That's it, the half term is over, 8 weeks gone !! Wow, that was quick !!
Another week closer to Christmas, ummm that's a bit frightening !! Anyway moving quickly on !!
What's all the pennies for? Well I will let Miss Bolton explain..........
As tradition dictates, I will be completing a penny trail for Children in Need again this year with my class. So this is an appeal for you to dig deep down the back of sofas, in bottom of handbags and inside piggy banks to donate as many 1p and 2p coins as you can to this very worth while cause. Every penny will indeed help!
Please bring them in any time up to November 14th and give them to myself, Miss Bolton.
Thank you!
Introducing the Gallery !!
The website has a new feature, it's called the Gallery. Now, I am old enough to remember Take Hart and the music that went with the pictures that were featured in their gallery. Unfortunately I haven't got that to hand but I am sure our gallery is just as good. Click here to have a look.
Mrs Johnston would like to say a few words........
VIPs French VIPs visit Darlinghurst
French VIP visitors!
We were very pleased to welcome three very important visitors from France to Darlinghurst today. They were Jean-Jacques Mandirac, an Inspecteur d'Education Nationale, whose role is more or less be a Headteacher to 40 primary schools, Yvon Deverre, a retired Adjoint de l'Inspecteur d'Académie who was in charge of over 300 primary schools in the Nice area and Anne Villeneuve, an MFL (Modern Foreign Language) adviser for Nice primary schools.
They very much enjoyed their tour round the school and commented on how bright and colourful it is.They were very envious of our interactive whiteboards and large outside playing areas.
The children, as usual, were polite and enthusiastic in greeting our guests with cries of ‘Bonjour’ following us around the school.
This is part of a wonderful opportunity for us to share and compare language, culture and educational practice.
Gardening Club have been busy again, this time planing daffodil bulbs under the trees near the front of the school. They'll look lovely in Spring.
Thank you Mrs Johnston
Update from the School's Fantasy Football League
After the first week Mr Bird and Caleb (year 4) are top of the league but please remember it's a long season!
Tia is the Year 5 leader and Jamie is the leading the way in Year 6
So we now have a week off. I am sure the children and the teachers alike need the rest!! I know I am looking forward to it and hopefully it doesn't pass too quickly.
Anyway, we will see you back in school, bright and breezy on Monday 3rd November. Enjoy your break
What else has been happening this week at Darlinghurst Primary and Nursery School this week?
Mrs Johnston
What a busy week, I seem to have been here, there and everywhere just for a change!
Year 6 have been continuing their work on adjectives. They can now describe clothes with colours, size and length matching singular, plural, masculine and feminine!
Year 5 have been learning about school subjects and finding out that French children learn the same subjects as they do.
Year 4 are learning numbers up to 40.
Year 2/3 are learning numbers up to 20.
Reception and 1/2 have been practising their colours and numbers to 10.
Numbers seem to be our theme at the moment and the dedicated group of parents that come on Fridays are learning scary numbers up to 100! We will continue this after half-term. New members are welcome to join us.
If you are going abroard during the holiday, especially France or Spain, I would be grateful if you could bring me any packaging from your foreign food shopping eg biscuit boxes, food packets etc. They could be folded flat and I will reassemble them. They will be of great value when we play shopping games. Merci.
Nursery - We were very busy in the Nursery this week making cakes. We measured out the ingredients, mixed them together, put the mixture in cake cases and then cooked them in the oven. The next day we decorated them with yellow and green icing and then counted out 5 jelly beans to put on top.
We also played with the cornflour and water mixture, it made a terrible mess but we did have fun.
RM - Mrs McIntosh - What a long.....but very good half term. The children have settled in so well and have worked extremely hard. We have covered an awful lot and the children have coped with the new routines and pressures very well. I hope they have a good rest and come back with just as much enthusiasm and drive as they have had this half term.
Next half term, our topics are Toys/Christmas.......a very exciting time of the year. I love Christmas and will be encouraging lots of mess and singing in the classroom from 1st December!! (if not earlier!)
It was great to see so many of you at Parents meetings this week and was encouraged by how much you are supporting your children's learning at home. Please continue this over the half term holiday.
The homework I have set for the holiday is to make a number book - to see how many different numbers we can see as we travel around our environment - Writing, photos, pictures, cuttings will all be welcome! I hope you enjoy sharing this experience with your child.
Have a great week and see you on Monday 3rd November! Mrs M
RW - Mrs Weston - RW have really put their phonics knowledge into practise this week by starting to read captions such as 'a cat in a hat' and 'socks on a mat' and matching them to pictures. We have read and used the tricky words 'to', 'the' ,'no', 'go' and 'I' (tricky as they cannot be blended using our phonemes) and written them into sentences in our handwriting books.We have made hand prints continuing on our bigger/smaller theme and compared their sizes, and also brought in and shared photographs of us when we were babies. We played a game of 'guess who?' with the photos and spoke about the things we used to do when we were smaller. Mrs Weston is looking forward to seeing everyone's number books after half term and hopes everybody has a safe and happy holiday.
1/2D - Mrs Dutton - This week we have enjoyed naming shapes and counting how many sides and corners each one has. We have also looked at some shapes to find their lines of symmetry. We have been listening to, following and writing instructions: some of us wrote instructions to an English speaking alien to tell him how to clean his teeth. We did remember to tell him to clean his mouth afterwards!
On Thursday we had an interesting visitor. Nurse Becky came to tell us about her important job caring for children who are in hospital on Neptune Ward. She showed us her instruments and how to use them carefully. We then practised on each other.
After the holiday we will be doing Show and Tell on Thursday afternoons and PE on Monday afternoons. Have a lovely week everyone.
3/2B - Miss Bernard - Hi everybody!
Have had a lovely week of looking at poetry. The children have been writing poems based on a Roman chariot race. They also had to try and include adjectives and rhyme, which they made a really brilliant effort with. The children read each other's and made some very positive comments.
In Numeracy we have been interpreting data using, tally & bar charts and also pictograms. The children enjoyed recording the data.The have decided that they need more practise interpreting it. We will also be doing data analysis in Science so that the children can get more practise.
After Half Term we will be looking at instructions and the children will be writing instructions for their talk partners to follow to dress a Roman Soldier. They will be seeing how easy the instructions are for them to follow. In Numeracy the children will be building on their addition and subtraction skills.
I hope that you all enjoy your Half Term holiday. I know that I will! - Miss Bernard
3/2C - Mrs Chatterton - I can't believe it is half term already. Our topic on Romans has gone down so well that we will continue it until we go into Christmas mode. It was so nice to see so many parents turn up on Wednesday. Mrs Grant and I we pleased to tell you all about your Childs successes.
We have been busy writing poems about chariot races this week. Some of the poems are fantastic.
In maths we have looked at tally charts and pictograms.
Sorry if in the holidays the children keep asking about Roman roads. they were told some still exist and they are straight. so if you go along a straight road wait for the voice in the back!!!
Have a lovely half term with the children - Mrs Chatterton
4B - Miss Bolton - So here we are at the end of our first half term already! So much work completed already and a lot of successes had by the majority of the class. We've come to the end of our World War 2 topic and its amazing how knowledgable the children are about that era after just 6 weeks.
Some of our topics for after half term will be; geography based - Village Settlers, Science - Habitats, Art - Dreams and in Literacy we will be starting to look at play writing.
The first day back too will be an exciting one as we will be celebrating World Games Day. Each class will have a workshop with some international visitors teaching the children games from around the world - in particular, French skipping. The children will be given the opportunity to buy some colourful French skipping ropes that week too.
Its that time of year again when the Children in Need appeal begins. As it is now become traditional, I will be completing a penny trail with my class again this year. Please start collecting and bringing in as many 1p and 2p coins as possible ready for November 14th. Thank you.
Have a good half term break!
4P - Mrs Peacher - Well hasn't the last seven and a half weeks just flown by! Class 4P have completed their World War II projects this week. I was particularly pleased with some of their work including Danny and Charlie's spitfire drawings in ICT and Dean's Colin Carrot poster! The children will bring the projects home shortly to show you what they have learnt. We made some great horrifying halloween cards and wrote up the instructions as part of our literacy project. I have provided the children with the materials so that they can teach someone else, over the half term, how to make one too. We also finished reading our class novel today, The Demon Headmaster. Look out for the sequels kids, 'The Prime Ministers Brain', 'The Revenge of the Demon Headmaster' and 'The Demon Headmaster Strikes Again'. Enjoy your half term holiday!
5B - Mr Bird - Class 5B
This week has provided the children with the opportunity to put finishing touches to their instruments and to evaluate the design and construction. It was good to hear how frank they were regarding any improvements that they would make, as this demonstrated their ability to gain the optimum benefit from the experience.
With the end of this half term also marking the conclusion of our Victorian work, it was fitting that they were able to review some of the facts that they had researched. I was very pleased to hear many of the children say that some of the areas examined, covered information that other members of their families were unfamiliar with. They really do enjoy taking on the role of teacher at times and love to share their new found knowledge.
Having researched a number of Victorian personalities, they completed their written work by writing a short biography on Mary Seacole and I look forward to reading these later. This person's life acted as a stimulus for us to examine a number of social areas. The children's sense of fairness led to some very powerful contributions about aknowledging people's worth.
PE with the team from ASSA ended today. I know the children have really enjoyed these sessions and would like me to record their thanks to this very professional group.
This is a reminder for parents regarding the children's first day back, they will need their PE kit on Monday as there will be a chance for them to show off their skills at French skipping.
Thank you to all those parents who either attended the consultations this week, or have met with me recently to discuss their child's progress.
I would like to finish by saying that I, together with Mrs Amran and Mrs Day, hope that everyone in 5B will have a really good holiday and make the most of not having to complete any homework.
5D - Mr Duff - Bon Jovi get your heart out, the 5D rock band is now formed. We did an outside performance to a crowd of over 50,000. OK, so we took a few photos on the outside stage in the rain but it felt just as good!! Your guitars looked great and I am very pleased with the outcome. Well done
We have now written our biography about Mary Seacole and I will be assessing these over the half term. I have throughly enjoyed watching you research, share your information and generally absorb yourself in this topic. Superb work.
In maths I am confident you have a good understanding of bar charts and how to interept data from these. We are looking at fractions on your return.
This half term has been fantastic, not only have you settled in quickly it looks like you are all enjoying what's happening in the classroom. I know me and Mrs Evans are. Enjoy your half term and see you all on the 3rd Nov.
p.s. Thank you to all the parents that I saw recently, don't forget my door is always open if you need to pop in and have a chat.
6H - Mr Haulter - Another exciting week has gone by us! In maths we learnt how to do the column method to solve multiplication problems. We have finally finished our topic on food and are looking forward to our next topic on...? We learnt about squabbling and designed a board game about it. We also got a think book each and took them home to design the front cover. These books are private as they contain all our thoughts, so if you see one (most of them are decorated with stickers) NO PEEKING!!!
6M - Mr Martin - Half term already? It's a wonder we packed it all in. With the closing of our topic on food- we made bread and cheese and evaluated our results. And weren't they just delicious! Next term, our focus will be on Eastern Europe and we will be looking at this fascinating corner of the globe and investiagating its rich history, culture and people.
Note for the diary P.E. is on Friday until further noice.
The new School's Fanstay Football League season starts tomorrow and this year we have opened it up to even more children !! Not only are Years 5 and 6 competing but Year 4 are as well !!
This is not to mention the numerous staff that have taken part in the hope of knocking Mrs Chatterton off top spot. The very large silver trophy that she won last season still takes pride of place in her home and Mrs Chatterton will not be giving up her title lightly.
If you have not registed your teams and used your voucher yet, you have until midday tomorrow (Saturday) to do it. Click here to go straight to the website.
As the league's chairman, all I will say is good luck to everyone involved. Don't forget there are many prizes to be won, such as Manager of the Month certificates, FA cup medals and the end of seaon trophy. So even if your team doesn't make the perfect of starts, don't give up, there is plently of time to climb up the table. Remember it's a marathon , not a sprint !!
A huge thank you for all the Tesco computer vouchers you sent in. It was a record year yet again (28,488 vouchers) which enabled us to buy even more ICT equipment. We bought 15 sets of headphones, 2 scanners, 10 recordable mircophones, one head camera and 5 chatterbox machines. All children in the school will benefit from this, so thank you.
Bags 2 School is back !! The bags have gone home tonight and any contributions will be greatly received. if you would like to read more about this scheme click here.
Thank you to everyone that turned out ro see the circus !!! The evening was a great success. The PTA worked very heard to organise this, so another thank you goes to you. Also Neil Davey and Sid Osbourn of South Eastern Electrical PLC sponsored the Big Top at the circus to the tune of £1,000 !!! A fantastic gesture which is hugely appreciated. Thank you.
Two important dates for your diary for next week -Tuesday (21st) is individual and family photographs. Say cheese !!Parent consultation meetings on Wednesday (22nd) - Notes have gone home in regards to both of these.
Year 5 and 6 were lucky enough to have had an African drumming workshop visit our school today. After a superb assembly the children were then put into groups and the drums were shared out between them. They were then transformed into African drummers !!! A great workshop were a lot of fun was had by all !!
A new phenomena is happening on the Darlinghurst School Blog. It's called the Blog Hog !!! If I were to make a dictionary definition for this it would read something like.... One that tries to publish as many of their things in on the weekly blog as possible. This weeks winner of this prestigious award goes to......drum roll......yes, you have guessed it Mrs Johnston !!!
Mrs Johnston would like to say......
SAY IT WITH FLOWERS! - HAPPY 40TH BIRTHDAY TO US!
and....
As you know we are celebrating our 40th birthday this year, as part of the celebrations we have a floral display with a 40 inside the Darlinghurst shield. The PTA have kindly supplied the money to buy the flowers and gardening club supplied the child labour!
Please take the time to have a look at the flowers near the gate by the brook and admire our efforts. We hope the plants will last all the way through the winter so we need to take good care of them and ask that children stay on the path side of the fence.
This week PC Sawyer and Ziggy the cat visited the school. PC Sawyer reminded everyone how to cross the road safely, using crossings, looking and listening carefully for traffic. Ziggy the cat hates people parking on the zigzag lines outside school. This is against the law. All children have been asked to remind drivers to park somewhere else. PC Sawyer and Ziggy were also promoting walking to school. Apart from helping to keep us fit, being good for the environment, it also keeps the roads safer.
Thank you Mrs Johnson. The flowers look great and I know you have spent a lot of time trying to organise this
Wow !! What a week we have had. We are coming into the last week of half term and I just don't know where the last 7 weeks have gone but you know what they say about time flying when you are having fun. Well there is plenty of that happening in and around the school as the first part of the blog shows !!
Now to find out what has been happening in the classrooms of Darlinghurst Primary and Nursery School.
Nursery (welcome to the blog) - All of the new children are now in the Nursery and have generally settled really well.
Our topic this term is ‘Colours, Shapes and Numbers’ so we have played colour games and made red, yellow and blue paintings. We also sorted the puppies into colours and made shape people using the magnetic shapes. Miss Porter gave us a great big box; we have had lots of fun climbing in and out of it.
Maisie completed a big floor puzzle which had 56 pieces with just a little help from Miss Watkins.
RW - Mrs Weston - RW have continued with our 'All About Me' theme this week, looking at our heights. We have measured and compared ourselves to our friends writing and drawing who is taller and who is shorter than us. Some of us produced ICT pictures of ourselves and our friends in height order. We also sorted ourselves into groups of boys and girls and then looked closer at our hair colour and eye colour and sorted ourselves again. We really enjoyed Wednesday's road safety assembly and meeting 'Ziggy,' who encouraged us to try to walk to school.
RM - Mrs McIntosh - This week RM have been finding things in and out of the classroom that are taller and shorter than them. We have found lots! We have also been doing lots of work for a display telling people how much we enjoy doing our morning and afternoon exercises "Activate"! We made bendy men, drew pictures of us doing our exercises and cut out healthy food from magazines.
Many children have been writing words that begin with our phonics for this week (u,l,f,b) and they did a great job.
Next week is the last week before half term (phew!!) and I have parent consultations on Wednesday and Thursday - I still have some slots available if you would like to come and see me. Mrs M
1/2B - Mrs Barrington - We have been busy learning all about the days of the week, months of the year, and seasons. Because we did so well we were able to show the rest of the school in assembly. Everyone liked our days of the week paper chains. This is good because even grown ups forget what the day it is sometimes. We also got rather messy making our vegetable print pictures but at least we had good fun. One more week till half term!
3/2B - Miss Bernard - Hello everybody!
We have had a very busy week in our class, as always.In Numeracy we have been having lots of fun measuring things around the classroom. Using rulers, metre sticks and tape measures. The children had to make estimations then measure to see how accurate their estimates were. They have had great fun, they always love doing practical activities. In literacy they have been learning more about Gladiators and writing descriptive stories about a Gladiator fighting in the arena. Some children have written in such graphic detail that you get transported back in time reading them! This is great because they were focussing on using adjectives in their writing.
Next week is a poetry week. The children are going to be writing a poem about racing a chariot in the arena. So please bring your favourite poems in children, that would be great!
Have a lovely weekend! - Miss Bernard
3/2C - Mrs Chatterton - This week we have been building up to writing a story about a Gladiator entering the arena. The stories are very impressive with the children using lots of descriptive language. They were told to make it a happy ending, so that the Emperor saved everyone.
We have looked at sundials and in particular Roman sundials.
In maths we have been measuring in cm and m - So if the children start getting out tape measures you will know why.
For Geography we have looked at Roman towns on a map. Test the children to see what they remember!
4B - Miss Bolton - Its been another busy week in 4B. In Literacy we have been learning the characteristics of good instructional writing which we will carry on with next week. In Numeracy we have been looking at frequency tables and pictograms. We are coming towards the end of our World War 2 topic too which all the class have really got into.Next week we will be finishing all the work off completely and putting it into folders.
Friday held a couple of treats. As Mrs Johnston was unable to take the lesson, we had a French teacher in from SHSB to take our French session. The children were brilliant and responded really well to hearing a real French voice. Some of the class are really showing a flare for languages!
We also had a visiting African drummer in to do a demonstration. Much fun was had as he got children involved in playing the big drums and had them all chanting African songs and rhythms.
I can't believe next week is our final week before half term - and even more scary, the staff are currently talking Christmas activities and plays!!
4P - Mrs Peacher - Class 4P have had an extremley busy week this week. We have cooked wartime ration food, corned beef fritters. Aswell as this we have carried out a science experiment, looked after our new pupils (teddies) for the day, designed and built alarmed boxes (well done Abbey and Tayla) and written instructions. I am absolutely exhausted and I am sure the kids are too!!
5B - Mr Bird - With the half term holiday fast approaching, our musical instrument production line has gone into overdrive. The children have been working to transform various food containers into operational instruments. We will do our best to have them completed in time for all of you at home to enjoy the mellow tones from their creations over the week long break!
Our Victorian topic has again provided the children with the opportunity to use skills from across the curriculum to stimulate a better understanding of that time. Their ability to research personalities has helped them to prepare for writing a very interesting biography on an incredible lady from that era.
We were lucky to have a presentation from the road safety team this week and the message was well received by all. The level of excitement went up with the arrival of Ziggy the cat.This colourful feline provided an enjoyable side to the important message, so be prepared to hear the odd reminder about road safety.
The week literally ended with a bang when the children were treated to a demonstration of African drumming. It got even better when they then attended a workshop in our hall and all got an opportunity to play the instruments. I was very impressed with the result and I know that they all thoroughly enjoyed this experience.
5D - Mr Duff - First of all I would like to say a huge well done to all the children for setting an excellent example this week. I was in and out of the classroom quite a bit but this didn't effect your learning at all. In fact Mrs Amran thoroughly enjoyed spending more time than normal in our class !!
Your maths skills are progressing well, your investigation in to 3D shapes went very well. Ask someone at home if they know what a polyhedron, a tetrahedron or a octahedron is. If they don't, let them know !!
You now know how to write the middle part of a biography. We have now completed the introduction and the next three paragrpahs, next week we will be looking at the summary paragraph.
The African drummers today were great, plus being taught French by a native French speaker was a good experience as well.
Lastly, we are going to decorate our guitars next week and complete the evalation. After that we can play air guiter to our hearts content !!
6H - Mr Hautler - Yet another exciting week for 6H! As we were learning about microbes, we decided to make something with yeast so we made bread from all around the world and evaluated the taste, texture, smell and appearance. We also made cheese and butter because we were learning about irriversable changes and we then spread them on some toast. In maths we learnt about prime numbers and factor trees and how to identify prime factors of a number. It's been really fun this week and we hope we can say the same about next week too!
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We have yet another great blog for you this week and Mr Haulter would like to start of the proceedings with a HUGE well done !!
The Year 6 X-Country team competed at Eastwood School on Wednesday in the 1st of 2 races.We have been training for a while now and it seems to have paid off. We competed against 11 teams from 9 schools and managed to gain third place. Well done to all of you!
Book week was a storming success and the children throughly enjoyed it!! There were lots of different activities going on in and around the school. Thank you Mrs Weston and Mr Martin for organising it all for us.
The circus came to town !!! I am afraid that I missed out and couldn't make the circus but by the comments I have heard from the children and the staff, an excellent evening was had. So a massive thank you to the Darlinghurst PTA, without whom none of this would have happened.
So yet again another busy week and that's just the start of it. Look what else has been happening this week at Darlinghurst Primary and Nursery Schoool?
Mrs Johnston - Bonjour tout le mond.
Welcome to a new member of Darlinghurst school. His name is Bobby and of course he wear the Darlinghurst uniform. He will soon be sent to our partner school in Cannes in the South of France to find out what life is like at school there. Hopefully the children there will send back pictures of Bobby during his time in France and send us a mascot to share in life at Darlinghurst. Bobby will return to us in the summer.
RM - Mrs McIntosh - This week has been book week and the children started off by a really interesting trip to the library. They walked all the way....and didn't moan! (they only asked when lunchtime would be!!) We looked at some books on our own and then Mrs Weston read a rhyming book with us. The children have looked at a rhyming book every snack time and are really doing well with rhyming words. We have also all shared our favourite books. Some children brought in theirs from home and it was great to see.
We have learnt the phonemes r,m,d,g and o this week - next week we will learn u,l,f,b and ai. The children are really enjoying learning these and I would encourage you all to practice with your child and learn the songs and actions with them!! Have a great weekend. Mrs M
RW - Mrs Weston - RW have thoroughly enjoyed book week. It all started with our lovely visit to the library on Monday (- a great big thank you to all the mums who came with us). We have also shared and talked about our favourite books in school, made our own mini books, played a book selling numeracy game, looked at and recognised page numbers in books, had Mr Bird's class in to share books with us and some of us even drew our favourite characters from our books using First Artist in the ICT suite! What a busy week!
1/2B - Miss Barrington - Class 1/2B and Mrs Barrington have just about made it through another week. We have been learning to measure different objects around the classroom and some of us know how to measure using a cm ruler. As it was a rhythm and rhyme book week we focused on playtime and number rhymes. Some of the children are now able to recite them independently which is very clever. Mrs Barrington is really looking forward to a good rest this weekend and is hoping to feel much better for next week.
1/2D - Mrs Dutton - We have had a great week measuring things in the classroom in metres and centimetres. We have also been thinking about rhyming words and have all written a rhyme to put in a class poem book as it is Book Week. In science we have been thinking about how we must be sensible with medicines to keep ourselves healthy. The circus has also given us lots to talk about.
3/2B - Miss Bernard - Hello everybody!!
We have had a really great week. We always enjoy Book Week and together with the Roman theme the children have really been excited and involved with their learning.
We have been writing comic strips based around Roman Gods and Goddesses.The children studied the layout of comics and watched some of Asterix the Gaul as stimulus and have found it great fun. There is lots of historical content in the cartoon which I was not aware of. So as well as being fun it helped to enhance our knowledge too.
We have also researched Roman Recipes on the internet and have discovered that they loved dormice dipped in honey and a bit roasted hedgehog!! Because the Romans loved to use honey and spice in their cooking we have made some delicious honey and spice biscuits which we are eating at our Roman Banquet this afternoon. Using our research we are compiling our recipes into a Roman Class Recipe book. The children have decorated each page beautifully with mosaic paper tiles.
The children have also been making a Roman board game in numeracy using their knowledge of Ancient Rome. We have been so busy that we still need to finish those. We have had a great day today because we have been dressing up in togas and doing some role play.
So it has been an absolutely fantastic week. Also thanks again to Mr Fasey for coming in to read Pippy Long Stocking to the whole class.
Next week we are doing weighing and measuring length/height in numeracy. So why don't you have a go at doing some at home children? We are also writing stories and Gladiators and their experiences in the arena. So it should be another interesting week. - Enjoy your weekend!
3/2C - Mrs Chatterton - We have had a lovely book week. We have focused on a story about a Roman called Bacillus. From this we have looked at Roman Baths in detail. Luckily Mrs Chatterton was on a course in York at the end of last week and took lots of photos of The Roman Bath Museum. The children have learnt to read Roman Numerals, measured the water in a bath and can read a thermometer. they have produced a story and put speech marks into a conversation. Wow. Today we are wearing Togas and having pizza!
4B - Miss Bolton - Well, what a fun packed book week of activities! 4B have completely immersed themselves into the world of 'Charlie and the Chocolate Factory'. We haven't done loads of activities but instead concentrated on just a few and spent time on them - the quality of work your children have produced this week has been superb - I'm really proud of them!
One of the most special things about children is their amazing imaginations. One task this week was to invent a new room from the Chocolate Factory. Well, we've had the ice-cream arctic room where you can ski down mountains of ice-cream and the chocolate swimming pool room where you can slide down into and swim in different pools of flavoured chocolate - the ideas have been brilliant! We've produced a collage of the room and written descriptions of them - both of which I will try and display somewhere around the school next week.
We also used pen and water colour paints to draw characters from the book in the style of Quentin Blake. Again, the quality of these was fantastic. They are very deserving of being displayed somewhere too!
Next week, back to normal. Please make sure you return your parents evening slips to make an appointment for Wednesday 22nd October. Remember, its always good to meet your child's teacher and the meetings are not just there for concerns but also to hear the positive things too.
4P - Miss Peacher - This week class 4P have been enjoying looking at the series of novels by Lemony Snickett, A Series of Unfortunate Events. We have incorporated our maths, science, art and english into book week. The children particularly enjoyed the paper clip challenge where they were asked to invent a paper clip picker upper. They also enjoyed making pasta bake. We finished the week with a trip to library and, may I say a big well done to the children who acted as great ambassadors for Darlinghurst on the trip.
5B - Mr Bird - Class 5B
Learning outside the classroom featured strongly in our curriculum this week and started with a visit on Monday to Leigh library. This trip was planned to coincide with Book Week and all of the children, whether library members or not, gained from the shared experience. I, together with Mrs Amran and Mrs Day, was impressed with their behaviour and this feeling was reinforced by the encouraging comments made by the library staff.
The visit also afforded us the opportunity to thank staff of 'The Book Inn', one of our local shops, who very kindly donated a large quantity of books to the school last weekend. Our new books have already been put into use and the multiple copies are brilliant for whole class and group guided reading. I think the staff of the shop wondered whether an invasion was imminent when the whole class stopped outside and thanked them in unison.
Visiting students from our local senior schools have also helped to provide a variety of reading activities with the children this week.They are always greeted with enthusiasm and clearly bring the powerful influence of a youthful dimension to this important area.
Many of you probably attended the circus in our field yesterday but what the class had the opportunity of watching really brought home the work that went on behind the slick show. This event provided us with another chance to apply learning to the real world. We abandoned our room and observed the work that was entailed to construct the 'Big Top'. It was fantastic to watch the children examine every part of the process of raising the canvass. Mathematics, science, P.E. and speaking and listening, suddenly took on a new perspective which enhanced their understanding and was enjoyed by all.
I know that they will all miss their weekly session with Sarah from 'Bodycare' but they are now aware of how they can do the activities and monitor eating which will help to give them a long and healthy life.
Just a word of warning to all families, the home made instruments are in the process of being constructed !
5D - Mr Duff - Your book week assembly was fantastic!! You only had an hour to come up with your rap and presentation and you did yourself proud. I would like to get them on a podcast next week if we have time.
Your French books you made with Mrs Johnston were great !!! Plus I also know that Mrs Johnston throughly enjoyed teaching you, said she you were lovely !!!!!!
Please remember the classification of triangles, tell someone at home, see if they know. Plus don't forget to research about Mary Seacole. She was a very interesting lady !!
Next week, we will be nearing the end of our guitars, they are already looking good !!!
6H - Mr Hautler - This week has been very busy but really fun as well! 6H have been learning about different breads. Our powerpoint presentations, which were also about bread, were really enjoyable to make! We have also been learning about Louis Pasteur and how his vaccine has basically changed the world of medicine. We have learnt about mean, mode and median in maths as well as briefly covering decimals. This week has gone really fast and we are looking forward to coming back on Monday!
6M - Mr Martin - Do you know about vaccines? We in 6M certainly do as we have been investigating the fascinating life of Louis Pasteur and his contribution to world medicine. Had it not been for Monsieur Pasteur's courage and determination, many lives would have been lost to hordes of terrible diseases. Unfortunately this week time has beaten us and we were not able to make bread as we intended but this will be carried over. However, we did manage to make fantastic designs for speciality breads and look forward to baking them.
What a week !! So much going on - it's the biggest blog ever !!
Not only that we have others jumping on the band wagon. Last week Mr Lloyd wanted to say a few things. This week Mrs Johnston wants to add a little bit extra, well actually it's quite a lot extra !!
I don't know, you build up the blog for nearly a year, getting a good following and then what happens, everyone wants a piece of the pie !!
All joking a side, our 1 year old anniversary is very close and I must say a big thank you to all our teachers, without their weekly overviews the blog would never have got off the ground, and of course to our readers, to which we owe the continued success of not only the blog but the website as well.
Anyway, before we get onto what happened this week. Here is Mrs Johnston.....
As you will have seen fromNews and Views and elsewhere on the website, we celebrated European Day of Languages this week. The children are super language learners and throughout the day you could hear French, Spanish, German, Czech, Polish and Finnish being spoken. The assembly at the end of the day was a wonderful celebration of language and culture.
Several parents have commented on their children's progress in French and asked if they can join my French club for grown-ups so they can keep up with them. Please feel free to join us on Fridays at 2pm in the French/Music room (Mrs Barrington's old room). It is very informal and friendly. We focus on supporting the children in their French and some phrases you can use at home.
And there's more.....
GOLDEN TIME SPANISH CLUB
Hola! We are very lucky to have the opportunity to offer a Spanish Club as part of Golden Time activities on Fridays. The Club will be lead by Senora Finch, a native speaker all the way from Peru (but says she doesn't know Paddington Bear!).
The Club is on offer to KS2 to start with and will run until Christmas. Tapas will be served at the first meeting - yum yum!
Not finished yet !!
Many thanks for the Morrisons vouchers. Keep them coming in please, they are only available until the 6th November. Mr Martin and Mrs Johnston will be planning out the new school allotment over half-term. Watch this space for further developments!
So as you can see, Mrs Johnston is a busy lady at the moment !!!
Another person that has also been busy is Mrs Reynolds. She kindly took charge of the Jean for Genes day.Read more about this fantastic cause here. The day was a great success and I must thank Mrs Reynolds for organising it.
Harvest Festival Assembly
4P and 3/2B put on the most amazing assembly for harvest festival. It was by far the liveliest, foot tapping, hip swinging assembly I can remember, well done. Thank you to the parents that came, I am sure you enjoyed yourself, as we even had dancers in the audience, that's not to mention Ms Thomson, yes I saw you boogieing. Well done to both classes involved, you were great !!
So was there time for everything else this week? Of course !!! Read what happened at Darlinghurst Primary and Nursery School right here.....
Reception - RW and RM have had a great week learning the phonemes n, c, k,e,h and continuing to word build (blend ) with the other phonemes we already know (s,a,t,p,i). We have finished our All About Me booklets, talked about our families from photos that we brought in and performed the 'bons bons' song in French in our International Languages assembly. We are looking forward to next week's trip to the library and to our 'Book Week' activities.
1/2D - Mrs Dutton - It has been a very busy week for us! On Tuesday we enjoyed learning lots of French by playing games,and taking part in activities. We also tasted some French food and decided we liked it. As it has been our Harvest Festival week, we have been reading and writing about our story 'Oliver's Vegetables by Vivian French. We have also made some superb drawings of the insides of fruit and vegetables that we had carefully looked at using a magnifying glass. Super work everyone!
1/2B - Mrs Barrington - The children have really enjoyed this week, reading Oliver's Vegetables by Vivien French. They produced some interesting chatacter description work in literacy. Then in art the children made close observational drawings of different fruit and vegetable. I have to say they were excellent and l am looking forward to putting them up on display. Our science work about the human life cycle was interesting especially when we had a race which included a teenager, adult and old person. I have promised not to mention who we had as the old person. We had great fun and no broken bones.
3/2C - Mrs Chatterton - This week we have been continuing our work on the Romans with the children re-enacting the fall of the Iceni, led by Boudicca following the death of her husband King Prasutagus, at the hands of the Romans. The children have also been looking at the life of a Gladiator and designed some fantastic posters to persuade people to come to the amphitheatre, even managing to includes shadows, which we have still managed to cover despite the weather, often resulting in a quick dash to the sunsgine. The children have also tried learning to count in German and next week in Book Week will be wearing togas and eating pizza, a very international two weeks coming up.
3/2B - Mrs Bernard - Hi everybody!
We have had a great week. The children have loved learning about gladiators have begun to make posters about a battle in the arena using persuasive language.They have also been looking at 2D shape and symmetry. They enjoyed folding and cutting out shapes to find different lines of symmetry.
Our International Day of European Languages was lots of fun. We chose Spanish, the children got very excited when Peter's dad came in to teach them the numbers up to 10, how say hello, goodbye, say what their name is and identify Spain and some of it's major cities. We also looked at atlases and located Madrid and Barcelona on maps of Spain. In the afternoon we made salsa and had tapas snacks. It was a valuable experience for the children. They love learning about different languages and places.
Next week have more excitement in the form of National Book Week. In our class we are continuing The Roman topic and we will be making a class comic based around the roman gods, making a class Roman Recipe Book and making a book of Roman Similes. We are also making board games using a Roman theme. We are making Roman honey biscuits and on Friday we are having a Roman Toga Day. I am really looking forward to it. Have a great weekend! - Miss Bernard
4B - Miss Bolton - This week has really flown past! It may be due to 4B working exceptionally hard this week. We have spent the week reinforcing the difficulties we had last week and I have to say, with some good final results. Our 1940's newpaper reports have been finished and now ready for final presentations.
In Numeracy, we have been learning about 2D shape, something we will continue with next week too.
The European Day of Languages we had on Wednesday was a huge success, mostly down to Mrs Johnstons organisation, enthusiasm and motivation. We learnt a little German and a few facts about the country and presented them, along with the rest of the school at a grand assembly at the end of the day.
Next week is Book Week and our work will be centred around 'Charlie and the Chocolate Factory', the class book we have been reading. Should be a fun packed week. There really never is a dull moment at Darlinghurst!!
4P - Mrs Peacher - I would like to start by saying a huge well done and thank you to all the children for their stunning performances in the Harvest Festival Asembly. You all did marvelously! The children have been doing lots of work about shape this week and have learnt some new vocabulary such as polygon, quadrilateral and parallelogram. Next week is book week and we are planning to take a trip down to Leigh library on Friday. Any parent help welcome.
5B - Mr Bird - Class 5B
I would like to start by thanking all the parents, friends and family members who responded to a request from the children for information which they used for planning a biography. They all enjoyed sharing the facts they had discovered with their groups.
The Victorian theme is still providing them with plenty of opportunity to examine the influences the era had on British life. There have been some entertaining revealations and at last I have managed to convince them that I did not actually live through the times!
European Day of Languages gave the children the opportunity to find out more about Germany and the language used. I was impressed with the effort they put in during the day and their ability to say greetings, count to ten and sing a number song in German by the end of the afternoon.
Clearly the combination of PE, Bodycare, healthy eating and morning exercise is showing some rewards, with the class being ready to take on challenges with a renewed spring in their step.
The week ended with a shared reading experience which the children are incredibly keen to undertake. Once a week they visit the reception children and spend some time reading with them and asking them questions about the stories. I must say that both classes appear to thrive on this contact and it is a pleasure to watch the whole group reaping the benefit of some terrific and at times humerous exchanges.
Next week is 'Book Week' and we are starting off with a visit to the local library on Monday. The children were happy to hear about this event and I am sure that combined with the other activities planned, it will be a very pleasant week to remember.
5D - Mr Duff - We are all going to be rock stars and form our own band. Ok well that might not be true but we are well on our way with making our guitars in D+T. Your papier maching skills were superb and now they are all painted in bright colours ready for the next step.
We now know the first steps on how to write a biography, you have picked that up very quickly, well done. Next week we will be researching famous people, like Thierry Henry and making a timeline about the main events in his live.
We have learnt many knew facts about Poland this week and we even know some Polish words !! This was mainly down to Szymon being a fantastic teacher. You were great and I thank you for all your hard work. Dobrze !!!
Keep reading at home, we had our best week this week. Have a good weekend.
6H - Mr Hautler -This week in Numeracy we have finally finished with our decimal work. We have learnt to round to the nearest 10th, 100th and 1000th... round to 1, 2 and 3 decimal places... subtract, add, multiply and divide decimal numbers. Lots to take on but we have worked hard over the past three weeks to learn all these skills. Today we compared various types of bread and evaluated them using an Evaluation Star. A very tasty lesson! Next week we will be making breads from around the world. Lets hope all that yeast doesn't cause any embarrassing moments for us! Earlier on during the week we learnt about various forms of farming and what the advantages/disadvantages of being a farmer were. We also learnt about the importance of Biodiversity on farms.
6M - Mr Martin - It’s been a busy old week in 6M. What with the preparations of the European assembly where we learnt to sing in German and find out about other languages and cultures. Our first trip of the year to Leigh Library was a roaring success and hopefully those children who haven’t got library cards are encouraged to join.
We have evaluated a variety of breads in preparation for next week. Please bring an apron!
Introducing the Gallery !!
French VIPs visit Darlinghurst
Gardening Club
Update from the School's Fantasy Football League 
Nursery - We were very busy in the Nursery this week making cakes. We measured out the ingredients, mixed them together, put the mixture in cake cases and then cooked them in the oven. The next day we decorated them with yellow and green icing and then counted out 5 jelly beans to put on top.
A huge thank you for all the Tesco computer vouchers you sent in. It was a record year yet again (28,488 vouchers) which enabled us to buy even more ICT equipment. We bought 15 sets of headphones, 2 scanners, 10 recordable mircophones, one head camera and 5 chatterbox machines. All children in the school will benefit from this, so thank you.
Bags 2 School is back !! The bags have gone home tonight and any contributions will be greatly received. if you would like to read more about this scheme click 
Thank you to everyone that turned out ro see the circus !!! The evening was a great success. The PTA worked very heard to organise this, so another thank you goes to you. Also Neil Davey and Sid Osbourn of South Eastern Electrical PLC sponsored the Big Top at the circus to the tune of £1,000 !!! A fantastic gesture which is hugely appreciated. Thank you.
Two important dates for your diary for next week -Tuesday (21st) is individual and family photographs. Say cheese !!
Parent consultation meetings on Wednesday (22nd) - Notes have gone home in regards to both of these. 
Year 5 and 6 were lucky enough to have had an African drumming workshop visit our school today. After a superb assembly the children were then put into groups and the drums were shared out between them. They were then transformed into African drummers !!! A great workshop were a lot of fun was had by all !!
A new phenomena is happening on the Darlinghurst School Blog. It's called the Blog Hog !!! If I were to make a dictionary definition for this it would read something like.... One that tries to publish as many of their things in on the weekly blog as possible. This weeks winner of this prestigious award goes to......drum roll......yes, you have guessed it Mrs Johnston !!!
SAY IT WITH FLOWERS! - HAPPY 40TH BIRTHDAY TO US!
This week PC Sawyer and Ziggy the cat visited the school. PC Sawyer reminded everyone how to cross the road safely, using crossings, looking and listening carefully for traffic. Ziggy the cat hates people parking on the zigzag lines outside school. This is against the law. All children have been asked to remind drivers to park somewhere else. PC Sawyer and Ziggy were also promoting walking to school. Apart from helping to keep us fit, being good for the environment, it also keeps the roads safer.
Nursery (welcome to the blog) - 
The Year 6 X-Country team competed at Eastwood School on Wednesday in the 1st of 2 races.We have been training for a while now and it seems to have paid off. We competed against 11 teams from 9 schools and managed to gain third place. Well done to all of you!
Book week was a storming success and the children throughly enjoyed it!! There were lots of different activities going on in and around the school. Thank you Mrs Weston and Mr Martin for organising it all for us.
The circus came to town !!! I am afraid that I missed out and couldn't make the circus but by the comments I have heard from the children and the staff, an excellent evening was had. So a massive thank you to the 
RM - Mrs McIntosh - This week has been book week and the children started off by a really interesting trip to the library. They walked all the way....and didn't moan! (they only asked when lunchtime would be!!) We looked at some books on our own and then Mrs Weston read a rhyming book with us. The children have looked at a rhyming book every snack time and are really doing well with rhyming words. We have also all shared our favourite books. Some children brought in theirs from home and it was great to see. 
Many thanks for the Morrisons vouchers.
