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!