Last week all classes in Year 1 and 2 attended a cricket workshop provided by a coach. This was to promote All Stars cricket sessions starting in St Ives – you may have seen the mascot giving out leaflets! The children practised throwing, catching and batting. They had an amazing time.
During National Black History month, we have been learning about Black History and exploring the lives of significant people around the world. During one week, we found Rosa Parks very inspiring because she refused to get off her seat and stood up for her rights. This was breaking the law in her time because black people had to give up their seats for white people if the bus was full. We thought that she was brave and strong. We also learned about lots of other people and how they created change such as: Walter Tull, Harriet Tubman, Martin Luther King and Mary Seacole. We really enjoyed learning about these amazing people
Last week our Year 5/6 rugby squad attended a rugby tournament hosted by Westfield Junior School. Our two teams played very well and came second and fifth overall. Billy said “It was fun to play and we kept on running to score tries. We won some of our games but didn’t win the whole competition.” Thank you to the parents who helped on the trip.
THE NETBALL TOURNAMENT AT ST IVO
Last week, two teams of Year 5 and 6 netball players represented Thorndown at the ST Ivo tournament. Once we got there we had a lovely introduction from the leading staff. We sat down and had a photo on the net ballcourt then we started to train for our games and learn.
In the first game we didn’t get off to a good start but we improved massively however we lost 4-0, we learned from our mistakes. In the next game we lost however we moved positions and engaged new tactics, they worked! We still lost 2-0 but this was a good improvement. We stuck with the tactics and moved positions once again and drew 1-1…. it seemed our tactics really worked.
Once we had played all of our games we learned from the Year 6 team, we learned a lot and had fun during the tournament. Written by Mason and Ellis
On Tuesday 8th February 2022, the whole of Thorndown celebrated Safer Internet Day, alongside 170 other countries across the globe. Each year, the UK Safer Internet Centre shares a theme that it thinks is important for young people to have an understanding of. This year, the theme was ‘All fun and games?’, which explored respect and relationships online. With the pandemic meaning that opportunities to play face-to-face with friends have been more limited, a lot of us and our young people have turned to using online gaming platforms and chat software to keep in touch.
If you would like more information about Safer Internet Day and the importance of promoting online safety, please have a look at the Computing page on our school website.
This week, seven children represented Thorndown at the Panathlon. There was a game where you threw bean bags onto numbered squares and whatever the number was, you got that many points. We also did this game called “Flight path” where you threw coloured balls on to their respective colour. My team and I completed in “Messi football” . Our school came in 4th place overall. Finally, the last tasks were Polybat, parachute popcorn, table cricket and curling. We had a brilliant time and want to thank our TAs and teachers for taking us.
By Phoenix, Year 5
On Friday 3rd December, Year 3 went on a trip to Leicester museum and gallery. We took part in an Ancient Egyptians workshop. We had the chance to touch real artefacts from the civilisation, we saw real mummies and we got to dress up like ancient Egyptians! We also saw some of Picasso’s works in person which linked to our learning in Art last half term!
Evelyn said, “I enjoyed seeing the mummies because I love hearing about what happened to people in Egypt!”
“I really enjoyed learning more about the Ancient Egyptians and finding out about what kinds of food they would have eaten!” Alfie added.
We were really impressed by all of the Year 3 children and their fantastic knowledge of the Egyptians, which they applied to all of the things they saw and heard in the museum. They definitely did Thorndown proud!
We had loads of fun on Tudor day because we took part in lots of activities that the Tudors would have done every day. In the morning, we tried candle making, apothecary, leather marking and even visiting a doctor to check out our medieval illnesses.
At the end of the day, we all had a Tudor feast and put on performances for each other as the Tudors may have done. We were singing, acting, dancing and there were some jesters telling some jokes.
We all had fun and participated in everything and listened to the news of Anne Boleyn’s trial and execution. It was a brilliant day!
All the children at Thorndown School have been exploring ways to keep themselves and others safe during National Anti-Bullying week. It is so important that this is a subject we all talk about openly and empower our pupils with key strategies to stop it from happening in or out of school.
“Bullying is behaviour that hurts someone else. It includes name-calling, hitting, pushing, spreading rumours, threatening or undermining someone. It can happen anywhere – at school, at home or online. It’s usually repeated over a long period of time and can hurt a child both physically and emotionally”- NSPCC
Foundation Stage children thought about what it meant to be a kind friend. They found that some words and actions were not kind.
Year 1 created their own rainbow of ‘kind’ words. They also had a pot of kindness; each time somebody said or did something kind, they put a pom-pom in the jar!
Year 2 looked at ‘One Kind Word’ and together explored the importance of being kind. They created kindness jars in our classroom and all the children have been working so hard to use kind words and actions.
Year 3 focused on learning the difference between friends falling out and bullying behaviour. They thought about the Peaceful Problem Solving process for if we fell out with friends and wanted to reach a solution together.
Year 4 designed and created posters, which were displayed around school. They have been busy learning about friendships and empathy as part of our PSHE.
Year 5 shared talked in depth about where bullying might take place and who might be involved. Thinking from the viewpoint of the bully brought up some interesting ideas. They also thought about witnesses to bullying and their role.
Year 6 talked about different bullying that can occur and what bullying actually is. They discussed how to defend others and keep
