haxeyapril2012

TRENTSIDE FEDERATION – St Martin’s and West Butterwick Church of England Primary Schools – School News As well as all of the core curriculum studies linked to Maths and Literacy this term, we have had some diverse and exciting learning experiences across both schools.

As part of our schools’ aim to introduce the children to a range of cultures over the Primary years, we invited Culture Connect in for a Maasai Experience. It proved to be an interesting and colourful experience that provided the children with opportunities to learn about the Maasai culture through dressing up in costume, making cultural crafts, tasting delicious African food, hearing exciting eye-witness stories, exploring symbolic artefacts and participating in lively music, chants and dance. Workshop leader Valerie Taiwo talked to the children about the different East African countries and how their culture was different to our own. The children dressed up as Maasai men and women and also performed traditional Maasai Tribe Dances. In the afternoon, the children designed Maasai shields, necklaces and dyed traditional kikoy fabrics to produce blue, white and red patterns.

Following this, there were some treats in store for all pupils and staff who have an interest in things ‘creepy crawly, slithery and slimy’ as a mobile safari visited West Butterwick school on February 21 st. The children were introduced to a range of exotic creatures – molluscs, reptiles, mammals and insects from around the world.

Children handled giant African Land Snails, a Royal Python, a large Dragon Lizard and many more fascinating creatures. This day also encouraged the children to consider the science of why their particular habitats suited the animals’ characteristics, as well as broadening their knowledge of world geography. The snakes and Dragon Lizard were most popular!

Bringing the learning back to a ‘local’ level, pupils at Owston Ferry were visited by three members of the village’s Sports Club – Ian Woodcock, Steve Lilly and Ged Rule. The children had been invited to submit their design ideas for a new Sports Club Sign and this resulted in one overall winner (Charlotte Thornton age 8) as well as runners-up ; Abigail Platt, Jack Foreman, Callum Gallagher, Luke Longhorn, Owen Woodcock and Hannah Thornton. The winners were presented with gift vouchers, but the best prize of all was seeing Charlotte’s striking design transferred on to the actual large Club Sign which will be on permanent display in the village!

Last Autumn Term, we were very pleased to be able to take part in the historical project linked to the repositioning of the baptismal font at St Andrew’s Church in Epworth. Over the last two terms, Junior pupils made a series of line drawings depicting aspects of local knowledge and features. A number of our children’s tiles have been selected for the Heritage Pavement to be created as part of this project. The tiles were inspired by ‘the uniqueness of the Isle of Axholme’. Congratulations to Sam Smith, Saskia Heighington, Thomas Latham, Ben Carby, Anna Layton, Holly Lindley, Harry Watts, Ellie Hughes, Jasmine Watson, Lily Todd and Macaulay Scott whose tiles were chosen from both St Martin’s and West Butterwick. The children have made an important and memorable contribution to the living history of St Andrew’s and our locality – we hope that these wonderful tiles last for hundreds of years to come!

On Monday 5th March, St Martin’s school welcomed two very important guests – the Mayor and Mayoress of North Lincolnshire. This visit was in connection with the hard work undertaken by the School Council and the pupils on the ‘Litter Busting’ work. The school is now applying for its Silver Eco Schools Award and we are then looking forward to ‘going for gold’. The Mayor and Mayoress presented the prizes for our ‘Design a Sculpture’ from recycled rubbish competition, as organised by the School Council. Overall winner was Ellie Wilkinson with her wonderful elephant watering can made up of an old milk carton and some cardboard tubes. We had a range of imaginative entries. One, a recycling robot design, even contained an electrical circuit so that its mouth and eyes lit up when its nose The sign design competition winners for Owston was pressed! Many thanks to Councillor Jan Williams of Ferry Owston Ferry Parish Council who donated the gift Sports Club! vouchers for prizes. All runners-up received Easter Eggs, so everyone was a winner! It was a thoroughly 42 andPlease “Thethat Arrow” when to advertisements enjoyable thought mention provoking project enabled us to seeresponding rubbish in a different light!