Friday 14 October 2016

Week Ending 14th October 2016


The school grounds have been looking beautiful this week in the October sunshine, with the trees now beginning to show off their lovely autumn colours.  The children are making the most of dry days and playtimes on the school field, before the colder damper weather inevitably sets in after half term.




The creative children from Art Club have been inspired by the beauty of nature this week, using leaves and autumn colours in their artwork, to make lovely autumn wreaths.  (They also had a fabulous time painting their own hands to make colourful handprints!)




Children in Squirrels Class have been thinking about extreme weather in their science sessions, as part of the "Extreme Earth" topic.  They had to imagine that they were camping in a storm, and decide what would be the best material to construct their shelter from.

They conducted a series of experiments, making models of tents from a variety of materials, then attempted to destroy them with rain and wind...  They concluded that polythene is much more waterproof than paper or cotton, and that a tent needs a solid frame in order to withstand a hurricane!



Otters Class are continuing their work on the seaside, and have been finding out about the tradition of Punch and Judy shows.  In pairs, they made and decorated their own paper puppets, wrote scripts, then performed their puppet show for the rest of the class.



Friday was a really exciting day for a group of current EBA pupils, and some of our ex-pupils.  

Earlier in the year, before the summer holiday and all the excitement of the Rio Olympic and Paralympic Games, our former Year 6 children all entered the "Get Set to Ace It" competition.  This entailed writing a motivational speech for the British Olympic and Paralympic tennis teams, and our children enthusiastically rose to the task.  We were absolutely delighted to learn that one of the EBA entries won first prize - the winning speech can be read here.  We are sure that Nathaniel's words must have helped propel Team GB tennis players towards the grand total of seven medals won across both games this summer!

The prize was a fantastic all expenses paid trip to the National Tennis Centre at Roehampton, for the whole class - our wonderful Year 6 leavers from last year, now all in Year 7 at secondary school!  Joined by a group of current Year 6 children, who were lucky enough to have this opportunity as a reward for a homework task, they all enjoyed a fabulous day of tennis tuition, taught by some of the best tennis coaches in the country, using world class facilities!

There will be many photos and much more information to follow, keep an eye on the school website!  In the meantime...

A footnote: the Year 7 children all had to get permission from their current school to have the day off to take part in the trip.  The secondary schools were all of course happy to authorise the absence, and we received this lovely message from Queensbury Academy, the school that most of this year group now attend:

Dear Mrs Hounslow

Thank you for your letter regarding the success of one of your ex-students in the GET SET TO ACE IT competition. I am sure you and the whole school are very proud of this achievement and we at Queensbury pass on our warmest congratulations. We will be happy to authorise our new students to attend this visit.

We have been extremely pleased with the way in which our new Year 7 have settled in to life at Queensbury. Your students have made an excellent impression in terms of their behaviour, smart appearance and positive attitude to learning: they are a real credit to you, their parents and your staff.

Kind regards
 Sue Roberts
 Vice Principal