St Mark's CofE Primary School - Latest News
Class 1: Class 1 enjoyed thinking about trust in a friendship, they used Lego blocks to build a sturdy friendship house.
Class 2: In Art, the children have been drawing Tinga Tinga animals in preparation for their paintings.
Class 3 & 4: Year 4 had their class assembly this week on the digestive system and teeth. It was unanimous that this had to be their learning highlight of the week. Well done year 4 for the brilliant and informative assembly.
Class 5 & 6: Year 6 went on a trip to Cadbury World this week, where they learnt more about the Mayan civilisation. You can read more about this on page two!
Class 7: Class 7 went on a grammar treasure hunt today. They had to find different grammatical words around the school grounds and match these with their definitions.
Class 8: In RE Class 8 have been looking at different charities and what they are doing to improve God’s kingdom. They then presented this in their own way.
Headteacher’s Message:
The glorious weather has been so very welcome, this week! The drier weather has sparked thoughts about how we can be improving our playground. I shall we meeting with the School Council next week to begin to pull together some ideas; watch this space.. literally!
Our fabulous Year 6s will be sitting the National Curriculum SATs tests next week. They have all worked incredibly hard to get to this point, where they are now ready to confidently show off their knowledge and understanding gained throughout this Junior School stage. We have reminded the children that, although these tests are important and have their place, they do not reflect how special and unique they are. Today, we watched a wonderful presentation, based on the below poem, which captures this perspective beautifully:
You’re the Best!
SATs don’t measure sports, SATs don’t measure art,
SATS don’t measure music, or the kindness in your heart.
SATS don’t see your beauty, SATs don’t know your worth,
SATS don’t see the reasons you were put upon this earth.
SATS don’t see your magic, how you make others smile,
SATS don’t time how quickly you can run a mile.
SATS don’t hear your laughter or see you’ve come this far,
SATS are just a tiny glimpse of who you really are.
So sitting at your table with a pencil and your test
Remember SATs aren’t who you are,
Remember you’re the best!
Have a super sunny weekend,
Mrs A Fitch and the Staff Team
On Thursday the Year 4 children had a fantastic day out at the National Roman Legion Museum in Caerleon, Newport. Wales was one of the furthest outpost of the Roman Empire. In AD 75, the Romans built a fortress at Caerleon that would guard the region for over 200 years.
The children really enjoyed exploring the remains of a barracks and amphitheatre, as well viewing the Roman baths. They carried out several formations with swords and shields during a workshop with a Roman Centurion as well as learning about numerous artefacts.
An absolutely brilliant day and well done to all the children for their fantastic engagement and exemplary behaviour whilst on the trip.
On Wednesday, Year 6 visited the GWR train station in Winchcombe to experience life as WW2 evacuees! The children learned about what life was like during the blitz, worked as a team to put out "fires" created from bombs and even took shelter when the air raid siren sounded. This was then followed by lunch and singing on a steam train journey. The children were fantastically dressed in evacuee outfits which many members of the public commented upon. As always, they were a credit to the school.
Readathon - Grand Total Raised £1016.70
Well done again to everyone who took part and helped raise money for the Read for Good charity.
A percentage of the money raised will enable us to buy some of the books from the year group reading lists!
Book Fair - We also received some additional books from Usborne that are on the year group reading lists, paid for using the commission raised. We are aiming to have a full set of reading list books for each class, so watch this space!
Many thanks for the Year 5 Children and their parents who joined us on our bat walk this week, following the installation of bat boxes made by the children in Outdoor Learning.
Steve from Cheltenham Borough Council took us on a guided walk around Benhall Park with a variety of bat detectors. We identified bats through the devices. The middle photo below is from one of the echo traces recorded on the night. Steve informed us that it is of a Common Pipistrelle, which you can tell by the ‘hockey stick’ or ‘backwards tick’ appearance of the trace which is very typical of Pipistrelles. The walk was thoroughly enjoyed and we learnt some really interesting facts about bats. One parent commented that it was ‘amazing to see this wildlife right on our doorstep!’
Thanks so much to Steve and everyone who helped to organise the event.
Josh, Pippa, Gwen and Gracie from year 6 competed in the first round of the Gloucestershire Wildlife Quiz, competing against Gotherington School. There were numerous rounds identifying native species of plants and animals through questions and images.
The team answered questions confidently and finished with a convincing win. The team now await the next round after the Easter Break.
An excellent achievement!
On Monday the Hockey Team played in a tournament organised by Move More.
The team were absolutely amazing! All 6 members played really well individually as well as showing exceptional team work.
They played 3 group matches becoming the winners of their group. They went on to play Swindon Village in the final and won 3-1. Coming back with Gold medals, we couldn’t be prouder.
Well done to Pippa, Gabby, Izzy, Jack B, Miles and Jack J.
Thank you to all the bakers who entered the PTA Easter cake competition. The entries this year were absolutely amazing which made life very hard for the judges. Well done to Naomi in year 3 who came first place with her wonderful rabbit burrow cake creation. Second place was Bella-May (year 6) with her very clever cupcakes, followed by Jiya in year 6 with her wonderful bunny cake. The blue house won the overall house competition and from the photo of their table below we hope you can see why! We hope you all enjoyed making (as well as eating) these wonderful bakes. A special thank you to the judges, we don’t know how you picked the winners with so much talent on show!
The PTA have raised an amazing £228 from the sale. Well done all!
We were blown away by all the performances at the Speaking Out Competition yesterday. The children have worked so hard on their class poems, as well as the children who performed individually. They were all so brilliant that it made the judging very difficult indeed!
The individual winners are........Year 3 Amelie, Year 4 Emily, Year 5 Amelia and Year 6 Luke. You were amazing!
Onto the class winners, a huge congratulations to Class 2 who won the lower school competition with their poem ’Sick’ by Shel Silverstein and to class 6 for winning the upper school class category with the poem ‘The Day I Got My Finger Stuck Up My Nose’ by Brian Patten.
Well done to all the children, we couldn’t be more proud!
Unfortunately not the ones with chocolate chips.
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