Churchfields Weekly Newsletter Friday 09 March 2018

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1 Churchfields Weekly Newsletter Friday 09 March 2018 Dear Parents/Carers, This week s newsletter covers our activities during the last two weeks of school life; as we weren t able to issue one last Friday because of the snow. Thank you for your help last Thursday afternoon in ensuring that all pupils were collected by 1pm. We hope you enjoyed the snow day, despite the cold temperatures. Kind regards, Churchfields The Village School Book Week activities 26 February to 02 March Last week, we celebrated our love of reading with Book Week! Every year, fun and exciting activities are planned and led for the children and 2018 was no exception. In previous years, the theme of Book Week has been a particular author or book, but this year we celebrated the written word in all its forms. In classes, teachers led cross-curricular activities on their favourite stories and texts: from using watercolour paints to explore a snow covered valley from Moominland Midwinter by Tove Jansson; to creating a short dance based on the word play in Robert McFarlene s The Lost Words, and much much more. What really was in that moving mystery box in Woodpecker class? On Wednesday, we invited Travelling Light Theatre Company into school to lead drama workshops based on Jules Verne s Around the World in 80 Days and Journey to the Centre of the Earth. KS1 descended into a volcano, encountering prehistoric animals and natural disasters, and KS2 re-enacted Philleas Fog s journey through India via train, elephant and steamboat. Stem Week activities 05 March We have had lots of exciting activities to celebrate STEM week here are some highlights from Kestrel class pupils. Mad Science On Monday 05 Mach 2018, a visitor from Mad Science came in and taught us lots of exciting experiments including explosions, reactions and propulsion. The first experiment was finding out what you need to make fire. We found out that we needed heat, fuel and oxygen for fire to work. A volunteer came up and put a safety glove and goggles and the visitor then dipped some cotton wool in rocket fuel. The cotton wool was placed on the volunteers gloved hand and set it alight; the fire burned for 3 seconds, consuming the wool and then the fire was gone. After lots of other experiments we looked at how planes take off and land using a toilet roll and a hair dryer. We saw that a hair dryer pushes air down causing it to lift and that is how planes take off. Everyone had an explosive day and really enjoyed the science because everyone could take part. We would all love to do it again! George R On behalf of all the staff, we would like to say a huge thank you for parents' support with World Book Day, and the way the children battled their way through the snow in their very creative costumes! Please come and see the beautiful Reading Tree which showcases the children's love of reading with their favourite book recommendations as well. Bedtime Stories Thank you to everyone who came and enjoyed Bedtime Stories this week. It was fantastic to see so many children back in school to listen to some favourite books and poems and we hope everyone had a great time. A big thank you to the PTA for organising the hot chocolate and biscuits and to all the parents that stayed and helped. Your help and support is very much appreciated. We have been writing biographies of famous computer scientists Grace Hopper by Alex M COBOL, one of the first complex computer languages, was created by Grace Hopper. The naval officer's vision sparked the idea of conversations with machines. Despite her mother disapproving, Grace was fascinated at a young age by alarm clocks and took seven of them apart! Grace knew that the computer language in the navy was too complicated for people to understand. She set out to invent a language that was closer to English. She retired twice from the navy and invented the term "debugging" when she found a moth in the Mark II computer that messed up the system. Contact details: E: admin@churchfields.wilts.sch.uk T:

2 Churchfields Weekly Newsletter Friday 09 March 2018 Annie Easley by Sophie-Louise W African-American Annie Easley, who played a vital part in the launch of the Centaur rocket, is remembered as an amazing rocket scientist of her era. Although Annie came from a black family in the time of segregation, she still had high hopes for her future life and her mother said, "You can do it if you just work hard. Sadly, Annie's lifelong dream (to be a nurse) was shattered when the pharmacy college shut down. However she read in a newspaper that twin sisters were working as computers - good mathematicians - in NACA (early NASA) and got a job there. Annie Easley did the calculations for the rocket fuel so that we can launch rockets and her formula is still used today. She has inspired girls all over the world and if she can do it so can we. 7. Water Tension We had a coin and three liquids: - oil, soapy water and water. We had to see how may drops of each liquid we could get to stay on the coin and then calculate the mean from our experiment. Wednesday 07 March Science Workshops We all joined together on Wednesday at our Atworth Base for a day of science workshops. There were activities throughout the school looking at lots of interesting topics including Thaumatropes, water tension and plastic pollution. We ended the day with a Science Assembly and everyone had a fantastic day. Our day by Ella & Ava Year 6 On Wednesday we had a science day with 7 activities. 1. Plastic Pollution You got a bucket of clean water and you had to pollute it and then try and clean it to show you how we should not pollute our planet. 2. Rapid Reactions We tested our reflexes by dropping a ruler and trying to catch it. We talked about why we need good reflexes in the future. 3. Lava Lamps We made lava lamps by mixing vegetable oil, food colouring, alka seltzer and a few drops of water. The alka selzer tablets made it go bubbly and fizz. 4. Rocket Mice We made cones by bending paper and decorating them as mice. We then grabbed an empty milk bottle and took off the lid. We put the mice on the lid and stamped on the bottle causing the mice to fly. 5. Thaumatropes We made optical illusions with paper by sticking the pictures back to back and then spinning them so that it looked like it was one picture. We stuck a mouse on one side and a piece of cheese on the other. When it spun it looked like the mouse was grabbing the cheese! Parents evenings 13 and 22 March Thank you to everyone that has signed up for our parents evenings, there is still time to book a slot if you haven t done so. Signup sheets are available in both bases. Churchfields Easter Concert Tuesday 27 March from 3:15 We are holding an Easter concert at our Atworth base and would like to encourage as many of our pupils as possible to join in, by taking part or coming along to watch. If your child has been learning an instrument and would like to be involved please let Miss Ottner know. Breaking News: Our School featured in March/April issue of The Bath & Wiltshire Parent. Today we have sent home a copy of the latest issue of The Bath & Wiltshire Parent which we are proud to say features our School on pages 26 and Wibbly wobbly jelly (friction and forces) We cut up a pack of non-melted jelly into 12 cubes. We used pencils as chopsticks and then timed each other on how long it took to carry all the cubes across the room. We then added oil to the jelly to see what affect it would have on carrying the jelly. It actually easier! Contact details: E: admin@churchfields.wilts.sch.uk T:

3 Easter Activity ideas Please note that these clubs are not run by the school; if you would like to book any of the following activities please contact the organiser direct.

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6 DIARY DATES TERM 4 DATE EVENT TERM 4 Monday 19 February INSET Day Tuesday 20 February Term 4 Begins Monday 26 February Friday 02 March Book Week Tuesday 27 February Bedtime Stories at Atworth and Monkton Farleigh 5:30 6:30 pm Wednesday 28 February Travelling Light Theatre workshop day Atworth and Monkton Farleigh bases Thursday 01 March World Book Day Monday 5 March Friday 9 March Wednesday 7 March STEM Week Workshop Day Monkton Farleigh to transfer to Atworth base Tuesday 13 March Parents Evening (sign-up available 26 February) Atworth 3:30pm 6pm Monkton Farleigh 3:15pm 5:45pm Thursday 22 March Parents Evening (sign up available 26 February) Atworth 3:30 pm 7:30pm Monkton Farleigh 3:15pm 7:15pm Monday 26 March Easter Service St Michaels Church Atworth 1.15pm Tuesday 27 March Easter Concert Atworth School Hall after school Thursday 29 March INSET Day Friday 30 March Good Friday End of Term 4