Black History Week in Kestrels

                                     

Kestrels have loved learning all about influential black Britains as part of our focus for Black History Week.  We have been reading Floella Benjamin's story, 'Coming to England' in English and even got to see it performed live at the Mayflower Mast Theatre on Tuesday.  We have had a go at writing part of her story in our own words and have loved illustrating our narratives too!

In addition, we have learned all about HMS Windrush and the contributions that West Indian people have made to British culture and society.  We found out about Claudia Jones and her reasons for founding the Notting Hill Carnival, as well as making our own vibrant carnival masks.

  

Star Project visit Kestrels

Kestrels have been really lucky to have Scott and Megan in from the charity Star Project today, running workshops with us about friendships, bullying, how to stay safe online and secondary school transition.  It has been a really thought provoking and helpful day - we have all learned lots!

                                                                      

Heads Up Project!

We are very fortunate to have the Heads Up Project coming to our school over the next few weeks.  The Heads Up is a project  is being run in local schools, colleges and universities in Southampton and The New Forest. They work to inform and educate young people about their well-being and mental health. Aiming to equip them with coping strategies so that they can manage their own well-being.  Further information is available at:  http://www.solentmind.org.uk/content/schools-colleges-and-universities 

In years R and 1, they will deliver a 20 minute relaxation workshop.  Year 2 to 4, will have a slightly longer session on self esteem and self confidence.  Pupils in Year 5 and 6 will have 3 sessions, which aims to inform them about mental health and coping strategies.

This also links in with our Anti-bullying week (13th - 16th November) which is using the theme 'Power for Good'.

Welcome to Kestrels!

Kestrels have had a fantastic first week settling into life in Year 6.  We have created our own class charter and thought carefully about our goals for this year:

We have been really busy getting stuck into our first topic on Natural Disasters and have already learnt lots about flooding and volcanoes.  We have carried out research, used maps (digital and paper ones!) and even made our own mini 'word volcanoes'

 

 

Today we also had a visit from the Fire and Rescue team.  We learnt all about keeping our homes safe, spotting dangers around the home and what to do if there is a fire.  We know how to use and test smoke alarms and the safest places for them.  We may well come home and speak to our grown ups about fire escape plans (as well as spotting devices that don't need to be kept plugged in!).  In addition to this Mike and Dave the Firefighters spoke to us about keeping ourselves safe on the road and reminded us how important our helmets are when we are on our bikes!

 

What a busy first week!  Well done Kestrels!

 



 

Owls awesome start to Year 5!

Owls class have had a wonderful start to the new school year as we created our very own class charter to help us  be ready to learn to be the best we can! We also designed cartoon strips to show how it feels to be  in a new situation and finally we worked in groups to make bananagrams of our names. The cherry on the cake was winning kind kevin at lunchtime.  Well done owls - you have one very proud teacher.

Anti-Bullying Week

It is anti-bullying week and we started the week by thinking about what bullying is. Each class shared their definition of bullying. Key words/phrases were: continuous; every day; verbal; physical; hurts; sad; made to feel worthless; cyber; mean. 

As a school we also talked about what 'anti' means; that actually it is about the choices we make that will help to stop bullying forever. We asked the children about what sort of friend they would like to be and that by respecting differences we can show that we are anti-bullying. This links with the theme this year of stopping bullying FOR ALL. 

The children showed great empathy for one another and had a secure understanding of the different types of bullying. The children will have the chance this week to explore this in more detail. 

Kindness...with Kevin!

Meet Kevin...our kindness bear! The school councillors have been helping Kevin spread the K-factor - encouraging kindness - by designing posters to go up around the school.

Anti-bullying week

Year 3 have taken part in lots of activities this week.

We have written some amazing stories, have given our classmates compliments through pictures, created a 'Say no to bullying' display using our bodies to make the shapes of the letters and taken part in drama activities. As a class we are most proud of our giant 'Say no to bullying poster'.

Thank you to all the parents who came in on Friday to see our work.

If you didn't make it in on Friday don't worry you haven't missed out, our display is up outside our classroom for you to see.

Praise Board

Welcome to our praise board! In our hall there is a special board where children get a chance to write down a well done to someone who has helped them over the last week. Each week, the councillors choose a few of those people to be recognised in assembly for a little public praise!

Green Teams - Healthy Living

The healthy living green team group have thought of different ideas to live a healthy lifestyle. One idea was walking more, so with the help of a pedometre the whole group comlpeted 1064 steps in 10 minutes. GO GREEN TEAM!

Year 4 Anti-Bullying Week

This week we have been learning about how to be a good friend and what to do if someone is unkind to us. We have learnt how to say sorry and sort out problems. We thought about different problems children have at school and acted them out to help us decide the best thing to do. We then used this to write problem page advice about dealing with friendship and bullying problems. You can see our 'Very Useful Advice Book' in the classroom.

Anti-Bullying Week

This week is Anti-Bullying week in school. Children are learning about "Taking Action Together" and the role of the by-stander. Our key message is "bullying will stop if we take action together". Children are reminding each other what bullying is, how to deal with it and who can help. They are also learning what to do if they witness bullying.
We encourage parents to discuss this with their children and to come into school if they need any help or advice.
For further information try the following websites:

http://www.anti-bullyingalliance.org.uk/

http://www.bbclic.com/shaun/

We hope these sites will support your understanding of anti-bullying and give some useful activities for children to try out at home.