E-Safety - Is your child playing Fortnite?

Fortnite is a very well made, exciting and addictive computer game, where players can interact online and try to win by being the 'last man standing' and destroying all other opponents.

This game has a 12 certificate, meaning it is for players who are 12 or older.

The reason for this is not only the adult theme and content within the game, but also the fact that, as with most online games, players can interact verbally and via messages during gameplay.

Unless you apply strict settings to your console and within the game, there may be a risk of  a player being subjected to inappropriate or adult language or behaviour. There is also the increased risk of cyber bullying among peers, or manipulation or blackmail from unknown con artists.

This has been reported to have happened to pupils from Bitterne Manor Primary on more than one occasion, as they play this game at home.

The school's policy obviously states that pupils only have access to age appropriate software and websites. We would encourage all parents and carers to also consider the safety of their children, when deciding whether or not to allow their child to use apps and games that have age restrictions.

Here is an example (by no means exhaustive) of trending games, including some features that you may not be aware of:

If you wish to chat to us at school about any of these issues, please come and see Phil Wickins, our E-Safety Coordinator.

Scooter Challenge Week

Next week is the 2nd annual Scooter Challenge week across Southampton.

Please encourage your child to cycle or scoot to school every day next week- Children will be coming home with a pledge card to help them track their journeys during the week.

Prizes include a new scooter pod for the school, adult and child scooters and days out vouchers for attractions in Hampshire. 

Last year we came 2nd...let's go one better!!

City Athletics!

Tuesday 12th June saw Bitterne Manor take the annual trip to Southampton Athletics Stadium for the Southampton city school's athletics event.  We fielded a full from years 3,4,5 &6.  The events included sprints, distance running, throwing and jumping. 

All children involved represented their school with pride, determination and a real competitive edge! 

Some children took part for the first time in their school careers, a daunting prospect, but one that was completed with maximum effort.  Success for our children came in all categories, especially amongst the children that were competing for their year group against the year above.  For example the jumping events are combined into lower (Yr3&4) and upper school (Yr5&6).

Special mention goes to 3 of our sprinters, Harley  (4), Stella (4) and Jayden (6), all three students ran incredible 'heat' races to make it to the final. They continued their success running outstanding races and all three children winning Silver for 2nd places, Fantastic achievements!

Thanks to Miss Blightman, Miss Bradley and all the parents that came to the event for their amazing help and support.

Year 1 at Hilliers

Yesterday Robins were lucky enough to go on a trip to Hilliers Gardens.  The weather was absolutely perfect for the day. We were all very excited first thing and the excitement continued throughout the day.
We learnt about growing, acting as seeds beginning the growing process, we had to stamp our roots into the ground and suck up the water. We were then visited by Beatrice the bee who collected the nectar to make her honey.  We also learnt about cross pollination.

From this we then learnt all about seed survival.  In this we followed a trail and at points had to loose seeds because of things like disease, mice eating the seed and seedlings being trampled.
After the trail we went on a walk through the gardens, finding different seeds that had been dropped by the trees.  We opened the pods to find out just how small the seeds were. We then looked through a range of colour filters to understand how bees see the world around us.  We looked through: red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple.

Can you guess which colour the bees see?
Just before lunch we went on a trail through the gardens, we went through the bamboo gardens, we felt the stem of the bamboo and talked about how it felt.  It was very different to a normal tree bark, it felt like a pipe and was cold to the touch.

We stopped by the pond and looked at the fish that we could see.

After lunch was the best bit of fun, we did pond dipping and then explored the sensory garden and made smelly sticky bugs, picking out smells that interested us.  Well done Robins, we had a very successful day and learnt lots about growing of plants and what can happen to prevent the plants from growing.

Lots of fun in Kingfisher class!

We have been very busy looking after our pet caterpillars! We were very lucky to watch them eat, spin silk and grow bigger! They then hung upside down and harden into chrysalides. We were then very excited to come into school to see that they had transformed into beautiful butterflies! We watched them for a day and gave them some fresh fruit to eat. We then released them!

We have also been busy this week learning about our new topic 'Underwater Worlds', we particularly like the Aquarium role-play!

Kingfishers at the Hawthorns

Kingfishers enjoyed an education trip last week. They were finding out about how squirrels survive the winter by planting their own stash of food to find later. They played a woolly worm game to see how mini-beasts and other woodland creatures camouflage themselves and took a woodland walk to identify other mini-beasts in the environment.

     

Kestrels get creative for the Royal Wedding!

Kestrels have enjoyed a chance to get creative today, designing Royal Wedding souvenir plates, making plates or bowls out of clay using a coil technique and drawing posters which celebrated all their positive personality traits, skills and talents which the SATs this week have not tested!  Well done Kestrels.