The day the helicopter came to school

Today will forever be known as "the day the helicopter came to school". What an exciting event.
I saw an advert for Heli-wise some time ago, offering schools free visits by a helicopter. I immediately sent an email, half expected to be told that they were oversubscribed. But it didn't take long before I was given a date and a risk assessment was being carried out. Yesterday we spent some time arranging the 400+ children in the school into a formation ready for a photo to be taken from the air.

At 10.45am the helicopter arrived! It circled the school and took a photo of the children in their formation. Then there was intense excitement from the children and staff when it landed on the field. The co-pilot then gave a half hour talk to the children about the helicopter and how it works. They were enthralled - everyone from Reception to Year Six!

The children then had their class photos taken in front of the helicopter. There was great delight when it finally set off again. It circled the school, taking aerial photos before setting off for its next destination.

What a fantastic event!

Hot topic?

After a discussion on our residential this week, and after reading a report in the TES, topic work is something on my mind.

The TES writes that their survey last year revealed that four out of five primaries are abandoning traditional teaching and reintroducing 'themed' lessons, which were popular in the 1970s and 1980s.

Researchers from Manchester University found that junior children in 2006 spent almost half their week in English and Maths lessons, and two hours on science. This leaves only an hour for each other subject.

They also found that the focus was shifting away from teaching traditional subjects separately towards a more combined approach in order to cover all aspects of the curriculum. English, they discovered, was being combined with other subjects, such as history, for four-fifths of the time.

Our school will be looking into revamping our curriculum by introducing more topic work. How do other people do this? Is every single lesson part of the topic, or are some subjects still taught discretely, like Maths for example? Any thoughts?

Christmas Play

Started work on the Christmas play today! This year, our grand production is "The Wizard of Oz".

The Times Top 500 State Primary Schools

I have been taking a look at the Times' Top Schools in the country. Not that I am exactly in favour of league tables, it does make us feel proud. There are some impressive results for Cheshire.

4th in the country in the small state primary schools is Duddon St. Peter's C of E Primary School in Tarporley and 6th in the same league is Little Leigh Primary School in Northwich. The highest Cheshire school with over 100 pupils is Prestbury C of E Primary School, Macclesfield.

I am really pleased that at position 253 is Wistaston Junior School. Of course this school no longer exists as we have amalgamated to become Wistaston Church Lane Primary School. But I am very pleased with the result. The top Cheshire state primary schools are:

4 - Duddon St Peter's C of E Primary School, Tarporley

6 - Little Leigh Primary School, Northwich

24 - Smallwood C of E Primary School, Sandbach

64 - Prestbury C of E Primary School, Macclesfield

82 - Black Firs Primary School, Congleton

85 - Davenham C of E Primary School, Northwich

118 - St Luke's RC Primary School, Frodsham Frodsham

138 - Ashdene Primary School, Wilmslow

247 - St Gabriel's RC Primary School, Stoke-on-Trent

253 - Wistaston Junior School, Crewe

335 - Lower Park Primary School, Poynton

337 - Egerton Primary School, Knutsford

343 - Comberbach Primary School, Northwich

422 - St Alban's RC Primary School, Macclesfield

429 - Leighton Primary School, Crewe

476 - Bunbury Aldersey C of E Primary School, Tarporley

508 - Christleton Primary School, Chester

Virtual Learning Platform

Today I attended a course where we were shown how to set up a Virtual Learning Platform for our school. The link will take you to my work very much in progress.

We are using UniServity. The company aims to provide schools with,
"An easy-to-use set of online teaching and learning tools for pupils, teachers and parents. Primary schools can create an ‘interactive playground’ in which pupils can take ownership of their own learning areas, participate in collaborative projects with other children all across the world, and become autonomous and empowered learners.

The cLc has enabled schools to produce the most innovative and inspiring examples of how a learning platform can transform the way a teacher teaches – and more importantly how your children learn!"

This really does look amazing. The possibilties are endless! I was sat at the course thinking, "Wow!" Then I quickly came back down to Earth when I remembered how much work will be involved setting the site up. It does look reasonably straightforward, just time consuming.

Has anyone else set up a VLP?

One week gone already

Doesn't time fly! One week has gone already. My Lucozade addiction is in full swing and it's like we've never been off!

The amalgamation of our junior and infant schools has been interesting so far. Of course, the county would have you believe that amalgamating a schools is all about improving standards by having an consistent education all the way through primary school. In reality, everyone knows it's to save money. Their support has been poor and they seem to have the idea that the amalgamation will just happen without any problems. They go on about the educational benefits and I understand these. What they don't make you fully aware of and don't really provide any where near enough support for is pretty much everything else.

For instance school dinners. Our poor Year Sixes have been left with 5-10 minutes to eat their dinner whilst everyone gets used to providing dinners to around 240 children. The logistics of bringing the infants over to the junior building are difficult. What about the admin? New letterheads and the least of the problems. How about a telephone system that won't work? Computers that do not have the same data? Not being able to order things properly because the new school 'doesn't exist'? The massive operation to give out the new uniform will go on for a few more weeks yet (and that's without the new ties which haven't arrived yet!)

So far its been good fun but very chaotic. I have to give my first ever assembly to the infants on Tuesday! I am quite nervous!

INSET Day

Just as one year has left, we spent the morning of our INSET day preparing a diary of events for the next entire year. How quickly will this one go?!!

With our amalgamation there are exciting times ahead. I'm really looking forward to being part of it!

Leavers' Assembly

We held our Leavers' Assembly today. The children were sensational! Some of the children read their favourite memories of Year Six and the whole school. Everyone was given a part in our History play where the children explained what they learned this year in History. We also had a humorous sketch to show some of the amusing things that happened in our visit to France. We are so proud of the children and how much they have improved and matured this year. I wish them the best of luck for high school and the future.

It always amazes me how kind and generous the children and their parents are. Lots of brilliant gifts! Thank you everyone!

Presentation Evening

Known in school as 'The Oscars', we held our annual Year Six Presentation Evening tonight. This is a lovely evening. Each child is given a certificate to reward their SATs results and they all receive one or two others to celebrate their efforts during the year. PE, Humanities, Maths, English and Science certificates are awarded, as well as prizes for sports stars, musicians and Road Safety Officers. We also have a Maths Student of the Years and and English Student of the Year. Afterwards, our school cook had prepared special cocktails for the children and grown ups and lots of photos were taken!

Grow a Pound Week - Spending the money!

On Tuesday the children made their decisions about how to spend the Grow A Pound Week money. They decided that they wanted to buy some recycling bins for the school. A wise investment, I think, and one which shows how much the children have matured this year!

They decided that their leavers' treat would be to go bowling! Somehow, in just four days a visit to the local bowling alley was arranged. We had a brilliant afternoon and they had a really good time.

Grow A Pound Week has once again proved to be a worthwhile activity and I would recommend anyone to try it. Please get in touch if you'd like further details.

Sports Day

We managed to fit in our sports day today. A really enjoyable afternoon was completed when Dario Gradi came to present the winning team with the trophy!!

Work Experience for Year Sixes?

We arranged for a small number of our Year Sixes to go on work experience today. They went to the Infants and the local nursery school to work with the children. They loved it and I hope it has developed their interest in working with children even further.

I wonder - would it be possible to organise a work experience placement for all the Year Sixes. Maybe there are insurance implications for employers to take in 10-11 year olds. Does anyone else do anything like this? I can't help thinking it would be brilliant!

And more football!

We only went and won the football competition that I mentioned last week! We have an incredible side and I really can't wait to see how well they do next year!!

Wistonia University

So Wistonia University came to a close this week. This has proved to be a huge success and children, staff and volunteers have really enjoyed the experience. The newspapers came round today to take some photos so I'm looking forward to a report being in the Crewe Chronicle soon! On Thursday we will have our Graduation ceremony. Between now and then I've got tonnes of certificates to print out for the children!

Who says you wind DOWN at the end of the year?

Reports

Today we gave the children their SATs results and they were each sent home with their reports. The children have done exceptionally well and we are very proud of them.

It's always a relief to get the reports sent home - they are on your mind for ages!

More football

The problem with being the school football team manager is that if your team does well then the number of nights you have to devote to it increases!

Just when I thought all the football might be over for this year a new competition was announced for pupils in Y4 and 5.

Would you believe it but they won tonight's group stage! They couldn't stop scoring! This now means that we are through to the final on Monday!

Sharing Network Trophy

As a member of the Steering Group of the Primary Strategy Learning Network of which our school is included I wanted to organise something for the children to enjoy before the end of the year.

Over the last few weeks, therefore, I, and some of my Year Sixes, have been organising the Sharing Network Football Trophy, in which the five schools in the network entered teams of pupils in Years 2 and 3.

What an enjoyable afternoon! Particularly because I didn't actually have to do anything! As well as being something for the players to enjoy, to help promote economic well-being I arranged for the Year Sixes to run everything. They were the referees, the commentators and the score keepers. They distributed the refreshments, took the photos, manned the car park (with supervision) and presented the trophy! The children relished their responsibilities and did a fantastic job!

River study is back on

Despite a successful start to Grow a Pound Week I didn't really have time to enjoy it with the children. This is because this morning we went to do a final risk assessment to see if we could have our river study on our reserve date, tomorrow. Would you believe it? After all the rain the river actually was not flowing too fast. The depth was not too bad. I had to dangle from a log with a stick to check the depth and it was fine!

Whilst I am thrilled that the river study can take place after all, it now means that we have today in order to organise a whole visit. I was so convinced it would be cancelled, I haven't bothered with a lot of the preparation!

The worst thing is that by lunchtime we had made arrangements for the visit to be on. However, of course, a few minutes later it was pouring with rain again! I will let you know whether it's a disaster or not tomorrow!

Staff Vs Pupils

Well we didn't let the rain stop one of our other annual traditions. Last year I arranged a football match between the staff and the Year Sixes and it was such a laugh. We drew 0-0 and then lost on penalties.

After being dry all day today it started to rain at about 3pm. But we weren't going to let it stop us! We played in the pouring rain and had a great game. We ended up drawing 5-5 (we equalised in the last second of the game)! We then went on to win 3-2 on penalties!

It's a fantastic laugh and a great way for the children to help end the year!

River study cancelled

Well the rain has claimed yet another disaster - we were supposed to be taking the children to do a river study today. This time last year we were basking in heat on one of the hottest days of the year. Today we wallow in the wettest day of the year. How much water can there be up there?!