Head Teacher's Blog 29th January
28th January 2024
Well, there were two ‘firsts’ for us at Swansfield last week. We held the first in our series of Fun with Numbers sessions on Thursday, focusing on our Y6 learners and it was a real success! There was certainly a lot of competitive fun between the children and their parents and most importantly, the opportunity to showcase and demonstrate our calculation work. The next ‘first’ came on Friday when retired NASA astronaut Charles Gemar came to school to speak with our Y5 and 6 children. Charles told us about his three missions to space, the preparation and training this takes and the job he performed when ‘on mission’. He also talked to the children about the feelings and emotions involved in being an astronaut on a mission. Our children made the most of this fabulous opportunity and asked interesting and well-thought out questions - really showcasing themselves as curious learners. Many thanks to Starlight Education for making this experience possible and to Eileen Lomax, head teacher at St Paul’s primary school for ensuring that each Alnwick school was able to hear Charles’ experiences.
Beech class shared a wonderful assembly with their friends and family on Thursday afternoon. It was great to watch them all speaking, singing and even rapping with such confidence and enjoyment. They showcased their fabulous geographical knowledge about the continents and oceans of our world. Well done to you all!
Last week was National Handwriting week and we shone a bit of a spotlight on this key skill. Miss Back, our writing lead, was ready with novelty pens and pencils to reward handwriters from each class who really stood out. So far, prizes have been awarded to Elizabeth in Ash, Casey in Willow, Georgia in Chestnut, Logan in Sycamore, Jack T in Larch and James in Rowan. Well done and keep up the careful work!
Let’s have a look at the week ahead:
-
It’s National Story-Telling week and as part of our celebrations, we have a few surprises up our sleeve. This week, Swansfield does ‘The Masked Story-Teller’. Log on to the website each day for a tale from one of our staff members cunningly disguised as a masked story-teller. I wonder if you can work out who they all are? If you think you know - ask them! We’ll also be working on a whole school story-telling project based upon the picture book Flotsam by David Weisner. There’ll be a video to share re-telling the whole story after our UKS2 children edit and polish it for us all to enjoy.
-
On Thursday it’s the turn of our Y5 learners and their families to enjoy Fun with Numbers. It’s not too late to sign up on the Google form if you haven’t already done so.
-
On Thursday our Y1 children will be heading down to Alnwick Playhouse to join in some workshops alongside the Tutti Frutti Theatre Company as they develop a new show entitled The Glass Slipper.
-
On Friday, we are welcoming Rock Steady into school. They will be giving a whole school assembly (Y1 - Y6) about their love of rock music and opportunities that we can have to create some rock bands at Swansfield. Watch this space!
As always, we have some stars of the week to bring to your attention. Well done to: Adam Casini, Joshua Taylor, Lily Doherty, Joseph Hodson, Alice-Rose Turnbull, Lee Philipson, Franklin Stevens, Harvey Robinson, Noah Edgar-Hogg and Isaac Buddles. Keep up the great work, we are very proud of you all!
As we are all still a little bit ‘starstruck’ over our VIP guest from last week, let’s have another space themed musical treat. Here’s Sam Ryder and Spaceman. Enjoy!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fU5cJfaX3DI
See you in the week,
Mrs G