that this would have on the human geography of the island today. In addition, we created booklets and vintage travel posters as well as learning a ChaCha and Rumba dance outside - thank you Miss Andrews!
Please don't forget to finish off your booklets and return them to school by Monday 12th July.
A lovely afternoon of PE, with a mixture of handball and benchball to finish a fantastic week of work - well done Mulberry!
Thursday morning, 26 excited children waved goodbye to their parents and headed for a day of fun at Mill on the Brue. They split into groups, and completed two wet and two dry activities (with just enough time for a quick lunch and change of clothes in between). Activities ranged from raft building to riding zip wires, with every student showing exemplary manners and behaviour throughout the day. It was fantastic to see so many children overcome fears and achieve personal goals in a controlled, safe environment.
The Road to Tokyo is Open!
Key Stage 2's Sports Day opened today with Year 6 parading the Olympic, British and Japanese - the hosts - flags. All were of course disappointed that we could not welcome parents to the event, but we hope that you enjoy this short introductory video along with the photos and media that will follow on class pages that will help all to feel involved.
The results will be confirmed by the end of this week as we didn't want any class to miss out on this big announcement! We hope that Key Stage 1's Sports Day will be just as successful tomorrow and that next year all can come to Preston Primary to share in this annual favourite!
ありがとうございました
Today, the Year 6 wait was over; the results of the photography completion were finally announced. The judges were thrilled with the standard of all the photographs this year and were amazed by the talent shown of all the children.
Receiving their awards from Mulberry Class were 1st Place Olivia Williams
2nd Place Lexi Robinson
3rd Place Mia Hamblett.
Well done to all the children who took part!
During Science this week, we had the opportunity to research The Mars Rover landing and watched footage of Perseverance decent and landing on Mars, when it happened in February this year.
Following this, the children designed and created their own landing craft, which they took pride in launching, to transport a ‘marshmallow’ safely!
Both Megan and Beth received their certificates and charity bands from Cancer Research this week, following their monumental effort with their sponsorship for our recent Race for Life. In total the pair raised a staggering £370 towards our grand total of £3500. Well done girls!
Working alongside Mr Bourne, all the Year 6 children became sports leaders this week by being paired with a Year 2 child. Different sporting activities were offered, with an international theme, such as football, golf, archery, pétanque, table tennis, basketball etc. The children had the opportunity to emerse themselves in a new language ( depending on the game chosen) but also for the Year 6 to ensure that the younger children understood each activity and played fairly. This collaboration between the two year groups was a huge success, and thoroughly enjoyed by all that took part.
This week the entire Year 6 took part in Preston C of E Primary’s annual photography competition. The inspiration for the photographs from Mulberry this year was ‘ Peace.’
Once again we were able receive professional advice on how to take the perfect photograph by Mr Graham Pritchard and Mr Kevin Samways, when they delivered a photography workshop to the children.
Graham and Kevin were joined by Len Copland and Mr D. Glentworth for the overall judging. The children will find out the results of the competition, on their return to school following the half term break.
All the judges and staff members were thrilled and impressed by the quality of the entries this year which made it a very difficult decision!
Watch this page for photographs of the winners, in the up and coming weeks.
Wow! What a fantastic total...so far! A huge thank you to all that sponsored the children, in this very worthwhile cause. The generosity of everyone was staggering and we totally smashed our school target!
The sponsorship money collected from Mulberry Class, at present is £1100. What a fantastic achievement!
During Summer Term, the year sixes have worked extremely hard before their well-deserved Activity Week. The children began their week with a Taskmaster day, where they took part in multiple challenges: crazy golf, egg tower balance, tea bag launch, find the kiwi and much more. Fortunately, the weather held out for the children’s Race for Life, which every pupil raised money for. Among the cheering and clapping, each child crossed the finish line after running 5km, even those that couldn’t attend on the day. Meanwhile, groups of children were able to participate in Laser Tag. A particular highlight of the week was being one of the first year groups allowed into the cinema. The children enjoyed the walk to the cinema, but were glad to get the coach home! We finished the week with an Arts and Crafts Day to create a new stained glass window for the front of the school. Alongside this, the children had the opportunity to create 3D animals to represent our Christian Values.
The children were fully engaged with the Easter festivities this week. Easter cards were made ( using the technique of quilling) and our Easter Service this year was held in the hall, due to the restrictions still in place.
Revd.Ruth attended the service, with Year 6 children taking the lead with the readings, about The Crucifixion, The Resurrection and a selection of Easter Poems. The children recited the new school prayer to close the service.
On Monday, we were given the opportunity to immerse ourselves into a virtual reality world. The topic of visiting 7 Wonders of the World linked with our recent topic of comparing and contrasting countries around the world.
During PSHE, Year 6 have been focusing on the importance of wellbeing. Through small group activities, Mulberry Class were able to discuss the five key ways in which they can support their own wellbeing: Connecting with others, giving to others, learning, being active and taking notice. With these ideas in place, they then chose to make a short film identifying these areas, to share with other year groups.
Today (Thursday, March 18) was Global Recycling Day, and we’re being asked to think about what we throw away – seeing not waste, but opportunity.
We learnt about recycling, through a whole school Teams assembly, led by Carymoor Environmental Agency.
Questions that were raised included:What are you doing at home to recycle? How can we help our community?
As part of our English lesson, the children wrote poems to identify the plight of our planet and the importance of recycling.
Science Week 2021
This week, Year 6 have been participating in a series of Science activities: creating with recycled materials and testing a parachute using eggs; cornflour and water experiment; camera pots; coke and mentos. All three classes in Year 6 also took part in ‘Innovating for the Future’ which required children to individually design and present their inventions to the gruelling Year 6 teachers in a Dragons’ Den Style presentation!
Home learning weeks 1 and 2
The year 6 team have enjoyed all of the work and creative activities that have been sent in during these past two weeks - the dedication from everybody, whether in class or at home, has been wonderful! Well done!
This Christmas, Year Six took on the task of learning, rehearsing and performing a unique pantomime in just three days! From lighting and sound, to prop making and acting, our collaborative effort made for an unforgettable performance.
From all of the staff in Year Six, we wish you all a wonderful Christmas after working so hard!
Printing is a great method of producing multiple copies of an original design and screen printing allows learners to understand the print process simply. Students had to research their designs, create stencils and then think about how these would need to be layered to produce the desired outcome. At this point, we then explored the types of paint commonly used when printing and mixed batches of colour ready to pull through the screens. Watch the video below to see the process in action!
As part of their Design Technology curriculum, all three classes in Year 6 prepared their own Christmas lunch. From peeling the vegetables, roasting the potatoes, making the stuffing and of course mixing the gravy, the children also helped decorate the dining hall and laying the tables correctly.
Year 6 were fortunate enough to be able to attend their annual Christmas service at St. James’ church. Beautifully read biblical verses along with some amusing Christmas poetry were matched by a fantastic service by Reverend Ruth reminding us all that, although it may be a different Christmas than many of us are used to, the importance of family, religion and enjoying ourselves remains. There was also something about permission to eat extra chocolate this year;we don’t need telling twice!
As we have now started advent, our Year 6 students were keen to help begin the festivities and assist the elves with the Winter Wonderland in the Welcome Garden.
Following the success of our Cool Aeronautic engineering activities, we were really excited to participate in the Sherborne and Sherborne Girls Schools’ Gifted and Talented event. Teams had to solve a series of mathematical and linguistic challenges to earn clues towards solving the overall coding puzzle. We forwarded two teams, made up of children across the Year 6 classes, who both tried really hard to solve the puzzles successfully. Well done teams!
Each year, our oldest students have the opportunity to attend the Fleet Air Museum, joining other schools from around Somerset to participate in scientific engineering challenges. Due to CV19, the trip to the museum was not possible, however Leonardo Helicopters hosted the event live online, meaning that this year’s students wouldn’t miss out on this amazing experience.
We were presented with scenarios requiring teams to solve puzzles, using their knowledge and skills in maths and science. The centrepiece of the day was building working model cars to then cross a bridge teams had made from recycled materials. All teams completed the challenge (to varying degrees of success!) and had a thoroughly enjoyable day.
Year 6 children, took the responsibility of leading our schools Remembrance Day celebrations today. The service included poems, readings, prayers, laying of class wreaths and the playing of The Last Post by Mr R Lush fromThe Salvation Army.
After the service, at a safe distance, children delivered hand written poppy postcards, poems and art work to West Abbey Care Home.
We have just sent our first French Pen Pal letters to Herblay in France. Herblay is a district around 20km northwest of central Paris, twinned with Yeovil. We are very much looking forward to our replies soon and will post some to this page, once received.
To celebrate Black History Month, we were able to invite in Kaspa from Zamble African Dance Company to give our class an opportunity to learn about the history and culture surrounding ceremonial drumming and also to play our own collective rhythms!
Mulberry Class enjoyed an amazing Experience Day, with South West Heritage providing many hands-on resources and workshops for our evacuees to get to experience first-hand what those months in 1940-41 would have been like during the Second World War. We learnt about rationing, clothing and what to do in an air raid!
As part of Year 6 studying the circulatory system, all children had an exciting science lesson dissecting pig hearts.
They cut the heart from the apex, right to the vena cava, where the blood enters the heart. Carefully, the children studied the chambers, to investigate the way the blood enters and exits the heart, by poking their fingers through the passages!
The lesson really helped to consolidate all of the learning that took place prior to the dissection and understand how blood circulates our bodies.
From this academic year, all state-funded schools in England will need to teach first aid as part of their health education. This will include basic first aid for our children, for example dealing with common injuries, burns and stings, head injuries and also life saving skills.
This week, Mulberry took part in a refresher session in CPR, led by Mrs Sherry. At the end of the session, all children were able to show their competence in performing a primary survey, carrying out CPR, awareness of how to place a casualty in the recovery position and the important numbers to call in an emergency.
Europe is rich in languages - there are over 200 European languages and many more spoken by citizens whose family origin is from other continents.
Learning other peoples' languages is a way of helping us to understand each other better and overcome our cultural differences.
Language learning brings benefits to young and old - you are never too old to learn a language and to enjoy the opportunities it opens up. Even if you only know a few words of the language of the country that you visit (for example on holiday), this enables you to make new friends and contacts.
Our students made posters, proud promoting the case for learning a language!
Congratulations to our new language ambassadors for this year - Faith, Filip and Marrius.
These children have been chosen to represent our school, as great role models for promoting languages across the school. Our Ambassadors play an important role in the organisation of Language Days in our school and closely work with teachers to promote the importance of learning a foreign language in primary schools. They enjoy their role as Language Ambassadors because they are proud of their cultural heritage and the languages they speak. This also gives them a chance to encourage other children to have the opportunity to speak a language that they do not learn in school.
At Preston C of E Primary School, we are very keen to recognise the hard work and positive behaviour of our children and becoming a prefect is a perfect opportunity to recognise and celebrate these qualities.
We are very pleased to announce Mulberry’s prefects for this year are: Amber S, Evie R, Faith K, Marrius S and Isaac B - congratulations!
All Year 6 children are invited to apply in writing to become a prefect at the beginning of Year 6. The application letter includes:
❖ Why they want to become a prefect
❖ The personal qualities they possess which enable them to fulfil the role
❖ How they demonstrate these skills and qualities
❖ What they think they can offer to the school as a prefect
Prefects at Preston C of E Primary, will help to raise the expectations and behaviour throughout the school day, including break times and lunchtimes. Prefects will demonstrate, in their everyday lives, all of the values that the school upholds:
❖ Demonstrate independence, responsibility and reliability
❖ Promoting high expectations and to be a role model for others
❖ Show initiative and honesty in all situations
It has been a long time coming…
28 children in a classroom, all at the same time! It was wonderful to welcome our children back this week and to see how positive and enthusiastic they are. The resilience of our learners never ceases to amaze us and each have been a credit to their families, settling so well back into the flow of the new year.
It doesn’t seem two minutes since the children were starting in reception and yet here they are, embarking on their final year at Primary School!
In Year 6, we work really hard to ensure that all children have the best opportunity possible to achieve their full potential. However, we also try to ensure that we have fun along the way and provide the children with some lovely, long-lasting memories.
If you have any questions about this year then please speak to Mr Gordon or Mr O'Brien.