Year 2 Archery and Problem Solving Extravaganza!

Year 2 were lucky enough to enjoy a session of archery and team building games.

We enjoyed ourselves and built on our aiming and problem solving skills. 

Dance Coaching

Over the past 6 weeks Chilcote Primary School has been visited, once a week, by Hayley Clarke (a tremendous dance coach). This was part of the free coaching service provided as part of the Baverstock School Sports Partnership. She has taught a mixed group of year 3 children over this period.  They have all really enjoyed the sessions and have learnt lots of new moves. They mostly concentrated on a hip-hop street dance style routine. The sessions culminated in the children showing their parents the routine they had learnt. What a performance, they were absolutely brilliant!!!

 

Archery at Chilcote

On Friday 14^th February Blackwell Court visited Chilcote Primary School. They sent two instructors in order to give all of the children the opportunity to have a go at archery, as not all children get the chance to do this on the residential trips. 5 Poplar had a great time learning to shoot the arrows, despite the terrible weather conditions. A number of arrows managed to hit the targets, but only 1 bull was hit in 5 Poplar’s attempts. Not only did the children get to do archery, but they also got to do some team building and problem solving activities. The children had to transfer a hoop around themselves standing in a circle, when they were unable to break the circle. They also attempted the tower of Hanoi problem using tyres. A big thank you to the instructors from Blackewell Court for al of their efforts and for helping the children.

Athletics Finals

On Thursday 13^th February Chilcote Primary School represented the Baverstock Partnership in the Winter games Level 3 competition, after they won the level 2 sportshall atheltics competition earlier in the year. The event took place at the Nechells community centre in Birmingham. Chilcote were competing against 12 other schools. They competed in various different events, with each member of the squad taking part in 2 field events and 2 track events. Some of the events were; javelin, standing long jump, triple jump, chest push, speed bounce, relay, 2 lap relay, over under relay, obstacle relay, and 6 lap parluf. After putting in a tremendous effort the Chilcote athletics team finished in 6^th place in Birmingham, which was a tremendous achievement, well done guys!!!

Hockey Finals

On Wednesday 12^th February Chilcote Primary School represented the Baverstock Partnership in the Winter games Level 3 competition, after they won the level 2 hockey competition earlier in the year. The event took place at the Futsal arena in Birmingham. Chilcote were in a group with 5 other schools. They played out all of their group matches and didn’t lose a single game. The team drew the first 4 games despite being on top in all of them they just couldn’t take their chances. In the final game they won 2v0, a result which meant they secured a place in the semi-finals. Unfortunately, they lost the semi-final 1v0 with the other team taking their only chance. Finally, the team played in the 3^rd and 4^th place play off. A great shot and goal won the game for Chilcote, so they won the Bronze medal and were crowned the 3^rd best school in Birmingham for hockey.  A great achievement by all of the team well done!!!

Basketball Tournament

On the 29.01.2014 the Chilcote basketball team (mixed) attended Baverstock secondary school for a basketball tournament against Bells Farm, Hollywood and many other teams. 

 

The scores were as following:

Game	Score (us – them)
1	10 - 0
2	4 - 0
3	2 - 4

 

Our first two games were group games and winning them both meant that we qualified to play in the final against the winners of the other group. We played valiantly against Hollywood but in the end they were just too good for us on the day.

In conclusion, we thoroughly enjoyed the tournament , would love to go again.  And got some awesome medals!  Thank you for reading.

 

Article by Jay

Video lessons: Maths: Converting fractions to decimals using the Bus Stop method

Bye Bye ICT; Hello Computing!

From September 2014, ICT will be replaced by Computing. This change aims to equip children with the all problem-solving skills and knowledge of the digital world they and society will need. This is called Computational Thinking and is explained in the video above.

Of course, children will still need to learn how to word process, create presentations and above all be safe using technology, but they will now also learn how to use computer code to create their own games and program robots, for example.

Why not try a bit of coding yourself? You'll be surprised how easy it is. These two websites are lots of fun . . .

ROBO-BOOGIE Click on Code Mode and experiment.

CODE.ORG  The women and men behind some of world's most famous websites guide you through creating your own game programs.

Other easy to understand coding sites can be found here.

Are you a parent whose job involves Computing? Could you share your expertise with the children at Chilcote? We'd be delighted to hear from you - just click here.

Year 5's Trip to Blakesley Hall


On Tuesday 11^th February Year 5 went on a trip to Blakesley Hall as part of their topic work on Tudors. Even in despite of the weather, we had a great day looking around a timber framed Tudor hall.  Whilst we were there, we learnt about what types of clothing Tudors wore, how a Tudor house was built (including why certain materials were used), what rooms we would expect to see in a Tudor home and how the items in their home could determine whether they were rich or poor.   The children loved dressing up and learning new, fascinating facts. 

 

Year 4 Topic: Visit from Islamic Relief

To finish off our Active Planet topic, where we have been investigating earthquakes, tsunamis and volcanoes, we had a visit from Yasmeen Ismail of Islamic Relief.

She described the great work Islamic Relief does in supporting victims of disasters in more than 40 countries across the world. Did you know they will respond to any major disaster within 72 hours as part of their teamwork with the Disasters Emergency Committee?

We considered the effects of devastating events such as earthquakes and floods and what the victims’ needs would be. Our experience of running our own Disaster Relief Centre certainly helped us to imagine what life in a disaster zone would be like.

It was a thought-provoking end to a fascinating topic.

Safer Internet Day 2014

Today, along with schools all over the world, we all took part in Safer Internet Day. The day started with an assembly where the theme was ‘Let’s create a better internet together’. We participated in ‘Chilcote Search’ and saw how we are all part of the internet by pretending the whole school was a search engine.

After that, we went back to our classes and enjoyed various activities. By the end of the day, we had all created an E-Safety poster put up at home, so we could help keep our families safe, too.

We love the internet and we know how to be responsible digital citizens.

PS Look out for the letter about the E-Safety for Parents evening on Tuesday 11^th March from 7pm-8pm and don't forget to check out the E-Safety resources on the Chilcote website.

Value of the Month - Patience.

We are thinking about patience during February.  Can you think of any moments when you have had to be patient?

List of iPad apps

Many visitors at our recent Community iPad Afternoon requested a list of all the apps we had deployed on the school's iPads.

Well, here it is. Just follow this link. Then select Download.

School Council: St. Bernadettes’s Catholic School Visit

On Wednesday 5^th February 2014, St. Bernadette’s Catholic School visited; they asked us questions about our school, so that they can make improvements to their school (particularly their playground). They loved how our playground was full of terrific equipment, such as the ‘Huff and Puff’ and the gardening areas. We also asked them questions about their school: we wanted to know how Catholic schools are different to ours. Here are some of the questions and the answers they gave:

What do you like best about our playground?

M.U.G.A. (multiple use games and activities centre) or the ‘Cage!’

What electronics do you use for your lessons?

They used Kindles® to read sometimes.

What is the subject that most people like?

Everyone’s favourite subject is PE!

Why did you come to our school?

They came to see what equipment we had in our playground, so that they could utilise our ideas to improve on their playground.

What do you think of our school?

“It’s great: your playground is so amazing; the huff and puff is my favourite!” – explained Zach, a child from St. Bernadette’s.

What lessons do you do?

The lessons that we do are exactly the same as yours, except we are a Catholic School.

What’s the best thing in your school?

The best thing in our school is the ‘quiet area’ in our playground.

In conclusion, St. Bernadettes School visited to sample parts of our playground. Also, they had a great time and thoroughly enjoyed their visit! Thank you, Councillors Jay and Zak.

Year 4 visit Symphony Hall and the new Library of Birmingham

On Monday 4^th February 2014, year 4 went on a fabulous trip to Symphony Hall and the new library in town. We walked to the train station and waited for the train to come. Then when the train arrived we jumped on. We arrived in town at 10:30 then we went towards Symphony Hall. We sat down at the front and listened to many different amazing young groups created by teens themselves. The musical styles included jazz, classical and soul. Some of the musicians talked to us about their instruments, too.

After that we went back outside to walk to the new library. Then the two classes split up and went in different parts of the building. 4 Lime went to the kids’ reading section first, while 4 Maple were up on the big balcony with views all across Birmingham. In the kids’ section, there were lots of cushions and exciting books to read. On the balcony (51 metres high), there were lots of benches and pebbles on pathways, which were described as mazes. 

After a busy day, we started to head back to the train station again, we went back onto the train ready to walk back to school. Then we walked back to school very weary and tired, but happy. We got ready to go home and a great day was finished.

By Gabrielle, 4 Lime.

Community iPad afternoon

Chilcote's Digital Leaders share their expertise.

This afternoon, over 40 people from all ages came in to see how iPads are changing the way children at Chilcote learn. Our talented team of Digital Leaders were on hand to demonstrate apps and answer questions. Jaws dropped when they also showcased some of the new technology which will be a feature of next year’s Computing curriculum at Chilcote such as the fabulous Sphero - a fully programmable robot ball!

Thank you to everyone who was able to support this event.

Watch this space for details of the forthcoming 'E-Safety for Parents' evening . . .

Feedback

When examining many different studies on what helps children make the greatest progress, feedback is often cited as being one of the most influential factors.  By feedback we mean what we say to children, the comments teachers write in their books, giving children an opportunity to give us feedback so we know how we are doing as parents and teachers and feedback between peers.  The video below from Carol Dweck tells us that it is important to praise children’s efforts rather than stating how clever they are.  If you praise a child for persevering they will go on trying.  It is also important to talk positively around your children – comments such as “Oh well, I was never really that good at maths when I was your age,’’ or “I never enjoyed PE and games when I was at school,” will have quite an influence on your child’s attitude.

 

Year 4 Science: Friction

Today, we investigated how different surfaces create different amounts of friction force. We tried to time how fast an object rolled down ramps, but we found the stopwatches and our reaction times didn’t give us reliable results. Therefore, we decided to film our experiments in iMovie on the iPads. When we played them back, we could slow down the recording to count the number of frames it took for the object to travel down the ramps. There are 25 frames in one second: the surface the objects rolled down fastest was the smooth wood (14 frames, so less friction) whereas the bumpy carpet was the slowest surface (23 frames, so more friction as it took more frames).

Interview with the Chair of Governors

We have some extremely exciting news! The Year 6 Councillors have been asked to interview Reverend Stevenson, who is Chilcote’s Chair of Governors (a very important role).

The School Council’s Secretary and Chairman (Zakariya and Jay) will be asking him all about his job and finding out exactly what a Chair of Governors is.

The School Council have come up with some great questions for us to ask, but please feel free to suggest any more in the comments section below this post.

Fortunately we will be filming the interview on an iPad and it will be posted on to the school website for everyone to see. We will keep you updated of any news.

Thank you for reading.

Your School Councillors,

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