Darlinghurst is 40 years old (and that's older than me!)

To celebrate we have numerous activities going on next week ranging from a helicopter visit on Monday to a banquet on Thursday. It should be very enjoyable and I am looking forward to it all. Get a full run down of what's happened in next weeks blog!

Mega Bouncy Castle Event

As part of the celebrations the school's PTA has arranged a  Mega Bouncy Castle Event for Friday 3rd July between 2.30pm and 5.30pm. The cost is £6.00 for a wristband, which is for unlimited use of at least 12 Bouncy Castles. Sounds like fun to me, I wonder if adults are allowed?

 Headlines from Mr Knight

What else has been happening at Darlinghurst Primary and Nursery school this week?

 

RW - Mrs Dutton - This week we have been writing about what we would like to find in a pirate treasure chest and our ideas were very interesting. We have also enjoyed looking at the 5 Painted Lady Butterflies and drawn pictures of them. On Friday we released them to fly to lay eggs that will hatch into more caterpillars. We discussed how we felt when they flew away, Isobella and Finley they were sad because they wanted them to stay, Alex was happy they flew away to make more caterpillars and butterflies. 

RM - Mrs Collison - Hi there everyone,

 

Another fun week had by all.   The children have been very busy helping me with their reports this week and telling me all the things they enjoy about school.  We have also had fun with making edible pirate boats.   The children have shown me how very good they are at spreading butter, cheesespead and jam, so there is no need to make the children's sandwiches for them in the morning....because they can do it themselves!!!

 

Here is what the children have said they have enjoyed this week.

 

James said 'I liked eating my pirate boat, it had cheesespread in the middle.'

Ryan C said 'I enjoyed making a race track with the guttering. My red car went very fast when it was going down the hill and then it came out.'

Alistair said 'I liked drawing with the Thomas book.  Thomas is a little blue train with the number 1.'

Mitchell said 'I've enjoyed learning about numbers.  Mrs Collison put her feet on the bugs when we were estimating!'

 

Next week we are really looking forward to our school birthday party, with lots of learning about the 1960's through dancing, clothes and most importantly lots of lovely food!!  Have a lovely weekend. 

Mrs Collison & Mrs Thomson

1/2D - Mrs Dutton - What a busy week we have had. We have been counting in 5's, gropuing in 5's and beginning to remember our 5 times tables. In our writing we have been reading and writing poems. We have had the excitement of the butterflies emerging - we have discuss their lifecycle throughout and really enjoyed watching them. We released them on Friday morning to start the life cycle again. Some of our class also represented the school in the Borough Sports, Olivia said she really enjoyed this and it was the best part of the week for her.

3/2B - Miss Bernard - Hello everybody!

 

Another week has gone by and we are getting closer to our 40th Year celebrations. The children in 3/2B are beginning to get excited. A few children have been researching the 80's as homework for our 80's topic week. I'm really looking forward to all the things that we have got planned.

 

Here are some of the activities that the children have enjoyed this week:

 

I have enjoyed practising Street Dance because it is fun- Emma

I liked Street Dance because I am doing movements that I have never done before- Mikayla

Street Dance has been good because I know how to do all the dances now- Alisha

 

I've enjoyed Art because I like making my motif- Ai'sha

I like Art because I like being creative-Grace

I am enjoying Art because I've never done this (designing dinosaur motif to sew on bag) before- Evan

 

I enjoyed KS1 Borough Sports because I was competing against children that I didn't know- Ryan

 

I really liked swimming because I like to learn new stuff- Liam

Swimming is great because I like to learn new activities- Alfie

 

Our blog is a little bit short this week because half of the class were out doing shared reading with Mr Martin's class. Most of the class always have something to say, 3/2B have a very positive attitude towards school. That's why I enjoy teaching them so much.

 

Have a lovely weekend and keep on gathering information about the 80's please!! - Miss Bernard

3/2C - Mrs Chatterton - This week we have been having fun learning about Dinosaurs. We didn't know there were so many! We are writing a piece of non fiction. Mrs Grant got us to draw a picture of an imaginary dinosaur and we have made it out of clay. We learnt about the Jurassic period. In maths we have been doing lots of multiplying word problems, some were really hard. Mrs Grant helped us to finish off our Powerpoints on dinosaurs.

In science we have been looking at rocks and their properties and seeing if they are permeable or impermeable. We used lots of water for that! - Chyna and Connor

 

4J - Mrs Johnston - This week's blog has been written by Brendan.

 

Monday:  we learnt about air resistance and practised making the Darlinghurst badge for the 40th anniversary.  Tuesday:   we did Tudor work for a display. 

Wednesday:   we finished it off. 

Thursday:  we watched a DVD on Shabbat then we wrote about the main parts of it.  

Friday:  in the morning we finished the RE off and then we had a practice for Open Day and then we had Golden Time.

 

4B - Miss Bolton - This week year 4 has been studying Henry Vlll and have now almost completed our tudor topic!!!! We have also been practicing our logo for our 40th anniversary helicopter photo!!!!! On monday we created are own super-markets in numeracy and had the chance to be real shopkeepers!! In Art we sketched the school from various angles as part of the celebrations. We are looking forward to next week when we are having banquet and martial arts training!! 4B Reece and Harry

 

5B - Mr Mr Bird  - This week (on Tuesday and on Wednesday) the whole school had a rehearsal for the picture of us making the badge. Also on Wednesday, Owen, Nikita, Danielle, Phoebe, George, Rebecca and Molly all went on a sport leadership course and are doing so for the next 2 weeks. Everybody really enjoyed thenselves and had lots of fun! On Thursday we had a digital assembly telling us about contemporaily art and on the 4th of July there is a taste tester and on the 11th of July the real club starts.  

 

On Friday, an amount of children went to Mrs Chatterton to practice chords for the school song on the 40th anniversary.There were 4 children from Class 5B, Tavis,Aaron,Max and Molly. 

They got on really well and really enjoyed it.

 

5D - Mr Duff - To be written by the children on Monday!! If any of 5D are reading this I need volunteers!!

 

6H - Mr Hautler - We have had a very busy week doing a lot of work.We have finally finished our diarahmas and taken them home.We are also getting ready for more activities as it's our 40th week next week. The whole school had logo practise and we hope we do as good as we did this week. We are also getting ready for our leavers assembly.Although we are excited for our assembly we are nervous because teachers from our secondary schools came in to talk to us about our transition from year 6 to year 7.We have recently started making our buntings. This was a very enjoyable week and we hope everyone had a good week to. Chani and Daniel

 

6M - Mr Martin - 6M has worked really hard on their own topics this week, they have chosen sensible topics and making use of spared time.Year 6 pupils are preparing for the yr 6 production, people who didn't get the part took it well , the people without a speaking part are dancing, so everyone has something to do.They are all participating and we look foward to the production.

Sorry late update - I had to get to my coconut stall straight after school on Friday and this is the time I usually update the blog. I will keep it to the point this week.

Summer Fair

Next Friday is our summer fair, well l'm pretty sure it's called a summer fair but I suppose some people might call it a summer fete. To confuse things even more, I have even heard it called the summer BBQ. Can I say now that all three are the same thing and it is after school next Friday, which is the 19th.

Why the coconut? That's the stall my class and I will be on and personally speaking I am thoroughly looking forward to it. Having been to the last two, I can honestly say it's the best school summer fair/fete/bbq that I been to and a huge thank you must go to our fantastic PTA for organising it.

So I would love to see as many people there as possible supporting the PTA, our school and just as importantly having fun!!!

Borough Sports

The team has been selected and next Wednesday afternoon is D-Day (tried to get a topical link in there). Having be victorious in the last 4 years the pressure is on Mr Hautler to bring home the cup but as a school have been promoted to the Premership this year and competition will be extremely tough. So I wish all the children the best of luck and go out and enjoy yourself. Have fun!!

Anyway, that's enough about next week, what's been happening this week at Darlinghurst Primary and Nursery school?

Nursery  - am

Nursery pm

RW - Mrs Dutton + Ms Thomson - We have had a really enjoyable week finding out about Charles Darwin and the important things he did. We took a ‘Thinking Walk’ just like Darwin did and started a doodle book after looking at plants and insects, using magnifying glasses to see details and pictures to find out what we were looking at. We had so much fun we want to have more ‘Thinking Walks’ to find out more about nature.

Caitlin said “ I loved the daisies”

John said “We saw different  types of insects. We saw bees collecting nectar.”

Roman said “Thank you for our honey bees.”

RM - Mrs Collison + Ms Thomson - A super week of exploring nature has been had by all and I am sure there will be many future Charles Darwins who started life in Mrs Collison's Reception Class!!

1/2B - Mrs Barrington - Water, water everywhere in class 1/2B as most of you know we have been learning all about capacity.  This gives us a great opportunity to be outside with the water trays.  Lots of children have been comparing containers and explaining their findings to the class. 

3/2B - Miss Bernard - Hello everybody!

Another busy week has flown by. The children were really excited because we started to investigate Dinosaurs, Rocks and Soils. These are subjects that they are all eager to learn about. I would also like to congratulate them all for their positive approach towards Maths this week. I introduced the Column Method for adding and taking away, which I know some of them found quite difficult, but all of the children worked hard and tried their best. Well done!

 

Graham from Creative Partnerships also came in to conduct a workshop with the children where they made models and incorporated the noises boxes that they made during a previous session. We all had great fun. One group made a tree which will be part of an exhibition in Victoria Circus on July 2nd, the rest of the class made robots. The children were very inventive and creative. They look fantastic.

 

Here are some of the things that the children have really enjoyed this week:

 

“I like the robots because I like making things”- Ai’sha

 

“Making the tree, it was fun and clever how we did it”- Phoebe

 

“Our model with Graham was half alien/half robot. It was fun seeing what it looked like”- Scarlett

 

“Making the robots was fun”- Evan

 

“ The robots were fun because my mum thought of some good ideas”- Alfie

 

“Our palm tree looked good”- Brendan

 

“I liked finding out about rocks”- Tayyaba

 

“I think learning about different rocks is fun. One of the rocks had the same name as me, Slate”- Kaya

 

“Finding out names of the different rocks was interesting”- Mikayla

 

“Rocks are beautiful”- Bethany

 

“Finishing my Viking long-ship was fun and they all turned out good”- Thomas

 

“Writing our Viking Plays was fun. Our group made ours up as we went along”- Aaliyah

 

 

We have had a great week. We do work hard in our class, but it also involves lots of fun!

 

Have a fantastic weekend! - Miss Bernard

 

3/2C - Mrs Grant - This week we have been learning about dinosaurs, fossils and rocks. In literacy we have written a Viking play script which we then acted out. In numeracy we have been adding 2 and 3 digit numbers and showing our working out, which has been quite hard for some of us as we forget to write it down, but Mrs Grant makes us show it to so that we can see where we are going wrong. In RE we have drawn a picture of the Viking goddess of death, Hel. She was a beautiful woman from the waist up but a rotting corpse from the waist down. By Sarah

 

4B - Miss Bolton - This week we have been learning about the Tudors, The War of the Roses, Henry VII and his son Henry VIII. We have especially enjoyed learning about Henry VIII and creating a diary imagining we were him. In numeracy we have learnt how to use a compass and had great fun going outside and using the compass to plot a route from the bike shed to the stage! - Caleb and Louis. 4B.

4J - Mrs Johnston - The gremilin ate Freddie's blog from before half-term but he was tracked down and made to write it out again in his best gremlin handwriting!

This week in 4J we have been practising our mental maths.  On Wednesday we watched a French puppet show of Little Red Riding Hood which was brilliant.  My favourite part was when the wolf chased the grandma and then ate her!

On Thursday we took part in an assembly about getting rid of nits and I was some hair.  I also gave a talk about my transformers and everyone said it was good.

We made puppets in class.  I made a future predator from Primeval.  Beck made a sponge puppet, lots of children used socks - clean ones!

We have also all been training lots for the Borough Sports.

 

This week's blog has been written by Abbey.

 

This week we have been learning about the Tudors.  We have learnt about the War of the Roses and Henry VIII.  We have written letters pretending we were in Tudor times and two people acted out being Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon.  We have really enjoyed this week and hope next week is just as fun!

 

5D - Mr Duff - Firstly I would like to say how mature you all were with the maths testing we have been doing this week. No nerves, no worrying and just doing your best. This is very much a testament to the way you have grown up this year, well done.

 

Graham from Creative Partnerships came in and made our classroom into a huge mess (which I had to apologise to the cleaner for) but having said that we had a huge amount of fun and made some wonderful sculptures.

 

Mr Rochester spent some time in our class this week and got you thinking about what will 2020 look like and what you thought you might be doing or have done by then. Some excellent discussion were had and it was amazing to see what you thought off. You then wrote a letter to your future self and this will be sent to your home address next week but it's only to be open in the Year 2020, so you can look back and reflect on what your thoughts were back in the year 2009. A fantastic concept and a lesson well taught, thank you Mr Rochester.

 

You all have your sunflower seeds to grow and observe. Don't forget to note any changes on your observation sheet. Prize for the tallest sunflower!!!

 

We were back out to our quadrats this week looking for any changes. We noticed that two were very similar to last week but one had sprung into life and had lots of daisies were visable. Photos were taken and Darwin Doodles drawn, both of which will make up part of our final display.

 

Next Thursday we will be going to Old Leigh and visiting the cockle sheds. It will be a great day out and a packed lunch will be needed. Before you go though, we need the permission slips back in, so bring those back in next week please.

 

Enjoy your weekend !!

 

5B - Mr Bird - The following entry has been compiled by Molly.

 

This week, Class 5B have been sketching, Charles Darwin, H.M.S Beagle, a variety of plants and also learning the techniques of shading.

 

We have also planted Sunflower seeds and over the course of the weeks up to the end of term. What we have to do is see whose sunflower gets the largest (but we're not aloud to change it and if it needs repotting we have to show Mr Bird, just to make sure there is no cheating!) 

 

Friday was our last time at the swimming pool and over the last four weeks everybody has really enjoyed themselves. This week in the pool we had floats, sinkers, mini surfing boards and balls.

 

Have a nice weekend and see you Monday. Molly.

 

I would like to add a comment about the way the children have participated in all of the elements relating to our science themed fortnight. The level of enthusiasm for the work, both in and out of the classroom, has been excellent. Our nature observation walks and field studies, have encouraged everyone to take a full and active role in expanding their knowledge of evolution and some of the work undertaken by Charles Dawin.

 

The children have been giving regular progress reports on their projects and we are all looking forward to seeing the end product in July.

 

A final note for parents and carers of children in 5B, please remember to return the permission slips for our trip next week.

 

 

6M - Mr Martin - This week year 6 have been doing art eg. making ideal garden diaramas, creating eco friendly  theme parks and designing our  bunting for the  Guiness world book of records. Also preparing for Borough Sports which are next week on Wednesday 17th June.  We have officially finished our display about Charles Darwin. We have enjoyed this week's lessons and we are looking forward to competing in the Borough Sports next week.

 

6H - Mr Hautler - This week we started our diaramas on our gardens and we did '6H has got talent' to audition for our leavers assembly in order to get a speaking role the play. In P.E we did relay which some of us didn't like. We also got our places for Borough Sports.

By Nathan and George.

First of all can I apologise for no BLOG entry on the last week of last half term  This was simply because of a gremlin creeping into our systems at school and causing havoc!! Anyway he has been found and dealt with and we are back to normal !!!

 Charles Darwin 1809-1882

This week has been all about Darwin!! With his 200th birthday this year Mrs Dutton and Mrs Chatterton decided to celebrate this fact and have worked very hard to give all teachers a pack of goodies, which included lots of information, facts and bundles of super activities all about this famous historical figure. A huge thank you to Mrs D and Mrs C for your help, it has been an excellent week

 Headlines from Mr Knight

 Nursery - We liked playing in the garden this week in the lovely sunshine. Some of our beans have grown but some did not do very well over the half term holiday. We did hand printing with Mrs Essex and mixed two colours to make a new colour by putting one colour on one hand, the other colour on the other hand and then rubbing them together to make a new colour.

 RW - Mrs Dutton and Ms Thomson - This week we have dressed up as pirates, we have made pirate hats using semi circles and rectangles and pirate ships from recyclable packaging, We have designed under water pictures using a computer and we have been thinking about how many paces we need to go to find the buried treasure!

 RM - Mrs Collison and Ms Thomson - Ahoy there me hearties!!  A great and vey funny week has been had by all!!   The children have had lots of fun exploring their imaginations and pretending to be pirates of the Cariibean Sea.  We have travelled across the Atlantic Ocean from England in search of a fabulous place to bury our treasure in the beautiful country of Jamaica (although I did lose a couple of children overboard as they fell off our pirate ship!!!

I am so proud of all the children from this week, as always, especially with our visit from an HMI Inspector who commented that the childrens learning and development was outstanding!! Well done everyone.  Here's what the children have said:

 

 

Holly said 'I have liked learning how to spin hoops around outside in the garden. It has been lovely and warm.'''

 

Ellie said 'I have enjoyed coming to school and learning about finding treasure in Jamaica.'

 

Laura said 'I enjoyed pretending to be a pirate and rowing Captain Collison's ship to Jamaica!'

 

Olivia W said ' I enjoyed learning and really did enjoy circle time with Mrs Thomson because we had to help Peter Pirate find friends because he kept stealing gold and  

                     didn't have any friends.'

 

Looking forward to next week and our 'Big Plant Hunt' and learning about Charles Darwin.

Mrs Collison & Mrs Thomson

 1/2B - Mrs Barrington -Class 1/2B have had almost 100% attendance this week, this just goes to show what a fit and healthy class we are.  This term our topic is the Seaside already the children have drawn some super shell pictures, which will be going up on display.  Our literacy work this week was based around the story Farmer Duck by Martin Waddell.  The children wrote about the work that their grown ups do at home and would like me to include examples in the blog. 

My Mum does the cooking and l ask, "what's for dinner?"  by Anita year 2. 

In my house I tidy up my bedroom and my mum says, "How goes the work?"  by Lilly-Rose year 2

My brother and I tidy our bedrooms and my mum and dad say, "How goes the work?"  by Cosmo year 1 

Class 1/2B would also like to add that they are really looking forward to having a push and pull day when they can bring their bikes, scooters and skateboards into school.

 

 1/2D - Mrs Dutton - As if to coincide with a few days of sunshine, our topic this term is The Beach and we have been looking at and drawing the fine details of shells, coral, sponges and star fish. We have had more letters about where our Flat Stanley’s have been ( and many of them have been to different beaches in the UK and Europe) and enjoyed looking at these places in our atlases. One Flat Stanley went to the dentist on his trip. Ry said  “ I went to the dentist and my Flat Stanley did too with my cousin”. To commemorate the birth of Charles Darwin, born 200 years ago, we have been looking closely at the different seeds and plants found on  our school field  and we are trying to grow some.

 

 3/2B - Miss Bernard - Hello everybody!

 

We have had such an enjoyable "Great Plant Hunt" week. We began by hunting for plants around the school grounds and we found quite a few which we tried to identify using our identikit. We are looking forward to hunting for some more when we go to ChalkwellPark. The children and I have had great fun investigating the life of Charles Darwin; he was such an interesting man. Here are some of the children's thoughts on the Charles Darwin activities that they have been doing:

 

“I enjoyed writing about the life of Charles Darwin because it was fun"- Aaliyah

"I found it interesting because we can do what he did"- Evan Hayward

“I enjoyed it because I always wondered who was on the back of a £10 and now I know who he was and what he did"- Scarlett

"I enjoyed doing Art, it was fun because we used paints, charcoal and pastels to do pictures of Charles Darwin"- Ryan

"I loved our Charles Darwin work because the things he has done are interesting to learn."- Josh

“I loved the Plant Hunt because I got to find plants that we have not paid attention to on the field while we were playing"- Thomas

"I liked the Plant Hunt because all the plants are pretty."- Bethany

 

In Numeracy we have been investigating the use of Venn and Carroll Diagrams to sort data:

 

"I liked doing Venn and Carroll Diagrams because I really enjoy doing Numeracy"- Ella

"I thought that it was interesting because you might need them sometimes and it's good to know how to use them."- Natasha

"l liked the problem solving activity with Carroll diagrams because Numeracy is my Favourite subject"- Brendan

“The Venn diagrams were good because they are something interesting to learn about”- Raman

 

Here are some other activities that children have enjoyed this week:

 

“The Science assessment on plants was fun to do because there were different things I liked doing on the test”-  Alfie

 

“I enjoyed the French word search because I normally find them boring but I liked words from a different country”- Mikayla

 

We have also had two new students join our class this week Molly and Max, who is from France.

 

“I have enjoyed my first week, but I find it strange because I am not speaking French”- Max

 

“I have enjoyed my first week because I am back with my old friends” (Molly used to come to our school) - Molly

 

Phew! That was a long blog!

 

Enjoy your weekend everybody! - Miss Bernard

 

 3/2C - Mrs Chatterton - All this week we have been looking at the life of Charles Darwin, the man on the back of a £10 note. In PE/Drama we did freeze frames to show different parts of his life and in music we went on a "Thinking Walk" using musical instruments for some different animals that Darwin might have seen on his travels. In Literacy we have been looking at what happened to him during his life, with his wife and 10 children. In numeracy we didn't do Darwin but we have been looking at days of the week, months of the year and Venn diagrams and Carroll diagrams. In Science we looked at how plants grow under different conditions, and some even tried the cress, it was quite spicy and I thought it was yuk!! - By Libbie

 

 4B - Mr Lloyd - We've been so carried away with work the past 2 days, we forgot the children writing the Blog! Our main work this week has continued with our history of film topic and we've been looking at animation. The class were amazed to find out that the older Disney films were all drawn and the past 2 days have found out how hard they are to do.

We have been lucky enough to borrow equipment from Belfairs to allow us to do this. The class have planned out their own story and currently in the middle of completing 30 drawn frames, each one with elements that move slightly. This is becoming a job and a half! I have to commend the class though for their perseverence and patience with this. We will then photograph each one and load it onto Movie Maker, add titles and credits and hopefully end up with a (very) short animation. We will let you know the end results next week.

 

 4J - Miss Bolton - This week the whole school have been learning about Charles Darwin and in year 4  we had a 'Great Plant Hunt' on the field. Everyone especially enjoyed this because it was adventurous. We practised our letter writing skills by writing letters telling Charles Darwin what we have been doing.On the last two days of the week we created our own animation cartoons,using equipment kindely lent by Belfairs school.We are looking forward to showing Mrs Johnston  our finished animations!! By Alexia, Mia and Tayla.

 

 5D - Mr Duff - What a fantastic week. Darwin, and more Darwin!! We started of by making our own "quadrats" (observation areas) on the school field, just like Darwin. We then went on our Thinking Walk, just like Darwin. We made drawing of our findings, just like Darwin. Are you seeing the pattern!! It has been great to following in the footsteps of such a historial and famous scientific researcher.

 

We used some very informative websites, which I promised to post of this weeks blog.

 

Click here - for The Great Plant Hunt

 

Click here and here for Evolution websites we look at regarding Darwin and Change

 

We even managed to fit in lots of other things this week as well!! PE focused on Borough Sports activities and not to forget our weekly trip to Blenheim for our swimming lesson. In maths we are finishing off our revision sessions and will be having a couple of tests next week.

 

Daniel, Devang, Michael, Tia, Cian, Callum and Asan all participated in an orienteering festival held at the school, well done to you.

Graham from Creative Partnerships came in to talk about our musical designs, he was very very impressed. We will get a chance to make these next week !!

 

Phewww, what a week - another busy one to come next week though - enjoy your weekend!!

 

 6M - Mr Martin - This week in class 6M we have been learning about Charles Darwin, it has been 200 years since his birth!!

We have also been making dioramas for our perfect garden, the winner will get a £10 gift voucher from a shop of their choice. We have been making our own sea creature to see how they have adapted!!! We hope everyone has a nice weekend!!! By Jamie and Haleema

 

 6H - Mr Hautler - We have had quite a relaxed week. We have been looking at Charles Darwin, who looked at animals and evolution. We designed our own creatures. We then designed what they would look like one million years in the past and one million years in the future. In music we learnt about guitars and how to play them and we were shown different guitar peddles like the wha wha peddle. This week has been really fun!

Ellie and Ryan