Sir Lancelot meets Year 5

In Year 5 we are studying the narrative poem The Lady of Shalott by Alfred, Lord Tennyson.

Yesterday Year 5 were treated to a very interesting visit from Sir Lancelot.  He gave an interview based on the tragic circumstances surrounding the Lady of Shalott.  We enjoyed a great performance and realised that Sir Lancelot really was not as nice as we thought!  We are not looking forward to using the experience to write a newspaper article and in particular using direct and indirect speech.

 

 

 

 

 

Y6 Trip to the Imperial War Museum, Duxford – 16th June 2016 15th Sep 2016
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The Year 6 trip to the Imperial War Museum, Duxford, Cambridgeshire On the 16th of June 2016, Year 6 went on a school trip to The Imperial War Museum in Duxford. The whole year group, including the adults, had to dress up as evacuees or teachers. Mr Jarmain’s class went into a replica 1930s classroom first; the “classroom” was actually previously been used as a room for women to make the wings of airplanes during WWI! First, the lady teacher, who was called Holly and was acting as a teacher from WWII, led the girls into the classroom first and said they had to stand behind their chairs on the left hand side; then she led the boys in afterwards and they stood behind their chairs on the right hand side. Before we sat down, we had to take off any hats that we were wearing, as this was the polite thing to do. We could only take a seat when she had instructed us to. After we sat down she explained the rules – which were that we had to keep our elbows and arms off the table as it was rude also. Another rule, was that when someone had finished their work everyone else, had stop and put their pens down on some paper, as we had clearly had enough time to complete the given task. Next, we had to recite our eight times table from our booklet, which we were pretty good at. After that, we had to write out “Make do and mend” we used an ink well and a dip pen which were not easy to use, as the nibs were very delicate. We had many other activities in the hour we had in the classroom, like a gas mask drill, learning to put out an Incendiary bomb, reading a poem, learning the Kings language using a tongue twister, listening to an air raid siren and learning what to do if an evacuee heard one and finally, we had to write out five different spellings and their meanings. When we had completed all of these activities in the school room, Holly came out of her role as teacher and apologised for having been so strict to us. She even said that we had been the best behaved class that she’

 

Y6 Spelling Bee – 5th May 2016 15th Sep 2016
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On Thursday 5th May 2016, our wonderful Year 6 children took part in a thrilling Spelling Bee in the Church. Having been given the ‘National Curriculum Year 5 and 6 Spelling List’ back in September, the children have been working hard throughout the year to learn those somewhat tricky spellings; this definitely showed in their particularly successful Spelling Bee. The children were split into seven teams and after entering the church to uplifting music, they were tasked with the job of making their spelling-themed team alliterative. Before you knew it we had: ‘The Powerful Plurals’, ‘The Heroic Homonyms’, ‘The Primetime Prefixes’, ‘The Victorious Vowels’, ‘The Accurate Antonyms’, ‘The Crazy Consonants’ and ‘The Super Spelling Suffixes’ all ready and raring to go… Round One consisted of the ‘Can you Spell’ challenge, where each team was given a word to spell; the team captain had to ‘say the word, spell the word and then say the word’ after conferring with their team mates. Wrong spelling and the word was passed to another team. Round Two brought the Spelling Bee to a rather noisy level of excitement where children were given a definition of a word and using their specially chosen instrument, they had to ‘buzz in’ to guess and spell the word correctly. Round 3: ‘What’s the word?’ involved the children guessing and spelling a word from a hangman style selection of letters- this proved rather challenging but the ‘Powerful Plurals’ really shone in this round, winning the most points. Round 4 was one of the most exhilarating rounds of the afternoon. The teams were presented with a selection of scrambled letters and they had the task of unscrambling them to form the correct spelling. But that wasn’t all- once they had spelt the word correctly, the team captain from each team was then sent on a mission to find Mrs Clarke who was hiding in various places around the church. It was most amusing to watch the team captains sprinting around, frantically trying to gain tha

 

Tag Rugby County Final Champions – Thursday 17th March 2016 15th Sep 2016
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Tag Rugby County Final – 17th March 2016 For a second day in a row a St. John’s School team headed off to Southend-On-Sea for a county final; this time for Tag Rugby. There were fifteen teams competing in three different groups. The team didn’t start well going down one try within the first minute. However, this only made them more determined and they came back fighting and as clear winners of the first match. They then carried on in the same manner, displaying some of the best Tag Rugby that we have ever witnessed a team play. They finished the first round top of their group without conceding a match (winning 3 and drawing 1). The next round consisted of some of the top teams from all three groups. Again, they didn’t start this round well, going down by three tries early on. They then performed the comeback of the day and won by 1 try; giving a gutsy determined performance. St. John’s remained undefeated at the end of this round and progressed to the semi-final where they beat Greta Totham to gain a place in the final versus West Leigh. It was a very exciting game with both teams defending well and gaining many turnovers without score. Finally, St. John’s broke through and gained an important try, which gave them an important psychological advantage and spurred them on to victory. This is the first time that the Tag Rugby team has won a county final. We are extremely proud of all the children, no matter whether they played in one match or all of the matches; they all had a role to play. The thing that won us the tournament (apart from all of the hours of practice that the children put in beforehand) was the determination to keep going and never give up even when going down by a few tries. This is a value that we regard very highly at St. John’s and this victory shows why this is so. Well Done!!! Team: Joel Fielder (captain), Charlie Dobinson, Harry Nyman, Charlie Ruse, Tion Ntow, Ben Sutton, Calum Bristow, Jesse Friend, Isabella Ruse, Kezia Beeto

 

Sportshall Athletics County Final 16th March 2016 15th Sep 2016
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Sportshall Athletics County Final – 16th March 2016 After qualifying in the second round of the partnership competition, on 26th February 2016, the St. John’s Team progressed to the county final for a ninth consecutive year. Spirits were high, as we set off on the coach at 7.30am, on route to Garons Park Leisure Centre in Sounthend. Thankfully, this year the journey went without hitch and we arrived at the venue in good time; very excited and with great expectations. The competition was exceedingly strong; all the 16 schools present had also progressed through their partnership rounds to reach this stage. St. John’s pupils did not waver in their determination to perform to their best ability; they showed their superb speed and agility through all elements of the competition. Some children achieving their best jumping and throwing results ever. As this is a real team event with points being added to the overall score for every child’s event, there is no way of knowing how well the team is doing until the very end. It was a really nail biting finish and we eagerly awaited the results with the announcer counting down from 16th to 4th place. Finally he announced the top 3 schools, and then gave the finishing positions. It was extremely close with only 26 points separating the top 3. St. John’s gained victory, finishing 24 points ahead, and are once again County Champions for a fourth consecutive year, and a fifth year out of six!

 

Sportshall Athletics Tournament Friday 29th January 2016 15th Sep 2016
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Sportshall Athletics Competition – 29th January 2016 St John’s secured two victories in one day, when they attended the first round of the annual Sportshall Athletics Competition. In the morning we took a team of year 4 children to Debden Park High School, where they took part in a wide range of activities; obstacle relay, over and under relay, straight running relays and field events, including long jump, triple jump, speed bounce and chest push. All children performed brilliantly winning many events to gain points for the team. In the end only one point separated the 1st and 2nd places, but that was enough to secure the victory for St John’s. (Team: Agnes Briscoe, Amber Crawford, Amber Scatchard, Eliza Kelly, Hannah Carter, Isabel Nyman, Janna Barlas, Jasmine Dolan, Lyla Thompson, Rebecca Heal, Rihanna Finnimore, Sienna Statham, Tara Gabhari, Arthur Maskell, Chayan Joly, Devan Mahalingham, Fraser Hedger, George Koskinas, Jaeden Twaites. Jensen Margetts, Joseph Coyte, Luca Mckie, Mason Allen, Seth Lyons, Sonny Royce, Toby Smith-Shaw) In the afternoon it was a chance for the older children to regain their title for a ninth consecutive year, and they didn’t disappoint. Ably led by team captains Amy Chinweze and Micah Newton, they powered their way through, securing victories in all of their races; showing fantastic footwork skill through the high steppers and speed-bounces, and super agility when flying over hurdles and using the reverser boards. This team now progress to the next round to be held on Friday 26th Frbruary, at Roding Valley High School. (Team: Kezia Beeton, Ruby Curtis, Erin Falshaw, Erin Francis, Olivia Nagy (Captain), Agnessa Pavlova, Isabella Ruse, Esther Richards, Alice Richards, Maddie Smith, Haval Yalcin, Kian Steward, Aston Watson-Weaver, Jesse Friend, Roman Hall, Harry Hopkins, Gregie Thompson, Noel Togara Calum Bristow, Joel Fielder, Ben Sutton, Charlie Dobinson (Captain), Ralph Marks, Harry Nyman, Char

 

Tag Rugby Final 4th December 2015 15th Sep 2016
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Tag Rugby Festival report: On Friday 4th of December, 31 St John’s children from Years 5 and 6 arrived at Davenant Foundation secondary school feeling excited, nervous and eager to impress. After nearly 3 months of weekly practise on the school field, everyone felt confident and ready to take on the cream of the local schools. 19 different schools would be taking part during the day, comprising 440 children from 47 teams. St John’s were represented by 3 teams; the Black team would be taking part in the Partnership ‘Cup’ final, having qualified in 1st position in the previous round, where they’d won every game they’d played; the White team would be playing in the ‘Plate’ competition and the Blue team would be taking part in the ‘Bowl’ competition. After a brief opening ceremony, a Haka dance, all of the children dispersed to their relevant competitions. Following a warm-up and tactical talk all three teams began their games, showing early dominance, particularly in the skills of tagging and defending space – which is vitally important for gaining turnovers in tag-rugby games. We are proud to announce that all three teams performed extremely well; the Blue team finishing third in their Bowl competition, remaining undefeated until the very end. The White team finished as Runners-up in the Plate competition, remaining undefeated right up to the final, losing 5-4 in the final to a ‘Golden Try’. Pleasingly, the Black team won 5 out of 6 games, including a fascinating 8-7 victory over Stapleford Abbotts, which was an incredibly nail-biting affair! The final, against Hereward school, produced a 4-0 winning scoreline, meaning that St John’s had won the competition and now progress through to the Essex County Final, at Southend-on-Sea, on Thursday March 17th. Wish us luck!

 

Tag Rugby Competition – 18th November 2015 14th Sep 2016
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St John’s CE School Tag-Rugby Family Festival Report: On Wednesday the 18th November St. John’s visited Davenant Foundation school for our Family Tag Rugby Festival. Entering two teams of well-drilled boys and girls, and with fair weather conditions for the time of year, there was a great deal of excitement as everyone was eager to play and have fun. The two A teams were mainly made up of Year 6 children – one sporting the black kit and the other the white and black design, and many of them had not attended last years’ tournament but were extremely eager to do well. Beforehand, during late September and October, both sets of teams had spent a lot of time practising their passing, catching and tagging skills on St. John’s school field during the after-school Tag-Rugby club, where Mrs Watkins, Miss Gibbs and occasionally Mr Jarmain put them through their paces. Once again, this proved to be a very successful tournament for St. John’s – with both of the Year 6 A Teams showing off all of the skills that they had learnt during practice. The tournament was organised using a ‘Round Robin’ style, meaning everyone would end up playing everyone else. Amusingly, both A teams had to play each other in one of their last games—with the black team narrowly beating the whites in a game full of skill! As usual, all the teams showed impressive rugby skills, allied with a good spirit of competition and sportsmanship and impeccable behaviour. It was a really enjoyable day, and thanks go to Davenant Foundation School for hosting the competition and their students for refereeing the games so confidently. Once again it was good to see both girls and boys working together and having fun! Finally, we are pleased to say that the black team have made it through to the next round – the Partnership final, as they won every single game that they played. This will be held at Davenant school in two weeks’ time, on Friday the 4th of December, where they will get the opportunity to pit them

 

The National Young Mathematician’s Awards – 12 November 2015 14th Sep 2016
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On Thursday 12th November 2015 four Year 6 children, accompanied by Mrs. Shawyer, took part in the initial round of The National Young Mathematician’s Awards in Woodford Green. The team included; Harry Nyman, Fred Johnson, Melody Dawson and Catherine Rabu. They had some tricky problems to solve, based on centred squares. It was challenging but, all the team agreed they had fun and enjoyed the experience. A few days later, we were contacted by the Awards team who said “St John’s demonstrated great teamwork. Each member of the group were able to explain and clarify what they had found and their answers to the assessors. They equally divided the tasks needed to complete a number of challenges. They listened to each other’s justifications.” As a result, the children made it through to the Regional Final (Stage 2), which they are very excited about! Well done team! Below is a paragraph received from the team at Explore Learning Centre in Woodford: I am just writing to let you know St John’s C of E has been selected as our Regional Winner for NYMA 2015! Huge congratulations to all the children that took part, we were particularly impressed with the team’s systematic approach to problem solving and effective delegation of roles within the group. Unfortunately, the team did not qualify for the next stage of the competition at the Grand Final at the University of Cambridge. As you are aware, hundreds of schools took part in the competition and St John’s should be very proud of their achievement as Regional Winners. The children were Catherine Rabu, Melody Dawson, Fred Johnson and Harry Nyman. They competed in Round 1 initially where they won that phase, then were asked to go back to the Regional Final where they were they against the top schools from the region. As you can see from the paragraph above, they then won that which meant that they achieved the highest score from all the schools in the region that entered (a first for St. John’s). This competition is actua