Swift's Super Bird Visitors!

Wow! What a day it has been in the Swift class today! To tie in nicely with our topic 'Into the Forest' we had some special visitors who showed us a range of real life birds.  They were absolutely astonishing!  The visitors gave us information about each bird so we learnt lots which will help us with our writing this week!  The birds we saw were a: Buzzard, Kestrel, Peregrine Falcon, Barn Owl and an Eagle Owl.  They were truly beautiful birds.  The visitors were really impressed with all our questions and willingness to know more too!  After a short presentation, the visitors flew some of the birds around and over us...one even flew onto Mrs Stubley's lap and over Miss Sangha's head! It was amazing!!  Here are some fab moments we'd like to share :)

Bienvenido a Bitterne Manor!

We will be very pleased to give a big welcome in our school to a group of children from Spain next week. The children will be staying with families from Bitterne Manor and St Denys and are attending school for part of their visit to the UK. They will be learning about our country and experiencing English and England first hand. We hope they really enjoy their visit. The group of students are all from Teruel (pictured below) which is high in the mountains in Aragon in the East of Spain. They are at the primary school or Colegio Publico called 'Las Anejas' (pictured above).

Philharmagic Orchestra visit BMPS!

The children had a treat this morning when they were entertained by the fantastic Philharmagic Orchestra. It was great to listen to all the children's favourite songs being played live and to even get up and have a dance! One of our own very talented musicians was also able to take part. A huge well done to Lucy Gowans, who seemed very much part of the orchestra, even though she only received the music yesterday!

Help to host...?

We are still hopefully looking for families who would be willing to host some children from Spain in June. We have had several offers but are still short a few spaces. A group of 20 or so Spanish primary age children (9 to 11) will be visiting the UK in June. Half of the children will be staying with parents from St Denys Primary School and we are hoping the other half will be with us. They will spend some days in our school working with us and their own teachers and hey have a couple of day trips planned. We would very much like to support this venture as we think it would a great experience for our pupils. We can offer funding for any family to support these children and more details are available if you're interested. Please do consider it if you can!

Thank You for the Harvest!

Our Harvest celebration was fantastic today! Thanks to everyone for your 949 contributions to those in greater need than ourselves. City Mission led our assembly this morning with a message of 'reaping what you sow' to the children which we would like to pass on to you all. We would also like to thank them for the work they do in supporting those in need in our community.

Year 3 and 4 experience Kathakali!

As part of their study of Hinduism, Year 3 and 4 were very lucky to take part in a Kathakali dance workshop. Kathakali is a traditional dance drama from the South Indian state of Kerala and is made up of elaborate make-up and costumes. The children also had the chance to learn about these costumes and they made their own mask in the style of Kathakali!

Sebastian's Action Trust

Today we are supporting the charity, Sebastian's Action Trust, as part of a special day in memory of Lydia. We welcomed Stuart from the charity to our school  this morning to lead part of our assembly . Part of the money we raise today will go towards this good cause. For more information please head to www.sebastiansactiontrust.org. 

The charity supports families of seriously-ill children from diagnosis, through treatment and beyond by listening and responding to their unmet needs. All families of seriously-ill children should be able to have quality time together to relax, recharge and rebuild, never having to face life alone. The charity has two aims:

• Providing holidays in our purpose-built holiday home
  They have built a holiday home for children with life-threatening or life-limiting illnesses, giving them the opportunity for a respite break with family and loved ones, in a purpose-built facility.
  
• Providing support
  To offer practical support for children with life-threatening or life-limiting illnesses and their families. Understanding that every family’s situation is unique and looking to meet their individual needs by giving meaningful assistance at critical times

Scratching the Surface...

This week we were visited by staff and pupils from Townhill Junior who were giving us an insight into the new computing curriculum. They were demonstrating 'Scratch' which is a free program that allows you to be a programmer yourself using a very simple and effective system of dragging and dropping blocks of 'code' - sounds complicated? It is - but a lot of our pupils are already enthused about creating their own games and taking this further. You can encourage them by heading over to http://scratch.mit.edu/ and giving it a go.

JPCSOs: The Police Van!

The JPCSOs were exploring the inside of a Police transport yesterday. We were learning about how the Police work and the equipment they use to keep us safe. We were very careful not to touch anything. The siren wasn't working either, at least that's what they told us...

Farm visit Bitterne Manor!

For once the sun is shining and the children are outside learning about all the different animals! I managed to escape from the office and join Year R! 

Interesting Intech in Year 2

Year 2 were enjoying learning all about electricity Thursday morning when they were visited by INTECH - the Science centre near Winchester. This was great, hands on, practical Science!

RE workshop for years 3 and 4

It was great to welcome Chris and his team back to school for another workshop. This time the theme was 'creation'. We learnt about THE MIGHTY ONE and made a comic strip of the creation story:

We made 'something out of nothing' too. First with clay then with junk modelling. An exciting afternoon trading in tokens for craft junk, with fabulous results.

Y4's Time Team topic

This term year 4 have been learning about the Roman invasion of Britain and what the Celts thought of that!

In Maths the class have been problem solving, Roman style. How many boats are needed to carry soldiers across the river? Design a camp to hold x amount of soldiers. And even, given a budget, design a new town! Caesar was pleased with all our efforts.

As part of our homework project, all things Roman have been created including the most amazing shields and swords. Well done.

In Art, the children studied Roman pottery and designed their own pots. On our visit to Fishbourne, we'll be looking out for pottery and other artefacts found at the site - especially the mosaics.

Next week, we're looking forward to Roman Day. Have you decided what to wear yet? We are still hoping to discover Clausentum (Roman Southampton) once there's a break in the weather. Our local archaeologist is ready and waiting...

JPCSOs Complete Training!

Our Autumn team of JPCSO have successfully competed their training working alongside our PCSOs! Here they are receiving their certificates and being shown around a Police van. All the children have gained a tremendous amount from the experience and we look forward to working with the next team in the Spring.

Amazingly talented...!

While we have known about her talents for a long time and the success they have achieved in competitions, it was great to have Bethanie and her team mate, Craig, come along and do a demonstration for the whole school. We were all amazed at how brilliant they are and hopefully have inspired a few more children to take up gymnastics. Their coach, Mr Mulholland, said that Southampton Gymnastics Club runs sessions for all ages and stages and it's great fun!

Pond Renovation

Our pond area has received a much needed renovation and repair - thanks to these volunteers from Southampton University who gave up their time in extremely hot weather to support us. We found several frogs and newts in the process who will hopefully appreciate the tidy up.

A visit from Zoo Lab!

 Zoo Lab came to Bitterne Manor today! The children loved seeing the minibeasts, including a giant snail, snake, centipede, frog, cockroach and even a tarantula! We found out lots of interesting facts and also had the chance to hold most of the minibeasts!