Downsview 'street party' in honour of HRH Queen's 90th birthday!

On Friday 10th June, we held a celebratory street party style lunch in honour of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II's 90th birthday.

The sun shone, the picnic came out and a good time was had by all! In the photo below, children and staff are enjoying their picnic...a big thank you must go to the kitchen team for producing a delicious feast and to our Year 5 and 6 children who worked as 'waiters/waitresses' for our younger children.

 

 

The celebrations will continue on Thursday 16th June when we hold a Festival of Country Dancing - another special event to mark The Queen's 90th milestone. Parents are welcome to attend the celebrations. The festival will begin in the main school playground at 9:15a.m.

Year 5/6 PGL Residential (June 2016)



Our Year 5 & 6 children had a tremendous three days at PGL recently, enjoying the thrills and challenges of activities including climbing, rifle shooting, abseiling, raft building, scaling Jacob's Ladder and trapeze jumping to name but a few!

In the photo below, the children have worked together to build a raft...and were doing a 'dry-run' before launching onto the lake.

The children returned to school full of stories - excited and eager to tell all...but very tired too!

Thank you to staff at PGL for their hard work and a special thanks to Mrs Morgan, Mr Harris, Mrs Farmer and Mr Rafter who led our residential trip and worked 24/7!

I hope that the memories will live for a very long time! A brilliant experience enjoyed by all!

Year 6 SATs...

Just a quick follow up from yesterday's blog about the Year 6 SATs...I thought I'd just share a few photos with you...along with cake, popcorn and fruit, we had a lovely afternoon!

The pizza man cometh...

Year 6 enjoying a well deserved slice or two (or three!) of Domino's finest!

Teamwork and camaraderie...

Relaxing and having fun...

I hope that all Year 6 children are having a great weekend and relaxing after such hard work and focus last week! We're looking forward to a really positive end to the year now...there is still lots to do so expectations will remain high - be ready to continue impressing us as you head towards the secondary transition!

Year 6 SATs complete!

After a tough week of SATs tests (Reading, Grammar, Punctuation & Spelling and 3 x Mathematics Papers) our Year 6 children are relaxing today! The pizza has been ordered...the sun is shining and delicious homemade cakes have been kindly brought in from home! (Great baking skills!)

I hope that all of our Year 6 pupils feel proud of themselves - the level of focus, concentration and effort in every test was commendable. Despite some nerves and apprehension (and a broken toe!), the children stayed calm and gave it 100%. We can't ask for more than that - well done, Year 6!

Pizza images to follow!

Cheeky aliens say farewell!

Year 1's friendly alien visitors departed school recently, but before doing so left these photos! Personally, I think they're pretty cheeky! Firstly, can you work out where the aliens were when they took the first two photos? And secondly, how did they know about 'selfies' on planet earth?!

Green Alien obviously took this photo...but where are they playing?

 

Pink Alien handled the camera here, but where are they?

How cheeky! A 'selfie' indeed!

Year 1 Space Exploration...

Check out this cool video of our Year 1 pupils testing their water bottle rockets. In the classroom, they looked at different rocket designs before designing their own. When I asked the children if their design was any different to the finished article, I was told "not really - we stuck to the plan!"

How cool was that?!

Not only have they been rocket designers, but Year 1 have also been scarecrow designers! Supported by Ms Hall, a parent volunteer, Birch Class have entered the Royal Horticultural Society's Scarecrow Competition.

The school is proudly entering 'Mr. Saturn'. Please take a look! Based on Saturn, the Roman God of Harvest, all of the Year 1 children contributed to the entry.

Say hello to Mr. Saturn!

World Book Day 2016!

World Book Day - Thursday 3rd March 2016
Downsview celebrated their love of books last week during World Book Day...and what a fantastic day it was!

Everyone (staff included) were invited to dress as their favourite book character; it was lovely to see a range of costumes and hear the children speak about their chosen characters with such enthusiasm. Thank you to everyone at home for supporting the event – the costumes were fabulous!

The day began with a ‘share-a-book’ activity giving the children a chance to read with a family member. Thank you to all parents and carers who were able to come along and join us.

Afterwards, the children attended a special assembly where they were set a writing competition. Each class was given a key text and a mystery envelope. Inside the envelope was either a picture of a character or setting which the children had to include in their own writing.

Throughout the day, children explored their key text; planned in detail their writing; role-played in small groups and then used all of the spoken language they collated to write up their terrific stories. Teachers were then given the very difficult task of choosing a winning entry from their class. Every child in the school created a super piece of writing and should be very proud of their entries.

The winners of the writing competition can be seen in the photo below. Congratulations to you all!

Congratulations to the winners of the World Book Day writing competition. Stefan is not photographed (but won the Year 5 entry - well done!)

The winner of the Year 5 writing competition was Stefan but sadly he is missing from the photo! Never mind…he still gets to take home a brand new copy of the book on which Year 5 based their writing! Well done! All winners received a brand new copy of the text from the day and their stories have  been collated to produce a World Book Day scrapbook along with photographs and quotes.

Mrs Selmi should be thanked for her efforts in organising such a great day! Reading is a key life skill used every-day and it is absolutely crucial that all of our children can read, comprehend and talk about the books they read in readiness for the future.