End of Term is Fast Approaching!

This has been the busiest Term in a long time! Winter has hit hard this week, and today is Pyjama Day - so many students are here in their winter woollies, dressing gowns and slippers on too! As it is getting colder, students are allowed to bring slippers (although I'd draw the line at those huge monster feet slippers) to school to wear inside The grass is so wet and boggy in parts, that their shoes are always muddy, so it helps keep the carpet clean too!

For the past two Friday afternoons we have been walking down to Holmdene to spend some time with the elderly residents. This was an interesting experience as many children had not spent a lot of time with the older generation. The students shared their art work, read their poems and just sat and chatted. It was a great way to spend Friday afternoons.

As part of our Maths lessons we have been learning about scales of enlargement. To practice this, we combined an art activity and came up with some very impressive drawings! Students were surprised, firstly, that they could actually rule straight lines (and so was I!) and, secondly, how well they could replicate a very small picture. 

We are getting very close to the handing in of Science Fair projects. It has been great to see what the Year 7 and 8s have come up with as their projects. To ensure everyone had an idea of what was expected (especially the Year 7 students), we conducted an experiment in class and wrote it up exactly how it should be done on their poster boards. We used Granny Smith apples and tried to find out why, once cut, they turn brown if left out. We then tried to find ways to stop this happening so that fruit salads could be left without fruit looking unappetising. We added lemon juice, lime juice, sprinkled citric acid, used vegetable oil and vinegar. Students then timed how long it took their apples to brown (if at all) and made comparisons to the control piece. It generated some fantastic discussion amongst the students and then we wrote up the different sections of a science fair board together. Hopefully this will help students set out their science fair project. Remember: SCIENCE FAIR IS DUE IN FIRST DAY OF TERM 3 to ensure we have time to select winners before Science Fair.

Hockey Tournament is on Monday  next week - students need to remember full sports uniform and warm clothes to put on as well. No metal tags on boots and a mouth guard is compulsory. We have been lucky to have some lessons from Julia for Hockey, so we are ready to go!

Two weeks of Term to go! Where has time gone???