Week Ending 23rd October 2020

The half term break is just around the corner, so here is a round up of some of what has been going on at Eaton Bray Academy during the last two busy months.

Hamsters

The children have been finding out all about autumn and have been investigating the theme "ourselves". They have also enjoyed playing with sand and diggers.

Hedgehogs

Hedgehogs children have been enjoying some lovely art projects, and have had fun celebrating "Elmer Day".

Squirrels

Squirrels children have been learning about the Great Fire of London and have made beautiful 17th century style cardboard houses. 

Badgers

Badgers Class children have completed a wonderful display to illustrate the value of Co-operation and have been working on an English board with their class reading book of Kensuke's Kingdom. 

In Art they have built their own volcanoes which they erupted in the playground. They have had the opportunity to explore Ms Cosgrove's extraordinary collection of animal  artifacts and played Bingo in Maths. In Science they experimented with changing state in the classroom with candles, salt and water and chocolate... YUM!

Foxes and Deer

In History the children have continued their work on the 1930s, and have learnt all about the outbreak of war. They made their own evacuation tags and wore them for the afternoon. and had to write a letter home to their parents telling of their trip on the train and their experience of their first night in a strange house far from the comforts of home. They also learnt about the arrival of the American G.I.s in 1942. 

To round off their Science topic of Electricity and Circuits, the children were given a STEM project to build a lighthouse nightlight. They had to draw and plan the circuit, design and paint/decorate their lighthouse, and follow instructions for its construction. During the whole project, the children worked extremely hard to cut and strip wires, attach switches, and follow wiring diagrams. No crocodile clips were used, they soldered the connections so that the nightlights should last a lot longer.

Week Ending 2nd October 2020

The weather has changed and it is now definitely feeling more like autumn outside. We are looking forward to being able to switch our new heating system on, once the engineers have finished installing it...

The rain hasn't completely stopped our outdoor learning - Hedgehogs Class are still thoroughly enjoying exploring their Forest School area, and the older children have brought the outside inside as they gathered materials for their D&T shelters and made a start on construction. How do you knit sticks and leaves together? Is it weave one, pearl one?

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There was great excitement this week, as every child was sent home from school with a tube of Smarties! This was courtesy of the PTA, and was accompanied by this little ditty:

EBA PTA would like to give you a yummy treat,

So we’re sending you these colourful Smarties to eat!

KEEP the tube, don’t throw it away,

Do tasks and good deeds to earn your pay.

So come on EBA pupils, answer our call,

So we can raise money to buy computers for school!

Be a “smartie” and fill your tube with coins & pennies,

And return to your classroom before half term please.

The class who raises the most wins a prize, hooray!

This year, the PTA aim to raise funds for new ICT equipment, including at least fifteen laptops for learning, nine for teachers and office staff, and five docking stations to connect to interactive whiteboards. Funding raising events are rather more difficult to organise in these times of social distancing and "rule of six", but the PTA has plenty of plans underway, and we are grateful for all their support.

 

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Foxes and Deer Classes have another update on their project work:

In History, we are now in June 1939 and there is a threat that Hitler might continue his plans for invasion and the fear that Britain may be next. ARP Wardens are issuing gas masks and Anderson Shelters are being delivered to people. We have been looking at health in 1939 and the fact that if you couldn’t afford a doctor or a dentist, you didn’t get treated. Hospitals were not run by the government and relied on donations and charity. If you needed glasses, the cheapest way was to buy a pair from Woolworths. They may not have been the best, but they were only sixpence a lens. We learnt that there were many posters, and other forms of propaganda, informing people to eat healthily, look after themselves, stay indoors away from others if you are ill, and that ‘coughs and sneezes, spread diseases!’. We used our literacy skills to analyse health posters from the war era.

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We have elected our Head Girl and Head Boy - congratulations to Ronnie and Tom, and to Bobbie and Will who will assist them as their deputies.

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Week Ending 25th September 2020

We have all now settled nicely into the new school year and are getting used to being back in our mostly familiar routines. The children are working hard and behaving well, and we are all keeping safe and healthy.

Foxes and Deer Classes have given an update on their current projects:

"We are continuing our journey through 1936-1953, and we are now in 1938 when millions of workers experienced the excitement of the introduction of a week-long holiday with pay and, probably, their first-ever trip into the country or to the seaside.

In English, we're reading 'Dial-a-Ghost' by Eva Ibbotson, about the Wilkinson family who became ghosts during World War II. In researching the author, we discovered something very interesting about one of her other books, 'The Secret of Platform 13'.

Eva Ibbotson's The Secret of Platform 13 (first published in 1994) features a gateway to a magical world located in King's Cross station in London. The protagonist belongs to the magical world but is raised in the normal world by a rich family who neglect him and treat him as a servant, while their fat and unpleasant biological son is pampered and spoiled. Does any of that sound familiar?

In Maths, we have been comparing and ordering numbers, rounding numbers to a million, using negative numbers, and, the part of the week that the students have enjoyed most, Roman Numerals. We had a fantastic lesson on Roman Numerals on Thursday where students learnt to read and write numbers using Roman Numerals, perform calculations, and they even learnt quite a bit of history as well. They were surprised that the Roman influence from their numerals still exists today, as we use many of the root words associated with them. One student even counted his peas at lunch yesterday, converted it into Roman Numerals, then used the peas to write the number in Roman Numerals on his plate! Julius Ceaser would have been so proud. On Friday, we challenged our knowledge with a couple of games of Roman Numeral Bingo!.

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As we are learning in our separate "bubbles" at present, we are unable to get together as a whole school for assemblies in the Hall, but we are making good use of technology to meet up. On Friday we held an assembly via Google Meet, which everyone was able to attend. Our prospective Head Boy and Head Girl candidates each did a presentation, where they read out letters explaining why they want the role and what they would do if elected. Next week there will be a vote to decide which children get these important roles.

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Week Ending 11th September 2020

 WE ARE BACK!!!

We can't describe how happy we are that we have re-opened the doors of Eaton Bray Academy to all our children this week. Things may look a little different, with hand washing and good health hygiene a priority throughout the school, but we have had a wonderful week, and it's been lovely to hear the sound of children voices in the classrooms and playground.

We have welcomed a number of new children to our EBA family this term - we hope they all settle well with us and are happy. We have also welcomed our new Headteacher, Mrs Mercer and she has spent the week getting to know us all. We are all looking forward to an exciting year ahead.

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A lot of unusual things have happened this year, but could any of us have predicted that on our second day back, we would experience an earthquake?  The Great Leighton Buzzard Earthquake of 2020 happened at around 9.45am on Tuesday - the whole building shook for around fifteen seconds. At first we thought that it was caused by the workmen who are busy dismantling and replacing our heating system, but it soon became clear that the same disturbance had been felt for miles around, and the UK Seismology later confirmed a magnitude 3.3 quake had occured!

Fortunately there was no damage and we were quickly able to establish that everyone and everything was safe. The day continued as usual - with earthquakes very much a talking point!

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The children have all been very keen to get back to work following their extended break from the routine of school. The Year Five and Year Six children are looking at World War II; the causes, the conflicts, the countries involved, and the aftermath. They are studying the years 1936 to 1953, following a family to learn what they went through. Their Design and Technology lessons also link to this theme, as they are looking at shelters, working towards designing their own shelters that are strong enough to offer protection.

In Science, Key Stage Two children have been given their own lab coat and safety goggles and are learning all about Electricity and Circuits. They have "reverse engineered" a torch to try and find out exactly how it works.

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Lots of our learning is taking place outside and we have been able to take advantage of the lovely weather this week to enjoy fresh air and exercise. The younger children have spent a lot of time in wellie boots, making the most of their outdoor Forest School area, and in P.E. the older year groups have learnt a new game - the Flag Relay Race, which tests their speed and sportsmanship as they race to be the first team to bring all of their flags home.

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Week Ending 24th April 2020

Eaton Bray Academy may be closed due to the coronavirus, but work continues, and our spirit will not be dampened!

So we have started a "Virtual School" Blog, to document, celebrate and share all the lovely work that the children have been doing at home during this time of lockdown.

Please click here to read about all that has been going on.

https://ebavirtualschoolblog.blogspot.com/

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Week Ending 20th March 2020

Well what a week.

Please enjoy some photos of Rabbits Class' trip to Stockwood Park on Monday. We're so glad that our Year Three children had the opportunity to meet with their friends from Hillborough School in Luton, and enjoy a lovely day of fun and activities, before we found ourselves sadly having to cancel every other planned activity this week.

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On Wednesday we took the decision that school would shut from Thursday, and this was shortly followed by an announcement from the Department for Education that all schools in England would shut at the end of the week, as part of the efforts to slow the spread of the coronavirus.

We don't know how long this situation is going to last, and when we will be able to welcome children back to school. However we would like to thank the families in our school community for their support and understanding during this very difficult time. The lovely emails we have received from parents have been greatly appreciated, and we look forward to seeing you all again in the hopefully not too distant future.

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Week Ending 13th March 2020

It's been a busy time at Eaton Bray Academy, and everyone has thoroughly enjoyed Science Week.

Each class has worked on different Science projects throughout the week:

• Hedgehogs children have been investigating forces.  They have discovered lots of interesting facts about movement through playing "Simon Says" and "Musical Statues" and by exploring the outdoor apparatus. They have also been experimenting with magnets and have discovered which objects are magnetic and which aren't. 
• Otter Class has focused on the human body, and explored what is needed for us to function - food, oxygen and so on. The children investigated the changes that occur when we exercise and discovered that the heart rate increases and that we get warm and perspire. To find out more about human senses, they re-enacted the story of "The Princess and the Pea", and found out how many sheets of material were needed before the pea could no longer be felt.
• Squirrels Class looked at plants and investigated how they take in water to help them grow and thrive. They placed celery in water that had been dyed with food colouring, and observed how the leaves took on the colour over twenty-four hours. 
• The children in Rabbits Class learnt about friction. To illustarate how friction can help with tasks, they carried out an experiment with jelly cubes - they were given chopsticks and had to use these to move the cubes from one plate to another. The jelly cubes were then coated with oil and the children observed that this reduced friction and made the task more difficult. 
• In Badgers Class the children "made" a digestive system using everyday objects, for example, scissors to represent teeth, and tights for the digestive tract. They used this to illustrate the journey that our food makes through the body.
• Foxes Class children enjoyed experimenting with a plasma ball, and observed the effect of different object held against the globe.
• In Deer Class, the children looked at electricity, and made circuits to light up a bulb.

The whole school was set a STEM task, which was to work in pairs to create a tree, using only four sheets of paper and a pair of scissors - no glue, tape or paperclips were allowed. This they did with much enthusiasm and great results!

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On Wednesday, Foxes Class children went on a trip to the British Schools Museum in Hitchin. Here they learnt about the life of a child living in the 19th century, and attended a class in a Victorian school learning the 3R's - complete with cane and dunce cap! They enjoyed a guided tour of the Headmaster's house and found out how children would keep themselves warm, clean and entertained in a world without all the technology and modern conveniences that we take for granted today. It was an enjoyable day which really brought history to life for the children.

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On Friday the final day of Science Week was celebrated by a special assembly in the morning, where each class presented to the rest of the school all that they have been doing this week. The grand finale of the week though was in the afternoon, when the whole school took their chairs out into the school playground to watch a wonderful demonstration of practical Science, presented by Mr Bannister.

Luckily the weather was kind to us, which meant that staff and children were able to witness various impressive experiments outdoors. These included: using liquid nitrogen to freeze dry then shatter bananas and daffodils; making ice cream (chocolate and strawberry!); creating a huge blue foam erruption from hydrogen peroxide and washing up liquid; and finally using liquid nitrogen to produce a massive explosion of ping pong balls from a wheelie bin!

What a fantastic and inspiring afternoon - well done and thank you to Mr Bannister for organising it.

 

 

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