You are warmly welcomed to our Open Morning on Thursday 23rd May.

We are opening the doors to the school for visits between 9am and 11am and you are heartily encouraged to come and see our classes in action.

If you cannot make our Open Morning, please do contact us to organise an alternative appointment to visit our vibrant community.

There were plenty of fascinating answers in Year Five this week, when they welcomed a real, life astronomer who spends his time grappling with some seriously tricky questions, to their classroom.  Mrs Ellis explains:

In Year Five, we are learning about ‘The Earth and Beyond’ as part of our Science Curriculum.  On Tuesday we were very lucky to have a talk by Paul Murdin, who is Francesca’s grandfather.  He is an astronomer and Senior Fellow Emeritus at the Institute of Astronomy at the University of Cambridge and gave the class some fascinating information.

Firstly he showed a PowerPoint with detailed pictures of the eight planets in our solar system.  He explained about various temperatures and distances involved and talked about the make-up of the gas giants, giving interesting facts, such as how the red spot on Jupiter was a 400 year old storm and how the ring around Saturn was millions of tiny satellites orbiting the planet.

To show relative size and distances he gave the following analogy:

 The Sun was an orange on the teacher’s desk, Earth, a pinhead by the opposite window.  Venus was a pin head on Taran’s desk and Mercury a salt grain on Amrit’s desk.  Mars, a salt grain, would be in the outside play area, Jupiter a hazelnut at Bird College and Saturn a raisin by the bus stop.  Uranus and Neptune would be two lentils between the bus stop and the railway station.  The outer edge of our solar system would be Eris by the Leisure Centre.  From there, our nearest star Proxima Centauri (an apple) would be in Africa, some 4.5 light years away.

The children were really enthused and asked questions ranging from, how the planets were formed, to the possibility of life on Mars.  We were amazed with all of the information including facts about the 1.5 million asteroids between Mars and Jupiter.  Of the 300,000 named, one has been named after Paul himself, called Murdin 128045.

 We were very grateful for a fascinating afternoon.

As the children love to dress up it gave them the perfect excuse to improvise their own traditional costumes and perform some of their own dance moves, which they did with their usual enthusiasm.

Over the course of this week, we have watched our group of intrepid Year Six children transformed into Road Cyclists. From their first tentative playground attempts through to the open road, the children have made outstanding progress.

Unfortunately, today’s final session was rained-off but the children will be completing their course and receiving their certifcates next week.

Miss Stimart

Over the course of this week, we have watched our group of intrepid Year Six children transformed into Road Cyclists. From their first tentative playground attempts through to the open road, the children have made outstanding progress.

Having learned about basic bicycle maintenance and the crucial aspect of safety on the road, the children built their confidence and are now returning session after session enthused with the possibilities of bike-ownership!

Unfortunately, today’s final session was rained-off but the children will be completing their course and receiving their certifcates next week.

The Benedict House Journalism Club put together some front-page news recently about an alien invasion of Earth – a great scoop for them!
Working in groups or individually, some members created their own front page, complete with picture and headline about this amazing event. This will help them when they put together their own newspaper after half- term.

A few weeks ago, I cruelly cut-up sections of a historical newspaper and challenged them to try and put all the sections together in the right place. Amazingly, one group managed to complete their newspaper correctly during club time and the other groups had a very good go at it. In addition, they are putting together their own full page of “advertisements” and will be creating classified ads. and photo captions. They also know about masts, straps, headlines, sub-headings, columns, leaders, features and editorials and will learn some basic editorial symbols too!

All things considered, they may end-up knowing a great deal more about compiling a newspaper than most of us do!

Ms. Harries