Infant & Junior newsletter

Infants & Juniors

N EWSLETTER. January Issue JUNIORS

Junior Swimming Gala The 26th Annual Junior School Swimming Gala took place last week with the children parading in their Houses around the pool waving their flags to a packed seating area of proud parents and grandparents.

Every child swam in at least one race and every completed swim scored points for their team, so it was important for all those taking part to make sure that they finished the race, which they all did.

For the fastest swimmer in each stroke a trophy was awarded by Mr Corns the Senior School Headmaster.

It was a fabulous gala with the closest result for many years. Grenville and Frobisher just beat Howard and Raleigh to first place with Drake and Hawkins not too far behind.

Tom Nixon-Taylor as House captain received the Fred Raby Trophy from Mr Corns.

Quality. Excellence. Guidance. Success.

SINCE

1509

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Reception News

Kung Hei Fat Choy!

Another highlight of the half term was Chinese New Year. Reception found the different traditions fascinating, especially the story of the Zodiac Race which they re-enacted with gusto!

Reception class have had a wonderful half term and have thoroughly enjoyed their ‘food’ topic. They had a very exciting week when they discovered that someone had been in to the home corner, eaten all the food and made a huge mess, leaving footprints everywhere. After some very serious detective work involving magnifying glasses, the children decided that it was the tiger from the story ‘The Tiger Who Came to Tea’ by Judith Kerr. The children wrote some lovely sorry letters from the tiger and then decided to invite the tiger to tea to teach him some table manners! They then followed some instructions to make jam sandwiches for him. Look at our scary tiger masks!

Book Fair The Infant School have been very fortunate to have had a visit from ‘The Travelling Book Company’ between the 11th -15th of February.

This has proved very successful and a wonderful opportunity for the children to choose and purchase a book from the large selection of genre available.

Thank you for your continued support.

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They enjoyed watching a dragon dance before making their own dragons to dance with and also made Chinese lanterns, snakes and fans. The children all wrote their names in Chinese symbols and some children even attempted to write full sentences too! We provided some chopsticks and noodles and encouraged the children to take part in the ‘Chopstick Challenge’ which involved using the chopsticks to move the noodles from one container to another. This was great fun to watch!

The children put this new skill to great use during our Chinese New Year banquet and sampled lots of different Chinese foods. They even had a fortune cookie to take home too. Reception Class would like to say a big thank you to Tassia in Year Two, for bringing all sorts of exciting goodies to school to help us with our topic.

INFANTS

Weaving, Warps and Wefts!

Year 1 has been busy learning how to weave in Art – it has been very tricky! We have learned that the warp is the vertical threads going up and down and the weft is the horizontal threads that weave across going over and under!

We have made our own creative warps, to look like spider webs…

Here are some of the Year 1 boys making their warp ‘frames’.

Warburtons Visit The Infant children were extremely lucky to have a special visitor from Warburtons bakery.

Mrs Noon from the bakery told the children about the history of Warburtons and demonstrated how to make a loaf of ‘hedgehog bread’. Each child was then given the opportunity to make their own hedgehog, the end results were amazing!! Bread tasting was also on the morning agenda, all the

Infant School Stars of the week Week 1 Reception – Year 1 Ryan Kennedy Year 2 Hasan Malik Week 2 Reception Aamna Year 1 Zayyan Hussain Year 2 Libby Neal

girls and boys tasted white, brown, seeded and fruit bread, the most popular being the brown bread. Mrs Noon generously gave each child a loaf of milk roll to take home with them…..thank you Warburtons.

There are plenty of photos on the media drive to accompany the writing, they are in the Feb folder labelled ‘Warburtons’.

INFANT SCHOOL – DIARY DATES

Week 3 Reception Hamza Ahmed Year 1 Inaayah Balapatel Year 2 Zulquarnain Sarwar

15.04.13 School begins after Easter Holidays

Week 4 Reception Dan Clark Year 1 Ryan Kennedy Year 2 Toby Fairfoot

04.06.13 School begins

06.05.13 Key Stage 1 SATS Week 13.05.13 Year 2 go to Wellybobs 24.05.13 School closes for half term holiday

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INFANTS

Year 1’s Lucky Dancing Dragon Year 1 have been exploring how we can use various materials in art this half term.

We used what we have learned about scrunching, tearing, stretching and weaving in a project to create a Chinese dancing Dragon!

We combined our Art topic with our work in Science on properties of materials and our Literacy work on tales from other cultures to create a lovely Chinese New Year display.

We have written newspaper articles about the cheating rat from the Chinese zodiac story; labelled Chinese dragons; used Chinese Mandarin numerals in our addition work; made some beautiful Chinese lanterns, Chinese dragons and have done some excellent weaving using ‘lucky’ Chinese colours!

Supersonic Vehicles!

Year two had a brilliant time working on their latest Design Technology topic. This term they have been studying vehicles of all shapes and sizes. Vehicles were initially designed on paper before going back to the drawing board in order to improve the superb designs. Having created a design with which they were happy, the children proceeded to construct the vehicles, with of course a few modifications along the way.

Weird and wonderful cars began to emerge, all of which were going to win the race. Of course the highlight was testing the vehicles and rectifying any design faults. The final task, before evaluating the finished models, was to race them in order to find out who had built the fastest vehicle. The results certainly exceeded the expectations of Mrs Taylor. Congratulations to Libby who was first and Toby and Jalal who were second and third respectively. It was certainly a fun day and we are pleased to report that all vehicles were still intact at the end of the day!

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JUNIORS

Able, Gifted and Talented Programme As part of the Able, Gifted and Talented programme, children in the Junior School are set additional work according to their ability. The material intends to challenge the children and extend their learning even further. The following pieces of work - the outcome of such challenges - highlight the capabilities of just a few of the children at Queen Elizabeth’s Grammar School, The Junior School.

The Park The park stands empty as the grey sky is approaching. Patches of light can still be seen and only the quiet chirping of birds can be heard. Empty swings sway gently in the breeze. A big black crow is the only visitor, pecking for crumbs. Trees stand tall with their bare branches, still like statues.

Bulbs grow as spring creeps up. The park is waiting for the warmth of the sun to bring out the boys and girls.

By Mia Smith (Year 3) Swimming Hats People wear swimming hats to keep their hair out of their eyes when they go swimming.

The hats are made from latex, silicone or lycra. These materials are tight fitting and hug the skull of the swimmer.

Swimming hats can also be worn to keep the hair dry, to keep sun off the hair and to keep water out of the ears. During the 2012 London Olympics, some swimmers wore two hats to make a smooth surface over the goggles. This improves the streamline and helps the swimmer go faster.

Deep Routed They’re green and brown they can fall down. They’re here, they’re there, they’re everywhere. They come in different shapes and sizes, their leaves like colour changing prizes. Now they can make all sorts of things, from paper planes to chessboard kings.

When winter comes they end up bare.

It’s lovely leaves it has to share. I know it does not seem that fair but that’s the way it goes. So there.

By Mia Smith (Year 3)

By Zak Bux

Year 3 Trip to Museum of Science and Industry, Manchester Year 3 has been studying Light and Shadow in Science lessons, so as part of their studies, Miss Ince took them to the Museum of Science and Industry in Manchester.

The morning was spent taking part in five different activities. These included looking at how much light could pass through different materials, how we can change the size of shadows and how we can reflect and refract light. By refracting light using prisms the children created lots of rainbows, this proved to be the most favourite activity. The children also had time to explore other parts of the museum and have some fun playing with the scientific puzzles and games in the Experiment area.

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Val Tyler visits the Junior School Val Tyler told us a story about a traveller going to a town and meeting some people; it was particularly clever because the people that she met turned out to be Mary, Joseph and the baby Jesus, and the town was Bethlehem!

Zak Bux from Year 5, Jessica Walsh, James Heys and Harry Motupalli – all from Year 6 won first prize in the Val Tyler competition that Mrs Dewhurst organised. There were also prizes for the top three winners as well: George Lewis and I did well enough to receive a prize.

Cooper Melville Year 6

On a very stormy Tuesday, Val Tyler (an author and storyteller) came to visit us in order of World Storytelling Week. Year 5 and 6 met in the Main Hall and were greeted

by Val Tyler wearing her multicoloured storytelling jacket. She started off by telling us all about her father – it was a very interesting story which gave me lots of ideas for my own stories. My favourite story she told us was about another lady member of her family, Jessica, and she had seen a two people in the garden, complaining about the flowers not being right and her not dressing properly. The woman had dark brown hair tied into a bun on top of her head and small glasses.

The man had a smart waistcoat on

with almost identical glasses to the woman’s, he then walked through a wall, and at that point Jessica realised that they were ghosts.

Jessica’s Auntie, Val Tyler, showed her some pictures of two people and they were the same people she had seen in the garden. They were her great, great Aunt and Uncle! It was a very interesting story and was easily, as I said before, my favourite.

I would like to say thank you to Mrs Dewhurst for inviting Val Tyler to tell us amazing stories. Of course a huge thanks to Val Tyler (thanks to her I walked away with a free, signed copy of her book: The Time Apprentice). THANK YOU! Jessica Walsh J6

Val Tyler’s visit will stay with me for some time. She told us a couple of stories but one really touched me. It was about her dad and his plane (in the war) and how he had wanted to be a pilot. It highlighted to us that dedication and hard work pay off if you have goals that you want to achieve.

One of the costumes that she brought to show us was around 100 years old.

By Charlotte Hepworth J6

Many thanks to Mrs Dewhurst for organising such a special treat for the Year 5 and 6 children. Well done to the children for participating with such enthusiasm; I know you had a great morning.

3rd Prize: Sulaiman Akhtar, Yusuf Ali, Adam Balapatel, Joe Ellison, Oliver Fairfoot, Ibrahim Patel, Talha Shah, Cooper Melville and George Lewis.

2nd Prize: Eddison HolmesDennett and Izaak Liversage.

1st Prize: Zak Bux, James Heys, Harry Motupalli and Jessica Walsh.

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JUNIORS

Our Trip To Ribchester Choir with Jeff Roman Museum Jeff Borradaile from the Blackburn Cathedral First Mr. Clare took the register, we then lined up and trooped to the bus. I sat next to Aleena and we played I Spy with Mrs. Fairfoot. Finally we arrived at Ribchester.

As we walked from the bus to the museum we passed a pub called the White Bull, which is over 700 years old.

When we arrived at the museum we were met by a man called Patrick. He took us into a classroom where he talked about the Romans and told us there was a Roman Fort that is 2000 years old under Ribchester.

We then had an interactive session and tried on replicas of Roman armour, which was very heavy and uncomfortable. Patrick let us handle Roman coins. It’s incredible to think this was somebody’s wage and has come all the way from Rome to Ribchester. We then went to the Roman Granary where they stored their food, wheat for making bread, fish and meat.

Music Outreach Project popped into school to put our singers through their paces before the big concert at King George’s Hall.

We went to St. Wilfred’s Church Hall to eat our packed lunch. After lunch we had a big class game of tig on the playground. Even Mr. Clare joined in although he was not very good!

After the lunchbreak we walked to the Roman Bath House, which are ruins of the walls. In the bathhouse was a Roman Well where we looked for artefacts, I found a small piece of brick. There was a Calidarium in the Roman Bath House, which is a room with a hot plunging bath.

In conclusion we all had a wonderful day, but I would not have liked to have been a child in Roman times, however, I would love to go to the museum again.

Esme Wilcock

CREDITS 20 CREDITS Daniel Luxton- Blakeman, Joe Ellison, David Clare, Zaidan Patel, Muhammed Adnan Omar, Evan Cunningham, Hamza Yasin, Natasha Hartshorne-Evans, Mia Smith, William Simmons, Yusuf Ali, Adil Umerji, Aleena Ilyas, Adam Balapatel, Sulaiman Akhtar, Areez Malik, Talha Shah, Thomas Buckle, James Heys, Alex Jones, Lilly Sort, Mackenzie Cunningham, Laaibah Ahmad

50 CREDITS Niamh Hamilton, Sofia Carrera-Knowles, Eze Obasi, Meghan Vora, Milo Gammon, Faheem Hussain, Gabriella Sandham, Adam Ilyas, Zak Bux, Adam White, Cooper Melville

75 CREDITS Charlotte Hepworth, Hamza Bux, Yameen Raja

100 CREDITS Jessica Walsh, Dean Ilyas, Charlotte Hepworth

120 CREDITS! Jessica Walsh

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JUNIORS

Sing Together

QEGS Juniors School Choir sang at King George’s Hall in Blackburn recently with children from other local schools. The project called “Sing Together” is run by Blackburn Cathedrals Outreach department and combines training and development for teachers both in school and at the Cathedral.

The children benefit from singing with others in a large venue where parents can watch and appreciate the hard work that has been put in.

It was a fabulous concert, with songs including Abba’s ‘Super Trouper’ and the children signing to ‘What a wonderful World’. All 32 of our children sang their hearts out and they were a real credit to the school.

We will definitely be there next year!

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Queen Elizabeth’s Grammar School, West Park Road, Blackburn, BB2 6DF TEL: 01254 686300 FAX: 01254 692314 EMAIL: headmaster@qegsblackburn.com

WEB: www.QEGSblackburn.com